On the Campaign Trail
O’Malley’s pounding head felt like if he didn’t hold it firmly with both hands, it would split open and spill his brain onto the floor. A floor at the moment littered with the detritus of a political evening—food wrappers, cups and cans, spilled food, discarded campaign materials, drafted and printed with such high hopes. They might as well hand out Kleenex, or comic books. Comic books. Maybe that was the answer. Alfonso comic books written at a fourth grade level. A cynical smile lifted his thin lips and fell away again. Against his sallow skin, his freckles stood out like rust spots.
Everything was going to hell, and if Lou didn’t stop yelling and let him get some sleep pretty soon, this campaign was going to be without a manager, because of the sad fate of O’Malley’s brain. O’Malley’s brain sounded like a modern Irish short story. Finnegan’s Wake. O’Malley’s Brain. He pressed harder with his hands.
“Jesus, Mikey, are you even listening? The way you squeeze your head, looks like you’re trying to pop a giant zit.”
Keris Carlyle, who had just come in, made a gagging sound. O’Malley didn’t even look around. Sudden movements made him nauseous. “Sorry, Lou. I’ve got to get some sleep. I’m worse than useless right now.”
“Far as I can tell, all of you are worse than useless. You go out there with an entire goddamned army, and that little girl just walks away again. What is she, Keris? Some kind of magician? How the heck does she do it? You’d think we were dealing with a Navy SEAL here, and not some bookish college girl.”
“Woman,” Keris muttered.
“Shut the fuck up!” Alfonso snapped, glaring at O’Malley. “Tell me what we do now?”
O’Malley resisted the urge to tell the Governor they couldn’t shut up and speak at the same time. Alfonso wasn’t known for his sense of humor. He wasn’t known for his smarts, either. What he had in endless measure was ambition, and the willingness to do whatever it took to realize that ambition. Something O’Malley could respect. He worshipped ambition.
“Van says they’re sure she got into a truck. They stopped all the trucks that could possibly be the one, and didn’t find her, but she’s so small she’s probably pretty easy to hide. So we’re following up. I’m pretty sure we’ll find her again soon.”
“Find her again soon! Shit’s sake, Mikey, what if they find her first?”
“We just have to hope they don’t. And if they do, then we’ll have to steal her back.”
“You think they’ll leave her alive that long?”
O’Malley shrugged.
“We got people on their team?”
“Does the Pope…”
O’Malley got slowly to his feet, still holding his head, and lumbered toward the door. “Gonna go lie down. I’m not back in two hours, send someone to wake me.”
His bulky frame was halfway through the door when the Governor shifted his angry red eyes to Keris. “You got any clever suggestions?”
“I do,” she said. “Let’s all get some sleep and reconvene in a few hours, when we can behave like civilized human beings.”
“When I’m President, I’m finding the factory that made you and blowing it up.”
“Right,” she said, getting to her feet. “If you were rested, you’d know better than to talk like that. Some day you’ll do it to the wrong person, she’ll trash you, and the whole house of cards is going to tumble. It’s too bad, too, because you’ve got talent.” She looked almost as bad as O’Malley felt.
Alfonso, who never got tired, wasn’t listening. “Dammit. I want that girl. Call Van Allen and Morrissey. Tell them to put more people on it. Then get some sleep.”
“Thanks, Lou.” She followed the miserable O’Malley out the door, pitying him. Mikey could be crude and blustery, but he was a good guy, and a hell of a campaign manager. She’d taken this job because she wanted to work with him. She was halfway through the door when the phone rang. She hoped it was something to boot Alfonso out of his piss-poor mood. She had five older brothers and spoiled sullen moodiness didn’t cut any ice with her. Some days, she wanted to send the whole male population to boot camp.
He snatched up the phone, the ugly lines in his face smoothing out, something more malicious than a smile spreading across the olive countenance until it was the grin of a wolf spotting an inattentive bunny. “Okay,” he said. “Just grab her. Do what you have to do. Call me the minute you have news.”
He looked over at Keris. “Morrissey. They’ve found her at a motel in Western Massachusetts. They’re going in now. You’ve got a place to stash her, right?”
Keris nodded. “They’ll take her to Morrissey’s place. It’ll be easy to secure.”
“Good, because in a few hours, we’re going to need it.” He rubbed his hands together with such glee that for a moment, remembering her meeting with Jenny Cates, Keris felt sorry for the girl. Then she remembered her slashed tire, and how much she hated coming in second. She shrugged and closed the door.