"Tell the waitress what you want," Mike said. "We had to start. Terence has got an appointment with his friends. Have some chopped chicken livers and turkey. That's the best here. The stuffed eggs are terrible, they've got anchovies in them. But I like anchovies . . . You won't.". Hank and Georgia ordered. "What did you think of the primary?" Hank asked Notestein. "Me? Me, I liked it. Big victory for my friend Mike," Notestein said. "Good things for my friends delight me. I'm happy when my friends are happy." "His business friends didn't like it, though," Mike said and grinned. "They thought it was a fluke. They tell Terence Cromwell won't win in the general. They tell him Cromwell will get clobbered." "No, no, Mike, they don't say it like that," Notestein said. His face was pained. "They're interested. They think Cromwell made a nice race in the primary. But they have some doubts." He looked quickly at Hank and then signaled to the waitress. "Cocktails for everyone, miss. Everyone deserves a good drink." "He's trying to get you liquored up," Mike said. "That's part of his job. Get people drunk before you give them the bad news." Notestein smiled grimly. Nobody ordered a drink, except Notestein. He ordered a double martini. He waited until the waitress left and turned to Mike. "You've got it all wrong, Mike," he said. "They like your campaign. But they're just not sure Cromwell can win." "I've got a theory about your friends," Mike said. "My theory is . . . " "You and your theories," Hank said. "You have to be careful about theories, Mike. When I was in high school I lived at a boardinghouse and the father of the landlady was blind. He said he was blinded in the war, but his daughter said he had been born blind. Anyway he had cataract growths over his eyes, white as eggshells. He used to sit on the front porch and talk to people as he heard them walk by. He had a theory that he could tell what job a person had by the way he smelled. He'd say you could tell a woman was a librarian because of the smell of book varnish, paste and dust. Or a schoolteacher because of the chalk-dust smell. He could even smell out a plasterer on Sunday because the lime and mortar hung around him." He paused while the waitress put the double martini on the table. Notestein was watching Hank attentively. He took his eyes away for a second and drank off the martini. "Go on. Tell us the rest," Notestein said. "This blind man used to bet he could identify the passersby. He even said he could tell an old maid because she didn't smell of a man. But one day he bet five bucks and sniffed the next guy that walked by and said he was a bank clerk. But the guy was a carpenter who just happened to spill some d his wife's cologne on his suit before he left," Hank said. "And there's a moral to the story," Mike said. "Damned right," Hank said. "Don't believe your theory absolutely, the next smell may be a mistake." "But if you were blind it would be better than no theory at all, wouldn't it?" Mike asked. Hank smiled. "You win," he said. "Wait till I eat my turkey leg." Notestein had not eaten anything from his plate. "Now that was a very good story. It reminds me of something," Notestein said. He hesitated, looked quickly around the restaurant, and then went on. "I was a Hungarian Jew, see? But my family lived in Gemany. Everything got mixed up and we wound up in a ghetto. Every few weeks they'd call us into a big auditorium to listen to the latest orders from Berlin. I was young at the time; twenty-five maybe. This Nazi would come in the auditorium to give us the orders. He was short, fat. Looked friendly. But the second he walked in the auditorium you could smell him. It was a funny smell. He'd look down at us and smile, but you knew he didn't mean it because of the smell. It was like there was too much pressure inside of him. Like it popped out and congealed on his skin; a sort of beery, acid smell. Like he hated us so much, despised us so deeply, that he smelled of it. And pretty soon all of us would be sniffing, like dogs when there's danger in the air. Then when he left there would be a new smell. But that would be us. That would be the smell of all of us afraid, our skin crawling, trying to make out what the orders meant, wondering if they applied to us." Notestein held his finger alongside his nose in a strange European gesture. He looked around him, his eyes wide, watering slightly from the martini. Then his fingers touched the soft material of his sport coat, he looked down suddenly and was embarrassed. He grinned at them. But there was a tough, self-sufficient look on his face. He's got guts, Hank thought. He's been through the mill. Mike can't scare him. Suddenly, Hank felt better. "Terence, tell Hank and Georgia what your friends think about the election," Mike said. Notestein put down his fork. "Mike misunderstands them," he said. "He thinks they're not friendly. But they're businessmen. They have to calculate. They just can't pour money down a rathole. They don't think Cromwell can beat Daigh. They say Daigh is better known. They say he's got a reputation. They believe that California voters vote for a big reputation, a name, and Daigh's got the name." "So they don't want to contribute to Cromwell's campaign," Mike added. He grinned. "They can't, Mike," Notestein said. "They're responsible to a board of directors. They have to account for every penny. They just can't throw money away." "And they're right," Hank said suddenly. "Cromwell hasn't got a chance. Your friends are smart." Notestein smiled at Hank. Hank felt a surge of confidence; or relief. "Well, everyone's in agreement," Mike said. "What about you, Georgia? What do you think?" "I don't know," she said. "I haven't made up my mind." "Look, Mike, be reasonable," Notestein said. "Settle for what you've got. You've managed Cromwell very well. People won't forget it. It will help your law practice. Don't ask anything more than that." Mike picked up a salad egg that was flecked with bits of anchovy. He bit it in half, chewed slowly and then put the other half in his mouth. He took a swallow of beer. "You don't deserve to know, Terence," Mike said. "You don't really deserve to know how Cromwell will win, but I'll tell you. See, we know a few things about the undecided voters. And they're the ones that will decide the election . . . like always. We know that they're the people who are worried about something. So they hold off, don't make up their mind, keep trying to decide." "So what, Mike?" Notestein said. "That's old stuff. But how are you going to find the undecided votes? And what do you do when you find them?" "First, you find big groups of people that are worried," Mike said. "You don't worry about isolated individuals; big clots of worried people." "Like the old-age people in the primary," Georgia said. "Tell them about that, Mike." Mike looked at her and smiled. "O.K.," Mike said. "You brought it up, so we'll tell Terence about it. Remember, Terence, in the primary we didn't run much of a campaign. We did that deliberately. We didn't want a lot of excitement. We just wanted a slow, average primary. Because that brings out an almost equal number of Democrats and Republicans. Normally they would tend to favor Daigh because he's better known, and if we hadn't done anything he probably would have won both nominations. But we did something. We talked to Mr. Appleton, one of the old-age leaders who, for some reason, seems dedicated to Cromwell. And very quietly, with no fanfare, we sent each person in the state over sixty years of age a letter." "Tell them what the letter said, Mike," Georgia said. She looked at Hank as she spoke. "Scared people don't vote for something, they vote against something or somebody," Mike said. "They vote their fears. So the letter, which was signed by Mr. Appleton, didn't even mention Cromwell. It just reviewed Daigh's voting record. In the last paragraph it just raised a doubt . . . a little tiny subtle fear that Daigh might not be for old-age pensions. That's all. And that's the only thing we did during the primary campaign. The only thing." "How do you know the letter did any good?" Hank asked. "People might have voted against Daigh for a thousand reasons." "Good question," Notestein said. "How do you know the letters worked, Mike?" He looked over the edge of his glass at Mike. "Because we had a polling service take a sampling of all people over sixty in the state and see how they voted," Mike said. He grinned. "They voted eight to one for Cromwell. And the letter didn't even mention him. It just raised a doubt about Daigh. That's all it did. Raised a doubt that he might not give them a bigger pension or might reduce the pension they're already getting." Unaccountably, for no reason that he understood, Hank felt a tiny gush of terror somewhere in his mind. Mike had just described a simple political trick and suddenly, inexplicably, the leakage of terror started in Hank's mind. For a wild second he tried to reason the matter out. But it did not make sense. Then he looked at Notestein. Notestein was holding the martini glass against his lip and faintly, almost inaudibly, his teeth were chattering against the glass. Hank looked down at the white scraped turkey bones on his plate. He turned them over with a fork. Notestein had felt it, too. The terror flowed evenly across Hank's mind; was almost beyond control. Then it came to Hank. Mike had just proved that he could do it; he had supplied the final piece of evidence. He had proved the point. "That's not enough," Hank said, without thinking, blindly. "You need more than just the old-age vote. You have to pick up five hundred thousand votes to win in the general." "That's right," Mike said, and his voice was hard and flat. "And up in an office on the top floor of the Golden State Building, we've got a research staff picking out every group, every locality, every organization that's got something to worry about this year." "For example?" Notestein said. His eyes were bright and he had taken the glass away from his teeth. "For example, Buellton," Mike said, "The little town of Buellton. A few restaurants, half dozen motels, a few giftshops. Five hundred people of voting age. They all make their living off the traffic that goes past on Highway 101. It runs right through the town. But the state engineers have a plan to bypass Buellton. Make a new freeway that runs a mile south of the town. Every person in Buellton thinks it will ruin the town if the highway is moved. So you suggest to them that Daigh wouldn't object if the highway was moved. You don't have to say what Cromwell would do. You just let them know that Daigh favors moving the highway. That's enough. They won't care what Cromwell stands for. They'll vote against Daigh. And the only person they can vote for is Cromwell." "How are you going to let them know?" Hank asked. He was hoping that Mike would not have the answer. But he knew that Mike would. His fingers were trembling and he put them under the table. "Lots of ways," Mike said. "Maybe you send a liquor salesman into Buellton. You have him mention in a few liquor stores and bars that Daigh is tied up with the asphalt interests and they want the new highway to swing around the town." "What if Daigh doesn't have an interest in the asphalt business?" Hank asked. "You think I'm going to say that the liquor salesman should say it, anyway," Mike said. "Well, you're wrong. Because what he says has to be plausible. The people in Buellton might check around. So if Daigh doesn't have an interest in the asphalt industry you look around until you find something he has done or said that indicates he would favor the new highway. Like a vote he cast for a highway appropriations bill four years ago that authorized a highway that bypassed a few towns. There's always something. And you have the liquor salesman say that. That's all you do." "This takes a lot of money, doesn't it, Mike?" Notestein asked. "To find all these groups and localities with a grievance?" "That's right. It takes a big research staff. A lot of college graduates in sociology and agriculture and city and regional planning. You don't have to pay them much, but you need a lot of them. About a hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth. And your friends, Terence, haven't contributed a cent toward that fund. Not a cent." Notestein smiled and it was the same, identical smile, except for one thing: it was fawning. Hank suddenly had to move. He shifted in his seat and still felt stiff with tension. He saw the waitress pass. "Bring me some pie," he said. "Apple pie. A la mode. Vanilla ice cream." When she brought the pie, he scooped the entire ball of ice cream into his mouth. It was creamy and sweet. It gushed past his teeth, chilled his throat. It drove back the leakage of terror; his fingers stopped trembling. He looked at Georgia. She was watching Mike. "That's a lot of money. One hundred and fifty thousand dollars," Notestein said. "Not when you're sure your man is going to win," Mike said. "Then it's very cheap indeed." Mike grinned at Notestein. It was a grin that Hank recognized. It was a grin in which Mike's teeth stayed together and the lines around his eyes did not crinkle. It was a grin without humor. All right, Notestein, Hank thought. Stand-by for a ram. Here comes your turn. See how tough you are. You're a big-time operator, you deal with this kind of thing every day. So get ready. Stand by. "Terence, you're going to have to give your friends an opinion," Mike said. "You're going to have to tell them who's going to be governor." Notestein put the beer glass down. He reached for his lapels, carefully straightened the coat around his shoulders. He smiled carefully. "I know, Mike. I know that." "It's a hell of a job, being an adviser in politics," Mike said. "Guess wrong once and you're through. I know that, Terence. I sympathize." Notestein's eyes dropped, he hunched forward protectively. Hank felt his stomach tighten. He looked at Mike's strong face, the brown planes of his skin and bone, the white teeth, the familiar hands. Mostly he watched the grin.