No Safe Place (51 page)

“Well,” Lara said, smiling, “you’ve come a long way.”

Nate stared at her. “The American voter,” Sara Sax put in, “is impossibly stupid and incredibly apathetic. But I still love the game. When they launched the anti–affirmative action initiative out here and its supporters ran ads quoting Martin Luther King, I found myself laughing out loud. It’s completely reprehensible, of course, but it’s
so
much fun.”

“That’s
another
thing Kilcannon opposed,” Nate responded. “Repealing affirmative action. He has this taste for underdogs, and losing causes.”

“But
why
?” Lee asked. “He won’t talk about himself, except to joke, and you’re left with all these questions. What was he like as a kid? Did he love Mom and Dad? What did his brother
really mean to him?”

“Or,” Nate said, “for that matter, what happened to his marriage?”

Lara watched him across the table. Softly, she asked, “Does it matter to you so much, Nate?”

He gave her a long, level glance. “Depends on the answer. But, as a reporter, I think I’m entitled to know. Then I can make a judgment as to whether the public needs to know.”

Like God,
Lara thought in anger, and then realized that four years ago, she would have said much the same things. “So what’s your test of need? Is it an ad hoc judgment, based on competition? Or, as our critics would suggest, circulation.”

Lara felt Lee study her; the conversation had taken on a sense of covert hostility, with Nate and Lara as antagonists. “There’s no bright line,” Nate said evenly, “but I’ll give you the most obvious test—hypocrisy. Where a politician’s private life is at odds with his public statements.”

How can you know that,
Lara wanted to ask,
when I’m the only one who knows?
She felt Nate drawing her in, and struggled for a means of deflecting him. “Then let me pose a hypothetical,” she said. “For everyone.

“We have a governor of Florida—strong on family values, married twenty years, a nice-seeming wife and two nice kids. The voters love him for it.

“There’s only one problem: you’ve just found out that he’s passionately in love with his chief legislative aide. A guy.

“He’s not a gay baiter; as much as the politics of Florida permits, his public attitude toward gays is pretty benign. But seventy percent of Florida’s voters would consider that being homosexual is pertinent to his qualifications for governor. In other words,” Lara finished dryly, “the folks Nate is looking out for, but who Sara thinks are dumb, are dying to know about the inner life that Lee believes is so critical. Do we run the story?”

Lee scowled at the tablecloth. “If he’s not a hypocrite—”

“Why ruin his life?” Lara finished. “Exactly. But consider this: all of us are sympathetic to gays, and many voters aren’t.”

“So we’re elitist?”

“Of course. And inconsistent too.”

“But are
my
standards the public’s?” Nate broke in. “And if so,
which
public? The people who read the
National Enquirer
?”

Smiling slightly, Lara turned to him. “That’s a really good question, Nate. I’m not sure I know the answer.”

For the first time, Nate seemed to flush. “The man’s not a hypocrite, you say, or a liar.”

“Oh, but you can make him one.” Lara strained to keep her voice and demeanor calm. “One day, you corner him in an interview, allegedly about Cuban immigration. Instead you’ve got notes from a psychiatrist, where he pours out his heart about how much he loves his aide but can never tell the truth.

“‘Now’s your chance,’ you say to him.

“But you know better, of course. The truth will ruin his marriage and career. So he lies, like you expect him to.” Her voice was soft. “Then you nail him with the confession of a former boyfriend and run it as a cover story. Because the governor of Florida
lied
to you.”

Nate gazed at her steadily. “I don’t think I’d do that, Lara.”

Lara smiled again. “No? Just checking.” She looked around the table. “Which one of us rolls over on the governor?”

There was silence. “No one,” Sara said.

“An act of mercy,” Lee chimed in, and then their somewhat epicene waiter arrived.

As the others ordered, Lara looked around them. The glittering room, the flashy crowd, seemed unreal. Lara had no appetite; she ordered a salad and an appetizer—for form—and felt Nate still watching her.

“Chardonnay,” he said to Lara. “Is that still your favorite?”

“That’s fine,” she answered, and handed the waiter her menu.

“A bottle of the Peter Michael,” he said, smiling. “And keep another cold.”

The waiter left. “Expensive,” Sara Sax remarked.

“We work hard,” Nate said, “and suffer greatly. Speaking of which, Sara, did you
ever
seduce that Secret Service agent?”

Sara summoned a melancholy smile. “If I had, would I be
here
?”

“Sure,” Lee answered, “because you’d be hungry. That’s what happens to me—onion rings at midnight.”

“Really?” Nate asked. “For me, it’s chocolate mints.” Once more, he turned to Lara. “Speaking of sex, I’ve been working on another hypothetical. Interested?”

Watching his eyes, newly intense, Lara said nothing.

“Sure,” Lee answered.

“Okay.” Nate glanced around the table. “Same governor of Florida, same wife, same two kids. Only now he’s heterosexual and a raging pro-lifer.

“His youngest kid is ten, and his wife has a good job—doing TV interviews, let’s say. Plus, she’s sick of kids.

“One day, to her horror, she discovers that her diaphragm let her down.” Pausing, Nate faced Lara. “Another baby would be simply too depressing. So she decides on an abortion. And on the morning her husband tells a group of ministers that abortion is unacceptable even in the case of rape or incest, she has one.” His voice softened. “What do you think, Lara? Do we print
this
one?”

Lara’s skin felt cold. “Ask Lee and Sara. Why should I have all the fun?”

Turning to Lee, Nate raised his eyebrows.

“What does the governor say afterward?” Lee asked, then stopped herself. “I guess that doesn’t matter. If he’s still prolife, he’s a hypocrite. If he softens his position, the public has a right to know that it comes from personal experience. One a lot of women have had.”

“What about her privacy?”

Lee frowned. “That would be a factor, normally. But she’s married to a public official who’s vocal on the subject. That trumps privacy.”

As Lara sipped from her water glass, Nate turned to Sara Sax. “What about you?”

“I’m pro-choice, period. So I have a bias here.” Sara folded her hands in front of her, brow furrowed. “Yeah, I’d run it. What’s so fucked up is the gap between what these moral crusaders want to impose on other people, and what they want for themselves. There’s a total absence of humanity.”

“Two to zip.” Nate looked across the table at Lara. “Back to you, I think.”

Lara’s eyes met his. “Aren’t we forgetting something?”

“What’s that?”

“Whose choice it was.”

Nate gave her a thin smile. “The woman’s choice, I think all us secular humanists agree.”

“Then tell me how
he
felt,” Lara said, “and I’ll give you an answer.”

Nate’s smile lingered. But his eyes were serious now, reflective. In his silence, the waiter returned with the wine.

Nate sipped it. “Perfect,” he said. “Worth every penny
News-world
spends.”

The others laughed. When, Lara wondered in despair, did she stop feeling part of this? The first time Kerry touched her, or just a moment ago—Nate stalking her amidst the banter. Yet they were good people, she knew. Competitive, certainly; with strong egos, certainly; but professionals who worked hard and cared about what they did. Only
she
was no longer one of them.

“Speaking of lies,” Lee asked, “and expense accounts, which newsworthy figure am I having dinner with tonight?”

“Kerry Kilcannon,” Sara Sax suggested brightly. “Of course.”

Nate’s gaze flickered to Lara. “Not credible. Kilcannon’s been avoiding us.”

Following his eyes, Lee’s own glance at Nate was sharp. “Why not Kit Pace?
She
still seems to have time for you.”

With an innocent smile, Nate raised his glass. “To Kit.”

Lara left her glass where it was.

Alone in his hotel room, Sean Burke checked the gun for bullets.

It was full. A belated fear washed over him, like the aftershock of a bad dream: the street punk could have killed him; the corpse in the alley could have been Sean’s. He closed
his eyes,
cradling the gun in his hand, the sound of the television as muted as prayer.

He was running out of time. Once they traced him to San Francisco, only the name “John Kelly” stood between Sean and the police. His last chance was thirty-six hours away and rested in the hands of Kerry Kilcannon.

Kilcannon,
Sean thought with fresh anger—a man who defended blacks instead of unborn children. It was incomprehensible to Sean: one group so rife with drugs, idleness, immorality; the other so innocent, so unsullied.

From the television, a voice broke through.

“On a winter day in February, a young lawyer went to court.”

Sean’s eyes flew open.

On the screen, Kilcannon’s face appeared.
“Already,”
the voice-over continued,
“he had dedicated four years of his life to protecting women from violence.

“Now he had come to protect another woman, and her son …”

Sean walked to the television, fixated on the screen.

“But someone else came to court that day—a man with a gun. The woman’s abusive husband.”

There was a pop, the sound of a bullet firing. The gun twitched in Sean’s hand.

The picture changed.

A guard stood over a dead man. Near him, sprawled in the doorway of a courtroom, was the body of a woman.

Slowly, the picture panned away.

Kilcannon lay beside her, bleeding from his shoulder. His other arm sheltered a traumatized dark-haired boy.

“Kerry Kilcannon,”
the woman’s voice finished,
“because caring is more than talk.”

Tears blurring his vision, Sean placed the gun to the glass screen, to Kerry Kilcannon’s head.

In the bathroom, Kerry splashed water on his face. Briefly, he considered his pallor, the puffiness beneath his eyes. For the debate tomorrow, he told himself with resignation, the makeup people might finally have their way with him.

A voice disrupted his thoughts.

“In Boston,”
the local NBC anchorwoman said,
“police
released the first sketch of the man who murdered three people on Tuesday at the Boston Women’s Clinic …”

Curious, Kerry walked to the living room, gazing at the young man in the ski hat.

He felt a certain unease, perhaps at the crime itself, perhaps at the face on the screen. It was remorseless, and its fierce, killer’s eyes had a somewhat Asian cast: Kerry wondered whether this was an accurate depiction of the man himself or represented the fears of the woman who had seen him.

“He is described as a slender man in his early twenties,”
the voice-over continued,
“roughly six feet tall, with dark hair and pale skin. Police caution that this composite is based on the description provided by the lone survivor …”

Studying the picture, Kerry felt a kind of frisson. Then he heard someone knocking on the door.

He turned off the television and answered.

Holding a sheaf of fax paper, Clayton entered. He glanced at the briefing books for the debate, strewn across the coffee table.

“I hope you’ve memorized it all,” he remarked.

Kerry grimaced. “This stuff on balance of payments gives me a headache. If I’m elected, can we find someone else to worry about that?”

“All sorts of people. The pain in the ass will be sorting them out.” Sitting on a chair next to the couch, Clayton smiled fractionally. “As of the moment, your chances of
that
are a little brighter. Jack’s tracking numbers put you ahead of Dick for the first time. A one percent margin’s not much comfort, but maybe there’s a trend.”

Kerry sat across from him, torn between caution and excitement. “Where are we gaining?”

“You’re galvanizing your base, as they say—at least among minorities. It’s a combination of the ads we’ve run and your last couple of days’ campaigning. South Central may end up working for you: a significant plurality think you’d be better at resolving racial problems.”

Kerry nodded. “How many undecided?”

“Almost twelve percent.” Clayton’s face was serious now. “Three days before an election, that’s pretty high. Jack thinks the debate’s frozen a lot of them—that they’ll decide after watching you tomorrow night.”

Kerry winced. “If you’re trying to help me relax, try something else.”

Clayton leaned forward, expression grave. “Dick’s got to be seeing these numbers, too, and imagining his entire adult life going down the toilet. He’s going to be desperate, Kerry. Be prepared for anything.”

Kerry thought of Lara, tear-streaked, absorbing the shock on her lover’s face. “I’ve tried to imagine it,” Kerry said softly. “I’ve spent hours wondering how Dick will do this. Perhaps a hypothetical …” Pausing, he looked up. “Where are we with pro-choice women?”

“Still soft. Especially among those to whom choice means the most.”

Narrow-eyed, Kerry placed a finger to his lips. “Schedule that rally,” he said at last. “Sunday morning, after I meet with Cutler. I’ll call Ellen Penn myself to tell her how much I care.”

Clayton nodded. “And I’ll call San Francisco.”

After Clayton left, Kerry sat in the living room.

He was a practical politician, with a practical problem. And all that he could manage was the pointless wish to turn back time.

Putting down the telephone, Lara closed her eyes.

She had called her voice mail at NBC. There was the usual run of messages—a meeting about her new show, a request to speak to a Hispanic women’s group, another marriage proposal from the same unstable fan—except for one.