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She was very dangerous. She scared me to death. She raised questions about Susan I didn't want to consider.

"What woman thing?" she asked Richard. "You put ketchup on your steak? God."

She was picking at a salad. Everyone else was eating steak--which was, indeed, the only dish on the menu at Slim's. Obscene, steaming piles of beef were stacked on platters along the tables, interspersed with piles of fried onions and potatoes. It was all very excessive and primal. "This ain't Noo Yawk, honey"--Richard dismissed her. "You gonna play politics in America, you can't be put off by the customs of the natives. Americans eat steak with sauce." Then, to me: "Say a woman conies forward and says--"

"Bullshit!" Lucille said. "It's not going to happen."

"Maybe someone classy," Richard went on, "like a Democratic Party activist."

"No!"

"Someone he popped at the 1984 convention."

"Never!"

"Right," Richard said. "I don't think so either. I'm just trying to figure out how it would work. You gotta figure he ain't gonna get trapped, like Hart. He knows the rules. Some bimbo from a former life comes forward, and we just say--Bullshit."

"Bullshit is right," Lucille said. "I don't know why you're even talking about this."

Interesting. Lucille seemed frightened. She averted her eyes when I looked at her instead of staring back and saying, "What? What?" as she normally would. What was it? Did she know something? Or was it, perhaps, that she so completely imagined herself the voice of Susan Stanton in the campaign that she was reacting now as she imagined Susan might?

The other thing was: I felt the same way. This was something I didn't really want to think about. But that, I knew, was bad staff work: Richard was doing his job--and, as always, saying aloud something we all thought about but were too embarrassed to say. We had just finished two days of meetings, going through the calendar, coordinating it all--paid media, fund-raising, debate schedule. We had spent an entire afternoon meticulously figuring out the opposition--not just our three opponents, but the media as well. Brad Lieberman, a gift from the mayor of Chicago, had made the trains run on time--a brisk coordination of schedule, fund-raising, advertising, message. Brad had made it all seem controllable, a rational process, and everyone was feeling very up.

The money had been rolling in since Ozio folded his hand. He had gone out in a lather, furiously, defensively, ridiculously, trying to make up his mind until the New Hampshire deadline passed, then announcing that his state's perpetual urban crisis prevented him from running, for the moment, but that he might reconsider later, if none of the candidates addressed the issues raised by his blather about the need for a New American Community. It was a total flameout. Manhattan magazine ran an Ozio cover with the headline "Zero for 0.0." Wall Street cracked open like a pinata; we'd been pulling in bundles from the big houses, pledges averaging $175,000 per day for the past two weeks. And so, this dinner, all of us arrayed at two long tables in the back room at Slim's, had a celebratory air: We were about to launch ourselves into battle--and we had the hot candidate.

The last few weeks in New Hampshire had been very encouraging; Stanton had been awesome on the stump; we were picking up endorsements from key activists. The word was spreading. Various bigfeet from the papers, even some columnists, were beginning to come out--Ozio's departure meant that it was time for them to pay attention to the rest of the field. They'd been impressed by Stanton, for the most part. We were, suddenly, plausible in New York and Washington--the days when Jack Stanton was seen as a possible vice president were over. We would have forty-eight hours off now--New Year's Eve and New Year's Day--and then the war would begin. And we were up for it.

"I'm talking about this," Richard said, relentless, unable to give up the woman thing, "because all that planning ain't gonna be worth shit when it happens. Because if we can't know what it's gonna be, we gotta sense what it might be. And you know it's gonna be something. Right, Henri?"

I didn't know. I was glad the conversation had contracted againsomehow--after Lucille's initial outburst. There was laughter down the other end of the table, Lieberman telling Chicago stories. Richard was freight-training, somewhere between a whisper and a mumble, swallowing half of it; I was sitting next to him and it was hard to keep up. He was rattling through the possibilities.

"Say a woman, a plausible woman, comes forward--but, then, you figure, if she's plausible, why'd she come forward? Act of coming out undercuts her credibility, y'knowhattamean? And why? Revenge? Politics? Money? Money, we're okay. Money, she has no credibility. 'Less she conies in quiet, hits on Stanton quiet--and he, jerk, pays off." "Richard!" Lucille again.

"Outta guilt or somethin'. But that ain't a problem. The problem is a serious woman conies forward. But a serious woman, by definition, wouldn't. 'Less . . . Y'think he ever porked a Republican? But even with that, say he was doing a serious Republican woman and she comes out."

"It's not pos--"

"Shut up, Lucille," he said. "Y'think, maybe, we can just admit it--I mean. if it's someone plausible? Say, yeah, it happened, the flesh i
s w
eak, the sexual revolution. Didn't everyone fuck up sometime, the last twenty-five years?"

"Richard, I don't want to-"

"Lucille, why cain't you be true?"

"It's Maybelline." Another county heard from: Daisy Green, Sporken's junior partner. She was sitting next to Lucille (on assignment from Sporken, no doubt-he knew Lucille was looking to coup him).

"Saywhut?"

" 'Maybelline, why can't you be true?' You're mixing it up with B. B. King's guitar. That's Lucille," Daisy said. She was mortally thin and poky. She had the look of someone who'd spent far too much time indoors-which she did, cutting and mixing spots for Sporken. She was wearing a hooded sweatshirt with nothing written on it, and jeans. She was very New York; outer boroughs, clearly. Her mother's generation, it might have been CCNY or Hunter, and left-wing politics. She was more polished-Ivy League, probably-but still, a touch of the accent, a roughness: she hadn't worked overtime assimilating. She smoked cigarettes.

"Who give. fuck?" Richard said.

"Just if you're gonna be authentic, Richard."

"Awww." But she had managed to move him off the woman stuff-a move she may have immediately regretted.

"Hey, are you sure about no plaid?" Lucille asked, turning on Daisy now. "You know, Pendleton? It's New Hampshire. He looks stiff in the suit."

"He's running for president. We shot the ad with him sitting on the desk, instead of behind it-that's informal enough."

"You want to get their attention," Lucille said. "You don't want him to look like just another politician. You want something like Gary Hart with the ax."

"Right-that's exactly what we want," Daisy snorted. "How about this for a tag line: Jack Stanton-A Gary Hart Democrat." Very nice: she wasn't intimidated by Lucille. "Every other fucking politician in the race is wearing a plaid shirt, or a ski outfit or some flicking thing. People understand bullshit this year. We have to establish: no bullshit."

"Harris did skiing," Lucille said. "Nobody thinks he's a bullshitter." "He had a heart attack. He needs to establish he's still alive." "You have to smoke those things? You'll have a heart attack yourself."

That stopped Daisy.

"You don't want to do that in public, either," Lucille said, pressing her advantage. "We don't want people to think Jack Stanton's people are--s(okers, right? I mean, if they can't run their own lives, how do they run the country?"

"Like five-hundred-dollars-an-hour New York fucking lawyers," Richard said. "Whaddya do for five hundred dollars an hour, Lucille? And who do you do it to?"

"Very funny. You're another one: we really want the public to see Jack Stanton has sonic hillbilly who looks like he was sired during the love scene from Deliverance running his campaign."

Daisy cracked up: "Not bad, Lucille." But I was worried. Lucille was so awful, to clunky--why did Susan keep her around?

Someone was tapping a glass. It was Sporken. "I want to propose a toaa--"

"Make me puke," Richard muttered.

"--to the New Year, the year we change America," Sporken said, "and to the team--this great, great team--that will make it happen." There were whoops and cheers. I looked around the room and wondered about the team. Daisy caught me looking, saw what I was seeing.

It rained that night, and froze. Mammoth Falls was a mess; jagged, angry icicles hung from power lines and tree limbs, the streets were skiddy, terrible. The morning news led with an eight-car pileup on the interstate. The airport was closed. I walked to the office; no one was there and the lock was frozen. It was an odd cold, not bitter-sharp like up North; at first it hadn't felt in bad, but now my ears were tingling and I wondered what to do. There would be a trooper on duty, and probably Annie Marie, at the statehouse, up the hill from the campaign office. I needed to call the Stanton at Marco Island, just to check in, give an update on the New Hampshire meetings. I had m
y p
hone, but I didn't want to stand outside, shifting around, having to take notes, and who knows what else, in the cold. I felt paralyzed, depressed, vapor-locked. I had to go to the bathroom. I started up the hill toward the statehouse, slipped and fell--hard--on my butt, and then I did it again, trying to get up. I rolled over onto the crunchy ice in the island between the sidewalk and street. The traction was better there--not bad, in fact, crunching up the hill--but it was raining again now, and harder, too. I put up my umbrella, a gust yanked it out of my hand. It bounced down the hill and I decided not to chase it. The trooper at the door was new, didn't know me and was suspicious. "Just call the governor's office and tell them Henry Burton's here," I said.

"You don't have a staff pass?"

"I'm not on the gubernatorial staff," I said, a little too huffily. "I'm on the campaign staff. Please call the office. It's extension 3258." "Hold your horses, there, young fella," he said. "I'll call the damn gu-ber-na-TOR-ial office."

The gubernatorial office was humming. Stanton was on the phone with Annie Marie, directing the ice storm. "Henry just came in," she said, then handed the phone to me: "He wants you."

"Henry, all's well?"

"Seems so. You want me to go through what we did?"

"No, I know. I checked with Richard and Lieberman. Here's the deal: I want to do LA."

"You sure, sir? It takes us out of New Hampshire two weeks before the primary."

"It's money, Henry. And warm weather. We're doing fine. At least, it looks like we are. You hear Leon's numbers? Shit. But, then, it's early. We got a lifetime between here and the election, all the time in the world to fuck up. You think it's okay? You think there's something we're not doing?"

"I can't think of--"

"Listen, here's what I want," He said, cutting me off. I still wasn't quite used to that. He never really wanted an answer when he asked how he was doing, just reassurance--and he would settle for anything, even Sporken's inevitable, transparent "Great, great, just great, Governor." It was banal, unworthy; I couldn't get used to it. "I want a conference call with the Gang of Five--let's try Wednesday, morning sometime, after whatever breakfasts we have." He began to laugh. "You hear what Richard is calling the Gang? The Elders of Zion? We can't let that out." He laughed again. The Gang were his economic advisers. "But tell them we gotta figure out how far on health. Charlie Martin's gonna hammer us on that. And tell Rosenbaum that I'm still waiting on his tax cut numbers." David Rosenbaum was the policy-staff numbers sherpa. "And listen, tell Annie M. I want the names and home phones of every family involved in that bender on the interstate, right? So what you doin' tonight, Henri?" He was doing the Henri bit now. "Muffin hunting, or just stay at 'home and crack open a bottle of Chablis?"

"I'll go to the staff parry," I said, affecting a slight pissed-off chill. "You know we opened it up to the public, trying to get the kids in town someplace safe for New Year's."

"Great idea. Who did that?"

"Jennifer, Eric. I don't know. They're very good."

"You, too, my man," he said, picking up on my mood. "Henry, listen careful now. Two things. One, I want you to get your ass out of that office and kick back today, y'hear? Rest. Have some fun. Do something for yourself, y'know? Then you come out and meet me in Manchester on Tuesday. I want to start this thing with you there. The other thing is this. Susan and I were talking: You're the best goddamn thing happened to us this year. Happy New Year, and thank you. I know what you do, and how you feel, and how hard you work. I'm honored by it. Honored. You hear? Now listen, this is very important: Do you think it's at all possible for you to get yourself laid tonight?" He was laughing. "I'm serious. I don't want you too horny to think straight, okay?"

"Yes sir," I said. "You have a happy New Year too. And thank you." "And tell Annie M. I want those phone numbers, right? And--we're doin' okay, dontchathink?"

"Just fine," I said.

I went back into the governor's private office to call Mother in LA, and found Daisy Green was sitting there, tiny, behind Stanton's bi
g d
esk, oversize horn-rims on, studying Leon's cross-tabs, smoking a Marlboro. "Hey," she said, "this stuff is un-fucking-believable. You see how we're doing with World War Two veterans? They don't give one half of a shit about Vietnam. They love him."