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In fact, the campaign was feeling a bit foreign to me now-a first. The whole New York scenario was wrong, I knew that. It was the politics of reflex and obligation. You saw the obligatory groups, you made the obligatory promises-more money for the cities, an embassy in Jerusalem for the Jews, the release of a gun-running IRA terrorist for the Irish. But what worked for Jack Stanton had been less predictable, more spontaneous. Or maybe it was just that this was Howard's moment and I hated the son of a bitch. In any case, I took it out on Luther. I took some chances I probably shouldn't have.

"Lit-tle bro-ther," Luther purred. "Why is it that I only hear from you in times of trouble? Sometimes I suspect the white politicians of this world look on old Luther as the Salvation Army, ready to help with the community in times of disaster. But I don't play that game. I ant the Salvation Liberation Army. I will saw their asses if they will liberate my people."

"Luther, this thing tomorrow isn't a good idea," I said, suddenly realizing that I'd made a careless mistake. I should have called Bobby Tomkins, Rucker's guy, and gotten him on board. Indolence is one of the perils of low morale, which is why it's so hard to turn around a campaign heading south-which was why Jack Stanton's New Hampshire performance had been so remarkable.

"Isn't a good idea?" Luther repeated. "What isn't a good idea?" "You showing up at the Rucker endorsement."

"The mayor say that?"

"No, I haven't talked to Bobby yet, but think about it," I said. "You think the mayor is gonna want to be upstaged by the Luther Charles Salvation Liberation Army Review? I know you worked this through Bobby, I know he's your guy-and you know Richie Rucker will kick the shit out of him, make his ass suffer, when the deal comes down, you hog the spotlight and the mayor turns out to be a bit player in his own endorsement of Jack Stanton. Now, why, Luther, would you want to cause Bobby such pain?"

He didn't answer. "Henry, your boy needs me," he said instead. "I am very big in the Apple-but I'm not gonna come cheap. He will have to negotiate for my services. The Salvation Liberation Army has staffing needs. And I'm gonna need a plane and a budget."

"Luther, get real," I said. "The governor will meet with you tomorrow night at his hotel. He's willing to talk. But don't make stupid demands."

"Do I use the servants' entrance?" He said. "Carter gave me a plane and a budget. Mondale gave me a plane and a budget. You sayin' Jack Stanton isn't interested in support from the community?"

"I'm sayin', Luther, that you are talking to me," I said. "And I know you can rouse the community to come out and vote-for you. I don't know how much good you can do us, or how much harm. The governor likes you, Luther-he enjoys your brand of bullshit. But the days when you could walk in and just demand a 737 and ten thousand dollars a week are over-and if you start in, showing up where you shouldn't, distracting folks at the Rucker endorsement tomorrow, Stanton isn't gonna have anything to say to you at all."

" 'Showing up where I shouldn't' "-Luther mimicked me. "If you're black, get back."

"Luther, give it up."

"I may have to have a discussion with Richmond Rucker about the viability of his endorsement," he said.

"Be my guest," I said.

"It would be embarrassing if he pulled back now."

"Yeah, it'd do wonders for his reputation for decisive thinking." "Henry Burton, my, my," he said. "Ain't you the stony-assed pol. You need to locate your soul vein. Mebbe you should give some blood, like ol' Freddy Picker-now, there's a white boy with soul. Though I 'specs he's got himself a microscopic Johnson, his wife runnin' off like that. You imagine, the dude just coming out and sayin' it to Bryant like that?" And Luther switched to a white man's voice: " 'My wife fell in love with another man.' " Then back again, leehoshaphat. The Caucasian Trustometer shot up into the ions-fuckingsphere. White folk love that shit. Black folk, they wonder about his willie."

"So, Luther, are we set for tomorrow night?"

"Fuck, no. I don't need to see your master right now, he gonna be like that. But I will do you a favor, Henry. I want to further your education. You gonna be stayin' your place?"

I hadn't thought about that. I did have a home in New York. I hadn't been there in months. "I'm not sure," I said.

"Yeah, the hotel life is contagious. Am I right, my brother? And a body man got to stay close to the body. But howsabout we meet up in your old nabe, the West End Bar?"

At which point, I sensed a great rush of air.

"HEY, AMNIO MAN! HEY, AMNIO MAN!" It was Libby, just barging in, doing a riff on the old "Hey, Culligan Man" commercial, waving a roll of brown wrapping paper in her hand. I began gesturing wildly, waving my arms, trying to shut her down. "HEY AMNIO MAN . . ."

"You there, little brother?" Luther asked. "Something happening?" "No. Yeah, the West End Bar. What's this about?"

"You'll see. Say, eleven?"

"Right." I hung up.

"Hey, AMNIO MAN," Libby said. "AMNIO MAN, AMNIO MAN."

There were times when Libby just seemed crazy, ready for readmission. This was one of them. "For God's sake, Libby," I said. "You want the world to know?"

"Henry, my little bitry shitheel traitor motherfucker asshole," she said softly, sweetly. "They are going to know. I think, I suppose. They may."

I slumped in my chair. It felt like the eighth time someone had run over me that day. "Okay, Libby, what's up?"

"I'LL GET TO THAT," she said. "But first a word from our sponsor. 'Hey, AMNIO MAN! Hey, AMNIO MAN!' Henry, Henry, Henry-the girls' team thought you were simpatico, a fella we could do bidness with. And you go along with this SHIT?"

"Libby, what'd you want me to do?"

"NOT." She said, "NOT GO ALONG."

"I was under a direct order from the governor."

"Sieg FUCKING hell," she said. "Nuremberg for you, babycakes. Now, look at this." She unrolled the brown wrapping paper on my desk. It was a series of double boxes-seating charts, I realized. "These are all of Loretta McCollister's classes," Libby said. "She's the sta
r p
upil," pointing to gold stars marking her place in each class. "She wishes. But let me direct your attention to the green stars." Second and fourth periods, there were green stars next to Loretta's gold. "They represent the lithe young body of Kendra Mason."

Libby looked at me, to be sure I knew what was coming. I did, unfortunately. "Roger Melville-Jones paid her family a visit two days ago. That dimwit limey prick. She lives with her mother-and three half-whatevers by different daddies. And you know what? They are very interested in MOVING UP IN THE WORLD."

"Libby, be quiet, for Chrissake," I said. "So what did you do, take out your gun, go over there and shoot them?"

"HA FUCKING HA," she said, but then she did quiet down. "He offered them one hundred thousand dollars right there to be on Sex Lives of the Rids and Famous or whatever he calls that syndicated piece of cat-hockey."

"And the McCollisters?" I asked.

"Completely mortified," she said. "Fat Willie shut down the shack, took a 'vacation' for a couple weeks, slapped Loretta around for opening her mouth too. You know, Henry, those are fine people. Melville-Jones comes to the door and asks Willie, 'Is your daughter pregnant?' And he says, 'None of your fucking business-you don't get off my property, I'm gonna call the cops.' And shitheel says, 'Is the governor the father?' And Willie says, 'The governor is a friend of mine' and slams the door. I mean, Henry, how could you let Howard Pencil-Penis DO that to Willie, without stepping in that day?"

I let that pass. "So all Melville-Jones has is a girl who says another girl says the governor made her pregnant?"

"Henry, he doesn't represent The New York FUCKING Times." Libby said. "He also has a nondenial denial from the father of the bride."

"On camera?"

"He don't leave home without it," She said. "My guess, we hit Sex Lives of the Rich and Famous early next week."

"This is-"

"Uglier than a hairy ass," she said.

"Can we get firmer denial from Willie?"

"Henry, you really do take the fucking cake," she said. "He could make a fucking fortune off us, he's been stand-up throughout-and you're asking him to LIE for us?"

"Not lie," I said. "I don't know. I'm sorry. You're right. Anyway, anything he says'll be used against us. Where are they?"

"I don't know ill want to tell you, amnio man."

"Libby-"

"They're up in a fishing shack in Montgomery County I advanced for them. Nice trout stream. Willie can stand out there and cast all day, thinkin"bout the business he's losing," she said. "Oh, he'll have plenty of business when he gets back. This'll be good for business. Folks'll want to come around. Folks'll always remember who he is and what his daughter said the governor did. They'll come by, just to see if the kid has Jack's wavy hair and shit-eatin' grin. He will never just be Fat Willie again. I could fucking KILL Jack for this."

"He says he's not the father," I said.

"He's not," she said, crossing her arms and giving me a wicked look. "How do you know that?" I felt an adrenaline rush, a sudden exhilaration. "You got the results?"

"Not for a couple of weeks, says Dr. Sharon Wilkinson, O
. B. G. Y. N
. R
. S. V. P. A. S. A. P
," she was spinning out again, "PD. FUCKING Q." "Then how do you know?"

"TRUST THE DUSTBUSTER," she said. " 'It was just my woman's intuition, but I was into wishin' you were here.' Remember that song? Oh, you wouldn't. Too trashy. Oh Henry, Henry, Henry, Henry-poor child: it doesn't maner whether he did or didn't, if she ever FUCKING ONCE said he did. And we know she said it at least twice: to her daddy and to Kendra 'I'm-Going-to-Disney-World' MASON. Henry, grow up already: shit begets shit. Cashmere made ANYthing possible . . . And, whether he did it or not, you think Jack Stanton wouldn't be capable of fucking the McCollister girl? You think he didn't?"

"Libby, I don't get it. Why would-?"

She cut me off. "Oh shut UP, Henry," she said. "Why ask why?" "Because it's just too fucking weird," I said.

"Weird isn't the word for it," she said. "Try disgusting."

"Then what are you doing here?"

"Ohhhhhhh Henry," and she looked at me, suddenly sane. "We are here because they need us here."

Luther Charles, like Jack Stanton, was the sort of man who created vibrations whenever he was in a room; the molecules moved differently, there was a sense of anticipation. And so it may well have been animal magnetism--rather than just a glint of light off his gold cuff links--that led my eye directly to the reverend when I walked in the West End Bar, just after eleven, the next night.

I was somewhat jazzed, in any case. New York did that. It was like reverse jet lag; everything was faster, noisier, more vivid than Mammoth Falls. I had walked the streets of my old neighborhood, agog with the life of the place, the sheer number of people: bums and full professors wandering about mutually befogged, pasty-faced Upper West Side types shopping the Korean fruit stands, Puerto Ricans with boom boxes and gold jewelry hanging on the corners. If you could handle this, everywhere else in America seemed half-speed and half-filled. I not only could handle it; it was, arguably, home. I debated whether to stop in and check out my old apartment. I got into the building itself, then chickened out, daunted by the expectation of roaches scattering in the light, daunted by the reminders of what my life had been after William Larkin and before Jack Stanton, the caesura it had been. I did, however, stop in on Mrs. Flores, the super, who had been forwarding my nonjunk mail to Mammoth Falls. She was small and round, and given to unflattering tank tops. "Henry, you back?" She said. "You governor man he mess up all over de place . . ."

"No, just checking in," I said. "I was just in the nabe, figured I'd pick up the mail."

"You go up?"

"No."

"I keep fix. Have been two months, I bomb the fuck out of las encarachas. 'S okay now, but they back soon. When you come back, Enrico?"

"Who knows?" I said. "Maybe soon. Any mail?"

"I just send last week, but this come few weeks before that. Gets lost abajo my dream book."

It was from Father. It seemed not only from a different place but from a different time: my old pen-pal days, when the letters from Mohammed Siddiqi in Lahore came in delicate, sky-blue envelopes. This letter was painfully thin. It consisted of a single sheet of tissue paper and a single, manually typed sentence:

Are you actually working for this man?

There was no Dear Henry or Love, Father. There was nothing on the page but the sentence. It seemed a physical assault, but different from Susan's slapping me across the face-more like a full-fisted punch, dead center on my stomach; I could hardly breathe. And then I was furious: the son of a bitch had no right. He didn't have enough of an investment in my life to intrude like that, to hurt me like that. In retrospect, though, it was perfect-perfect timing, given what transpired that night at the West End Bar. It was as if Luther and Father had coordinated this attack, their last desperate effort to salvage Henry before he slipped irredeemably into the vale of the pale.