Sons of Fortune (43 page)

“Immediately,”
emphasized Tom.

“Yes,
sir,” said the chief teller, and departed as quickly as he had arrived.

“Are
you sure that was sensible?” asked Julia.

“Aren’t
you taking an unnecessary risk?”

“We
have the property and your five hundred thousand, so we can’t lose. As Nat
would say, it’s a win-win proposition.” He turned the checkbook around and
asked Julia to sign it and print beneath her signature the name of her company.
Once Tom had checked it he said, “We’d better get back to City Hall as quickly
as possible.”

Tom
tried to remain calm as he dodged in and out of the traffic while crossing Main
Street before jogging up the steps to City Hall. He
kept
having
to wait for Julia, who explained it wasn’t easy to keep up with
him in high heels. When they reentered the building, Tom was relieved to find
Mr. Cooke was still seated behind his desk at the far end of the hall. The
chief executive rose when he saw them heading toward him.

“Hand
over the check to the thin man with the bald head,” said Tom, “and smile.”

Julia
carried out Tom’s instructions to the letter, and received a warm smile in
return. Mr. Cooke studied the check carefully. “This seems to be in order, Mrs.
Kirkbridge
, if I could just see some form of
identification.”

“Certainly,”
said Julia, and took a driver’s license out of her handbag.

Mr.
Cooke studied the photo and the signature. “It’s not a flattering picture of
you,” he said. Julia smiled. “Good, now all that is left for you to do is sign
all the necessary documents on behalf of your company.”

Julia
signed the council agreement in triplicate and handed a copy over to Tom. “I
think you’d better hold on to this until the money is safely transferred,” she
whispered.

Mr.
Cooke looked at his watch. “I shall be presenting this check first thing on
Monday morning, Mr. Russell,” he said, “and I would be obliged if it were
cleared as quickly as is convenient. I don’t want to give Mrs. Hunter any more
ammunition than is necessary only days before the election.”

“It
will be cleared on the same day it’s presented,” Tom assured him.

“Thank
you, sir,” said Mr. Cooke to a man he regularly had a round of golf with at
their local club.

Tom
wanted to give Julia a hug, but restrained himself. “I’ll just run back to the
bank and let them know that it all went smoothly,
then
we can go home.”

“Do
you really have to?” asked Julia. “After all, they won’t be presenting the
check until Monday morning.”

“I
guess that’s right,” said Tom.

“Damn,”
said Julia, bending down to take off one of her shoes, “I’ve broken the heel
running up those steps.”

“Sorry,”
said Tom, “that was my
fault,
I shouldn’t have made
you rush back from the bank. As it turned out we had more than enough time.”

“It’s
not a problem,” said Julia, smiling, “but if you could fetch the car, I’ll join
you at the bottom of the steps.”

“Yes,
of course,” said Tom. He jogged back down and across to the parking lot.

He
was back outside City Hall a few minutes later, but Julia was nowhere to be
seen.

Perhaps
she had slipped back inside? He waited a few moments, but she still didn’t
appear. He cursed, leaped out of the illegally parked car and ran up the steps
and into the building to find Julia in one of the phone booths. The moment she
saw him, she hung up.

“I’ve
just been telling New York about your coup, darling, and they’ve instructed our
bank to transfer the three million one hundred thousand before close of
business.”

“That’s
good to hear,” said Tom, as they strolled back to the car together. “So shall
we have supper in town?”

“No,
I’d rather go back to your place and have a quiet meal on our own,” said Julia.

When
Tom pulled up in his driveway, Julia had already removed her coat, and by the
time they reached the bedroom on the second floor, she had left a trail of
clothes in her wake. Tom was down to his underwear and Julia was peeling off a
stocking when the phone rang.

“Leave
it,” Julia said as she fell to her knees and pulled down his boxer shorts.

“There’s
no reply,” said Nat, “they must have gone out for dinner.” “Can’t it wait until
we get back on Monday?” asked Su Ling. “I suppose so,” admitted Nat
reluctantly, “but I’d like to have known if Tom managed to close the Cedar Wood
deal, and if so, at what price.”

“Too
close to call” ran the banner headline in the Washington Post on election
morning. “NECK and neck” was the opinion of the Hartford Courant.

The
first referred to the national race between Ford and Carter for the White House,
the second to the local battle between Hunter and Davenport for the State
Senate Chamber. It annoyed Fletcher that they always put her name first, like
Harvard before Yale.

“All
that matters now,” said Harry as he chaired the final campaign meeting at six
that morning, “is getting our supporters to the polls.”

No
longer was there any need to discuss tactics, press statements, or policy. Once
the first vote had been cast, everyone seated around the table had a new
responsibility.

A
team of forty would be in charge of the car pool, armed with a list of voters
who required a lift to their nearest polling place, the old, the infirm, the
downright lazy and even some who took a vicarious pleasure in being taken to
the poll just so they could vote for the other side.

The
next
team, and by far the largest, were
those who
manned the bank of phones back at headquarters.

“They’ll
be on two-hour shifts,” said Harry, “and must spend their time contacting known
supporters to remind them that it’s
election day
, and
then later to make sure they’ve cast their vote. Some of this group will need
to be called three or four times before the polls close at eight this evening,”
Harry reminded them.

The
next group, whom Harry described as the beloved amateurs, ran the counting
houses all over the borough. They would keep a minute-by-minute update on how
the voting was going in their district. They could be responsible for as few as
a thousand voters or as many as three thousand, depending on whether theirs was
a built-up or a rural area. “They are,” Harry reminded Fletcher, “the backbone
of the party. From the moment the first vote is cast, they’ll have volunteers
sitting outside the polling stations ticking off names of the voters as they go
to the polls. Every thirty minutes those lists will be handed over to runners,
who will take them back to the house where the full register will be laid out
on tables or pinned to a wall. That list will then
be
marked up-a red line through the name for any Republican voter, blue for
Democrats, and yellow for unknown. One glance at the boards at any time, and
the captain of the precinct will know exactly how the vote is progressing. As
many of the captains have done the same job for election after election,
they’ll be able to give you an immediate comparison with any past poll. The
details, once “boarded,” are then relayed through to headquarters so that the
phoners
don’t keep bothering a pledge who has already cast
their vote.”

“So
what’s the candidate supposed to do all day?” asked Fletcher, once Harry had
come to the end of his briefing.

“Keep
out of the way,” said Harry, “which is why you have a program of your own. You
will visit the forty-four counting houses, because they all expect to see the
candidate at some time during the day.

Jimmy
will act as your driver, known as “the candidate’s friend,” because we
certainly can’t afford any spare workers wasting their time on you.”

Once
the meeting had broken up, and everyone had dashed off to their new
assignments, Jimmy explained just how Fletcher would spend the rest of the day,
and he spoke with some experience, because he’d carried out the same exercise
for his father during the previous two elections.

“First
the no-no’s,” said Jimmy when Fletcher joined him in the front of the car.
“As we have to visit all forty-four houses between now and eight
o’clock this evening when the polls close, everyone will offer you a coffee,
and between 11:45 and 2:15 lunch, and after 5:30 a drink.
You must
always reply with a polite but firm no to any such offer. You will only drink
water in the car, and we’ll have lunch at 12:30 for thirty minutes back at
headquarters, just so they realize they’ve got a candidate, and you won’t eat
again until after the polls close.”

Fletcher
thought he might become bored, but each visit produced a new cast of characters
and a new set of figures. For the first hour, the sheets showed just a few
names crossed out, and the captains were quickly able to tell him how the
turnout compared with past elections.

Fletcher
was encouraged by how many blue lines had appeared before ten o’clock, until
Jimmy warned him that the time between seven and nine was always good pickings
for the Democrats as the industrial and night-shift workers vote before they
start, or after they have finished work. “Between ten and four, the Republicans
should go into the lead,” Jimmy added, “while after five and up until the close
of the polls is always the time when the Democrats have to make their comeback.
So just pray for rain between ten and five, followed by a fine warm evening.”

By
11 a.m. all the captains were reporting that the poll was slightly down
compared with the last election when it had closed on fifty-five percent.
“Anything below fifty percent, we lose, over fifty and we’re in with a shout,”
said Jimmy, “above fifty-five and it’s yours by a street.”

“Why’s
that?” asked Fletcher.

“Because
the Republicans traditionally are more likely to turn out in any weather, so
they always benefit from a low turnout. Making sure our people vote has always
been the Democrats’ biggest problem.”

Jimmy
stuck rigidly to his schedule. Just before arriving he would hand Fletcher a
slip of paper with the basic facts on the household running that district.
Fletcher would then commit the salient points to memory before he reached the
front door.

“Hi,
Dick,” he said when the door was opened, “good of you to allow us to use your
house again, because of course this is your fourth election.” Listen to reply.
“How’s Ben, is he still at college?”

Listen
to reply, “I was sorry to hear about Buster-yes, Senator Gates told me.”

Listen
to reply. “But you have another dog now, Buster Junior-is that right?”

2.88

Jimmy
also had his own routine. After ten minutes he would whisper, “I think you
ought to be leaving.” At twelve, he would begin to sound a little anxious and
dispense with think, and at fourteen, he became insistent. After shaking hands
and waving, it always took another couple of minutes before they could finally
get away. Even with Jimmy keeping to a rigorous schedule, they still arrived
back at campaign headquarters twenty minutes late for lunch.

Lunch
was a snack rather than a meal, as Fletcher grabbed a sandwich from a table
that was heaped with food.

He
took the occasional bite as he and Annie moved from office to office, shaking
hands with as many of the workers as possible.

“Hi,
Martha, what’s Harry up to?” asked Fletcher as he entered the phone room.

“He’s
outside the old State House doing what he does best, pressing the flesh,
dispensing opinions, and making sure people haven’t forgotten to vote. He
should be back at any moment.”

Thirty
minutes later Fletcher passed Harry in the corridor on his way out, as Jimmy
had insisted that, if they were still going to visit every counting house, then
they had to leave by 1:10. “Good morning, Senator,” said Fletcher.

“Good
afternoon, Fletcher, glad you were able to find time to eat.”

The
first house they visited after lunch showed that the Republicans had gone into a
slight lead, which continued to increase during the afternoon. By five o’clock
there were still fifteen captains left to visit. “If you miss one of them,”
said Jimmy, “we’ll never hear the end of it, and they sure won’t be there for
you next time around.”

By
six o’clock the Republicans had a clear lead, and Fletcher tried not to show
that he was feeling a little depressed. “Relax,” said Jimmy, and promised him
it would look better in a couple of hours’ time; what he didn’t mention was
that by this time in the evening, his father always had a small lead and
therefore knew he’d won. Fletcher envied those who were running for seats where
they weighed the votes.

“How
much easier to relax if you knew you were certain to win, or certain to lose.”

“I
wouldn’t know how that feels,” said Jimmy, “Dad won his first election by 121
votes before I was born, and during the past thirty years built up his majority
to just over 11,000, but he always says if sixty-one people had voted the other
way, he would have lost that first election, and might never have been given a
second chance.” Jimmy regretted the words the moment he said them.