Mortimer Conway hunched his body over the conference table and stared glumly at the figures on the paper before him. These Monday morning strategy sessions were killing him. His cheeks were sunken and pale and the whites of his eyes were tinged with red—a fifty-two-year-old face ravaged by months of too little sleep and too many worries; the face of a man who inwardly swore that this would be the last political campaign he would ever allow himself to be talked into managing.
The figures stared back at him with an unblinking eye, their significance driving to new depths the depression that had been growing within him. Politics, like gambling, was not about luck, he reminded himself, it was about numbers. A game was only winnable when the numbers were in your favor, and when they were the game could be a lot of fun. But when they were not, well, maybe then it was time to find a new game.
Conway glanced at the Mayor out of the corner of his eye and saw the scowl that came over his client's face as he read through his own copy of the pollster's report. Conway knew that scowl well. When it came to politics, the Mayor was not accustomed to losing, and the worst losers were usually those who were used to winning.
Conway cleared his throat and tried to start the conversation as delicately as possible. "Well, as you can see," he said, "we've lost some ground since the last poll."
"Lost some ground?" the Mayor responded incredulously. "I've dropped six points in the last forty-eight hours, Mort. Six points. That's not losing some ground, that's getting rolled over and buried."
"I know, I know," Conway replied lamely, shaking his head.
The Mayor threw the pollster's report down on the table in disgust. "That press conference on Saturday morning was a disaster," he said. "That whole scuffle with the girl and the priest—just horrible. Whose bright idea was it to hold a press conference out on the sidewalk in front of the church anyway? Anybody who wants to can just walk right up and cause trouble like that."
Conway avoided the Mayor's eyes. He knew better than to remind his temperamental client that the press conference outside the church had been the Mayor's own idea. The church would make a good background for the news footage, the Mayor had said. Conway had tried to talk him out of it, but like he had done with most of the other suggestions that Conway had made during the campaign, the Mayor had ignored this advice and had done things his own way.
"Nobody picked up a single word I said at the funeral service itself," the Mayor lamented. "All they want to show is the fighting afterwards."
"I know, sir," said Conway. "I've seen the clips on TV."
"Of course you've seen the clips on TV," the Mayor said caustically. "Everybody's seen them. They're playing them at the top of every broadcast. And did you happen to see the front page of yesterday's paper?" He reached into his briefcase, withdrew a copy of the cover section of the Sunday paper and tossed it onto the table in front of his campaign manager. "There I am," he said, pointing to his picture at the top of the page, "plain as day, with a pregnant fourteen-year-old girl screaming at me."
Conway looked at the paper for the Mayor's benefit alone; he had studied the photograph and the accompanying article for over half an hour the previous morning.
The Mayor slammed his briefcase closed in frustration and swiveled around in his chair to face the window of the conference room. For a couple of minutes neither man said a word. The Mayor stared out the window, deep in thought, while Conway returned to reading the pollster's report.
Finally the Mayor spoke. "Do you think I was set up, Mort?"
"Set up?" Conway replied, raising his head. "What do you mean?"
"I mean do you think that that girl might have been planted there at the press conference on purpose, just to cause trouble for me?" The Mayor continued to look out the window, squinting his eyes in thought, and Conway could see that deep suspicions were actively spinning through the candidate's mind.
"Planted there?" Conway asked in bewilderment. "By who?"
"Damn it, Mort," the Mayor snapped, wheeling back around in his chair to face the other man, "what do I pay you for? I mean planted there. By my opponents. By people who want to see me defeated in this election."
Conway stared at the Mayor's face and saw that the man was quite serious about his speculation. "I'm not sure," was all he could manage to say.
"You're not sure?" the Mayor said derisively. "Well, let me give you some information that might help you make up your mind."
The Mayor held his left hand up in front of him and extended the fingers out from the palm. "One," he said, bending back his pinkie with the index finger of his right hand, "the girl lives with my daughter. Yeah, that's right," he said, seeing the look of surprise that came over Conway's face. "She was a runaway and Rachel took her in about six weeks ago. She's been living at Rachel's apartment since September, with her and that activist roommate of hers. That alone is enough to make me suspicious of the whole incident, but there's more.
"Two," he continued, depressing the next finger on his left hand, "she hangs out almost every day at the homeless mission down the street from the church. You know who runs that mission, don't you, Mort? One Father Andrew O'Malley, that's who. The very same man of the cloth who started that riot on Saturday. I know that he's a Catholic priest and he's supposed to be on our side on this issue, but I can tell you quite confidently that he is not. I had to threaten to call the bishop last month in order to get his permission to use the church for the funeral. The good Father apparently didn't think that conducting a memorial service for the souls of two murdered babies was an appropriate use of the church facilities.
"And three," the Mayor said, pushing back a third finger, "the girl's obstetrician works at the Heritage County Medical Clinic. The girl goes there to see her every two weeks. The doctor's name is Sally Wheelan. Perhaps you've never heard of her, Mort, but she's quite well known in her field—part-time obstetrician, part-time abortionist."
A blank look came over Conway's face as he tried to digest the Mayor's revelations.
"Information, Mort," said the Mayor emphatically. "Intelligence. That's what I pay you for. You should be bringing this type of stuff to me, before these people have a chance to pop up out of nowhere and sandbag me."
Conway swallowed hard and tried to come up with a palatable excuse for his failure to uncover these facts, but he could not do so. Of course the Mayor would discover these things first, he thought to himself; this was all local trivia. The Mayor had much better access to people and information here in Bazelton than he did. The man ruled the place like a pharaoh. How was a political consultant from halfway across the state supposed to be on top of every little bit of local gossip?
And none of it proved a damn thing either, Conway thought. That girl could just as well have been on her way to the grocery store for a quart of milk when the Mayor decided to latch on to her and use her as a prop. He deserved exactly what he got, committing a junior politician's mistake like that. Stay on message, Conway told his clients over and over again. When you deviate from the script, you lose control of the whole show.
But the Mayor was clearly in no mood to hear any of that right now. He was the client, and as such he was always right. Having no explanation to offer which would not upset the Mayor further, Conway fell back on an apology.
"I'm sorry, sir," he said. "I should have had that information for you earlier. I'll have the team look into the girl's background some more. There may be other things about her that we ought to know."
"Don't bother," the Mayor said abruptly. "I already know everything I need to know about her. What's done is done as far as last Saturday goes. We need to look forward now, not backward. I'm six points down with eight days left in the campaign. It's not an insurmountable deficit, but we have to stop the bleeding right here. You follow me?"
Conway nodded his head to show his understanding, even though he did not have the slightest idea of what the Mayor planned to do.
"My greatest concern now is damage control," the Mayor continued. "I don't want the press to have any follow-up to this story."
The Mayor stood up from the table and walked slowly to the window. Gazing out toward the horizon, he clasped his hands behind his back and rocked slowly back and forth on his feet.
"If you were a reporter," he said, still facing the glass, "and your editor told you to do a follow-up story to that Saturday fiasco, what's the first thing you would do?" He turned and looked at his campaign manager.
"Ahh ...," Conway said, trying to think as quickly as he could. "I guess I would go out and try to talk to the girl some more. You know, find out who she was, what she thought of the whole incident, that sort of thing."
"Exactly," the Mayor said, clenching his fist before him. "You'd go right back to the source of the conflict and you'd try to play it up some more. You'd stir the pot again and see what floats to the surface. That's the way the political press operates."
The Mayor began pacing the length of the room between the conference table and the window. When he reached the far wall he turned around and retraced his steps. "I can hear their questions now," he mused aloud. "'So tell us, Miss Eppie,'" he said in a tone of mock seriousness, "'how do you feel about the Mayor's heavy-handed attempt to silence you in your moment of distress? After your traumatic experience, do you honestly believe that the Mayor is the most qualified person to represent the interests of young women such as yourself from the governor's office? Would you ever even consider voting for that insensitive lout—assuming, that is, that you were old enough to vote?!'"
Conway pursed his lips and looked down at the table with an expression intended to show that the Mayor's concerns were a legitimate and serious problem. "I suppose you're right," he said. "Something like that could very well happen. We had better get out in front of that. Why don't we put out a statement explaining our side of the incident? We could say that you were only trying to calm the girl down and that the security guards overreacted. You know, apologize and move on."
"Yeah, yeah, fine," the Mayor said with a wave of his hand as he resumed pacing beside the table. "But that's not enough. You're thinking too small again, Mort, as usual. I want to prevent that follow-up interview from ever happening. I don't want that girl coming anywhere near a microphone or a television camera until this election is over." He stopped his pacing and leaned his body over the conference table, looking the seated man straight in the eye. "One more word out of that girl's mouth in the next eight days," he said, "and I can kiss this election goodbye."
Conway looked at the Mayor and tried to imagine what actions his client was contemplating. Whatever they were, he thought, he hoped that he could live with himself afterward.
"What are you thinking?" he asked with trepidation.
"Put her away for a while," the Mayor said matter-of-factly. "Get her off the street. Put her someplace where the reporters can't get to her."
"You mean arrest her?" Conway asked uncertainly.
"Yes," the Mayor said. "I mean arrest her."
"What are you going to charge her with?"
The Mayor raised his chin resolutely. "I seem to recall that she assaulted two of my security guards. I've got all the proof I need on videotape, thanks to the news footage. That ought to be enough to keep her out of circulation for eight days."
Conway studied the Mayor's face for any indication that he was not completely serious about this plan. Maybe he's just throwing out ideas, Conway thought hopefully. Maybe he just wants me to shoot this notion down and suggest an alternative way to control the girl. But no, Conway saw with a deflating certainty that the Mayor was serious. Still, he owed it to himself and to his client to try to dissuade him.
"You can't just keep her locked away for eight full days, can you?" he said. "I mean, she has to appear in court, right? And she gets an attorney to represent her, doesn't she? How do you stop the attorney from railing against you to the press?"
"She's a juvenile, Mort," the Mayor said confidently, obviously having given his idea some thought. "Her case won't be handled in criminal court. There will be a quick and tidy hearing in open court within an hour of her arrest. She will be represented by a very well-qualified public defender whom I happen to know quite well. The judge will declare her to be a juvenile and her case will be transferred to the juvenile court. The entire hearing will take two minutes and be over before anybody in the press can say 'what arrest?' At that point the police department will issue a statement saying that the girl was picked up on a felony warrant, the nature of which they are not at liberty to divulge given the girl's age. Under the rules of the juvenile court, everything is handled confidentially from that point forward to protect the interests of the minor defendant. Rather than being represented by an attorney, the girl will be assigned a case counselor from the Office of Child Welfare. Said counselor will be informed that the girl does not live with her parents, but has taken up residence with a temporary guardian, and the qualifications of said guardian must be called into question given the fact that the girl has now committed a serious violation of the law. Under such circumstances, said counselor would be remiss to recommend to the judge that the girl be released into anyone's custody until the entire matter can be investigated. And under the rules of the court, said counselor will be restricted from discussing any of this with any member of the press."
The Mayor gave Conway a self-satisfied look. "End of problem," he said. "The girl is now officially a criminal and a troublemaker, and, in the eyes of the voters, maybe I don't look so bad after all."
Conway was speechless. The audacity of the Mayor's plan threw him off balance, and he struggled to formulate a response. Can you do that? were the first words that popped into his head, but he did not bother to speak them. He had worked for the man for almost a year now, and by this time he did not doubt for a moment the Mayor's ability to move the rudders of justice in whatever direction served his purpose.
"I don't know," Conway said at last, shaking his head doubtfully. "It sounds awfully risky to me."
"I have to take some risks, Mort," the Mayor replied. "I'm losing this election, and I don't have much time to turn things around. I'll do whatever I have to do to win. It's the only thing that matters right now."
The Mayor turned and gazed silently out the window again, suddenly oblivious to Conway's presence. His eyes, narrowing slowly, came to focus far off in the distance, to a point on the horizon which was in fact occupied by nothing of significance, but which in his vision was populated with a goodness that was not only perceivable, but also attainable.
Conway watched him and tried to imagine the thoughts that were running through his mind. As closely as he studied the Mayor's face, however, he could not determine whether the man harbored even the faintest feeling of regret for the undeserved penalty that he was about to impose upon the girl, or whether, instead, his mind was entirely preoccupied by purer thoughts of a greater justice that he would deliver to the multitudes from the position of higher authority to which he aspired.
Politics, Conway muttered silently to himself. The grand, ugly game. Idealism bastardized by competition. When the altruism of the individual is compromised by the marketing of the man, there marks the line which is crossed.
"I want you to draft the police statement for me," the Mayor said at last. "Nothing elaborate. Make it a couple of paragraphs at the most. You know what I want it to say. Just make sure it's specific as to the individual and vague on the charges. Have it on my desk by noon so I can review it. I'll have the girl picked up later this morning, so we'll be releasing it around two." The Mayor turned to face Conway again. "Any questions?"
Conway sighed. "I assume the girl will be released as soon as the election is over?" he asked.
"Of course, Mort," the Mayor said, with a chilled flicker of compassion in his voice. "You know how fickle these juvenile court judges can be. One day they think you've got a very convincing case, and the next day they come to think that maybe your case isn't all that strong after all. And you know I'm not one to push a case beyond its limits. Maybe I'll even make a public statement asking the judge to be lenient. A goodwill pardon from the incoming governor, if you will."
Conway nodded his understanding. "That's good to hear," he said. "How soon do you want to do another poll?"
"Every day," replied the Mayor. "I want to see new poll numbers every morning from now until next Tuesday. As large a sample as you can get. But make sure you call people after the evening news, not before. I'm going to be monitoring the coverage from here on in."
"Yes, sir," Conway said as he stood up and gathered his papers. "I'll call the pollster right away. And I'll have that statement to you within the hour."
He snapped his briefcase closed and walked from the conference room with as much energy as he could muster. At the end of the hallway he punched the button for the elevator and waited patiently for the doors to open. The car was empty when he stepped inside and pressed the button for the first floor lobby. Leaning a shoulder wearily against one wall, he watched the row of lighted numbers above the door as they ticked steadily downward.