“I’ve got a question about a super PAC that just showed up in town to influence the pending sports gambling legislation,” I said.
“Sorry, I but I don’t think I can give you much help on that,” he said. “Super PACs aren’t required to register with the state.”
“You don’t regulate them at all?”
“We haven’t dealt with them much,” he said. “Most of them are only active in federal elections. Sometimes they get involved in big-state gubernatorial races, but until now they haven’t bothered with Little Rhody.”
“Are there any state rules they have to follow?”
“Well, yeah. Whenever they spend at least a thousand dollars advocating for a political candidate, they have to report that to us within seven days.”
“What about money spent to advocate on a public issue?”
“If we’re talking about a ballot initiative, they would have to comply with the same reporting requirement,” he said. “But if they just launch a media campaign to advocate on an issue like sports gambling, they don’t have to disclose their spending.”
“Aw, crap,” I said. “That’s what I thought, but I wanted to make sure.”
“Hey, Mulligan?”
“Yeah?”
“Off the record, I don’t like it any more than you do.”
Back in the newsroom, I wrote up the mall-guy story and then banged out a column of copy about the press conference, mentioning the super PAC high up and hinting that big out-of-state money would soon be flooding in to influence the legislative process.
An hour after I turned the copy in, Chuckie-boy called me into his office.
“Did you get the woman’s phone number?” he asked.
“What woman?”
“The super PAC woman. What was it, again? Grandison?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You should have.”
“I don’t see why,” I said. “She wasn’t that hot.”
“Well, we need it. Our ad director wants to give her a call. The super PAC’s probably got a huge advertising budget. Most of it will be spent on TV spots, but we want to get a piece.”
“Oh.”
“You should be alert to opportunities like this, Mulligan. Where do you think your paycheck comes from?”
“The tooth fairy?”
“Can the jokes and track her down for us.”
“Can’t advertising do that?”
“Just call the area hotels and find out where she’s staying, okay?”
“What about the Chinese wall between news and advertising?” I said.
“Didn’t you hear? We tore that sucker down.”
17
After informing Chuckie-boy that Grandison was staying at the Omni, I needed beer to wash the bile from my throat. I figured it was going to take more than one.
Ten minutes later, I pushed through the door to Hopes and was greeted by heartbreak on the jukebox and dark the way alcoholics crave it. I waited by the entrance until my eyes adjusted, took one step forward, and froze.
Yolanda Mosley-Jones was sitting alone at the battered mahogany bar, her long legs curled around a rickety stool. She looked at once professional and sultry in gold hoop earrings, matching bangles on her right wrist, and a pearl-gray silk business suit that fit like it had been cut and stitched just for her. The shoulder-length, raven hair I remembered was gone now. In its place was a close-cropped Afro that looked great on her. I’d never seen Yolanda in Hopes before. She looked as out of place as Mario Andretti in a Volkswagen Beetle.
Behind her, five off-duty firemen were drinking Budweiser and playing Texas Hold ’Em at the table by the pinball machine. One of them tossed his cards down, wet his index fingers with his tongue, and used them to smooth his unruly eyebrows. Then he slapped a grin on his face, strutted to the bar, and whispered something in Yolanda’s ear. Never raising her eyes from her drink, she murmured two words, three at the most. His grin vanished, his shoulders slumped, and he slinked back to his buddies. I knew exactly how he felt.
I started to back out, but she spotted my reflection in the mirror behind the bar. She spun, lit me up with her high-beam smile, and beckoned me with red talons. I hesitated, then went to her on unsteady legs and claimed the adjoining bar stool. Without a word, I took the glass from her right hand, held it up to the light, and then took a small sip.
“This is a shot-and-a-beer kind of joint,” I said. “Did you bring the martini in with you?”
“The barkeep had the fixins’,” she said, “but I had to instruct him on how to mix it.”
“Any good?”
“You tasted it.”
“Yeah, but I wouldn’t know the difference.”
“It’s not bad enough to toss out.”
“So how have you been, Yolanda?”
“Good. You?”
“I’m doin’ okay.”
“I’ve missed you,” she said.
“I’ve missed you, too.”
“So why haven’t you called?”
“You haven’t called me either,” I said, and immediately wished I could retract it. I sounded like a pouting high-schooler.
A couple of years ago, Yolanda and I had spent time together, going on long walks around the city, sharing drinks in a better class of joint, taking in a couple of ball games at Fenway, and once even grooving to Buddy Guy in a Boston blues club. But she’d insisted that going places together didn’t mean we were “goin’ together.” She’d succumbed to my clumsy attempts at seduction by letting me hold her hand, but that was as far as I got. I’d fallen hard for her anyway.
The night she told me she was getting serious about a Brown University chemistry professor, she made me promise that we’d always be friends. I assured her that we would, but I knew we wouldn’t. I was no good at not wanting more. I’d gone on a few dates since then, but after Yolanda, nobody else measured up.
Her martini glass was empty now, so she asked the barkeep for another. I still wanted the beer I’d in come for, but it wasn’t going to be enough. I needed a shot of morphine, but Hopes didn’t carry it, so I settled for a double shot of Bushmills and a Killian’s back.
“I didn’t mean for this to be awkward,” she said.
“Sounds like you came in here looking for me.”
“I thought I might find you here after work. You always were a creature of habit.”
“Something on your mind?”
“A couple of things.”
“Why don’t you start with the easy one?”
“Okay. I know you’ve been covering the gambling bill, so thought you ought to know what I’ve been working on.”
“You’re still a partner at McDougall, Young, and Limone?”
“I am.”
“Go on.”
“We’ve been retained to prepare a federal lawsuit that will be filed if the governor’s bill, or some version of it, gets passed. The suit will seek to enjoin the state from permitting any form of sports gambling.”
“Retained by whom?”
“A super PAC called Stop Sports Gambling Now. I understand you met its vice president, Cheryl Grandison, this afternoon.”
“I had that pleasure.”
“Miss Grandison instructed me to inform you that her organization is prepared to spend upwards of twenty million dollars on legal fees, lobbying, and media buys to defeat the governor’s plan.”
“Why didn’t she tell me that herself?”
“For one thing, she prefers to remain in the background and has asked me to be the group’s local media contact. For another thing, she took an immediate dislike to you.”
“Imagine that,” I said.
“She said you were rude.”
“I prefer to think of it as persistent.”
“She was quite upset that you took her photograph.”
“Tough shit.”
“So from now on,” Yolanda said, “any questions you have for her should be directed to my office.”
“I’ve got a few now.”
“Okay.”
“Twenty million is an astounding amount of money for Rhode Island,” I said. “It’s more than double what all our candidates for governor, the U.S. Senate, and the U.S. House of Representatives spent in our last statewide election.”