As a result, David had been burdened with chores at an early age. At five, he was cleaning the trash cans. By seven he was doing all their laundry. The rule in their house was that homework was done and chores were completed before a single ball was thrown, before a bike was ridden or army men were dumped from the Folgers can.
You don’t become a man by accident, his father told him. It was a belief that David shared, though his was a milder version. In David’s mind, the training for adulthood began in the double digits. At ten, he reasoned, it was time to start thinking about growing up. To take the soft-serve lessons about discipline and responsibility that had been fed to you in your youth, and cement them into rules for a healthy and productive life. Until then you were a child, so act accordingly.
“Daddy,” said Rachel, “will you bring my red sneakers? They’re in my closet.”
He walked into her room and got them while they were talking so he wouldn’t forget.
“I’m putting them in my bag,” he told her.
“It’s me again,” said Maggie. “Next year I think you should come out here with us for the whole month.”
“Me too,” he said immediately. Every year they had the same conversation. Every year he said the same thing. I will. And then he didn’t.
“It’s just the fucking news,” she said. “There’ll be more tomorrow. Besides, haven’t you trained them all by now?”
“I promise,” he said, “next year I’ll be there more.” Because it was easier to say yes than to dicker through the real-world probabilities, lay out all the mitigating factors, and try to manage her expectations.
Never fight tomorrow’s fight today, was his motto.
“Liar,” she said, but with a smile in her voice.
“I love you,” he told her. “I’ll see you tonight.”
* * *
The town car was downstairs waiting for him. Two security contractors from the agency rode up in the elevator to get him. They slept in shifts in one of the first-floor guest rooms.
“Morning, boys,” said David, shrugging on his jacket.
They took him out together, two big men with Sig Sauers under their coats, eyes scanning the street for signs of threat. Every day David got hate mail, apoplectic letters about God knows what, sometimes even care packages of human shit. It was the price he paid for choosing a side, he reasoned, for having an opinion about politics and war.
Fuck you and your God, they said.
They threatened his life, his family, threats he had learned to take seriously.
In the town car he thought about Rachel, the three days she was missing. Ransom calls, the living room filled with FBI agents and private security, Maggie crying in the back bedroom. It was a miracle they got her back, a miracle that he knew would never happen twice. So they lived with the constant surveillance, the advance team. Safety first, he told his children. Then fun. Then learning. It was a joke between them.
He was driven cross-town through the stop-and-go. Every two seconds his phone blorped. North Korea was test-firing missiles into the Sea of Japan again. A Tallahassee policeman was in a coma after a car stop shooting. Nude cell phone photos of a Hollywood starlet sent to an NFL running back had just dropped. If you weren’t careful it could feel like a tidal wave bearing down, all this eventfulness. But David saw it for what it was, and understood his own role. He was a sorting machine, boxing the news by category and priority, forwarding tips to various departments. He wrote one-word replies and hit SEND. Bullshit or Weak or More. He had answered thirty-three emails and returned sixteen phone calls by the time the car pulled up in front of the ALC Building on Sixth Avenue, and that was light for a Friday.
A security man opened the back door for him. David stepped out into the bustle. Outside, the air was the temperature and consistency of a patty melt. He was wearing a steel-gray suit with a white shirt and a red tie. Sometimes in the mornings he liked to veer away from the front door at the last second and wander off to find a second breakfast. It kept the security guys on their toes. But today he had things to do if he was going to make it to the airport by three.
David’s office was on the fifty-eighth floor. He came off the elevator at a fast clip, eyes focused on his office door. People got out of the way when he walked. They ducked into cubicles. They turned and fled. It wasn’t the man so much as the office. Or maybe it was the suit. The faces around him seemed to get younger every day, David thought, segment producers and executive administrators, online nerds with soul patches and artisanal coffee, smug with the knowledge that they were the future. Everyone in this business was building a legacy. Some were ideologues, others were opportunists, but they were all there because ALC was the number one cable news network in the country, and David Bateman was the reason.
Lydia Cox, his secretary, was already at her desk. She had been with David since 1995, a fifty-nine-year-old woman who had never married, but had never owned a cat. Lydia was thin. Her hair was short, and she carried a certain old-school Brooklyn chutzpah that, like a once thriving Indian tribe, had long since been driven from the borough by hostile gentrifiers from across the sea.
“You’ve got the Sellers call in ten minutes,” she reminded him first thing.
David didn’t slow. He went in to his desk, took off his jacket, and hung it on the back of his chair. Lydia had put his schedule on the seat. He picked it up, frowned. Starting the day with Sellers — the increasingly unpopular LA bureau chief — was like starting the day with a colonoscopy.
“Hasn’t somebody stabbed this guy yet?” he said.
“No,” said Lydia, following him in. “But last year you did buy a burial plot in his name and send him a picture of it for Christmas.”
David smiled. As far as he was concerned there weren’t enough moments like that in life.
“Push it to Monday,” he told her.
“He’s called twice already. Don’t you dare let him blow this off, was the gist.”
“Too late.”
There was a hot cup of coffee on David’s desk. He pointed to it.
“For me?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s the pope’s.”
Bill Cunningham appeared in the doorway behind her. He was in jeans, a T-shirt, and his trademark red suspenders.
“Hey,” he said. “Got a sec?”
Lydia turned to go. As Bill stepped aside to let her pass, David noticed Krista Brewer hovering behind him. She looked worried.
“Sure,” said David. “What’s up?”
They came in. Bill closed the door behind them, which wasn’t something he normally did. Cunningham was a performance artist. His whole shtick was built on a rant against secret backroom meetings. In other words, nothing he did was ever private. Instead he preferred to go into David’s office twice a week and yell his head off. About what didn’t matter. It was a show of force, like a military exercise. So the closed door was a concern.
“Bill,” said David, “did you just close the door?”
He looked at Krista, Bill’s executive producer. She seemed a little green. Bill dropped onto the sofa. He had the wingspan of a pterodactyl. He sat, as he always did, with his knees spread wide so you could see how big his balls were.
“First of all,” he said, “it’s not as bad as you think.”
“No,” said Krista. “It’s worse.”
“Two days of bullshit,” said Bill. “Maybe the lawyers get involved. Maybe.”