‘Yeah?’ He stands there looking out at the passing traffic.
‘Clark Rundle’s brother – you know, the senator? He’s speaking at some thing tomorrow morning at the Blackwood Hotel on East Fifty-eighth Street. Apparently, there’s a lot of buzz about it because people are speculating that he might be about to announce his candidacy.’
‘Oh.’
‘And if that’s the case, you should go along, hang around outside, because more than likely Clark Rundle himself will be there, supporting his bro. At least it’d be a chance for you to get a look at him. Might be the only chance you ever get.’
He can’t get a straight answer out of them. They say she’s just not available.
But what does that mean?
So when will she be available?
It’s not possible to say at the moment.
Jesus Christ.
Rundle slams the phone down.
Why can’t he just buy Nora, buy her outright, set her up in an apartment and have done with it?
Heading off now to have dinner with J.J. and Sally and Eve, he should be in a good mood, but he isn’t. He actually has to remind himself that things are going pretty well at the moment.
Tomorrow morning, for instance.
J.J. announces, then with any luck Jimmy Vaughan shows up, endorses, commits. And that’s pretty much it.
It all gets taken to the next level
Clark gets taken to the next level.
Because Vaughan has already brought him in on this Paloma robotics programme, and that’s a long game by anyone’s definition. On top of which, what, two years campaigning and maybe eight years in the White House? Outstanding. But Jimmy Vaughan won’t be around for most of that, which he must know, so Clark can’t help seeing this as a process being set in motion.
A sort of… succession mechanism.
Is it any wonder he’s a bit jittery?
Dinner at Quaranta proceeds nicely. J.J. has had a few good days – plenty of media exposure, his celebrity growing at a rate that can only be described as exponential. He seems to have an appeal, something indefinable the camera draws out of him when he’s sitting in a studio, an X factor for politicians you couldn’t pay for. Tomorrow morning’s announcement is set to ramp that up a further few notches.
During the meal, J.J. takes call after call on his cell phone. His staff are setting things up at the Blackwood and J.J. likes to micro-manage. Herb Felder even drops by with the latest draft of his speech, which J.J. asks Rundle to throw his eye over. Sally and Eve tease them about this.
The two brothers.
Echoes.
‘Any chance you’ll make Clark attorney general?’
The atmosphere at the table is light, even skittish, but everyone understands how this works. They have to be excited or it won’t play.
It’s a confidence trick.
Anything could happen between now and the nomination, let alone afterwards, so they might as well enjoy it while it lasts. At the same time, and up to a certain point, the confidence trick must also apply to themselves. Because if they don’t believe, and act as if, they have a reasonable stab at this, who else is going to?
At the end of the meal, as they’re finishing their coffees, J.J.’s phone goes off again. Then Rundle’s does, too. As they both reach out to answer them, the wives roll their eyes.
Rundle looks at the display and sees that it’s Don Ribcoff. ‘Don.’
J.J.’s eyes widen and he mouths something at Rundle.
‘Clark, I have an update. I need to talk to you.’
Rundle is confused. What? This across the table.
J.J. mouths it again. Jimmy Vaughan. He points at his phone, then sticks his thumb up.
Rundle’s heart skips a beat. Confirmation. This is fantastic. ‘Don, what is it, what do you need?’
‘Can we meet?’
‘No, Don, we can’t.’ Rundle rolls his eyes. ‘I’m having dinner. What is it? Tell me.’ He’s watching J.J. working Vaughan, the way he works a room, but over the phone. Confidence is such a weird thing, he thinks, self-perpetuating, self-regenerating, the more you have…
‘I don’t really -’
‘Jesus, Don, just tell me.’
‘OK. That thing we talked about the other day, the guy?’
What thing? What guy? Rundle is caught now between his excitement and a sudden burst of extreme irritation. ‘What the fuck are you talking about, Don?’ he whispers into the phone. ‘Spell it out, would you?’
Ribcoff pauses, then sighs. ‘The guy? The journalist? Jimmy Gilroy? He’s becoming a problem.’ Rundle furrows his brow. ‘We took another look at him. He went to Italy last week. He spoke to Gianni Bonacci’s widow.’
‘What?’
‘That was before he met with Dave Conway. And that’s not all.’ Ribcoff pauses again. Rundle waits, the room around him going slightly out of focus now. ‘He’s here. In New York.’
‘What?’
‘He arrived yesterday -’
‘Jesus, Don.’
‘I swear to God, Clark, I’ve only just been given the report this minute.’ He sighs. ‘Look, there was a delay.’
Rundle can’t believe this, any of it. ‘He’s here?’
‘Yeah, we tracked his movements online. He booked a room at a hotel in the West Village, five nights. Arrived into JFK yesterday afternoon.’
Rundle gets up from the table, nodding, but not making direct eye contact with anyone. He moves away. ‘Are you on him? I mean, what’s he doing? Jesus.’
‘Yeah, we’re on him, but he doesn’t seem -’
‘Don, I don’t care how he seems.’ Rundle stops. He’s standing between two tables near the side of the room, facing the bar. Quaranta is generous when it comes to table spacing. Acoustics might be a different matter. ‘What can you do about him?’
There is a pause here, during which Rundle takes a quick look on either side of him. Sitting at the table to his left is Ray Tyner, baby-faced teen star turned serious-contender leading man. At the table to his right, judging from the get-up, is a Roman Catholic bishop, or a cardinal maybe.
‘Options are limited,’ Ribcoff says, ‘because there’s something else.’
‘Jesus fucking Christ.’ The cardinal flinches. ‘What is it?’
‘He paid a visit this afternoon to Ellen Dorsey, she’s an investigative -’
‘I know who Ellen Dorsey is. Fuck.’
‘So, the point is, she gives him a little cover, some profile. Whatever about him, you don’t want her on your tail.’
‘Meaning?’
Ribcoff hesitates, then whispers, as though he can see the cardinal too. ‘We can’t just take the motherfucker out. We’ve got to be careful.’
Rundle swallows. He walks towards the bar and sits on a stool, but turns outward, facing the room. After a while he says, ‘You know what, Don? He doesn’t know anything. He can’t. Maybe he’s been told some stuff, but that’s as far as it goes. Has to be. It was three years ago. We’re covered. There’s no proof of anything. He makes a move, says a word, and we’ll get legal to shit all over him.’
‘OK.’
He catches J.J.’s eye from across the room and nods.
‘But don’t let him out of your sight, you hear me?’
12
JIMMY GETS UP EARLY and goes out in search of coffee. It’s another really nice day and he just about manages to dress appropriately. He walks along tree-lined, sun-dappled West Fourth Street and tries to imagine living in one of these brownstones. They’re gorgeous, but he could never afford the rents around here.
Besides, he’d miss the sea from his window.