“No.”
“Who are you?”
“Linnet Ellery and Maslin Ambinder.”
There was a flicker deep in her eyes at my name. No reaction to Maslin’s. “I’ll see if she’s available.” She picked up the phone, then indicated with a jerk of her chin a leather sofa against the wall near the front door. “If you’ll wait over there.”
Maslin and I moved away. The receptionist kept a hand cupped over the mouthpiece on the phone and kept shooting glances at us as she whispered into the phone. She nodded, hung up, and came over to us. “Ms. Cartwright is finishing up a conference call. She can be with you in fifteen minutes if you want to wait.”
“We’ll wait,” Maslin said, and he leaned back, folded his arms across his chest and grinned up at her.
There were printed materials on a small table next to the sofa. The bold heading read “Voter Information Guide.” Beneath it were listed all the reasons why a person should support Proposition 9.
1. Contact between different species has always been banned by biblical law. Such prohibitions are even found in secular law.
“Yeah, you got to force those commie, pinko, socialist lawmakers to ban bestiality,” Maslin murmured as he read along with me.
The Álfar have been proved by modern science to be a different species from humans.
“Funny how science can’t be trusted when it’s talking about climate change or evolution, but it’s cool when it can be used to support bigotry,” Maslin added. Maslin’s constant kibitzing had me struggling not to giggle.
2. The rise of a relativistic attitude toward cultural and moral norms will lead to public schools teaching our children that a mixing of species is okay.
“Yeah, it’s up to parents to decide whether Johnny can diddle the Labrador.”
“Stop it!” I gasped nearly choking on a hastily swallowed laugh. We returned to reading.
3. The purpose of marriage is procreation and responsible child rearing. Unions between Álfar and humans are always sterile, thus undermining the purpose of marriage in a civil society.
“Wow, my grandfather, ninety-three, is romancing a woman, eighty-six, in his nursing home. Guess we better tell him to stop.
But I wasn’t laughing any longer. I hadn’t realized that Álfar and humans couldn’t reproduce. Now my father’s remark about how he wanted grandchildren came into focus. I wanted children. Or at least one. If John and I— I cut off the thought. We were hardly at that point. We might never reach that point. Especially since John was a prisoner in Fey.
4. All currently existing marriages between Álfar and humans must be annulled.
The receptionist called over that Mrs. Cartwright would see us now. Maslin plucked the page out of my hand and carried it as we wended our way through the desks accompanied by the trilling of phones. And now that we were among them I could hear more than a murmur; I could hear actual words. The volunteers were busy sending the arguments listed on the voter guide into receivers and presumably from there into the credulous ears of California voters.
Belinda Cartwright was waiting in the door of her office. She was a pretty, perky brunette, taller than me with a very curvaceous figure. She was dressed in a red suit set with gold buttons on the coat, a skirt at a demur mid-knee length, and red, open-toed, high-heeled shoes. A pen thrust into her chignon, and a pair of designer glasses gave her the look of a naughty librarian. She smiled at both of us and offered her hand.
“Miss Ellery, Mr. Ambinder. Pleased to meet you. Mr. Ambinder, I enjoyed your series of articles on female circumcision in sub-Saharan Africa. Very enlightening and offered a stark comparison of religious ideas.”
Maslin shot me an I-told-you-so look, then turned back to Cartwright and said, “It wasn’t intended as a moral comparison. I was looking at the medical effects of the procedure on women.”
“Of course you were maintaining your journalistic integrity, but I could see what lay beneath the words,” she said.
“Wow, that’s quite an extraordinary power you have,” Maslin said.
The smile didn’t slip. “Mock me if you want, but I really have an ability to know what’s in a person’s heart.”
I wasn’t sure what happened, but suddenly I found myself channeling Maslin. “Ms. Cartwright, please. I’ve done my research. You’re a graduate of Cornell, you worked for Congressman Rankin from Mississippi as his chief of staff, you worked for the Senate Finance Committee, you’ve written articles for the Cato Institute, and you were a lobbyist before you founded Liberty Front. Remember who you’re talking to.”
She gave me a look that revealed the woman behind the mask. What I saw was smart, sharp, and calculating. “That’s fair, and allow me to remind you that I also do my research. Linnet Ellery—graduate of Yale Law School, summa cum laude. Did Law Review. Clerked for a Supreme Court justice one summer. Joined Ishmael, McGillary and Gold last year and won a major case regarding the ownership of a multimillion-dollar company.”
There was a moment of silence, then I said, “I guess we’re even.”
She gave me a predator’s smile. “Do come in,” and she waved us into her office.
There was the usual assortment of framed photos on the walls. Cartwright with various presidents and religious leaders. There was a gavel on the desk with a brass plaque from a former congressman who gave out “civic awards” to people in exchange for a five-thousand-dollar “donation.” The furniture was nice and tastefully arranged. She waved us to a sofa and took a seat in an armchair across a coffee table from us.
“So how much of this manure do you actually believe?” Maslin asked and tossed the voter guide onto the coffee table between us. “Or are you just using the energy of the angry and ignorant to push your agenda?”
There wasn’t the reaction I expected. Cartwright kept her cool and just studied Maslin as if he were an interesting new specimen of bacteria. She then swept up the voter guide, crumpled it, and tossed it aside.
“Yes, it’s simplistic, and you would probably call it blatant fear mongering, but I’m working this issue because I am actually very concerned. We have inhuman creatures—for God’s sake, some of them are dead—taking greater and greater control of our institutions and industries. The position of humans in this brave new world is in question. I’m damned worried, and you should be too.”
You hate to admit an opponent might have a point, but she had a point. Vampires were scary, and I could attest to how frightening a ravening werewolf could be, but then I saw the flaw in her logic.
“But why target the Álfar?” I asked. “They’re probably the least involved in human affairs in any significant way, and unlike vampires they don’t have to prey on humans to survive.”
“Not true. Their conquest of Hollywood is deeply troubling. The more they fill our television and movie screens, the more accepted the Powers become. We’ll be conquered, and we won’t have seen it happening.”
“So why aren’t you involved in this lawsuit?” Maslin asked, and I wanted to kick him.
Cartwright read my dismay and gave me an edged smile. “Already in the works. Our attorneys are preparing papers and will be petitioning Mr. Sullivan to be joined in the same fashion as Jeff Montolbano and that Álfar. Getting the Álfar off our televisions and out of our movies would go a long way to neutralizing their influence on our children.”
“Let’s get back to Proposition 9. Why marriage?” Maslin asked.
“Because it’s visceral. No daddy thinks any man is good enough for his little princess. If we can make all those daddies—and mommies for that matter—think a monster is after their daughters, it’ll be the first step. If we can convince people that the Álfar aren’t human—which they aren’t—we’re a step closer to having humans take a look at all the Powers and realizing how dangerous they are.”