The governor nodded. I could see this was helping him. He seemed to be relieved. “Hector,” he said.
Hector cleared his throat. “I pretty much agree with everything that’s been said. But keep in mind, Carl, you still have a primary. Don’t be so sure Willie Bryant doesn’t run ads downstate of a pretty young white lady and her little white boy next to the mug shot of this tough-looking black guy that gunned them down.”
I was glad that someone brought up the racial thing. Hector, being the only nonwhite in the room, probably felt most comfortable saying it.
“That’s very true,” Peshke agreed. “Very true.”
“Mac?” the governor said.
“I’m just thinking of what Hector said, those ads. The union guys? Y’know, we got SLEU and ICBL-we’re getting their money and their people on the ground. But those rank-and-file members? When they go into the polling booth, last I checked, it’s still a secret how they vote. Those union boys, they’re not so liberal on things like the death penalty. Those ads would work downstate. If Willie’s polls are the same as ours and everyone else’s, he’ll have nothing to lose in the last few days.”
“You pick up a grand total of zero votes if you cut this guy a break,” said Madison. “But you’ll lose votes. And not just downstate. You’ll lose some in the city, too. It’s a net loss. And for what? I mean, if you’re going to have a death penalty, this guy deserves it.”
The governor rubbed his hands together. “Charlie, you wanna say anything?”
Charlie shrugged his shoulders. “Sounds like a net loss. I can’t disagree with anything I heard.”
“Okay. Okay.” The governor breathed a heavy sigh. It was clear that the governor had heard all of this before. He wasn’t asking for a debate. He was asking for reassurance, for confirmation of a decision he’d already made. “That’s all for tonight, everyone. I need some alone time.”
Where there would normally be a quick reaction-sure, Governor, see you bright and early-there was a pause. But Madison stood up and then so did everyone else.
“Jason,” said the governor, “I’d like you to stay.”
91
The Governor grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator and offered me one, which I declined. He kept his distance from both me and the black telephone in the corner of the room, preferring the safety of the picture window.
“Lang Trotter, before he left to become AG, he told me there is never a time when you feel more like a governor than when you have the black phone. He had two on his watch. Two executions. He said you never forget these nights. Now I know what he meant.” He looked at his watch. “This guy’s going to die in an hour and forty-five minutes.”
“Is he?” I asked.
He looked at me a moment before breaking eye contact. The last time the two of us were alone, it didn’t end so well, and it was a fresh memory, having happened only last night. So far he hadn’t acknowledged it, delegating the task to Hector, which was fine with me.
“Is he?” I repeated.
The governor glanced back at me, inclined his head a click, just enough to show what he thought of my perceived naivete. “I didn’t pull the trigger. I didn’t prosecute him. I didn’t convict him, and I didn’t sentence him to death. People who know a whole lot more about Antwain Otis and his crimes did those things.”
“True.”
“I’m a safety valve. I’m there in case there’s some reason to think, after all the legal process is done, that something is way off. And nothing’s way off. Fair trial. No question of guilt.”
He’d thought about this more than I’d realized. I’d begun to stereotype him as a soulless politician and nothing more.
“Then why am I here?” I asked.
He smiled, even laughed to himself. “Right.”
“I don’t do politics, Governor. You have people who do that, and they’ve told you what they think. And I have to say, I can’t disagree with them. On the politics.”
He drank from his bottle and fidgeted. This couldn’t be easy for him, no matter how assured he was of the decision.
“You know what they call me down in the capital?” he asked. “You probably don’t, do you?”
I shook my head, no.
“The ‘accidental governor.’ I’m not supposed to be here. I’m not one of them. I’m not entrenched. They don’t want me. They want one of their own. They want Willie, because Willie’s someone they know. He’s been down there for twenty years. I’m talking about Democrats, too, not just the GOP. Nobody down there wants me.”
I hadn’t heard any of that. I was completely unplugged from capital politics, and I was sure that I was the better off for it.
“But you know what I am? Accidental or not, I’m the governor. And I’m the only Democrat who can win this thing. Willie can’t win. I mean, we’ve had two Democratic governors in this state over the last thirty-five years. We like Republicans for our governors. The only Democrat who can win is the incumbent, and that’s me. I’m the incumbent because everybody calls me Governor. “
He pointed at the black phone. “I do this-those guys are right. I might as well declare that I’m against the death penalty. Edgar Trotter or whoever comes out of the GOP primary will crucify me with this. I’ll be a pussy liberal Democrat.”
I rested my elbows on my knees and thought about that. I wasn’t sure he was giving voters enough credit. But then, I didn’t live in his political world. You run enough negative ads on one issue, it probably sinks in. It sticks. Carlton Snow, soft on crime. Look at this beautiful white woman and her child, murdered by this black thug gangbanger. Carlton Snow let him off the hook!
“You’re the governor,” I said. “Our constitution gives this power to you, without limitation. You’re supposed to do what you think is right.”
“What I think is right? Is that how you see the world, Jason?” He had turned on me. Something inside him had been stirred. “I get elected by people who want me to do things a certain way. So I do them that way. Do I get to do some things I care about? Yeah, sure I do. Health care for kids, for one. You pick your spots. But you can’t do those things-you can’t be a good governor unless you’re governor.”
The motto of this administration. He wasn’t entirely off the mark, of course, but it depended on your perspective.
“When is enough enough?” I asked. “How much bullshit do you have to swallow to do the things you care about?”
The governor placed his palm on the window, like he was testing the outside temperature. “Good question.”
“Yes, it is,” I said. “I mean, Judge Ippolito, Governor. Judge George Ippolito. The guy you’re appointing to the supreme court tomorrow?”
The governor pondered his hand for a moment. “You don’t approve. But people want him. I’m doing what people want. Supporters.”
“Gary Gardner wants him. And he’s willing to trade a union endorsement for it.”
Governor Snow turned to me. His lips parted but he didn’t speak. “Who said that?”
“Who said that? That’s exactly what’s happening, Governor.”
He looked away from me, otherwise immobile. I was having trouble reading this thing. Was he telling me that he didn’t know?
The governor wagged his empty bottle and went to the fridge for another. After pulling a fresh, sweaty bottle out, he looked at me. “Sometimes I don’t need to know all the details,” he said. “Sometimes I don’t want to.”
“You didn’t know,” I said.
The governor came over and sat in the chair across from me. “Did I know that people supporting my candidacy wanted him? Yes. Did I know exactly how that played out? That’s not my job. That’s a detail. Because it’s all the same.”
“No, it’s not.”