“Sure it is. Sure it is. My actions respond to what voters, what supporters want. I get support from gun-control advocates because they know if a concealed-carry bill comes before me, I’ll veto it. If I don’t do what they want, they don’t support me. That’s wrong? That’s how it works.”
“But not an under-the-table deal, Governor.”
“Oh, really?” He drew back. “What is the freaking difference, Jason? Really. See, here’s what you don’t get. Here’s what you don’t get.” He framed his hands in the air. “You get elected governor by showing people you want it. That’s how it’s supposed to be. You have to really want it. You have to be willing to make sacrifices. You have to cut deals. Sometimes do things you don’t want to do. If you aren’t willing to do those things, then you don’t want it bad enough, and you shouldn’t get it. People want their politicians to scratch and claw to get the job.”
“You don’t think people want you to pick the best possible judge to sit on the supreme court?”
“They may want it, but they don’t expect it.” He took a long swallow of water. “They expect me to make a political judgment. They expect me to try to please my supporters.”
“And you think that if they knew how George Ippolito got on the bench, they’d be okay with that? A side deal for a union endorsement?”
He sat back in the chair, crossed his leg, and smiled. “They don’t want to know,” he said.
I pulled on my tie, feeling a little hot and bothered at the moment. I wasn’t sure what I was doing here. Chris Moody, were he listening to this in real time, would be having a heart attack. The last thing he’d want is for me to talk the governor out of appointing George Ippolito to the supreme court. I realized that I was giving the governor some rope here. But I wasn’t sure why. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see if he’d hang himself with it, or if I was trying to decide whether to call off the hanging altogether.
My heartbeat had ratcheted up a few notches. I felt like I was doing a slow jog and preparing to kick it in for the final mile of the race. My watch said it was ten minutes to eleven.
“Are you trying to convince me or yourself?” I asked.
The comment surprised him. He wasn’t accustomed, I suppose, to that level of bluntness.
“I mean, seriously, Governor. Why this impassioned defense? Why am I even here? You know what the politics dictate. What do you need me for?”
He rested his head on the chair and looked up at the ceiling. “Interesting question.”
And the answer, I thought, was even more interesting. In the recesses of his soul, where political calculations hadn’t yet infiltrated, he was thinking about commuting Otis’s sentence. I was the guy who represented the opposite of politics, in some ways at least, and he wanted my opinion.
No-he wanted a particular opinion. He wanted me to come to the same conclusion as his political advisers. He wanted to be able to tell himself that he was doing the right thing tonight by letting Antwain Otis die.
“Tell me what you would do,” he said.
I wouldn’t want to be him, I knew that much. My principal objection, prior to tonight, had been the lack of due diligence on the governor’s part. He hadn’t been paying any attention to Antwain Otis, and that, itself, was criminal in my mind. I’d focused on that objection to the exclusion of actually formulating an opinion myself. Now, here it was, and I had to concede it wasn’t easy having to make this decision.
But I knew this much: Carlton Snow still had a chance to pass my internal test. I’d been unsure whether he was a clueless leader or one who simply preferred to remain clueless to the crimes going on around him, who buried his head in the sand.
Now, I realized, there was another possibility: He might be someone who never had anyone whispering the right things in his ear. He had political animals around him. Everyone had more or less the same viewpoint; they might disagree about the political angle but it was always the political angle that mattered. He didn’t have a voice of conscience. Maybe if he did-maybe there was something more to this guy.
“That minister who talked to us?” I said. “Remember what he said he preaches to the inmates? ‘Don’t look backward,’ he said. ‘Look forward. Make tomorrow a better day.’ ”
“Right, right.” He pointed at me.
“Do you think tomorrow’s a better day with Antwain Otis dead or alive?”
He watched me for a long time. I broke eye contact only to note that we were inside an hour before the execution.
“If I do what a majority of the people in this state want me to do,” he said, “I don’t touch that phone. Now, what’s wrong with doing what the majority wants?”
“Because the majority wants you to exercise your judgment, not follow their lead like some permanent town hall meeting. You’re supposed to make the tough call.”
“I see.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Even if that tough call is against their wishes.”
“That’s why it’s tough.”
“Even if it fucks me in the election.”
“Right again.”
“You can’t be a good governor unless you’re gov-”
“Oh, Governor, spare me that, okay? I mean, what the hell’s the point of being governor if you can’t be a good one? To do the right thing as much as you can, as often as you can?”
He watched me, tolerating me like he might a child. “You’d commute the sentence.”
“Yes,” I said, “I would. Keep him in prison forever but let him make the world a slightly better place.”
I exhaled. I’d tried to keep an open mind on this issue. I’d really been more concerned with the governor making the decision for the right reason than with any particular outcome. I’d surprised myself with the abrupt answer and with how strongly I held the sentiment, once iterated.
The governor opened his hands. “I just can’t do that, son. I just can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
He gave me a grim smile. “You’re right. I won’t do that.”
I felt the air go out of the room. There was nothing really left to say. I hadn’t given the governor what he’d wanted-validation, reassurance-but it wasn’t going to change his mind. It never was.
He looked at his watch. “I thought I wanted some company, but I’m not sure I do.”
Right. He didn’t want my disapproving eyes boring into him as the hour struck midnight and the venom seeped into the veins of Antwain Otis, strapped to a gurney.
I got up and straightened my suit coat, the F-Bird resting heavy in the inner pocket. I thanked him and walked to the door.
“I’m sorry, Jason,” he said.
I stopped on my way back and turned to him. Antwain Otis aside, he’d probably said enough tonight about Judge Ippolito to buy himself an arrest warrant tomorrow.
“I’m sorry, too,” I said.
92
I stopped at the hotel bar in the lobby for a drink. I wasn’t in a tremendous hurry to get back. Tucker and Moody would devour the contents of this F-Bird like it was their last meal, which in some sense of the word it was. They’d want to debrief me, and now that my job was all but completed, they might even want me to review the application for the arrest warrants, given that much of the information contained in it had been supplied by me. I didn’t know, but I wasn’t eager for a long night. I wanted to escape. I wanted to be anywhere but here.
The dirty martini was too dirty, too salty, but I drank it fast and then ordered a shot of whiskey, hot and bitter down my raw throat, which somehow felt more appropriate.
I walked from the Ritz toward the federal building. It wasn’t all that cold out tonight, but there must have been rain, a damp musky odor on the emptying city streets. The fresh air helped.
“I’m done,” I said into the cell phone to Lee Tucker.
“And? How did we do?”
“See you in ten minutes,” I said.