“Kid, I’m the chief of staff. I don’t think I’ll be wasting your time. All right?”
A krewewoman handed them their hats and coats. They took an elevator down to the street.
“Let’s walk toward Somerville,” Sosik said. “The audio surveil-lance is a lot less tight there.”
“Is that a problem? We could walk apart and talk things over on encrypted phones.”
Sosik sighed. “Would you slow down to human speed for a min-ute? I’m an old man.”
Oscar said nothing. He followed Sosik north up Prospect Street, hunching his shoulders against the chill. Bare trees, straggling Christ-mas shoppers, the occasional Caribbean storefront.
“I can’t stand it in that office just now,” Sosik said. “He’s throw-ing up, he’s shaking like a leaf And the people in there, they all worship the ground the man walks on. They’ve had to watch him come apart at the seams.”
“Yeah, and our walking out on them isn’t likely to help their morale much.”
“Shut up,” Sosik explained. “I’ve been in this business thirty years. I’ve seen a lot of politicians come to bad ends. I’ve seen them go drunk, I’ve seen them go crooked, sex scandals, money scan-dals… But this is the first guy I ever saw who cracked up com-pletely before he even made it to Washington.”
“Alcott’s always ahead of the curve,” Oscar nodded. “He’s a visionary. ”
Sosik shot him a nettled glance. “Why’d you pick on this poor guy? He’s not any kind of normal pol. Was it the wife? Did she have something on you? Was it the personal background thing?”
“Normal pols aren’t getting the job done, Leon. These aren’t normal times. America’s not a normal country. We’ve used up all our normality. There isn’t any left.”
“You’re not normal. What are you doing in politics?”
Oscar shrugged. “Someone has to deal with your thirty-year leg-acy of solid professional achievement, Leon.”
Sosik grimaced. “Well, he gave it his best shot. And now he’s toast. ”
“He’s not toast. He’s just crazy.”
“Crazy is toast. Okay?”
“No, it isn’t. It’s true-he’s had a mental breakdown. That’s a problem. It’s an image problem. When you get a problem that big, you can’t stonewall it. You have to shine a light on it. This is the problem: he starved himself half to death in a sincere protest, and now he’s lost his mind. But our keyword here isn’t ‘crazy.’ Our keywords are ‘sincere’ and ‘protest.’ ”
Sosik turned up his coat collar. “Look, you can’t possibly play it that way and get away with it.”
“Yes, Leon, I could. The question here is whether you could.”
“We can’t have a Senator who’s non compos mentis! How the hell could he ever get a bill passed?”
“Alcott was never cut out to be a legislative technician. We’ve had enough of those nitpickers. Alcott’s a charismatic, he’s a moral leader. He can wake the people up, he can guide them. and show them the mountaintop. What he needs is a way to compel their attention and make them. believe in him. And now, he’s finally got it.”
Sosik considered this. “Kid, if you did that and it really worked, it would mean that the whole country’s gone crazy.”
Oscar said nothing.
“How exactly would you angle it?” Sosik said at last.
“We have to demonize Huey on the patriotism issue, while we come clean on the medical problem. Constant bedside reports when-ever Al is lucid. Winston Churchill was bipolar. Abraham Lincoln was a depressive. We call in all our chits from the FedDems, we get the party to stay with him. We fly the wife in, she’s a fighter, she’s stand-ing by him loyally. Grass-roots sympathy mail, we’re spooling it in by the ton. I think it’s doable.”
“If that’s doable, then I’ve lost touch. That’s not the America I know. I don’t have the stomach for that. I’d have to resign. You’d have to be chief of staff.”
“No, Leon, you’ve got to be chief of staff You’re the seasoned professional, you’ve got Beltway credibility, and I’m … Well, I can’t be in the picture at all. With my personal background, I can’t possibly front a big medical-publicity spin.”
“I know you want my job.”
“I’ve got my hands full already.”
Sosik snorted. “Don’t give me that.”
“All right,” Oscar said. “I admit that I’d like to have your job, but I have my own agenda to look after now. You see, it’s Greta.”
“Who?”
“The scientist, damn it! Dr. Penninger.”
Sosik was astonished. “What? Her? She’s pushing forty and she’s got a face like a hatchet! What is it with you, kid? Not two months ago you had your pants around your ankles for some campaign jour-nalist. You were lucky as hell not to be outed on that. And now her?”
“Yeah. That’s right. Her.”
Sosik rubbed his chin. “I forgot how hard up a young guy can get… Can it possibly be that good?”
“No, it’s not that good,” Oscar told him. “It’s no good at all, it’s bad. It’s real bad. It’s worse than you could imagine, it’s terrible. If we’re ever caught, we get outed. She’s a fanatic workaholic — science is the only thing in the world that doesn’t bore her to death. Huey adores her and wants to recruit her for some kind of mad-genius brain lab he’s building in a salt mine … She drinks too much. She has allergies. She’s eight years older than me… And oh, she’s also Jewish. Though for some reason the Jewish thing hasn’t come up much.”
Sosik sighed, his breath steaming in the air. “So that’s your situa-tion, huh?”
“That’s almost it. Except for one more thing. She’s truly a ge-nius. She’s a unique, brilliant, wonderful thing.”
Kevin Hamilton was visiting Oscar’s house for a neighborly chat. Kevin, a man of deeply irregular schedules, had brought a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a bag of dried banana chips.
“Politics are irrelevant now,” Kevin informed him airily.
“I’m not asking you to become a political activist, Kevin. I’m just asking you to join my krewe and run my security.”
Kevin munched a handful of banana chips and had a swig of chocolate milk. “Well, you being the guy you are, I guess you’ve got the money for that sort of thing…”
Oscar adjusted his laptop on the conference table. “There’s not a lot of time for idle chitchat here, so let’s put our cards on the table. I know you’re a rather special guy, but you’re not the only guy in the world who can do net research. So can I. You’ve got a civil disobedience record as long as my arm. You spent ten years with no visible means of support. Your dad is a convicted computer criminal on elec-tronic parole. You’re a police informant and a surveillance freak. I really think I need a guy like you in my outfit.”
“Nice of you not to mention my dicey ethnic background,” Kevin said. He set his sandwich aside and produced his own laptop from a battered valise. The ancient machine was pasted together with tension straps and travel decals.
“I never, ever mention that sort of thing,” Oscar said.
“Not that you would. You’re not an ‘ethnic’ guy.” Kevin con-sulted his own screen. “As far as I can figure out, you’re some kind of lab product.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“My dad went bad after his business crashed-but your dad was a genuine gangster. Good thing for you that the feds don’t like to bust movie stars.”
“Yeah, and his films were criminal acts, too.”
“You must be really hard up, man. I don’t do bodyguard work. I’ve got it together to run a successful neighborhood watch. It’s a good gig for a guy who was a big-time nomad — I get to sit still now, and I’ve got a roof over my head. But you’re a dodgy politician with some major-league enemies. I could get killed working for a guy like you.”