‘I just feel so sorry for my dad. All the pressure he’s under and he’s not holding up very well.’
‘I’d better get in there, honey. I’ll see you in a little while.’
‘Maybe you’ll want to get out of there as quickly as I did.’
‘I guess we’re about to find out.’
A state trooper stood next to the massive medieval-style front door. He nodded his campaign hat at me. ‘Need to see some ID, sir. You know the Bradshaw girl so I’m sure you’re all right, but I’d still better check your ID.’
As far back as I could remember there were front and back doors, and sliding doors in the living room that opened onto an enormous patio for parties. There would be a trooper twenty-four-seven at each of these.
My ID checked, I walked inside.
Some people with mansions hang framed reproductions of the masters in their hallways. Not the Bradshaws. They went for posters from their campaigns. Here was Jess in the center of a flower burst of tiny black children — she might have been a missionary in Africa; here was Jess looking lovely and stern as she visited a bandaged soldier in a hospital; here were Jess and Ted addressing a grade-school class. There were numerous others. The sole non-campaign photo was of Jess and Ted standing in front of a rear extension to their mansion, taken a year or so ago. In the background was Joel with a heavyset and heavily bearded worker. And next to Joel, almost clinging to him was an anxious Katherine.
There was so much noise coming from one of the rooms down the hall, I imagined that the normally staid house must have felt violated. It was rough, almost angry language, the sound of a substantial crew racing to get everything in place before the unforgiving deadline.
Jess’s assistant’s name was Nan Winters. A slender, efficient, fiftyish woman dressed in a tan blouse and brown slacks, she came abruptly out of the den where the interview was being held. She waved. We were on friendly terms.
‘Ted isn’t used to being pushed around like this. I almost feel sorry for him.’ The playful tone revealed the secret we shared. She loved Jess but thought Ted was a bit of a, to use her word, ‘pill.’ Technically she was Jess’s assistant, but she never protested when her legendary cooking skills were put to use.
‘I can’t stand being in there. Everybody’s so uptight.’
‘That’s what Katherine was telling me.’
‘She is such a sweetie. I really got to know her in the hospital. Jess and Ted were so busy they didn’t get much of a chance to visit her, so they asked me to sort of substitute. I got so I couldn’t wait to get to the hospital. It was so nice to see her get better. I raised two boys but now I have the daughter I always wanted.’
I pointed to the den. ‘I’d better go.’
‘Good luck.’
The director was one of those guys who wore a sweater flung over his shoulders and tied at the front. He was also one of those guys who talked with his hands on his hips. He was small and masculine in an adversarial way. The den was a jungle of cables, lights, techs and miniature boxlike pieces of equipment planted everywhere like land mines.
‘Greg, did you notice how sweaty his face is?’ he said, irritated. ‘Please pay some fricking attention, will you?’ He was a man in bad need of a drink or a Xanax or some sex. Any one of them would do the trick.
Greg, a heavy man dressed in a khaki shirt and chinos, sighed and shook his head.
He stepped across all the cables and around all the equipment to reach Ted, who sat in a wing chair in front of the massive stone fireplace. I would not have put him there. This advertised the wealth of the Bradshaws, something we tried to keep secret as much as possible.
Greg was already tamping the sweat with a cloth. Seeing me, Ted shoved Greg’s hand away and said, ‘Thank God you’re here, Dev. Will you please tell Roger that I look better in a sweater than in this piece-of-shit blue shirt? He invited himself into my closet to find it.’
‘Roger Hallahan.’ He jabbed his hand at me then proceeded to play bone-crusher. ‘So you’re Conrad. The way Mr Bradshaw talked about you I expected you to punch me out the second you saw me.’
‘What’s the problem?’
‘The problem,’ Ted said, ‘is that “Roger” here won’t let me wear my black sweater, remember? And he’s practically written out a script.’ He gave ‘Roger’ the kind of emphasis normally reserved for something brown the dog left on the floor.
Now it was Roger’s turn to sigh. He had miniature Irish features that were somehow handsome all together on a large head. ‘You’re a pro, or that’s what they tell me. Mr Bradshaw is worried about his alleged belly showing. Black is wrong in a dark room like this, and the shirt he’s wearing sort of blouses at the belly so there’s not even a hint of it — not that I can see it in the first place. We never see below his sternum.’
‘See how he makes me sound, Dev? My wife was almost assassinated last night and he makes me sound like some vain pussy who doesn’t give a shit about it. I want to look good for her sake. I’m representing her. He has me looking like some guy who sits around in a shirt all day.’
‘Maybe you haven’t noticed, Mr Bradshaw, but shirts are “in” now. A lot of very powerful men wear shirts to the office and shirts to parties.’
Finally, it was my turn to sigh. ‘Roger, how long before the network picks us up?’
He glanced at the Rolex on his wrist. He clicked the stopwatch. I could tell because the ticking was loud in the momentary silence. ‘Seven minutes and thirty-one seconds.’
‘How about you give me one minute and thirty seconds in the hall?’
He was as eager to get out of the den as he would have been to get off the Titanic.
‘Fine.’
I didn’t much like him but I felt professionally sorry for him. All he wanted to do was make Ted look and sound as good as possible. But, as usual, Ted was determined to get his own way.
In the hall, Roger said, ‘You going to give me shit, too?’
Ten
‘No. I agree with you. But you’ll get a better interview if you let him wear the black turtleneck.’
‘A turtleneck’s wrong for this and so is black.’
‘You know that and I know that, but he’s used to getting his way.’
‘How the hell do you put up with it?’
‘I go along till I have to tell him I’ll quit if he gets his way.’
‘There’s no time for that with this little gig.’
‘No.’
‘Does he give a shit about his wife? I really get the impression he couldn’t care less.’
‘I actually think he does.’
‘Well, he’s got a strange way of showing it.’ For the first time the small, beleaguered man smiled. ‘Let’s go get the fucking sweater.’
Back in the den, I went over to Ted and said, ‘Is the sweater still upstairs?’
‘You did it, didn’t you? I knew you could do it.’ Then, ‘Hey, Greg, how about bringing that sweater over here?’ It was as if a six-year-old had just been handed a three-scoop ice-cream cone on a hot summer day.
As soon as the network morning show began, three different monitors telecast the proceedings. There was three minutes of news leading with Jess’s story, then back to the chirpy personas of the hosts, and then the chief host wiped both the silly grin and lusty gaze away (the substitute hostess was a true babe) and said, ‘In addition to mass murders and terrorism, our country now has to turn a serious eye to the possibility of political assassination. Last night in Danton, Illinois, an unknown shooter attempted to assassinate Congresswoman Jessica Bradshaw as she left the building where she’d just debated her opponent on television. Fortunately the three shots did not find their target, but they certainly left the congresswoman and her staff, including her husband, concerned for her safety. As they did, I might say, the entire country.