Ben brought the drinks over. ‘Did you two come in separate cars?’
‘Yes,’ Jane said.
‘We may be here a long time. You don’t have to stick around if you don’t want to, Dev.’
‘I need to talk to Robert, then I’ll head back.’
Ben tilted his head in the direction of the hall and followed Jane out of the room.
By now Elise’s face had a porcelain sheen. She surprised me. ‘Stop looking at me like that, Dev. You’re making me feel like a freak.’
‘I apologize, Elise. I’m just worried about you.’
‘Robert’s the one you should be worried about.’
‘Believe me, I am.’
‘He doesn’t deserve this.’
‘I know he doesn’t.’
‘The second I saw that woman—’ She didn’t finish.
Maddy patted her mother’s folded hands. ‘You’re exhausted, Mom. I can hear it in your voice.’
I heard the same thing. Maybe she’d be able to fight the sedative her doctor had given her but only for a time. Even when her words were emotional her voice was a monotone.
A long, weary sigh. ‘I guess you’re right, honey.’ And then to me: ‘I’m sorry James was such an ass, Dev. He thinks he’s an expert on everything.’
‘That’s all right. Just about every candidate has a naysayer in his or her group. Somebody who thinks they know a better consultant or a better way to win the election. And sometimes they’re even right. Nobody in my business has a perfect track record by a long shot. James probably thinks he’s protecting his brother.’
‘He’s an asshole,’ Maddy said. ‘I hate him.’
‘Honey, he’s family.’
‘You don’t have to remind me, Mom. I never liked him, even when I was small. He was condescending even back then. Now, c’mon, let’s go upstairs.’
Maddy was as careful with her mother as a nurse would be with a drastically sick patient. And Elise was uncertain on her feet, nearly falling back on the couch before Maddy and I grabbed her.
‘’Night, Dev. I guess I’ll go to bed, too. I think I’ll watch some lame movie with a happy ending. Maybe I can forget about everything for a while.’
‘I hope it works,’ I said.
‘Thank you, Dev,’ Elise said.
‘Get some sleep, Elise. Hopefully things will be a little better in the morning.’
One of those lies that are embarrassing when you think about them. Things would be better in the morning? Really? How?
I walked over to the dry bar and opened the door of the small refrigerator hidden from sight. I found three Heinekens inside and took one. I’d just popped the cap when Robert came rushing into the room.
‘I wrestled James upstairs and threw him on the bed in one of the guest rooms. Sorry he was such a dick. I didn’t want to be here with Elise. Maddy told me she calms down when I’m not around. I don’t know how the hell she can even function with the sedatives the doc gave her. But I suppose since she’s had so many kinds of antidepressants over the years she’s built up a resistance. Anyway, the best thing I can do is leave her alone.’ He nodded to my beer. ‘I’d take one of those.’
I dug one out and handed it to him.
‘I won’t even look out of any of the northern windows. This looks like the Michael Jackson trial. Or OJ. All these reporters from all over the world. I’m waiting for them to just overrun us and drag me away and lynch me. And I’m only half kidding. I tried to take a little nap a while ago to calm down and I had a dream of something like that.’
‘Jane tells me you were holding something back from Hammell?’
Since he had a mouthful of beer he could have done a spit take and made both of us laugh. Instead the eyes bulged a little and color came up in the cheeks. ‘She gave me the same bullshit in the station parking lot. I like Jane but she’s wrong as hell about me holding something back.’
‘You said she was a good lawyer. And a good lawyer learns how to read clients.’
‘You can be good without being invincible.’
‘She’s trying to help you and so am I. And so is Ben.’
‘What’m I supposed to do? Make things up to satisfy you three? I told you the absolute truth.’
‘Hammell may request a lie detector test.’
The gaze narrowed; a tooth bit the edge of an upper lip. In poker that would have been called a ‘tell.’ A hint of deception.
‘So? I’m not worried about a lie detector.’
But he was and so much so that he turned away from me and walked back across the living room and sat in an armchair. He needed time to compose himself again. Maybe he hadn’t even thought of a lie detector test until I’d brought it up. I sat down across from him.
‘Did you hear what Shay had to say about it all?’
‘I’ve been busy, Robert.’
‘Enough to make you sick to your stomach. Such a goddamned Good Samaritan. A Chicago station had him in the studio and our worthy opponent claimed to be very sad for me and my family and that he was sure everything would turn out all right for me because I was a decent man and then we could get back to campaigning and talking about why it was a good thing that one percent of our population controlled eighty percent of the wealth. Some goddamned consultant wrote it for him, you can bet on that.’
I appreciated anything that made me laugh. ‘I’m some goddamned consultant, Robert.’
‘Oh, right. Sorry.’
‘And I would’ve told him to say exactly what he said. Let everybody else play the bad guy. Make sure you look reasonable and civil — that’s all that matters.’
He leaned forward, elbows on knees, the green bottle hanging from his folded hands. ‘Say we wrap this thing up in a week or so. What’re my chances of pulling it off — the election, I mean?’
I could have reminded him of how bad things were for him right now. I could have told him he was worrying for nothing because we were likely all done. I could have told him that the affair alone, in a tight race, could be fatal. But he was a politician — a good one and a major one — and they really don’t think like you and me. They make moral compromises most people couldn’t bring themselves to make and they almost never let go of the idea that somehow, some way they will be re-elected, even if they are caught in bed with a thirteen-year-old girl they’ve just given heroin to. If you don’t believe me consider the true story of a well-known US politician. A tabloid breaks the story that a) he has a mistress, b) his cancer-dying wife knows about his mistress and is crushed and c) his mistress is now pregnant. His presidential aspirations have crashed completely but he still calls the president elect’s people and offers himself as attorney general material. This is being disconnected from reality on a cosmic level. It’s a drug, this sense of entitlement. I stayed silent.
When he sat back and focused on me I knew what was coming. He was going to lay a brother James on me. I was about to become the boogeyman. ‘So what exactly are you doing to help me?’
‘I’ve got the best private investigator and his oppo researcher son finding out everything they can about Tracy Cabot.’
‘That’s all?’
‘And I brought Ben Zuckerman in.’
‘I could have done that myself.’
‘Yes, you could’ve. But you didn’t.’
‘In other words you’re sitting here wasting time.’
‘I’m sitting here because I wanted to see Ben.’
‘And Jane. I saw the way you two looked at each other. If you want to get laid, Dev, do it on your own time.’
‘Like you, you mean?’
‘What’s that supposed to mean? I told you we didn’t have sex.’
‘I’ve decided I don’t believe you.’ If he wanted pissy, pissy he’d get.
‘So now I’m a liar?’
‘So now you’re cleaning up your story. There’s something you’re not telling me.’