‘Not enough.’
‘What is enough?’ Hotchins asked.
Lowenthal tapped dead ashes out of his pipe. Then he said, ‘Two million, minimum. It could go higher depending on how rough it gets. And no big contributors. It could hurt you later. It also could be illegal.’
Hotchins stared at the lawyer. He had to be careful with Lowenthal. No matter how tough he might talk, Lowenthal was known for his integrity. It was one of the traits that gave him credence and had ever since he had first appeared on the political scene during the Kennedy campaign. But Hotchins was thinking, Illegal? It was only illegal if they got caught and he knew DeLaroza well enough to know Victor would never get caught. Hotchins’s big concern was two million dollars. Vas his finance minister prepared to raise that kind of money? He thought he knew the answer.
‘We’ve got it,’ he said suddenly. ‘And without that son of a bitch Fitzgerald. I don’t want his money. I don’t want him until we get to New York. Then I want him with his hat in his hand, begging to get on board.’
He limped to the window and looked down at the street, at the little people scurrying back to their offices and after- lunch Alka Seltzers. The voters. ‘they were little people to him, humiliated by the routines of life, badgered by the banks and the mortgage companies and the institutions, running one step ahead of failure. His contempt for the common man was a deeply guarded secret, a flaw which could destroy him. And looking down at them he felt a deep rage that his future lay in their hands. But the emotion passed quickly.
‘So it’s Humphrey we have to beat,’ he mused aloud.
‘Hubert’s a fine man,’ Lowenthal said. ‘And a hell of a campaigner.’
‘He had his chance in ‘68,’ Hotchins said, and there was a snap to his voice, like a whip cracking. To Hotchins, he was a loser, a failure, like the little people below, a man who smiled in defeat and cried in public. Happy Warrior, hell. But he said nothing, for he sensed Lowenthal’s respect for the Minnesota senator.
Lowenthal walked over to him. ‘Look, you got a lot going for you. You’re handsome, honest, got a great record.
You’re a war hero; you left a foot in Korea and came back with the Distinguished Service Cross and a Purple Heart. You took a little nothing business and an SBA loan and parlayed it into a national franchise, You’re a lawyer, a soldier, a businessman. Got a great family. Mr. Clean. And it’s all beautiful and great. What it gets you, it gets you into the gate, period.
‘After that, it’s a balls-out race. What I can do for you, I can bring in some real heavyweights. Joe McGuire, Angie Costerone, John Davis Harmon. They’ll come aboard if I’m aboard. I can work the demographics, tell you how to get the Chicano vote in L.A., the blacks and Puerto Ricans in New York, the Irish vote in Boston, the Polish vote in Chicago, deal with the unions, the city machines, the state hacks. We can do all that. But it won’t mean a damn unless we come off big. You got to open up your campaign lilce a winner and run like one. When we announce we have to take the biggest hail in the state and fill it with the kids, the senior citizens, blacks, reds, yellows, greens, pinks, Wasps. We want bands and noise and, uh, what we can’t do, we can’t come out with bupkus. You know bupkus? It’s Yiddish. It means nothing, zilch. A quiet noise. You sneak into this campaign and Fitz figures he’s got you dead already. You come out big, with me and McGuire and the rest, it’s gonna scare him to death.’
Hotchins grinned. He was going to come out big, all right. That, he could guarantee.
Phipps Plaza was one of the city’s more elegant shopping centres, located a few minutes from Victor DeLaroza’s office, its parking lot three storeys deep and under the mall. At two that Thursday afternoon there were only a few cars on the lower level. One of them was a brown Rolls- Royce which sat facing the exit ramp, its motor mumbling softly.
Hotchins guided his Buick down the ramp and parked beside it. As he got out of his car the rear door of the Rolls swung open and Hotchins got into its elegant interior. DeLaroza was sipping a cup of espresso, an enormous Havana cigar smouldering in his fist. He grinned as the senator sat beside him and he pressed a button in the armrest near his elbow. A window rose silently between the front and back seats.
‘Bom dia,’ DeLaroza said.
Hotchins shook his hand warmly. ‘I feel like I’m in the CIA,’ he said, ‘sneaking around parking lots just to have a chat. You should have come to the hotel. I want you to meet Lowenthal.’
‘All in time,’ DeLaroza said. ‘I still put a high price on my privacy. When it becomes necessary for me to become a. more public person, then I will deal with that problem at he time. So, what is so urgent?’
‘Lowenthal’s in.’
‘Excellent, excellent!’ DeLaroza cried.
‘And he’s bringing in McGuire, Casterone, and Harmon with him.’
‘Ah! Even better. That is splendid news. More than you had hoped for, eh?’
Hotchins’s voice became flat and hard. His eyes narrowed. ‘I was counting on it,’ he said. ‘Lowenthal is like an ace in a poker game. Without help he could be beat by a pair of deuces.’
‘An interesting analogy. And who are these deuces?’
‘Fitzgerald and Humphrey.’
So, the National Committee has made its choice.’
‘Yes.’
‘It is no surprise, my friend, right’?’
‘No. And I like it this way,’ Hotchins said. ‘When the convention’s over, we’ll have Fitzgerald at our feet. That’s what I want. I want them all to line up and kiss my ass.’
DeLaroza’s eyebrows arched as he listened to Hotchins’s venom spii1 out. He said, ‘I am sure Fitzgerald is aware of this threat.’
‘Sure he is. They’re going to fight us hard and dirty. That’s all right. It’ll make the victory that much sweeter. .1 tell you, Victor, I can taste it. Taste it.’ Hotchins’s eyes burned with almost sensual delight as he spoke.
‘Easy, my friend. Save that energy, it is a long time between now and July.’
But Hotchins’s ardour could not be stemmed. He bad contained himself in Lowenthal’s presence, not wishing to reveal his need. Now he let go, savouring what he felt was a sweet victory.
‘1 can feel it in my bones,’ he said. ‘Lowenthal’s committed. He’s excited, enthusiastic. And he’s a brilliant tactician. Just what we need to go up against the committee. Now we can beat ‘em, I know it. We can grind the sons of bitches under.’
DeLaroza stared at the senator and puffed on his Havana. Somewhere within the immaculate framework of the Rolls an exhaust fan quietly sucked the smoke from the rear compartment.
‘You remember a movie with Brando called One-Eyed Jacks?’ DeLaroza said.
‘Why? What’s the point?’
‘You remind me of a one-eyed jack. The rest of the world sees only half your face. They see the veteran hero, the warm family man, charging windmills, tilting with the political machines. How many people ever see the other side, the hidden face of the jack?’
‘Why, what do you see there?’ Hotchins asked cautiously.
‘A barracuda. A competitor with big needs, big hungers. it is what attracted me to you, Donald. That is why you will win. It will not be because of Lowenthal or Casterone or any of the others. You will win because you have an instinct for the jugular and that will surprise them.’
Hotchins leaned forward in the seat, tense and suddenly uneasy. They had never talked this openly before. Finally he said, ‘Takes one to know one, right, Victor?’
‘Oh, I am not a barracuda,’ DeLaroza said. ‘The barracuda is selective, it picks its victims to appease its appetite. I am a shark, Donald. I will eat anything that comes in my way.’
‘Sounds like a warning,’ Hotchins said.
‘No. I want to make sure you are aware that I too have big appetites. And I also go for the throat.’