"Like a kidney stone," Donovan said morosely. By the way he set one hand on the small of his back for a moment, he spoke from experience. But then he managed a smile and gently touched his bandaged head. "Codeine is starting to work."
"Good," Potter said. People were setting down drinks and taking seats on the folding chairs at the front of the hall. "Looks like the meeting's going to come to order. Let's see how exciting it is, shall we?"
It was about as bad as he'd expected. The speakers insisted on staying optimistic long after the time for optimism had passed. When Potter heard, "Sam Longstreet will make a great president of the Confederate States!" for the fourth time, he stopped listening. He didn't think Longstreet was a bad man at all-on the contrary. But as long as the Whigs kept running sons and grandsons and great-grandsons of the men who'd won the War of Secession, they gave Jake Featherston an easy target.
He thought about getting to his feet and saying so. In the end, he didn't. Time enough for that at the postmortem; the death wasn't official yet. The meeting was less quarrelsome than a lot he'd been to. He doubted he was the only one saving recriminations for after the election.
Quarrels did go on, though, through the streets of Charleston and across the Confederate States. Potter did his share. He didn't need his left hand to swing a blackjack. He dented a couple of Freedom Party crania-and had his new pair of spectacles broken. Only afterwards did he realize he hadn't had to wear them into the brawl. Hindsight was twenty-twenty. He, unfortunately, wasn't, and now he had to pay twice for the privilege of seeing straight. He was pretty sure the stalwarts he'd clobbered couldn't see straight now, either. That was something.
Tuesday, November 7, 1933, dawned chilly and drizzly. Polls opened at eight in the morning. Jamming a broad-brimmed fedora down low on his forehead to keep water out of his eyes, Potter made his myopic way to the polling place around the corner from his apartment building. Election officials had chalked on the sidewalk a hundred-foot semicircle with the polling place as its center. Inside that circle, electioneering was forbidden. Outside it, Freedom Party men chanted Jake Featherston's name.
Potter smiled at them. "Go ahead, boys. Make yourselves as obnoxious as you can. The more votes you cost your man, the better."
As he walked into the charmed circle, one of the men in white and butternut asked, "Who's that smart-mouthed son of a bitch?"
"Name's Potter," another answered. "Lives around the block. You don't need to write him down. He's already on the list."
Already on the list, am I? Potter thought. An honor I could do without. Behind him, the Freedom Party men resumed their chant. Where are our men, shouting for Longstreet and Black? he wondered. He knew the Whigs had men outside some polling places. Not this one. The business collapse wasn't the only reason the Freedom Party looked like winning today. How-ever much Potter hated to admit it, even to himself, the opposition was better organized than his own party. He would have bet every Freedom Party man-and woman, in states where women could vote-would get to the polls today. He wished he could have made the same bet about Whig backers. How many of them would sit on their hands? Too many. Any at all would be too many.
He cast his own ballot, then walked back the way he'd come. He didn't think the Freedom Party men would set on him so close to the polling place, where people could see them for what they were. They didn't… quite. They shouted, "Nigger-lover!" and, "You'll get yours!" at him, but they didn't try to give it to him. He was almost disappointed. For this trip, he had a pistol in his pocket, not a blackjack.
Having voted, he went to work. It was less than interesting today: a husband wanted evidence his wife was cheating, but the wife, busy with shopping and the couple's two small children, gave none. Potter thought the husband was inventing things to worry about, but he kept his opinions to himself. For one thing, clients seldom paid attention to opinions contradicting their own. For another, the man paid well. If he wanted to throw away his money… well, it was a free country, wasn't it?
It is till that Featherston bastard takes over, Potter thought.
On the trolley ride back to his flat after knocking off for the day, he passed another polling place. Police cars were parked in front of it. Blood stained the sidewalk and nearby walls. Freedom Party men waving their reversed-color Confederate battle flags still stood on the street. "Feather ston! Feather ston!" Even through the trolley's closed windows, the chant lacerated Clarence Potter's ears. The police didn't try to run the stalwarts off. If Whigs had been here, they were no longer. This skirmish belonged to the Freedom Party.
After pan-frying a pork chop and some potatoes and washing them down with a stiff whiskey, Potter went over to Whig headquarters to hear… whatever he heard. Dance music blared from the wireless sets: the polls hadn't closed yet. He pulled out his pocket watch. It was a little past seven-thirty-less than half an hour to go.
That gave him plenty of time for another drink, or two, or three. He nodded to Braxton Donovan, who also had a whiskey in his hand, and said, "The condemned man drank a hearty meal."
"Funny," the lawyer said. "Funny like a crutch."
"Oh, I didn't mean you," Potter said. "If you think I meant you, I apologize. I meant the country. Before they execute a man, they give him a blindfold and a cigarette. What do we do when the Confederate States of America go up against the wall?"
Donovan studied him. "I don't think I've ever heard you say you were sorry before. You must mean it. You don't waste time being polite."
I try not to waste time at all, Potter thought. But he had nothing to do but stand there banging his gums till clocks in Charleston started striking eight. "All along the eastern seaboard of the Confederate States, the polls have closed," an announcer on the wireless declared. "We'll bring you the latest results from the presidential, Congressional, state, and local elections-but first, a word from our sponsor." A chorus of young women started singing about the wonders of a soap made from pure palm oil. Potter wondered what could be going through their minds as they trilled the inane lyrics. Probably something like, We're getting paid. Times were hard indeed.
Then the numbers started coming in. Somebody posted each new installment on a big blackboard at the front of the room. That meant the Whigs could go on chattering and still keep up. As soon as Clarence Potter saw the early results from North Carolina, he knew what kind of night it would be. North Carolina was a solid, sensible, foursquare Whig state. The collapse hadn't hit it so hard as a lot of other places.
Jake Featherston led there. He led by more every time the fellow at the board erased old numbers and put up new ones. And he had coattails. Freedom Party Congressional candidates were winning in districts where they'd never come close before. And it looked as bad everywhere else.
Braxton Donovan stared owlishly at the returns. He fixed himself another drink, then came back to stand by Potter and stare some more. He didn't say anything for a long, long time. At last, he did: "Jesus Christ. It's like watching a train wreck, isn't it?"
Potter shook his head. "No, Braxton. It's like being in a train wreck." Donovan thought that over, then slowly nodded.
And it got no better, not from a Whig point of view, as the polls closed in states farther west. Back in 1921, Tennessee had decided the election when it finally went Whig. This year, it went for Featherston and the Freedom Party. So did Mississippi and Alabama. Potter hadn't expected anything different there, but he would have loved to be proved wrong. The Whigs led in Arkansas, but Arkansas wasn't big enough to matter.
"My God," somebody behind Potter said. "What is the world coming to?"
He didn't need to ask the question, not when he could see the answer. Jake Featherston was going to be president. He would have a majority-a big majority-in the House. The Senate, whose members were chosen by state legislatures rather than popular vote, wasn't so obvious. Even so, it all added up to the same thing: after seventy years in the saddle, the Whigs were going into the minority.