He had chatted with Sarge Shriver just inside the main entrance to the monstrous Newington Mall for nearly fifteen minutes. Shriver, his hair freshly cut and smelling of after-shave and perhaps desperation, was accompanied by a single aide with his pockets stuffed full of leaflets, and a Secret Service man who kept scratching furtively at his acne. Shriver had seemed inordinately pleased to be recognized. A minute or two before Johnny said goodbye, a candidate in search of some local office had approached Shriver and asked him to sign his nominating papers. Shriver had smiled gently.
Johnny had sensed things about all of them, but little of a specific nature. It was as if they had made the act of touching such a ritual that their true selves were buried beneath a layer of tough, clear lucite. Although he saw most of them-with the exception of President Ford -Johnny had felt only once that sudden, electrifying snap of knowledge that he associated with Eileen Magown -and, in an entirely different way, with Frank Dodd.
It was a quarter of seven in the morning. Johnny had driven down to Manchester in his old Plymouth. He had worked from ten the evening before until six this morning. He was tired, but the quiet winter dawn had been too good to sleep through. And he liked Manchester, Manchester with its narrow streets and timeworn brick buildings, the gothic textile mills strung along the river like mid-Victorian beads. He had not been consciously politician-hunting that morning; he thought he would cruise the streets for a while, until they began to get crowded, until the cold and silent spell of February was broken, then go back to Kittery and catch some sacktime.
He turned a corner and there had been three nondescript sedans pulled up in front of a shoe factory in a no-parking zone. Standing by the gate in the cyclone fencing was Jimmy Carter, shaking hands with the men and women going on shift. They were carrying lunch buckets or paper sacks, breathing out white clouds, bundled into heavy coats, their faces still asleep. Carter had a word for each of them. His grin, then not so publicized as it became later, was tireless and fresh. His nose was red with the cold.
Johnny parked half a block down and walked toward the factory gate, his shoes crunching and squeaking on the packed snow. The Secret Service agent with Carter sized him up quickly and then dismissed him or seemed to.
“I'll vote for anyone who's interested in cutting taxes,” a man in an old ski parka was saying. The parka had a constellation of what looked like battery-acid burns in one sleeve. “The goddam taxes are killing me, I kid you not.”
“Well, we're gonna see about that,” Carter said. “Lookin over the tax situation is gonna be one of our first priori-ties when I get into the White House. “There was a serene self-confidence in his voice that struck Johnny and made him a little uneasy.
Carter's eyes, bright and almost amazingly blue, shifted to Johnny. “Hi there,” he said.
“Hello, Mr. Carter,” Johnny said. “I don't work here. I was driving by and saw you.”
“Well I'm glad you stopped. I'm running for President.”
“I know.”
Carter put his hand out. Johnny shook it.
Carter began: “I hope you'll… “And broke off.
The flash came, a sudden, powerful zap that was like sticking his finger in an electric socket. Carter's eyes sharpened. He and Johnny looked at each other for what seemed a very long time.
The Secret Service guy didn't like it. He moved toward Carter, and suddenly he was unbuttoning his coat. Some-where behind them, a million miles behind them, the shoe factory's seven o'clock whistle blew its single note into the crisp blue morning.
Johnny let go of Carter's hand, but still the two of them looked at each other.
“What the hell was that?” Carter asked, very softly.
“You've probably got someplace to go, don't you?” the Secret Service guy said suddenly. He put a hand on Johnny's shoulder. It was a very big hand. “Sure you do.”
“It's all right,” Carter said.
“You're going to be president,” Johnny said.
The agent's hand was still on Johnny's shoulder, more lightly now but still there, and he was getting something from him, too. The Secret Service guy
(eyes)
didn't like his eyes. He thought they were
(assassin's eyes, psycho's eyes)
cold and strange, and if this guy put so much as one hand in his coat pocket. if he even looked as if he might be going in that direction, he was going to put him on the sidewalk. Behind the Secret Service guy's second-to-second evaluation of the situation there ran a simple, maddening litany of thought:
(laurel maryland laurel maryland laurel maryland laurel)
“Yes,” Carter said.
“It's going to be closer than anyone thinks… closer than you think, but you'll win. He'll beat himself. Poland. Poland will beat him.”
Carter only looked at him. half-smiling.
“You've got a daughter. She's going to go to a public school in Washington. She's going to go to… “But it was in the dead zone. “I think… it's a school named after a freed slave.”
“Fellow, I want you to move on,” the agent said.
Carter looked at him and the agent subsided.
“It's been a pleasure meeting you,” Carter said. “A little disconcerting, but a pleasure.”
Suddenly, Johnny was himself again. It had passed. He was aware that his ears were cold and that he had to go to the bathroom. “Have a good morning,” he said lamely.
“Yes. You too, now.”
He had gone back to his car, aware of the Secret Service guy's eyes still on him. He drove away, bemused. Shortly after, Carter had put away the competition in New Hampshire and went on to Florida.
Walter Cronkite finished with the politicians and went on to the civil war in Lebanon. Johnny got up and freshened his glass of Pepsi. He tipped the glass at the TV. Your good health, Walt. To the three Ds-death, destruction, and destiny. Where would we be without them.
There was a light tap at the door. “Come in,” Johnny called, expecting Chuck, probably with an invitation to the drive-in over in Somersworth. But it wasn't Chuck. It was Chuck's father.
“Hi, Johnny,” he said. He was wearing wash4aded jeans and an old cotton sports shirt, the tails out. “May I come in?”
“Sure. I thought you weren't due back until late.”
“Well, Shelley gave me a call. “Shelley was his wife. Roger came in and shut the door. “Chuck came to see her. Burst into tears, just like a little kid. He told her you were doing it, Johnny. He said he thought he was going to be all right.”
Johnny put his glass down. “We've got a ways to go,” he said.
“Chuck met me at the airport. I haven't seen him looking like he did since he was… what? Ten? Eleven? When I gave him the. 22 he'd been waiting for for five years. He read me a story out of the newspaper. The improvement is… almost eerie. I came over to thank you.”
“Thank Chuck,” Johnny said. “He's an adaptable boy.
A lot of what's happening to him is positive reinforcement. He's psyched himself into believing he can do it and now he's tripping on it. That's the best way I can put it.”
Roger sat down. “He says you're teaching him to switch-hit.”
Johnny smiled. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“Is he going to be able to take the SATs?”
“I don't know. And I'd hate to see him gamble and lose. The SATs are a heavy pressure situation. If he gets in that lecture hall with an answer sheet in front of him and an IBM pencil in his hand and then freezes up, it's going to be a real setback for him. Have you thought about a good prep school for a year? A place like Pittsfield Academy?”
“We've kicked the idea around, but frankly I always thought of it as just postponing the inevitable.”