Remo had picked a good man. He watched a handful of delegates struggle up the platform steps with Bludner on their shoulders. Bludner tapped a few heads, indicating that he wished to walk up by himself. When he got to the podium, there was a roar. Remo hugged Abe. Abe hugged Remo.
Smiling at the crowd, Remo said out of the corner of his mouth, so that only Bludner could hear:
"You live as long as you keep the deal, Abe."
"I understand, kid," said Bludner.
Remo glanced over his shoulder at the presidents of the three other transportation unions. They, too, were reasonable men, although one of them sat very carefully on a very painful spinal column.
When the enthusiasm was surmountable, Remo yelled into the microphone.
"Voice vote. All in favor of Abe Bludner as president, say "Aye.""
The hall exploded in a roar of ayes.
"All against, say 'Nay.'" There was a single 'nay' that was met by laughter.
"Carried. The new president is Abe Bludner."
There was more cheering and more hysteria.
Remo quieted the audience. "Before I introduce my good and long-time friend, Abe Bludner, to the union he now leads, I would like to say a few words."
Remo looked out into the balcony. A few driver wives dotted those seats. He thought of Chris at the airport. She would wait and he would never come. She would be met instead by agents of the FBI who had a tip. Her testimony would end the careers of the presidents of the three other unions. That exposure, including their using of union funds to pay for the construction of a building for another union, would end their careers for all time. It would also kill the merger idea. The superunion was dead. In a few days at most, Remo Jones would cease to exist. There would be a new face and maybe even a new regional accent. He would never have that family or home, any more than he could now eat a hamburger laced with monosodium glutamate. So be it. He was what he was, and all the longing in the world could not change that.
"I want to tell you something I mean very much," said Remo. His voice was steady, free of the orator's rising pitches. "You have heard many things about America and its wealth. You have heard about its coming demise. You have heard many people say we are rich and fat and weak. But I ask you, where did that wealth come from?
"Did someone give it to you? Did you find it on the streets? Did your parents or grandparents find it on the street? No, I say to you, you are the wealth of this nation. You are what makes it strong. Other continents have more raw material and they are impoverished. Look at South America. Look at Africa. Look at most of Asia and look at many sections of Europe. No, the wealth of any nation is its people, the willingness of its people to work and to get for themselves and their families the best things they can.
"This country is not strong because of some mineral deposit somewhere. Other countries have more and are weak and backward. This country is strong because it offers hope. And strong people have taken that hope. You represent drivers. They are part of that hope. That hope lives. And I say to you, very honestly, it is an honor to die for it."
The last sentence seemed overdramatic to many delegates, even though dramatics was the way with many of these convention speeches. What they could not realize was that they had not heard a song.
A few delegates believed they saw tears in the eyes of their new recording secretary that day. A few said that when he left the building just outside Chicago, he was crying openly. None of them saw him again.