Breach of Trust

66

I met Charlie outside the state building. We jumped in a cab and headed north.

“You’re getting in just in time,” Charlie said to me. “We’ve needed a lawyer for a long time.”

“You guys are short on lawyers? They’re not exactly hard to come by, Charlie.”

“Not one of our own.” He looked at me. “You’ve got to appreciate, Carl’s only been the governor a year. And it flew by. Most of the people working for him, they’re Lang Trotter’s people.”

“Republicans?” I asked.

“Well, that, yes-but more to the point, not Carl’s guys. I mean, we had to hit the ground running. Trotter didn’t give a lot of notice before he jumped ship to D.C. It took Carl two months to even find Madison-and until Maddie arrived, these guys didn’t know their asses from their elbows. Remember, Carl was city clerk and then governor lite. He never had anything to do. All of a sudden he’s governor. These guys”-Charlie chuckled at the memory-“these guys looked around at each other like, ‘What do we do now?’ I mean, they’re still in catch-up mode. And now we have an election upon us,” Charlie added. “He never hired a lawyer of his own-not at the top level, and definitely not someone with your talent.”

All of this, I assumed, would be music to Chris Moody’s ears, when he listened to the contents of the F-Bird in my coat pocket. The criminal schemes-whatever they were-were still in their infancy, waiting to happen right before the federal government’s eyes.

We arrived ten minutes later at Travelers, an old-school steak house just over the river. The place was crazy busy with the professional set, but that didn’t stop Charlie from parting the crowd and walking through the restaurant to a reserved area in the back, separated by space and a rope from the rest of the restaurant. There, a man was seated at a lone table, nursing a glass of scotch. I’d never met the guy, but I’d seen his photo stuck to a piece of poster board in Suite 410.

“Brady MacAleer, Jason Kolarich,” Charlie said.

“Call me Mac.” Favors and fixes, Moody had said about Brady MacAleer. He certainly looked the part of a fixer. Big through the chest, short legs, a weathered face that was square and flat and had been through some scrapes. He’d lost most of his hair to the north and cropped it to the east and west in a military buzz. His eyes were small and bloodshot and hostile in their appraisal. I was a new guy, an unknown, and guys like him didn’t like unknowns.

I knew his story, more or less, before he’d said ten words. Drank his liquor straight, had a short fuse, viewed the world in an uncompromising fashion. You were with him or against him, nothing in between. The kind of guy you’d prefer to have on your side in a scrape. A pit bull. He reminded me of guys I played ball with. I didn’t like most of the guys I played ball with.

Charlie talked me up to Mac but followed the felons’ etiquette of keeping it vague. He imparted no material information to Mac but basically told him that I had proven myself useful in delicate matters. “He could walk up to you, pull out his dick, piss all over your leg, and convince you it was raining,” Charlie said of me. I was supposed to be flattered. It wasn’t lost on me that Charlie’s description was almost exactly how I would describe my father.

“Yeah, I heard all about Jason.” Mac took another swallow of his scotch. He wasn’t returning the compliment. He liked his circle of friends small and airtight.

A plate of fried calamari arrived without warning. Charlie and I ordered drinks.

“So here it is,” said Charlie. “This thing is coming down to the unions. Two-”

“We gotta wait for the queen,” said Mac.

Charlie looked at him, annoyed at the interruption. “I’m giving him background.”

“Queenie said to wait for her.”

“I’m giving him background, so when she arrives, we can dive right in. That okay with you?” Charlie made it clear he wasn’t talking to an equal, at least not in his mind. Charlie wasn’t a government employee. He was a capitalist. A successful one. He’d made a calculation that money could be made by getting close to people in government, but that didn’t make him a bootlicker. And that, I could see, was how he ultimately viewed Brady MacAleer, an unsophisticated lackey. Mac had the governor’s trust, apparently, which bought him a seat at the table, but Charlie wasn’t going to pretend they were on the same level.

MacAleer fished a stringy piece of the calamari off the plate, his silence indicating acquiescence.

“The race is tightening,” said Charlie. “Willie Bryant’s making headway. It’s going to come down to media and organization. Media is all about having the cash to buy airtime. Organization is all about the unions.”

Okay. I was following so far. A union endorsement bought a lot of votes from the rank-and-file members.

“But it buys more than that,” Charlie said. “It buys workers. It buys foot soldiers on Election Day. We need people to get our voters to the polls. We need the union people.”

“Got it.”

Charlie made a peace sign with his fingers. “Two unions that matter in this state. The government employees and the laborers. The IBCL-the International Brotherhood of Commercial Laborers. And SLEU.”

“Slew?” I asked.

“S-L-E-U. State and Local Employees United. The IBCL and SLEU haven’t made endorsements yet. They haven’t picked us or Bryant. We get the laborers and employees, and we win on organization. We already have more money than Bryant. If we have the organization, it’s game over.”

“Gardner goes back with Bryant,” said Mac.

“Gary Gardner,” Charlie explained to me. “He runs the IBCL.”

“It’s a wonder he hasn’t already gone with Willie,” said Mac.

“He hasn’t gone with Willie because we’ve been begging him to hold off,” said Charlie. “These guys-Gardner with the Laborers, Rick Harmoning with SLEU-they’re playing kingmakers right now. They know it. See, here’s the problem-”

Our drinks arrived. Mine was wrong; it was a straight martini without the splash of olive juice, but it still tasted good so I didn’t complain.

“Nobody knows us, is the problem,” Mac said, filling in for Charlie. “Willie Bryant was a state rep for ten years and secretary of state for eight. He’s been around the block with all these guys. The governor’s only had a year of being governor, compared to eighteen years in state government for Willie.” He shrugged. “Nobody knows us, is the problem, you wanna hear it straight. Only thing keeping us in the game is the cash.”

That sounded like an accurate assessment. Governor Snow was apparently outpacing Secretary of State Bryant in the fundraising department. It kept him viable and gave him credibility. The unions, presumably, would want to go with a winner. They pick a loser, then next time their endorsement is a little less important and, thus, so are they. That’s how I would view it, if I were making the decisions.

“What about the politics?” I asked. “Does one have better policies than the other?”

Both of these guys smirked. I could see it was an irrelevant consideration. Charlie said, “The unions want a Democrat, but it probably wouldn’t make much difference between the governor and Bryant.”

“They’re deciding next week,” Mac said. “Both of ’em. And my intel says both of ’em are leaning towards Willie.”

Chris Moody, back in Suite 410, had mentioned that Mac used to be a union official, before he joined up with Carlton Snow. Sounded like he still had his ear to the wall over there.

“So we’re down to last options,” said Charlie.

“So how does the governor win the unions’ endorsement?” I asked.

“Hey, Chief.” MacAleer got to his feet, addressing Madison Koehler, who was walking past the rope into our segregated spot in the back.

“Hey, Madison.” Charlie nodded.

“Gentlemen.” Madison set her purse on the floor next to her and took the seat opposite me, between Charlie and Mac. A waiter quickly came over. She ordered a glass of Cabernet. Then she looked right at me. “We already know how to win the unions’ endorsement,” she said. “We just need you to help us do it.”