The Plan

Chapter 5.

MICKEY AND HIS FATHER WERE IN JOSEPH'S ROOM watching a news report about the return of Paul's mutilated body to McCarran Field in Las Vegas. The UBC anchor, Brenton Spencer, told America that Bahamian police surmised that the senator and his media consultant Warren Sacks had gone swimming late at night and been savagely attacked by sharks.

Paul's wife, Avon, met the plane, dressed in a dark suit. She was crying as Paul's casket was unloaded from a military cargo plane, and Brenton Spencer droned on about the late senator's political accomplishments.

Mickey watched, without feeling. He had not told his father about the inflammatory Polaroid pictures he'd found in the Flamingo Suite because it served no purpose now. The pictures showed Paul and Warren and a pretty sixteenyear-old Bahamian girl, locked in a bisexual daisy chain of anal bliss. Mickey had cut them up and flushed them down the toilet. They were of no use to him now and only defined the depth of his father's mistake in judgment about Paul. As the funeral procession left the airfield, Mickey switched off the TV and moved back to his father.

"I think you're right," Joseph wheezed. "This Rhode Island governor Haze Richards looks good, but this whole thing happens now or not at all. We got no time."

"Okay, but it's not like with Paul," Mickey said. "We knew Paul since he was governor. Haze Richards is a stranger. We need somebody who's got the candidate's ear and can control him. Somebody who can godfather this whole thing. I've been checking it out, and I found a guy who could help. He's real tight with Governor Richards-all the way back to grade school-helped him win the Rhode Island Governor's mansion. If we pick Haze Richards to be our candidate, this guy could rope him for us."

"What's his name?"

"Albert James Teagarden," Mickey said. "They call him A. J."

"What kinda leverage you got on Teagarden?" Joseph asked, then exploded into a coughing spasm, cursing as he barked out stale air and phlegm, spitting it into a wastebasket. Mickey turned on the oxygen tank, but Joseph waved it away, his eyes hard and yellow as dry corn.

"I talked to our people in Rhode Island. They wanted to get a handle on Haze Richards before he was elected governor 'cause of all our racetrack action up there. Tea-garden was running the governor's campaign. Our people threw a party in a hotel mom in Providence. There was pussy and booze, and then in comes some guy with this suitcase and he turns it upside down and spills out two hundred and fifty large all over the bed. It still had racetrack wrapping bands on it. They told Teagarden it was to buy campaign TV ads and to take what he needs. This fuck, A. J., is stuffing his pockets like some kid at a Halloween party. They also got a video of him with one of the girls. We got the prick by the balls."

Haze Richards had made his way to the top of their short list. Paul's old campaign manager, Malcolm Rasher, had found him. Ken Venable and Guy Vandergot, the two pollsters they had hired for Paul, had confirmed the choice at a meeting they had with Mickey the day Paul's body was found.

They'd been in the back booth of one of his father's Mr. A's steak houses in Atlantic City. The dinner crowd was just streaming in from Resorts International next door. They were wedged into a booth in the back, hidden by a partition from most of the crowd. The din was growing as the tables filled. Ken Venable was dissecting the Democratic field along with a turf 'n' surf special, gesturing with a serrated knife blade, pointing the tip at Mickey. Guy Vandergot, fat and slothlike, was eating with his head down, grunting in agreement as Ken rambled on.

`Thing you gotta understand here, Mickey, is the Democrats are factionalized, always have been. They can't agree on shit. You got liberals in the North and conservatives in the South. You got New Age intellectuals in the West, labor guys in the Midwest, along with farmers and subsidy protectionists. It's a patchwork of ideologies, and Malcolm thinks this gives us a chance… and I agree with him."

"How so?" Mickey said.

" 'Cause in a four-or five-horse race where nobody is winning, there's a chance with financing to jump in and grab the thing early… While the rest of these guys are fighting over little pieces of the pie, we sweep in and grab the whole deal."

Ken looked over at Guy Vandergot before continuing.

"Okay, here's the Democratic field now that Paul's gone. All these guys have announced, and in a week or so, all of 'em are gonna be in Iowa cornfields, sitting on Jap tractors, talking about farm subsidies like they actually give a shit… So we gotta get in this now if we're gonna," Ken said, still pointing with his knife. "Your front-runner is gonna be Leo Skatina, the second-term U. S. senator from New York. He's got name identification, good local organizations, and the media likes him. He's the early poll leader. He's been real vocal about women's issues. I think the Democratic National Committee is getting set to endorse him. The DNC probably thinks he has the strength to win against Vice President Pudge Anderson, who we all know is gonna be the Republican candidate. Then you got the Democratic senator from Florida, Peter Dehaviland. Environmentalist, that's his beachhead issue-offshore drilling, air pollution, nuclear waste. He also has a strong stand against unrestricted immigration… He's gonna fade unless he gets really lucky in Iowa and New Hampshire. Malcom agrees."

"Go on." Mickey took out a notepad and began making notes.

"Okay… Eric Gulliford, nickname Gilligan 'cause he kinda looks like Bob Denver. He's an old-time Democrat. Hubert Humphrey in a fishing hat. U. S. congressman from Ohio. He's for all the traditional Democratic Party stuff: labor, welfare, jobs for everyone, government spending. Tax the shit out of everybody. He's strong with the old party hacks. Could only be trouble if, for some reason, the party shifts off Skatina. And then the last announced candidate is Benjamin Savage. He's a New Age liberal from California, a three-term U. S. senator and he's got all the hot-button Melrose Avenue issues western liberals love-recast the workplace to fit society, tough sex harassment laws, animal rights, gay rights, women's rights, health care for everyone, legalized drugs…"

Mickey winced slightly, but they didn't see it.

Ken set down his knife pointer and leaned back. 'That's the field," he concluded. "These guys couldn't agree on due north if they were each holding a compass. Malcolm thinks we should try and lump them all as insiders and run against the whole lot like they were one candidate. Tar them with the same brush. That means we should try and find a candidate that has never held a national office, somebody who's never bounced a check on the congressional bank or cast a midnight vote for a pay raise. Rhode Island governor Haze Richards is our choice. He has no legislative record to attack that would mean anything to anybody. He's photogenic. Show him the picture."

Van opened his briefcase and slid out a glossy print. Mickey was looking at a very handsome man in his mid-fifties who could have been in a Ralph Lauren ad-closecropped gray hair, square jaw, blue eyes.

"He's a second-term governor, and all we need is to find a guy who can steer him for us so he does what we say: The choice of that person, Mickey knew, was critical. It was a problem that had led to the meeting in Joseph's bedroom two days later, and now it seemed to be a man named A. J. Teagarden.

Mickey looked at his father, who was losing energy… His eyes were still fierce and bright, but his head was sagging on his weak neck and his cough was appalling.

"Mickey, you go up there tomorrow, let's see if we can get to this governor you found."