Act of Darkness(3)

“The man’s a goddamned extortionist,” Harvey was saying. “There’s no other word for it. He’s holding us up.”

“Of course he’s holding us up,” Clare said. “That’s what these people do. For God’s sake, Harvey. You ought to know how the game is played by now.”

“A hundred thousand dollars for one weekend on Long Island is too damn much money, seminar or no seminar. And I don’t believe there is any seminar. You tell Dan Chester all that for me.”

Dan Chester. Clare stared at the tip of her pencil and frowned. It was odd. Theoretically, Dan Chester spoke only on Stephen Fox’s authority. Theoretically, it was Stephen Fox who was really holding them up. Chester, after all, was just a political manager. It was Fox who was the duly elected senator from the state of Connecticut. Still, nobody ever blamed Stephen Fox for the things Dan Chester did in his name, or even gave Fox credit for thinking them up. It was as if nobody in Washington believed that Fox was really real. He was just one more of Dan Chester’s special effects, the public face of a private political act.

“Dan Chester,” Harvey Gort said, “thinks he can get away with anything.”

Clare Markey sighed. “In this case, Harvey, he can get away with anything. At least as far as we’re concerned. Did you look at the material I sent you?”

“I looked at the prices. Did you really spend twenty-five hundred dollars of our money for an invitation to a cocktail party?”

“Of course I did. The cocktail party’s tonight, by the way. What did you expect me to do?”

“You could show a little common sense,” Gort said. “Why don’t you just tell the son of a bitch he can stuff it?”

“Kevin Debrett,” Clare Markey said carefully, “is going to be at that cocktail party tonight. He bought invitations for himself and four of his staff. And Kevin Debrett is going to be on Long Island for Fourth-of-July weekend.”

There was silence on the other end of the line that wasn’t really silence. Harvey was swearing under his breath, using the full range of obscenities he had learned on the barricades of Berkeley in 1968. Clare was always surprised at how crude Harvey’s language was, and how unimaginative. Her steel-worker father had been a foulmouthed man, but at least he’d shown some originality.

Harvey Gort coughed in a strangled way and said, “We can’t ace Debrett out anyway. He’s known Fox since God knows when.”

“We can’t ace him out, but he can ace us out,” Clare said. “Let’s face it, Harvey. That bill can be written any one of three ways. It can cut us in and cut Debrett out—which it won’t, because you’re right, Debrett and Fox have known each other forever. Debrett was Janet Fox’s obstetrician when they had that child that died—”

“Stephanie Fox who had Down syndrome,” Harvey said cynically. “Stephen Fox’s great personal tragedy.”

“Never mind Stephen Fox’s tragedy, Harvey. Fox owes Debrett. That’s all that counts. Fox does not owe us. He has no reason not to cut us out completely.”

“We’d make a public stink,” Harvey said.

“So what? Dan Chester would make the whole Empowerment Project look like a bad cover for a worse grab at legal graft. And no matter what kind of stink you made, you couldn’t oppose the competency exam thing without looking like—”

“Competency exams,” Harvey Gort exploded. “Of all the white supremacist, racist, bigoted—”

“Spare me the rhetoric, Harvey. Spare everybody. The general public doesn’t see a single thing wrong with competency exams. After all, they’ve got to get licenses just to drive their cars. If Chester puts a competency exam clause into that bill and you try to do anything public to get rid of it, you’ll be crucified. What we need is a bill that spreads the money around without calling for competency exams. Right?”

“Absolutely.”

“Fine.” Clare rubbed the palm of her free hand against her forehead. She was sweating. “If we’re going to get what we want, we’re going to have to contribute to the war chest. You know that and I know that. Campaign contributions buy access. That’s the way this town runs. So I’ve bought us into the cocktail party, and as soon as I get off the phone with you I’m going to buy us into one of those ‘seminars.’ If I’m lucky, there’ll still be a place open on the Fourth of July.”

“Why the Fourth of July? Because Debrett will be there?”

“No. Because it’s a long weekend, three and a half days with Fox instead of two and a half.”