Sons of Fortune Read online

  “My final task as the election officer will be to declare the result, which in turn will decide who is elected as the next governor of our great state. I hope to have completed the entire exercise by midday.” Not if we continue at this pace, thought Fletcher. “Now, are there any questions before I accompany you through to the hall?”

  Tom and Jimmy both began speaking at the same time, and Tom nodded politely to his opposite number, as he suspected that they would be asking exactly the same questions.

  “How many counters do you have?” asked Jimmy.

  The official once again whispered in the mayor’s ear. “Twenty, and all of them are employees of the council,” said the mayor, “with the added qualification of being members of the local bridge club.” Neither Nat nor Fletcher could work out the significance of this remark, but were not inclined to ask for further clarification.

  “And how many observers will you be allowing?” asked Tom.

  “I shall permit ten representatives from each party,” said the mayor, “who will be allowed to stand a pace behind each counter and must at no time make any attempt to talk to them. If they have a query, they should refer it to my chief of staff and if it remains unresolved, he will consult me.”

  “And who will act as arbitrator should there be any disputed ballots?” asked Tom.

  “You will find that they are rare in Madison,” repeated the mayor, forgetting that he had already expressed this sentiment, “because for many of us this could well be our last chance to register a vote.” This time no one laughed, while at the same time the mayor failed to answer Tom’s question. Tom decided not to ask a second time. “Well, if there are no further questions,” said the mayor, “I’ll escort you all to our historic hall, built in 1867, of which we are inordinately proud.”

  The hall had been built to house just under a thousand people, as the population of Madison didn’t venture out much at night. But on this occasion, even before the mayor, his executives, Fletcher, Nat and their two respective parties had entered the room, it looked more like a Japanese railroad station during the rush hour than a town hall in a sleepy coastal Connecticut resort. Nat only hoped that the senior fire officer was not present, as there couldn’t have been a safety regulation that they weren’t breaking.

  “I shall begin proceedings by letting everyone know how I intend to conduct the count,” said the mayor, before heading off in the direction of the stage, leaving the two candidates wondering if he would ever make it. Eventually the diminutive, gray-haired figure emerged up onto the platform and took his place in front of a lowered microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “My name is Paul Holbourn, and only strangers will be unaware that I am the mayor of Madison.” Fletcher suspected that most people in that room were making their first and last visit to the historic town hall. “But today,” he continued, “I stand before you in my capacity as elections officer for the district of Madison. I have already explained to both candidates the procedure I intend to adopt, which I will now go over again…”

  Fletcher began looking around the room and quickly became aware that few people were listening to the mayor as they were busy jostling to secure a place as near as possible to the cordoned-off area where the vote would be taking place.

  When the mayor had finished his homily, he made a gallant effort to return to the center of the room, but would never have completed the course if it hadn’t been for the fact that proceedings could not commence without his imprimatur.

  When he eventually reached the starting gate, the chief clerk handed the mayor a pair of scissors. He proceeded to cut the seals on the twenty-two boxes as if he were performing an opening ceremony. This task completed, the officials emptied the boxes and began to tip the ballots out onto the elongated center table. The mayor then checked carefully inside every box—first turning them upside down, and then shaking them, like a conjuror who wishes to prove there’s no longer anything inside. Both candidates were invited to double-check.

  Tom and Jimmy kept their eyes on the center table as the officials began to distribute the voting slips among the counters, much as a croupier might stack chips at a roulette table. They began by gathering the ballots in tens, and then placing an elastic band around every hundred. This simple exercise took nearly an hour to complete, by which time the mayor had run out of things to say about Madison to anyone who was still willing to listen. The piles were then counted by the chief clerk, who confirmed that there were fifty-nine, with one left over containing fewer than a hundred ballots.

  In the past at this point, the mayor had always made his way back up onto the stage, but his chief clerk thought it might be easier if the microphone was brought to him. Paul Holbourn agreed to this innovation and it would have been a shrewd decision had the wire been long enough to reach the cordoned-off area, but at least the mayor now had a considerably shorter journey to complete before having to deliver his ultimatum. He blew into the microphone, producing a sound like a train entering a tunnel, which he hoped would bring some semblance of order to the proceedings.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, checking the piece of paper the chief clerk had placed in his hand, “5,934 good citizens of Madison have taken part in this election, which I am informed is fifty-four percent of the electorate, being one percent above the average for the state.”

  “That extra percentage point might well turn out to our advantage,” Tom whispered in Nat’s ear.

  “Extra points usually favor the Democrats,” Nat reminded him.

  “Not when the electorate has an average age of sixty-three,” rebutted Tom.

  “Our next task,” continued the mayor, “is to separate the votes of both parties before we can begin the count.” No one was surprised that this exercise took even longer, as the mayor and his officials were regularly called on to settle disputes. Once this task had been completed the counting of the votes began in earnest. Piles of tens in time multiplied into hundreds before being placed in neat little lines like soldiers on a parade ground.

  Nat would have liked to circle the room and follow the entire process, but the hall had become so crowded that he had to satisfy himself with the regular reports relayed back to him by his lieutenants in the field. Tom did decide to fight his way around and came to the conclusion that although Nat looked as if he was in the lead, he couldn’t be sure if it was sufficient to make up the 118-vote advantage that Fletcher currently enjoyed following the recount of the overnight ballots.

  It was another hour before the counting had been completed, and the two piles of slips were lined up facing each other. The mayor then invited both candidates to join him in the cordoned-off area in the center of the room. There he explained that sixteen ballots had been rejected by his officials, and he therefore wished to consult them before deciding if any should be considered valid.

  No one could accuse the mayor of not believing in open government, because all sixteen ballots had been laid out on the center of the table for everyone to see. Eight appeared to have no mark on them at all, and both candidates agreed that they could be rejected. “Cartwright should have been sent to the electric chair,” and “no lawyer is fit to hold public office,” were also dismissed just as quickly. Of the remaining six, all had marks other than crosses against one of the names, but as they were equally divided, the mayor suggested that they should all be validated. Both Jimmy and Tom checked the six votes and could find no fault with the mayor’s logic.

  As this little detour had yielded no advantage to either candidate, the mayor gave the green light for the full count to begin. Stacks of hundreds were once again lined up in front of the counters, and Nat and Fletcher tried from a distance to gauge if they had won or lost enough to change the wording on their letterhead for the next four years.

  When the counting finally stopped, the chief clerk passed a piece of paper to the mayor with two figures printed on it. He didn’t need to call for silence, because everyone wanted to hear the result. The mayor, having aba