Kane and Abel/Sons of Fortune Read online

  “It will be cleared on the same day it’s presented,” Tom assured him.

  “Thank you, sir,” said Mr. Cooke to a man he regularly had a round of golf with at their local club.

  Tom wanted to give Julia a hug, but restrained himself. “I’ll just run back to the bank and let them know that it all went smoothly, then we can go home.”

  “Do you really have to?” asked Julia. “After all, they won’t be presenting the check until Monday morning.”

  “I guess that’s right,” said Tom.

  “Damn,” said Julia, bending down to take off one of her shoes, “I’ve broken the heel running up those steps.”

  “Sorry,” said Tom, “that was my fault, I shouldn’t have made you rush back from the bank. As it turned out we had more than enough time.”

  “It’s not a problem,” said Julia, smiling, “but if you could fetch the car, I’ll join you at the bottom of the steps.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Tom. He jogged back down and across to the parking lot.

  He was back outside City Hall a few minutes later, but Julia was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps she had slipped back inside? He waited a few moments, but she still didn’t appear. He cursed, leaped out of the illegally parked car and ran up the steps and into the building to find Julia in one of the phone booths. The moment she saw him, she hung up.

  “I’ve just been telling New York about your coup, darling, and they’ve instructed our bank to transfer the three million one hundred thousand before close of business.”

  “That’s good to hear,” said Tom, as they strolled back to the car together. “So shall we have supper in town?”

  “No, I’d rather go back to your place and have a quiet meal on our own,” said Julia.

  When Tom pulled up in his driveway, Julia had already removed her coat, and by the time they reached the bedroom on the second floor, she had left a trail of clothes in her wake. Tom was down to his underwear and Julia was peeling off a stocking when the phone rang.

  “Leave it,” Julia said as she fell to her knees and pulled down his boxer shorts.

  “There’s no reply,” said Nat, “they must have gone out for dinner.”

  “Can’t it wait until we get back on Monday?” asked Su Ling.

  “I suppose so,” admitted Nat reluctantly, “but I’d like to have known if Tom managed to close the Cedar Wood deal, and if so, at what price.”

  33

  “TOO CLOSE TO CALL” ran the banner headline in the Washington Post on election morning. “NECK AND NECK” was the opinion of the Harlford Courant. The first referred to the national race between Ford and Carter for the White House, the second to the local battle between Hunter and Davenport for the State Senate Chamber. It annoyed Fletcher that they always put her name first, like Harvard before Yale.

  “All that matters now,” said Harry as he chaired the final campaign meeting at six that morning, “is getting our supporters to the polls.” No longer was there any need to discuss tactics, press statements, or policy. Once the first vote had been cast, everyone seated around the table had a new responsibility.

  A team of forty would be in charge of the car pool, armed with a list of voters who required a lift to their nearest polling place, the old, the infirm, the downright lazy and even some who took a vicarious pleasure in being taken to the poll just so they could vote for the other side.

  The next team, and by far the largest, were those who manned the bank of phones back at headquarters.

  “They’ll be on two-hour shifts,” said Harry, “and must spend their time contacting known supporters to remind them that it’s election day, and then later to make sure they’ve cast their vote. Some of this group will need to be called three or four times before the polls close at eight this evening,” Harry reminded them.

  The next group, whom Harry described as the beloved amateurs, ran the counting houses all over the borough. They would keep a minute-by-minute update on how the voting was going in their district. They could be responsible for as few as a thousand voters or as many as three thousand, depending on whether theirs was a built-up or a rural area. “They are,” Harry reminded Fletcher, “the backbone of the party. From the moment the first vote is cast, they’ll have volunteers sitting outside the polling stations ticking off names of the voters as they go to the polls. Every thirty minutes those lists will be handed over to runners, who will take them back to the house where the full register will be laid out on tables or pinned to a wall. That list will then be marked up—a red line through the name for any Republican voter, blue for Democrats, and yellow for unknown. One glance at the boards at any time, and the captain of the precinct will know exactly how the vote is progressing. As many of the captains have done the same job for election after election, they’ll be able to give you an immediate comparison with any past poll. The details, once ‘boarded,’ are then relayed through to headquarters so that the phoners don’t keep bothering a pledge who has already cast their vote.”

  “So what’s the candidate supposed to do all day?” asked Fletcher, once Harry had come to the end of his briefing.

  “Keep out of the way,” said Harry, “which is why you have a program of your own. You will visit the forty-four counting houses, because they all expect to see the candidate at some time during the day. Jimmy will act as your driver, known as ‘the candidate’s friend,’ because we certainly can’t afford any spare workers wasting their time on you.”

  Once the meeting had broken up, and everyone had dashed off to their new assignments, Jimmy explained just how Fletcher would spend the rest of the day, and he spoke with some experience, because he’d carried out the same exercise for his father during the previous two elections.

  “First the no-no’s,” said Jimmy when Fletcher joined him in the front of the car. “As we have to visit all forty-four houses between now and eight o’clock this evening when the polls close, everyone will offer you a coffee, and between 11:45 and 2:15 lunch, and after 5:30 a drink. You must always reply with a polite but firm no to any such offer. You will only drink water in the car, and we’ll have lunch at 12:30 for thirty minutes back at headquarters, just so they realize they’ve got a candidate, and you won’t eat again until after the polls close.”

  Fletcher thought he might become bored, but each visit produced a new cast of characters and a new set of figures. For the first hour, the sheets showed just a few names crossed out, and the captains were quickly able to tell him how the turnout compared with past elections. Fletcher was encouraged by how many blue lines had appeared before ten o’clock, until Jimmy warned him that the time between seven and nine was always good pickings for the Democrats as the industrial and night-shift workers vote before they start, or after they have finished work. “Between ten and four, the Republicans should go into the lead,” Jimmy added, “while after five and up until the close of the polls is always the time when the Democrats have to make their comeback. So just pray for rain between ten and five, followed by a fine warm evening.”

  By 11 A.M. all the captains were reporting that the poll was slightly down compared with the last election when it had closed on fifty-five percent. “Anything below fifty percent, we lose, over fifty and we’re in with a shout,” said Jimmy, “above fifty-five and it’s yours by a street.”

  “Why’s that?” asked Fletcher.

  “Because the Republicans traditionally are more likely to turn out in any weather, so they always benefit from a low turnout. Making sure our people vote has always been the Democrats’ biggest problem.”

  Jimmy stuck rigidly to his schedule. Just before arriving he would hand Fletcher a slip of paper with the basic facts on the household running that district. Fletcher would then commit the salient points to memory before he reached the front door.

  “Hi, Dick,” he said when the door was opened, “good of you to allow us to use your house again, because of course this is your fourth election.” Listen to reply. “How’s Ben, is he still at college?”