3
THE PRESIDENT SAT IN DISBELIEF BEHIND HIS desk, staring at the phone. He looked over at Garret and asked, “Did he just hang up on me?”
“The guy must be an idiot. He’s definitely
not going to be around this town for long. Don’t let it bother you.
I’ll have Koslowski take care of him.” Garret rose and started to
walk toward the door. “I’ll be right back. I have to get something
from my office. Mark, get him started on the calls to Dreyer and
Hampton. Jim, all they want is a verbal guarantee from you that you
won’t back their opponents in next year’s election. I’ll be back in
five minutes.”
Garret walked down the hallway, ignoring
all in his path. He entered his office, closed the door, and headed
straight for his desk. Before grabbing the phone, he picked up a
pack of Marlboro 100s and shoved one in his mouth. After lighting
it, he took two deep drags and filled his lungs. The president
wouldn’t allow Garret to smoke in the Oval Office, so he tended to
find an excuse about every hour to sneak away to his office. He
picked up the handset of his phone and punched in the number for
the direct line to Jack Koslowski’s
office.
A gruff voice answered the phone on the
other end. “Yeah.”
“Jack, Stu here. How are things
going?”
“We’re holding the line. No one is going
to break ranks on this one. All we need is for you boys and Tom to
come through.”
“We both know Tom will have Moore
delivered to us by noon, but we need some people to jump ship from
the other side.”
“Who do you have in
mind?”
“For starters I need you to lean on this
O’Rourke clown. The president just tried to give him the soft shoe
and it went over like a lead balloon. Stevens gave him a
five-minute speech and then O’Rourke hung up on
him.”
“You’re shitting me. He hung up on
Stevens?” Koslowski started to laugh.
Garret did not think it was funny. “Lean
on him hard, and if there’s anyone else you can think of, we
need them by noon.”
“I’ll put my boys on the street and see
what I can do. I’ll let you know as soon as I find anything out.”
Both men hung up.
Congressman O’Rourke was sitting at his
desk, reading over some documents and dictating notes, when the
door to his office burst open. A slender, well-dressed man, who
looked vaguely familiar, pushed his way past Susan and approached
Michael’s desk.
In an irritated voice Susan said, “I’m
sorry, sir, but I told this man that you weren’t taking visitors
this morning.”
The man stepped forward. “I apologize for
the intrusion, Congressman O’Rourke, but I’m one of Chairman
Koslowski’s aides. He has a proposal he would like you to consider,
and he needs an answer immediately.”
Michael leaned back in his chair and
realized where he’d seen the dark-haired man before. Michael’s gaze
turned from the aide to his secretary. “Thank you, Susan, I’ll see
the gentleman.” Susan retreated from the office and closed the
door. The chairman’s aide stepped forward and extended his hand
across the desk. O’Rourke remained seated and took the man’s
hand.
“Congressman O’Rourke, my name is Anthony
Vanelli.”
O’Rourke placed his Dictaphone on the desk
behind several stacks of files and said, “Please take a seat, Mr.
Vanelli.” O’Rourke had heard several stories
about the aide and
doubted this would be a friendly visit.
Vanelli sat down in one of the chairs in
front of O’Rourke’s desk and crossed his legs. “Congressman
O’Rourke, I’ve been sent here to find out if you’re still going to
vote against the president’s budget, and if you are, what we can do
to change your mind.”
“Mr. Vanelli, I assume you know I spoke to
the president this morning.”
“I am fully aware of that, Congressman
O’Rourke, but time is running short and we need to know who is
standing with us and who is standing against
us.”
O’Rourke leaned forward and placed his
elbows on the desk. “Well, Mr. Vanelli, I have made my position
very clear from the start. I will vote no for the budget unless the
president cuts all funding for the Rural Electrification
Administration.”
“All right, Congressman, let’s cut to the
chase. We live in the real world, and in the real world, the Rural
Electrification Administration is going to continue to exist. It’s
just the way things operate around here. You have to try to get
over the little things and concentrate on the big picture. You
can’t damn the whole budget just because you don’t like one little
part of it.”
“Mr. Vanelli, I would hardly consider a
half billion dollars little. The thing you people don’t understand
is that I consider most of the president’s budget to be a waste. I
am merely focusing on the Rural Electrification Administration
because it’s an easy target. You must agree with the simple logic
that when an institution is founded to solve a problem, once that problem is
solved, the institution should be closed. All of rural America has
been electrified for over twenty years, but we continue to bleed
the taxpayers for about five hundred million dollars a year, just
so congressmen and senators can send pork back to their
constituents. It’s a crime that the president is predicting a
one-hundred-billion-dollar budget deficit and garbage like this
isn’t being cut.” O’Rourke looked down to make sure the Dictaphone
was still running.
Vanelli stood from his chair and walked
toward the other end of the office. “They told me you were a
flake,” he said over his shoulder.
O’Rourke smiled to himself as he looked at
Vanelli’s back and said, “Excuse me. What did you just
say?”
Vanelli turned around and strutted back to
the desk. “Enough of the bullshit, Mike. I’m not here to talk
political theory with you, nor to discuss what is ethically
correct. That’s for people like you and your loser friends to waste
time on.”
“Mr. Vanelli, I don’t remember giving you
permission to call me by my first name.”
“Listen, Mike, Mikey, or dickhead, I’ll
call you whatever I want. All you are is a naive little freshman
congressman who thinks he has all the solutions. We’re about the
same age, but we’re worlds apart. I’m a realist and you’re an
idealist. Do you know where idealists get in this town? Nowhere!
They go absolutely nowhere! They sent me down here to give you one
last chance. You either get on board with the president’s budget or
your career is over. The choice is simple. You help us out and Chairman
Koslowski will make sure some extra money finds its way into your
district. If you don’t, you’ll be out of a job next
year.”
O’Rourke looked up at the man standing
over his desk and rose to meet the challenge. The sixfootthree,
210-pound O’Rourke smiled slightly and asked, “Mr. Vanelli, what
exactly do you mean, my career will be
over?”
Vanelli took a step backward and replied,
“You either play ball with us or we’ll ruin your career. Chairman
Koslowski will make sure he cuts off every penny from getting to
your district. We’ve got people right now who are digging through
your past. If we find anything dirty, we’ll spread it all over
town, and if we don’t, we’ll make something up. We own enough
people in the press. We could ruin you in a week. We’re done
playing nice guy.” Vanelli shook his finger in O’Rourke’s face.
“I’m going to wait in your lobby for exactly five minutes. I want
you to sit in here and think about having your career ruined over
one stupid vote, and when you’re done, I want an answer.” Vanelli
turned for the door.
O’Rourke reached forward and grabbed the
Dictaphone with his left hand. He took his thumb and pressed the
rewind button. The tiny machine started to squeak as the tape spun
in reverse. Vanelli heard the familiar sound and turned to look.
Michael held up the tiny machine and pressed play. Vanelli’s voice
emanated from the small box. “We’ve got people right now who are
digging through your past. If we find anything dirty, we’ll spread
it all over
town, and if we don’t, we’ll make something up. We own enough
people in the press. We could ruin you in a
week.”
Vanelli stormed across the room and lunged
for the Dictaphone. “Who the hell do you think you
are?”
O’Rourke’s right hand shot up and grabbed
Vanelli’s outstretched hand. O’Rourke had practiced the judo move
thousands of times while he was in the Marines. In one quick motion
he twisted Vanelli’s hand until the bottom of the wrist faced the
ceiling, then forced the hand back toward the elbow. Vanelli
collapsed to his knees in pain. O’Rourke continued to exert enough
force to keep him on the floor.
Vanelli looked up with a pained face and
screeched, “Let go of my fucking wrist, and give me that goddamn
tape.” O’Rourke increased the pressure and Vanelli let out a
squeal.
“Listen to me, Vanelli. Just because
you’re from Chicago and you have an Italian name doesn’t mean
you’re tough. You’re an aide to a congressman, not a hit man for
the Mafia.”
Vanelli picked up his right hand and
reached for his bent wrist. Before he was halfway there, O’Rourke
slammed the wrist back another inch and Vanelli’s free hand shot
back to the floor as he let out a
scream.
“Listen to me, you little punk! I don’t
know who you think you are coming in here and threatening me, but
if you or your scumbag boss ever bother me again, you’ll have the
FBI, 60
Minutes, and every other major news organization in the
country try
crawling up your ass. Do you understand?” Vanelli was slow to
respond, so O’Rourke increased the pressure and repeated the
question. “Do you understand?” Vanelli shook his head yes and
started to whimper. O’Rourke set the tape recorder on his desk,
dropped to one knee, and grabbed Vanelli by the chin. He stared
into his eyes and in a firm, precise voice said, “If you ever screw
with me again, I’ll do a hell of a lot more than twist your
wrist.”
Garret came bursting into the Oval Office.
He’d been running back and forth between his office and the
president’s all morning, sneaking puffs of cigarettes and screaming
into his phone. He strutted across the room to where the president
and Dickson were sitting. “I’ve got great news; Moore is on board.”
The president punched his fist into the air, and all three men let
out a yell.
“Jim, I think we should postpone the press
conference until one P.M.”
“Stu, you know I hate postponing those
things. It’s just going to make us look like we’re
unorganized.”
Garret grabbed a fresh piece of paper and
leaned over the table. He wrote the number 209 in the upper
left-hand corner and 216 in the upper right. “We were at two
hundred and nine votes versus two hundred sixteen this morning.
Since then we’ve picked up Moore, Reiling, and one of those hicks.
They were all undecided, and we got Dreyer and Hampton to defect.
That’s minus two for them and plus five for us. That puts us at
two hundred
fourteen apiece.” Garret stood up and screamed, “God, I love this
tension. We’re going to win this damn thing.” The president and
Dickson smiled.
“I see where you’re headed with this,
Stu,” said the president. “You would like to turn this thing into a
little victory announcement.”
“Exactly. If we can wait until one, I
think Jack and Tom can pick up enough votes to give us a little
breathing room. Tom’s office has already leaked that Moore settled.
The rest of the gamblers will be making their deals as soon as
possible.”
The president looked up at Garret with a
smile and conceded. “Stu, do what you have to do to move it from
twelve to one o’clock, but try to be gentle with Ms.
Moncur.”
Garret nodded, then headed off to get the
job done. He would be about as gentle with Ann Moncur as a
five-year-old boy is with his threeyearold baby brother. He was in
one of his zones. Victory was just around the corner, and he would
do anything to win. He had no time for frail egos and overly
sensitive, politically correct appointees. He was on the front line
and they were nothing more than support people. It was always
amazing to him that the people who complained the most were usually
the ones who were trying to justify their jobs. The people in the
trenches never complained. They just continued to produce results.
Koslowski was like that. He didn’t care if it looked pretty or not,
he just made sure the job got done. Their new ally, Arthur Higgins,
was a producer. No bullshit, no complaining,
only results. He made a
mental note to thank Mike Nance, the national security adviser, for
setting that one up. God, did he do a nice job on Frank Moore. That
could be the one that put them over the
top.