Madison and Peshke laid out the polling numbers (Snow still held a six-point lead over Willie Bryant), the fundraising stats (Snow had 2.2 million in the till to Bryant’s 1.3), and the projected television buys for the final days of the primary. Through it all, Governor Snow remained largely silent, offering only tepid words of encouragement as his eyes were glued over everyone’s heads. The liquor was flowing as usual—these people were remarkably good at staying focused through booze—but the governor had abstained.
An hour passed quickly. When I checked my watch, I realized it was coming right up on ten P.M. Two hours left. If I was following Chris Moody’s direction, I was supposed to be engaging the group, but primarily the governor, in discussions of the illegal things we were doing. But I stayed silent. I was watching the governor, trying to read him, hoping—I realized it now, hoping—that he wasn’t the person the federal government thought he was.
“Tomorrow,” said Madison. “Eight A.M. is the prayer breakfast at Newport Baptist. Nine-thirty is the domestic violence shelter over on Boughton. Ten-thirty’s the signing ceremony for the autism insurance bill. At eleven-thirty we file the appointment for Judge Ippolito and issue the press release. Pesh has the release and he has the informational that Jason wrote up that Pesh played with a little.”
So Chris Moody had been correct—the Ippolito appointment was happening tomorrow. That meant that Moody had managed to get in place some additional surveillance that didn’t include me. He probably had numerous sources now. It must be killing him that he’d have to abort now and make the arrests. I wondered if that was really going to happen. Moody had indicated that tonight
might
be the last opportunity. I couldn’t trust him. I couldn’t trust anybody.
“Noon is the funder with Senator Loman,” Madison continued. “Then we fly to Summit County for the ICBL rally—”
“Hang on,” said the governor. He got out of his chair and began to pace. “I want to go over Antwain Otis one more time. One more time.”
The governor’s aides collectively deflated.
“Pesh, you first. Go ahead.”
I assumed Peshke was distressed, judging from our prior conversation, but he was smooth as silk. “A violent crime. Senseless murders. Nothing in terms of mitigating what he did, Governor. He robbed a store and then fired into a crowded sidewalk and street. Senseless and brutal. Yes, he’s got that ministry thing, but Governor, you know what everyone will say. That’s a song everyone’s heard before. You’re caught dead to rights and so you find God.”
“It seems like he’s sincere,” said the governor. “I mean, did you read those affidavits?”
“Yes, and I’m not—I’m not saying he’s not sincere. Maybe he is. But I’m talking about the perception, sir. You’re a Democrat. You’re already soft on crime compared to the GOP challenger, no matter what you do. No matter what. Commuting his sentence will be a tremendous gift to Edgar Trotter in the general.”
When it was clear that he was done, the governor nodded at Madison.
“You can’t commute his sentence, sir,” she said. “You might be able to get away with it if his guilt were in doubt. That’s what the death penalty opponents always talk about. Unfair trials. Miscarriages of justice. Coerced confessions. None of that’s present here. Everyone knows he’s guilty. What he did was ruin a family. The turning-to-God stuff? Pesh is right. That’s the same-old, same-old. Maybe if this wasn’t an election year. Maybe. But if you commute his sentence, you might as well be saying that you’re opposed to the death penalty. If you won’t permit an execution when the guy is dead-to-rights guilty and his crime was a double murder of a pretty young mother and her toddler son, then you won’t
ever
allow one. That’s how it gets painted, sir. You don’t want to run in the general as being opposed to the death penalty. But that’s exactly what you’ll do.”
The governor nodded. I could see this was helping him. He seemed to be relieved. “Hector,” he said.
Hector cleared his throat. “I pretty much agree with everything that’s been said. But keep in mind, Carl, you still have a primary. Don’t be so sure Willie Bryant doesn’t run ads downstate of a pretty young white lady and her little white boy next to the mug shot of this tough-looking black guy that gunned them down.”
I was glad that someone brought up the racial thing. Hector, being the only nonwhite in the room, probably felt most comfortable saying it.
“That’s very true,” Peshke agreed. “
Very
true.”
“Mac?” the governor said.
“I’m just thinking of what Hector said, those ads. The union guys? Y’know, we got SLEU and ICBL—we’re getting their money and their people on the ground. But those rank-and-file members? When they go into the polling booth, last I checked, it’s still a secret how they vote. Those union boys, they’re not so liberal on things like the death penalty. Those ads would work downstate. If Willie’s polls are the same as ours and everyone else’s, he’ll have nothing to lose in the last few days.”
“You pick up a grand total of zero votes if you cut this guy a break,” said Madison. “But you’ll lose votes. And not just downstate. You’ll lose some in the city, too. It’s a net loss. And for what? I mean, if you’re going to have a death penalty, this guy deserves it.”
The governor rubbed his hands together. “Charlie, you wanna say anything?”
Charlie shrugged his shoulders. “Sounds like a net loss. I can’t disagree with anything I heard.”
“Okay. Okay.” The governor breathed a heavy sigh. It was clear that the governor had heard all of this before. He wasn’t asking for a debate. He was asking for reassurance, for confirmation of a decision he’d already made. “That’s all for tonight, everyone. I need some alone time.”
Where there would normally be a quick reaction—
sure, Governor, see you bright and early
—there was a pause. But Madison stood up and then so did everyone else.
“Jason,” said the governor, “I’d like you to stay.”
91
THE GOVERNOR GRABBED A BOTTLE OF WATER FROM
the refrigerator and offered me one, which I declined. He kept his distance from both me and the black telephone in the corner of the room, preferring the safety of the picture window.
“Lang Trotter, before he left to become AG, he told me there is never a time when you feel more like a governor than when you have the black phone. He had two on his watch. Two executions. He said you never forget these nights. Now I know what he meant.” He looked at his watch. “This guy’s going to die in an hour and forty-five minutes.”
“Is he?” I asked.
He looked at me a moment before breaking eye contact. The last time the two of us were alone, it didn’t end so well, and it was a fresh memory, having happened only last night. So far he hadn’t acknowledged it, delegating the task to Hector, which was fine with me.
“Is he?” I repeated.
The governor glanced back at me, inclined his head a click, just enough to show what he thought of my perceived naïveté. “I didn’t pull the trigger. I didn’t prosecute him. I didn’t convict him, and I didn’t sentence him to death. People who know a whole lot more about Antwain Otis and his crimes did those things.”
“True.”
“I’m a safety valve. I’m there in case there’s some reason to think, after all the legal process is done, that something is way off. And nothing’s way off. Fair trial. No question of guilt.”
He’d thought about this more than I’d realized. I’d begun to stereotype him as a soulless politician and nothing more.
“Then why am I here?” I asked.
He smiled, even laughed to himself. “Right.”
“I don’t do politics, Governor. You have people who do that, and they’ve told you what they think. And I have to say, I can’t disagree with them. On the politics.”
He drank from his bottle and fidgeted. This couldn’t be easy for him, no matter how assured he was of the decision.
“You know what they call me down in the capital?” he asked. “You probably don’t, do you?”
I shook my head, no.
“The ‘accidental governor.’ I’m not supposed to be here. I’m not one of them. I’m not entrenched. They don’t want me. They want one of their own. They want Willie, because Willie’s someone they know. He’s been down there for twenty years. I’m talking about Democrats, too, not just the GOP. Nobody down there wants me.”
I hadn’t heard any of that. I was completely unplugged from capital politics, and I was sure that I was the better off for it.
“But you know what I am? Accidental or not, I’m the governor. And I’m the only Democrat who can win this thing. Willie can’t win. I mean, we’ve had two Democratic governors in this state over the last thirty-five years. We like Republicans for our governors. The only Democrat who can win is the incumbent, and that’s me. I’m the incumbent because everybody calls me Governor. “
He pointed at the black phone. “I do this—those guys are right. I might as well declare that I’m against the death penalty. Edgar Trotter or whoever comes out of the GOP primary will crucify me with this. I’ll be a pussy liberal Democrat.”
I rested my elbows on my knees and thought about that. I wasn’t sure he was giving voters enough credit. But then, I didn’t live in his political world. You run enough negative ads on one issue, it probably sinks in. It sticks.
Carlton Snow, soft on crime. Look at this beautiful white woman and her child, murdered by this black thug gangbanger. Carlton Snow let him off the hook!
“You’re the governor,” I said. “Our constitution gives this power to you, without limitation. You’re supposed to do what you think is right.”
“What I think is
right
? Is that how you see the world, Jason?” He had turned on me. Something inside him had been stirred. “I get elected by people who want me to do things a certain way. So I do them that way. Do I get to do some things I care about? Yeah, sure I do. Health care for kids, for one. You pick your spots. But you can’t do those things—you can’t be a good governor unless you’re governor.”
The motto of this administration. He wasn’t entirely off the mark, of course, but it depended on your perspective.
“When is enough enough?” I asked. “How much bullshit do you have to swallow to do the things you care about?”
The governor placed his palm on the window, like he was testing the outside temperature. “Good question.”
“Yes, it is,” I said. “I mean, Judge Ippolito, Governor. Judge George Ippolito. The guy you’re appointing to the supreme court tomorrow?”
The governor pondered his hand for a moment. “You don’t approve. But people want him. I’m doing what people want. Supporters.”
“Gary Gardner wants him. And he’s willing to trade a union endorsement for it.”
Governor Snow turned to me. His lips parted but he didn’t speak. “Who said that?”
“
Who said that?
That’s exactly what’s happening, Governor.”
He looked away from me, otherwise immobile. I was having trouble reading this thing. Was he telling me that he didn’t know?
The governor wagged his empty bottle and went to the fridge for another. After pulling a fresh, sweaty bottle out, he looked at me. “Sometimes I don’t need to know all the details,” he said. “Sometimes I don’t want to.”
“You didn’t know,” I said.
The governor came over and sat in the chair across from me. “Did I know that people supporting my candidacy wanted him? Yes. Did I know exactly how that played out? That’s not my job. That’s a detail. Because it’s all the same.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Sure it is.
Sure
it is. My actions respond to what voters, what
supporters
want. I get support from gun-control advocates because they know if a concealed-carry bill comes before me, I’ll veto it. If I don’t do what they want, they don’t support me. That’s wrong? That’s how it works.”
“But not an under-the-table deal, Governor.”
“Oh, really?” He drew back. “What is the freaking difference, Jason? Really. See, here’s what you don’t get. Here’s what you don’t get.” He framed his hands in the air. “You get elected governor by showing people you want it. That’s how it’s supposed to be. You have to really want it. You have to be willing to make sacrifices. You have to cut deals. Sometimes do things you don’t want to do. If you aren’t willing to do those things, then you don’t want it bad enough, and you
shouldn’t
get it. People
want
their politicians to scratch and claw to get the job.”
“You don’t think people want you to pick the best possible judge to sit on the supreme court?”
“They may want it, but they don’t expect it.” He took a long swallow of water. “They expect me to make a political judgment. They expect me to try to please my supporters.”
“And you think that if they knew how George Ippolito got on the bench, they’d be okay with that? A side deal for a union endorsement?”
He sat back in the chair, crossed his leg, and smiled. “They don’t want to know,” he said.
I pulled on my tie, feeling a little hot and bothered at the moment. I wasn’t sure what I was doing here. Chris Moody, were he listening to this in real time, would be having a heart attack. The last thing he’d want is for me to talk the governor out of appointing George Ippolito to the supreme court. I realized that I was giving the governor some rope here. But I wasn’t sure why. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see if he’d hang himself with it, or if I was trying to decide whether to call off the hanging altogether.