Elizabeth Adamson stood up, went over to Bickford, and took his hand in hers. “Jerry,” she said, “we wouldn’t be here without you. We don’t care what the media would do or say. We can deal with anything we need to deal with. You are the best friend either one of us will ever have, so the only thing that matters is what you want to do. If you’d like to run on the ticket, we want you to be there. And you will be. If you don’t we’ll support you however you want to be supported. A cabinet job now or in six months, an ambassadorship, whatever you like.”
He thought a long time before responding. Then, with a grateful, loving look at both the president and the First Lady, he said, “I want out. It’s best for you and it’s best for me.”
There was an awkward silence. Elizabeth was ashen. Tom Adamson looked deeply shaken by the definitiveness of Bickford’s words.
“I’d like to hold off on the announcement,” the vice president said. “I’d like to make it as close to the convention as possible.”
“Jerry,” Elizabeth said quietly, “if your mind’s made up, it’s better if we announce it quickly. We don’t want the voters going into the convention thinking that our choice for vice president was a last-minute one. We don’t want any unnecessary surprises. If you still think you might change your mind, we’ll wait until the last minute. But if—”
“My mind’s made up. And you’re right, of course. Any way you want to handle it is fine with me. It won’t make much difference to my life. I’ll be keeping a low profile until then, anyway, staying out of sight so I don’t scare little children and small animals.”
“What does Melissa think?” Elizabeth asked. “How terrified is she that you’re going to be underfoot now?”
“She’s excited. Thinks we can actually travel without having to plan the trips around a state funeral.”
“Well,” Adamson said, using gruffness to disguise his genuine sadness, “you’d better find me a replacement, you old coot. And try to find someone who’ll actually do what I want him to do, will you? Not like you, you stubborn son of a bitch.”
Bickford tried a smile but had to hide it behind his handkerchief. “I’ll try,” he said. “But I can’t promise anything. Who the hell’s going to want to work with you?”
The president drained the rest of his scotch and immediately poured himself another. As he raised the glass to his lips he saw Bickford staring at him. The vice president’s eyes were narrowed, and Adamson thought,
My God, he really does look old. Old and frightened
. Then he thought,
Hell, maybe that’s just what happens to you when you get old. You get frightened.
“If I may,” Bickford said slowly, “there is something else.” Adamson nodded and waited. Bickford hesitated, then continued. “We now know that
I’m
falling apart,” he said. “But it’s you I’m worried about, Tom. Something’s wrong.”
“Hell, there are a lot of things wrong, Jerry. My budget proposal’s shot to hell, the goddamn Iraqis are—”
“No. It’s more than that.”
“What then?”
“I don’t know,” the vice president said. “You seem preoccupied. Tense. I was watching you the other day when you were getting briefed for Netanyahu. You didn’t hear a word they were saying. That’s not like you, my friend.”
“I have …” the president began “… a lot of things on my mind.”
“When we were down at your mother’s, for her birthday party, you looked as wonderful as I’ve ever seen you. I even said, ‘You old son of a bitch, how can a president of the United States be so damned relaxed?’ But something’s happened since then. Something strange.”
“Tom hasn’t been sleeping well,” Elizabeth broke in. “For the last few weeks. His back’s been acting up. That’s all. Nothing stranger than that.”
“For God’s sake,” Bickford said to his old friend, “Why didn’t you say anything? I know what kind of agony that can be.”
“You know him,” Elizabeth said with a grimace. “Still thinks he’s sixteen years old. That he can just tough it out.”
“Well, I have to say that’s a relief,” Bickford said. “I’m sorry you’re in such pain, still …” He smiled, dabbing at the fleck of saliva that came with the effort. “Now I can go back to feeling sorry for myself and not have to worry about you.”
“You do know, Jerry,” Elizabeth Adams said, “that we love you very much.”
“Yes,” the soon-to-be ex-vice president said, “I do know that.”
* * *
“Why are we getting off here?” Carl wondered when Amanda suddenly and without warning pulled off the highway.
“We’re in Chapel Hill, that’s why,” she replied as she eased them through its leafy, prosperous outskirts into town.
Carl already knew this. He knew it because every store window on Franklin Street—from the Shrunken Head T-shirt shop to Sutton’s Drug Store—was colored powder blue, the official Tar Heels color. He knew it because when he was a junior, Cornell had made the pilgrimage down her for an early-season nonconference game in the Dean Dome. It had been a real nail-biter—Dean Smith’s nationally ranked team had edger out Big Red 90-44, although Carl had managed to dish out eight assists and hold Hubert Davis to thirty-two points. “So?”
“Have you by any chance watched the network news lately?” Amanda demanded. “Every single commercial is for denture adhesives, bladder control protection, Ensure, Cadillacs … are you with me?”
Carl gazed at her. When he was not in the best of moods—and for obvious reasons that was an understatement for his current state of mind—her leaps of logic could often elude him. Her charm, however, could not. How could anyone who had been driving all night look so delectable? He thought about asking her this question, then decided bettor of it. “Totally,” he replied. “I just have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“College students don’t watch TV news. They don’t read daily newspapers, either. The
Journal’s
latest focus group showed that they’re our toughest market. Current events bore them. They’re vastly more interested in listening to music, drinking, and chasing down members of the opposite sex.”
“I don’t blame them.”
“Be that as it may,” she said disapprovingly, “the residents of a college town are much less likely to recognize either of us than the people in some hick town out in the middle of—”
“Are you
sure
?” Carl broke in.
“Especially during summer school,” she added confidently, “when the only students who are here are football players or underachievers trying to make up classes they bailed on or flunked. And besides, what better place than a college town to find a store that rents out computer time?”
More and more delectable
, he thought.
They spotted what they needed almost right away. There was a huge Kinko’s right near campus that was open twenty-four hours a day. And Copy World was directly across the street. Both offered on-line rental time. Both were also hubs of morning activity, brightly lit, crowded with alert, fresh-faced students. Amanda idled out front a moment, peering at them warily. She did not appear especially anxious to put her theory about college students’ media apathy to the test. Carl was in total agreement. So they kept going.
On a narrow side street, tucked in between a unisex hair-cutting parlor and a stereo repair shop, they found what they were looking for. Virtual Coffee, Chapel Hill’s local cybercafe, was dimly lit, grungy, and nearly deserted at this hour. On-line rentals were ten dollars an hour, according to the hand-lettered sign in the smeared window.
She pulled over out front, parked, and opened her door. She saw Carl reach for his door handle and said, “Do you think that’s a good idea?”
He hesitated, peering in at the coffeehouse’s denizens. There were only two of them, and both appeared to have their foreheads glued to their terminals. “If I don’t get out of this car soon, I’m going to turn into a pretzel. Not the soft kind, either. The hard, crunchy kind that you break your jaw on when you bite into them.”
“Does that mean you’re coming in?”
“I’m coming in,” he said. He could tell that didn’t sit well with her, so before she could get out of the car, he reached out for her. He was just going to explain, to make her understand that he had to do something, that he couldn’t just passively sit still anymore. But it was a mistake. He shouldn’t have touched her. He felt the charge, and he was sure she felt it, too. It was as if an electric current were running between the tips of his fingers and her skin. They sat facing each other, the silence overwhelming. It seemed like hours to him but must have been mere seconds. His eyes searched hers questioningly, but he received no answers—not unless slamming a car door counted as an answer. He watched her jerk away and practically run inside the store-front. He followed her, groaning from the stiffness in his lower back.
Virtual Coffee was a typical, no-frills campus coffee house where students could hang out and talk to each other. The only thing a bit unusual about it was that none of them were actually occupying the same physical space while they conversed. There were a dozen or so computer terminals of varying ages and brands, all of them well worn. There were mismatched tables and chairs that looked as though they’d been left out on the street for someone to haul away. Some were held together with silver duct tape. One appeared to have been a car seat in a previous life. There were flyers tacked to bulletin boards on the walls, which were covered with graffiti. There was a coffee bar with stools, behind which a cadaverous, goateed, neo-hepcat sat glued to a tube of his own. An old Dave Brubeck jazz album,
Time Out
, played softly in the background.
It was, Carl concluded, a most unusual clash of decades—Dobie Gillis meets the Jetsons.
Amanda arranged for the use of a terminal from the Maynard G. Krebs look-alike behind the bar while Carl sat in front of a scuffed, vintage Mac LC, keeping his face close to it as a shield from the other customers. Both were young men. One, dressed in a camouflage suit and unlaced running shoes, was locked into some form of on-line video combat. The other, with stringy hair down to his waist, was engaged in a furious, finger-flying cyberdebate. Neither appeared to be aware that he and Amanda had even walked in.
She joined him, carrying two espressos. She handed one to him and pulled up a chair. “Shaneesa should be in the newsroom by now.” And then she went to work.
Carl read over her shoulder as Amanda sent Shaneesa Perryman the following message:
[You fucked up the obit, girlfriend. I was NEVER head cheerleader - that was Devon Brown.]
Now they waited for a response, sipping their coffee anxiously. A minute passed. And then another. Amanda started tapping her fingers impatiently. Carl started to walk away, but he heard Amanda’s pleased little gasp of air and returned to look at the screen. The message was there, as plain as could be:
[Whoever you are, this is a bad, mean joke.]
Amanda, nodding, a little smile on her face, let her fingers fly over the keyboard.
[It’s not a joke. And what do you MEAN I don’t look good in purple?]
The response came back quicker this time, as if Shaneesa had recovered from the shock and was able to move at her usual warp speed.
[This can’t be happening … you’re dead!]
[Am not. Wasn’t home. Thanks for the kind words, though.]
[Girl, where are you?]
[Whoa. First things first. Is your system safe?]
[The safest, you know that.]
[Who can access it?]
[Not a soul other than this little ol’ cybergeek.]
[How certain are you?]
[God my security so tight it’d be pointless for the good Lord himself - or even Steve Jobs - to try to crack it. Drives the suits here crazy. You talk to me on this machine, you’re talkin’ to me alone. So, I repeat, where are you?]
[You’re better off not knowing. And we’ll have to make this fast. And STRICTLY between us. Not a word to ANYONE. Cool?]
[Cool. You’re not alone, am I right?]
[No comment.]
[God, am i digging this. It’s love on the run. You two are freakin’ it again, am I right? Please don’t disappoint me.]
“I’m beginning to like this woman,” Carl interjected.
“Shut up,” Amanda snapped, her cheeks mottling. She answered:
[Get your mind out of the gutter. And now is not a good time for this discussion. We’ve got serious business.]
[Okay, okay, only, check, do I get the story?]
[This is a life-or-death situation. How can you think about the story at a time like this?]
[You trained me well.]
[It’s yours.]
[Then use me, girl.]
[I need the biggest Elvis fan in the world.]
[Which Elvis?]
[Presley, duh.]
[Which one, duh? They have subspecies - young Elvis, Hollywood Elvis, Vegas Elvis, fat Elvis, dead Elvis …]
[The 1955 Elvis.]
[Gimme five. And your credit card numbers.]
[What for?]
[The Harry and David catalogue’s been after me to join their Fruit of the Month Club. Now seems like a perfect time. Just give ’em to me, will ya? And don’t ask why - unless you want me to start askin’ some questions of my own.]
Amanda sent Shaneesa the numbers of her American Express and Visa cards. Then they waited for her to get back to them. Amanda sat stiffly, leaning forward, her hands locked around her knees, her eyes never leaving the screen. Carl sipped his espresso, glancing around. He did not like what he saw.
“Don’t look now,” he said to her under his breath, “but that guy behind the counter is staring at us.”
“We’re almost done.”
“Time for the
Journal
to get a new focus group, because he also happens to have a newspaper in front of him. Let’s get out of here.”
“In a minute,” she said tensely.
“He’s looking over at the telephone …”
“We’ve
got
to get her answer.”
“Amanda, let’s go.”
“We need another minute!”
“Look, maybe he’s thinking of calling his sainted mother, for all I know, but maybe he’s not. And—”
“Here we go. She’s back.”
Carl looked at the screen. Sure enough, Shaneesa’s new message was appearing.
[You want Duane and Cissy LaRue, Miller’s Creek Road, Hohenwald, Tennessee. Fairly certain they fit your specs.]