The Race (47 page)

Taking it, Blair turned toward the podium, his face slack. In a strained voice, he responded, "Illinois passes."

"_That,_" Jeff Greenfield said on CNN, "is a shocker. What's going on, Candy?"

Standing in the aisle beside the Illinois delegation, Candy Crowley looked stunned herself. "At this moment," she answered, "I can't answer you precisely. But rumors have begun to circulate that Governor Blair will withdraw as Senator Marotta's choice."

"Indiana."

"Indiana," its chairman responded in a subdued and bewildered tone, "casts its fifty-five votes for Senator Marotta."

WATCHING FROM ABOVE, Hollis Spencer could see it happening: like a large and clumsy organism—Spencer thought of a dinosaur sending a message from its small brain to its tail—the convention was responding to a stimulus it did not fully comprehend. "The next harbinger," Jeff Greenfield said, "is Louisiana."

On his cell phone, Spencer asked his chief delegate handler, "What's the count?"

"Depends on Christy. If he goes to Marotta, it's over; if he holds on, looks like it's down to Illinois."

"What the hell are
they
doing?"

"Trying to take a head count. It's way fucked up down here."

"LOUISIANA,"
THE CHAIR called out.

"Here it comes," Dana said to Corey.

The head of the delegation, a minister himself, announced firmly, "The Louisiana delegation—committed to a nation under God, which respects the sanctity of marriage and human life in all its forms—proudly casts all forty-five votes for the personification of those values, Reverend Bob Christy."

Corey slumped in his chair. In a tone that hovered between wan and wry, he said, "Thank God."

"With this vote from Louisiana," Jeff Greenfield reported, "the sole remaining shoe to drop belongs to Governor Larkin."

The next states fell into line: first Maine, then Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Minnesota.

"Mississippi."

The state chair, Larkin's ally, crooned smoothly, "Mississippi votes for its favorite son, Governor Sam Larkin."

He still wants a job, Corey thought.

TWENTY-ONE MINUTES LATER, Corey watched as the chair called out the final state.

"Wy-o-ming."

On the corner of the screen, CNN's running total showed Marotta with 1,015 votes, Grace with 837, Christy with 109, and Larkin with 38.

"Wyoming," the chair of her delegation answered with a sense of moment, "casts all twenty-eight votes for the next president of the United States, Senator Rob Marotta."

"With that," Wolf Blitzer said excitedly, "Senator Marotta is within eight votes of winning the Republican nomination. And so this ballot comes down to Illinois, the home state of the senator's putative running mate, Governor Charles Blair. Under the unit rule, a single delegate can determine the vote of the entire delegation, and thus decide whether Senator Marotta will win on this initial ballot."

Agitated, Corey pushed the speed dial on his cell phone. "What's happening?" he asked Spencer.

"They're still voting, we think."

The camera closed in on the Illinois delegation. In its midst, Senator Drew Tully thrust a scrap of paper in Blair's face and wrested the microphone from his grasp. Swiftly, the picture switched to Lexie, impassive but for the slight parting of her lips; then to Mary Rose Marotta, fingering the cross dangling from her neck as her other hand clutched her oldest daughter's; then back to Illinois. In close-up, tears surfaced in Blair's eyes.

Corey's hand tightened around his cell phone. With his back turned to the governor, Drew Tully announced with evident satisfaction, "Illinois casts all seventy-three ballots for the candidate who will lead us to victory in November, Senator Corey Grace."

As the convention erupted in cheers and bitter catcalls, Corey bent forward. "_Yes,_" Dana shouted as Walters placed a hand on Corey's shoulder. "We're still alive."

"This," Wolf Blitzer said, "is one of the most dramatic, not to say unexpected, political moments in this reporter's memory. And it comes amid fresh reports—neither confirmed nor denied by Senator Marotta's communications director—that Governor Blair will be replaced."

"To say the delegates are confused," Jeff Greenfield added dryly, "fails to do justice to those who are catatonic."

On the podium, the chair of the convention huddled with the chairman of the Republican Party, an ally of Marotta's, as Blitzer continued: "The next development, it would seem, will be to call the roll for a second ballot. Candy?"

Reporting from the Illinois delegation, Candy Crowley looked somber. "The turnabout in this delegation, we now know, resulted from an Internet report detailing Governor Blair's alleged involvement in a homosexual affair."

"There won't be a second ballot," Corey said quietly. "Not tonight. Marotta's friends will pull the plug."

"Because of Blair?" Dana asked.

"Yup. They need time to roll out Costas and try to repair the damage while they work on Christy and Larkin. Either one will do—all Marotta needs is eight more votes."

Appearing flustered, the chair of the convention returned to the podium. "The convention is adjourned," she hastily announced, "until one P.M. tomorrow."

Reaching for his cell phone, Corey called Lexie Hart.

IN A DARKENED limousine, Corey rode with Lexie to a post-balloting party being held in a hotel ballroom. "Sure you want to do this?" she asked.

At the hotel, Corey saw, several stretch limousines were already massed in front, with others ringing the block. "I'd rather be alone with you," he answered. "But after tonight's near-death experience, I'm required to make a ritual show of confidence."

Lexie smiled. "Some would call that acting," she said, and kissed him.

SPONSORED BY A lobbying firm with close ties to the party chair, the event had been intended to serve as Marotta's victory celebration. It remained the hottest ticket in town, with numerous bars, tables of hot food, uniformed waiters passing drinks and hors d'oeuvres on silver trays, and an R&B band serving as the warm-up act for a famous comedian. Standing with Lexie at the entrance, Corey murmured, "Here we go."

Within seconds, their appearance sent a current through the revelers. A crush began to form around them, the crowd as avid to touch Lexie as Corey and overcome by the excitement of the moment. Looking as fresh and cool as though it were morning, Lexie touched hands and smiled into faces, making the small connections that those she met were craving. And then Sam Larkin stood in her path, grinning broadly.

Taking Lexie's hand, Sam held it longer than necessary. "A pleasure," he purred. "You leave me breathless."

Lexie laughed. "First you inhale," she advised him, "then you exhale. Pretty soon you'll be breathing just fine."

Larkin's eyes glinted with lascivious amusement; then he turned to Corey. "Damn near got voted off the island, boy. But for poor old Charles, you would've been. Looks like you'll be needing an ally."

With this, Corey felt any doubt about Larkin's role evaporate. "I certainly will," Corey said easily. "Or two."

A chill entered Larkin's eyes. Placing a hand on Corey's shoulder, he leaned forward for an intimate word. "Not much time left, Corey. I hear Rob's scheduled a press conference for ten o'clock tomorrow. That gives us about ten hours, mostly at night. One good thing is that I don't need much sleep."

Corey gazed into Larkin's shrewd face, wondering how it would feel to be at this man's mercy. "I need
some
sleep, Sam. Let's meet for breakfast."

As Larkin stared at him, slowly nodding, Corey's cell phone rang. Without taking his eyes off Larkin, he answered.

"Party's over," Dakin Ford told him. "I just met Mary Ella Ware."

AT FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING, ROB MAROTTA FOUND HIMSELF staring at the red illuminated numbers of a hotel alarm clock—unable to sleep, he was so weary that it felt like a fever coming on.

Mary Rose lay close to him, crowded by their daughter Jenny, who had once again commuted from another bedroom to theirs. But the presence of his wife and daughter did not make him feel less alone. On the eve of achieving his life's ambition, to be secured by the anointing of George Costas, Blair's public meltdown had filled him with a foreboding he could not name. The dynamics of this convention had too many moving parts—important things he did not know, human motivations he could not control, enemies he could not identify. Even the nearness of victory haunted him.

Eight votes, and he had not been able to get them—despite all he had done, for good or ill.

Larkin, who could have made him the nominee, was still holding out. Christy, who by now should have capitulated, had chosen to taunt him for a few more hours. And Corey Grace was still alive.

Grace. Always Grace.

Some men were lucky. Some, without deserving it, seemed to be God's favorites. Some, apparently defeated, seemed always to rise from the dead. Grace's navigator had died, but Grace had returned from Iraq. Had Grace come to Marotta's office a minute earlier, the terrorists would have killed him with the others; had he come a minute later ...

Marotta cringed at his own thoughts.

Looking across the body of a terrorist into Grace's blood-spattered face, Marotta had felt the wrenching certainty that he owed his life to a reflexive act of courage that he, in Grace's place, never would have performed. And so he had looked away as Magnus Price and nameless others worked to transform Grace from a hero to a traitor, all to make Marotta president. In this moment of searing honesty, Marotta understood why he despised Corey Grace so thoroughly—not just because he was arrogant, or handsome, or fortunate beyond any man's deserving, but because Grace's contempt for Marotta, his utter refusal to ally with him, surfaced Marotta's repressed contempt for himself. To wish Grace dead was insufficient; with a visceral longing more painful for its impossibility, he wished to banish Grace from his psyche. But Rob Marotta, the striver, would always feel inferior, forced by fate to do things that Corey Grace would never do, to know things about himself that no one else could know.

Are you awake
? he wanted to whisper to Mary Rose.

But what would he tell her? His opportunity to change the course of events was gone. It had been lost when he sent her home from South Carolina, knowing that things would happen that he did not wish her to see. Perhaps Mary Rose could love him because he hid the reasons she should not.

Rob Marotta, the striver, was alone.

So be it, then. In the morning, he would banish all doubts and fears, go forward with the relentless ambition that had brought him to this moment. The picture of confidence, he would appear with Costas, and then defeat Grace once and for all. He would finish what he had started.

In the silence, he listened to his wife's quiet breathing, envying her repose.

"YOU'RE REALLY GOING to do all that," Lexie said.

She sat up in bed, the sheets gathered around her to ward off the chill of the air-conditioning. His tie unknotted, Corey sat in a nearby chair. "If I can," he answered.

Her smile, the smallest movement of her lips, did not change her questioning expression. "That's a lot to pull off. Even if it's possible, how will you feel?"

Gazing into her face, Corey realized how precious, and perhaps how fleeting, it was not to feel alone. "I guess we'll find out, won't we?"

She let his tacit question, expressed by the use of "we," pass without comment. "I just want you to be okay," she said. "How much sleep have you gotten, baby?"

"None."

"There's room in here," she said, and pulled down the bedcovers beside her.

Undressing, Corey slid in next to her, holding her as he had that first night on Martha's Vineyard. "Remember this?" he asked.

"Of course I do," she answered. "Now go to sleep."

AT EIGHT FORTY-FIVE on Thursday morning, Rob Marotta was in Price's suite, preparing to meet George Costas in half an hour. On Rohr News, the videocams outside Charles Blair's hotel captured his departure. Blair tried to smile, a ghastly reflex; walking stiffly beside him, his wife looked drawn and mortified, already separate from him. Their two young children, a boy and a girl, appeared mystified, and the way Janet Blair grasped their hands seemed proprietary, an attempt to exclude her husband. Watching, Marotta felt a brief frisson. Blair's ruin was complete.

"I told him to leave," Price said. "Better for us that he's gone."

As Charles Blair slipped into the limousine, vanishing from view, Price's cell phone rang.

He listened intently, his body so still that it put Marotta on edge. Softly, he asked, "How could that happen?"

As Marotta studied his face, Price squinted as if emerging from darkness into glaring sunlight. "Don't talk to anyone," he ordered, and snapped his phone shut.

"Who was that?" Marotta demanded.

"Alex," Price answered hurriedly, and switched the channel to CNN.

It took a moment for Marotta to recognize the woman at the podium. "I'm Mary Ella Ware," she said, and Marotta felt himself go numb.

Standing beside Ware were Dakin Ford and a man Marotta did not recognize. "I came here this morning," Ware said in a halting voice, "to seek forgiveness from Reverend Christy.

"Early this year I was approached by a local lawyer, Stephen Hansberger, who asked me to volunteer in Reverend Christy's campaign. He said he knew I needed money, and that someone could provide me two thousand dollars a week. All I had to do was keep my eyes and ears open, and call a certain cell phone with any information that might help people who thought the reverend shouldn't be in politics."

When Marotta turned to him, Price's expression was less surprised than watchful. "I never knew who I was calling," Ware read on. "But each week two thousand dollars in cash came in the mail."

Good,
Marotta thought reflexively—no meetings, no checks for anyone to track. "One day ...," Ware began, and then her voice failed, forcing her to start again. "One day, this man told me I could make enough money to buy a house. When I asked him how, he said by putting Reverend Christy in a 'compromising position.'"