A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [143]
Quinn paled. “Is that why I’m doing this?”
“Yes.”
“I thought I had a grip on it.”
“You lied to yourself.”
Greer responded to a knock on the door with movements that had been polished over the years to gain and hold the observer’s attention.
“Professor Maldonado, I do believe.”
“Greer!”
Mal came in, bussed her slightly, and made for an inspection of the bedroom and bathrooms…and the big walk-in closet. “So, what brings you to Venice?” he asked on returning.
“The same thing that brought you,” she said.
Mal went right at their dinners. “The veal is like butter.” He had grown old lovely.
“What’s going on out there?” Quinn asked.
“A phenomenon,” Mal said. “I’m being contacted by several Democratic governors who are interested in your candidacy. The party is lining up quickly behind you.”
“Do not count Quinn as a shoo-in. T3 is no pushover,” Greer said. “He has done a masterful job of distancing himself from the Congress. Fewer and fewer people hold him responsible for Four Corners, particularly with this new humility, stiff back when the flag is lowered, occasional teary eye, and those gripping hugs to the parents. And Pucky Tomtree has done just as good a job.”
“They say that Darnell Jefferson has engineered it,” Mal said. “He and T3 are like non-identical twins. Whatever he’s done, the President has fought his way back.”
Quinn noticed a quick, mousy smile from Greer. “You run with that crowd,” Quinn said.
“Well, I did have an interlude with Jefferson a few years back, on Martha’s Vineyard. He was on a diet of white meat,” she purred.
“I thought Tomtree’s humility schtick was transparent,” Mal said, tossing down the tiramisu.
“People want transparent,” Greer shot back. “Look at the lineup of sitcoms. English not spoken here. Back up the garbage truck and carry off this week’s show. No! It’s worth billions in syndication. We recycle more shit in a year than the Chinese dump into their holes in a decade.”
“Yeah, get the children out of the room,” Quinn said softly. “Some kids today say ‘fuck’ so much they think it’s their middle name.”
Mal pushed his chair back, patted his feel-good stomach, and checked all the pitchers. The vodka looked promising.
“What we have shaping up here,” Mal began in a professorial manner, “is a recurring cycle. The human race is no less cruel, no less murderous than it was ten thousand years ago. Yet every so often it runs into a moral imperative that it has to overcome for civilization to advance. In America? The revolution against England was a moral imperative. The destruction of slavery was a moral imperative. The decision to fight Hitler and commence with atomic energy were moral imperatives.”
“You’re talking about Washington, Lincoln, and Roosevelt,” Quinn said, laughing.
“And maybe Quinn O’Connell. A great moral imperative ended in bleeding tragedy in Six Shooter Canyon. AMERIGUN isn’t going to roll over and die easily, but you’re the man who faced them down,” Mal said. “So how are you going to live with yourself without giving it every ounce of fight you have?”
“The nation is ready to do some serious gun control, and the people know they will have a tough-ass president taking it on,” Greer added.
“Thanks for sharing that with me,” Quinn said.
“Wait, there’s more,” Greer jumped in. “It’s nine months till the election, and you have no national, state, or local campaign machinery, no money, no endorsements. But you are the king of the hot-button issue. Can you take the lies and taunts? Can you lead? If you think you can, I want to play!”
“Thanks for your glorious offer, Greer, but, baby, the American people may not be as sophisticated as you believe, and this won’t fly.”
“That’s a point,” Mal mumbled.
“I resigned from Crowder Communications yesterday.”
Her thunderbolt knocked them speechless.
“What? How? You’re a married woman!” Mal said.
“Oh, I’ll bet Warren Crowder likes this,” Quinn said. “It will bring his illustrious lady’s career