A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [158]
Forty-second and Fortieth streets and Fifth Avenue held bumper-to-bumper privileged parking.
In the rear of the great edifice, running to the Avenue of the Americas, stood Bryant Park, a pocket park. Twice a year the fashion establishment raised a tent and models slunk down the runway. Cheers for Karan and Klein.
Beneath Bryant Park the greatest of treasures—an eight-story bunker held a trove indicating human existence on the planet, from cuneiform to Stone Age arrowheads, from the Gobi Desert to Newfoundland. All of it was here, awaiting visitors from space.
The tattered elegance of the kodakCELESTE BARTOS Forum had received a face-lift for the affair, her imposing glass dome shined to a glitter and four hundred temporary stadium seats installed.
The overflow of media had to cover the event piped back to the fujifilmJOHN JACOB ASTOR Ballroom.
Carter Carpenter, a hallowed father figure of the American media, had been resurrected to moderate the affair.
It was to be a wide-open debate, with the moderator stepping in only to preserve civility.
A buzz of anticipation hummed upward as the clock moved for nine. Outside, last-minute tickets, drawn by lottery, were hustled for over five hundred dollars each.
“Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats,” Carter Carpenter said authoritatively. Controlled applause greeted the governor and the president as they took to their rostrums.
For that instant Thornton Tomtree was glad he had let Darnell talk him into the venue. His lead over O’Connell had slipped from double digits to a single digit of nine percent.
Thornton, the stoic master of a great corporation, a gigantic figure, organized and in control, now showed an addition of tragedy—Lincolnesque. He had humanized himself, somewhat, since Four Corners, after slipping the mantle of blame and gaining sympathy for “taking responsibility, because it happened on my watch.”
On this night he’d be facing the gun issue as never before. He was ready.
Carter Carpenter explained the very liberal rules. “Mr. Tomtree will go first, as he won the flip of the coin.”
Tomtree’s opening statement said, in effect, “We are in midstream in several ways, leaving an old century behind and healing from a catastrophic event. We don’t change horses in midstream. Having ascertained that Four Corners was a national tragedy which demanded of every politician and every American, to accept his share of the blame…
“…what are we being offered in my place? A popular rodeo-style candidate who, in fact, is probably more at ease branding cattle.”
Quinn’s smile burped up to a short laugh. Tomtree pretended not to hear. Quinn knew what kind of brawl was coming up. Keep the powder dry for the last half hour, he told himself.
“The American people must not roll dice,” Thornton went on. “We must not mistake my opponent as a Western hero, the sheriff in High Noon. This is a reckless man whose claim to fame has come about through violence.
“In the AMERIGUN fiasco Quinn O’Connell put lives in danger a dozen times with tactics illegal in our system of justice.
“Do we want a shoot-’em-up-first president? Do we want to trust the future of our nation to a man whose finger is always on the trigger?”
Strong, strong stuff and only two minutes and thirty-two seconds had passed. “Mr. Tomtree, you have credit for twenty-eight seconds.”
Quinn slipped a high stool under him, found a comfortable position, and rested his arms on his podium, speaking without notes, as Carter Carpenter nodded that his time had begun.
“Thornton Tomtree has done an admirable job in the past year of helping us heal our wounds, but he has done an even more admirable job of salvaging his own reputation.
“The day on which Mr. Tomtree assumed office four years ago, the United States proliferated with a third of a billion guns, one for every man, woman, and child in America.
“Bogus militias had spread like pack rats in our forests and canyons and cities. Today, the White Aryan Christian Arrival claims nearly two hundred thousand followers, followers of Adolf