A God in Ruins - Leon Uris [89]
“My daddy, God rest his soul, told me, ‘Darnell, take care of that white boy. He’s major.’ Lord Thornton, am I really standing here? Will everything turn into a pillar of salt?”
“I came to tell you something very important. You’d never guess.”
“Well, let’s see, it’s almost ten years ago that you creamed Senator Garbowski and became the big enchilada in Internet regulation. Our guest list on this pleasure boat controls a very large percentage of the national Republican apparatus. There’s a conga line of Baptists who can swing the balance of power in seven Southern states. Mr. Jefferson here is the number one exhibition in the black community. You’re fixing to run for president of the United States. You’re laying the groundwork for the election of 2004.”
Thornton blinked and gaped.
“Does Pucky know?”
“I just told her. She said it should be great fun.”
“You’ve sure got your ducks lined up. Your recognition factor is right up there with Madonna, Seinfeld, and Saddam Hussein. You’re holding IOU’s from a lot of powerful folks.”
“Because you alone have understood and have conducted the most brilliant public relations campaigns in American history, I want you to stay on for this. The media is our key to a nomination.”
“There are too many correspondents, too many networks and mini-networks, and too many supercable stations, too many news-slurping sources, and those panels of experts reciting their dreary litanies. So, they dig lower and lower in the Dumpster.”
“You’ve outfoxed them, Darnell, and kept them sympathetic to me for over a quarter of a century. The American people will never have a scandal involving me. I am cleaner than Nixon in bed. And the public doesn’t give a fiddler’s fuck about who is between the sheets with their leader, so long as the economy is good. Besides, the media is still recovering from the Starr-chamber years of Clinton’s second term.”
“Oh, they’ll recover real fast for a presidential candidate. Scoop! Thornton Tomtree makes the Guinness Book of Records. He was masturbating at two years of age. However! He lied about it later and subordinated perjury and those are mortal sins, rickety, tickety, tin.”
“How much are we spending on this party?” Thornton asked.
“You know. With the gifts, the employees blowout in Pawtucket, chartering this little rowboat for over three thousand of your closest friends. We must be in close to twenty million.”
“Don’t you get it, Darnell? This party allows me to spend twenty million non-campaign dollars and get a four-year running start.”
“I figured that out.”
Now silence between them. As the noise grew in decibels to shattering, the river hopped. Ashore, the tall shafts of buildings seemed to sway—blinding, deafening. There only seemed to be Thornton and Darnell in the quiet darkness at the railing of some ship.
The din and blasts and blinding light shower found its way to the nasdaqTRADER. Darnell Jefferson clamped his hands over his ears and turned his eyes away. President Tomtree and “Uncle Tom.” It’s all flipped over. Listen, listen, he thought. The world is going mad.
Chapter 23
TROUBLESOME MESA—EARLY EVENING
DECEMBER 31, 1999
State Senate Minority Leader Quinn Patrick O’Connell braked the Sno-Cat and squinted through the swishes of the windshield wiper. His son, Duncan, jumped out of the Cat and sank down to his waist in snow.
His sister Rae operated the searchlight from inside the vehicle. Duncan came to the short log bridge and shoveled around, examined it, tested its weight-bearing capacity, then returned to the car. He opened the door, allowing a blast of frigid air to come in with him.
“Dad, the bridge looks solid to me.”
Quinn thought aloud. “We’ve got an awful heavy load in here. I think we’d better unload and sled the supplies over.”
This was a little conservative for the children, but Quinn always played on the side of caution when it came to them.
“Three sled loads should empty the cargo.”
The four of them worked like old packers filling the sled and, with two on the front and two on the rear, pulled it over the bridge,