Distraction - Bruce Sterling [76]
Oscar raised one forestalling hand, palm out. “Not that I’m suggesting any malice on the part of my fellow staffers! I’m just remarking on an obvious organizational truism—that it’s always easiest to hang the new boy.”
“Yes, it is,” Nakamura told him. “You’ve read the situation very well. But in point of fact, you’re not the only new boy on this committee.”
“No?”
“No. There are three new Senators on the Science Committee, and they’ve all brought in krewepeople. And the two other new boys have yet to show up physically for one single goddamn conferral. They’re logging in from the penthouse decks in Arlington, where they’re busy kissing ass.”
Oscar frowned. “That is not professional behavior.”
“They’re not professionals. You can’t depend on them. You can depend on me, and you can depend on Mulnier. Well, Mulnier’s not the man he was ten years ago—but if you’re straight with me, and if you mean well, and if you’re giving a hundred percent for this committee, well, you’re covered. You are covered, and you have my word on that.”
“That’s all I ask.” Oscar half stepped back. “I’m glad we’ve reached an understanding.”
Nakamura glanced at his watch. “And before we get started today—I want you to know, Oscar, your personal background problem is not at issue here. As long as I’m chairing this committee, I will not have that matter brought up.”
The Bambakias town house was on New Jersey Avenue, just south of Capitol Hill. Oscar arrived just as a media krewe was leaving. New Jersey Avenue was a very well monitored area. Civil disturbances were rare in this neighborhood, and its urban infrastructure was still sound. The house itself was a historic structure, well over two hundred years old. The house was too small for the Bambakias couple and their extensive krewe, but Lorena Bambakias was an interior designer in a crowded world. She had set herself to make allowances.
As a campaign professional, Oscar made it a firm principle never to cross the person who slept with the candidate. The candidate’s spouse was by necessity a major campaign player. Lorena was a player to the bone, but she was manageable, usually. She was manageable as long as her advice was always heeded with unfeigned attention and a straight face, and as long as she knew that she held big cards. Anyone who knew about Oscar’s personal background problem always assumed that they possessed a killer trump against him. This was all right. He had never placed Lorena in any situation where she would feel the need to play killer trumps.
The hunger strike had made Lorena’s eyes luminous, and her olive skin was so tight and smooth that it seemed almost laminated. Lorena was not an aristocrat—she was, in point of fact, the daughter of a Cambridge health-food chain-store executive—but the gauntness, and the expert video makeup, gave her the heightened, otherworldly glow of a Gainsborough portrait.
Weak with fasting, she was lounging on a scroll-armed couch of yellow silk.
“It’s good of you to take the time to visit me, Oscar,” Lorena told him, stirring languidly. “We rarely have the chance to really talk, you and I.”
“This place looks marvelous,” Oscar told her. “I can’t wait to see it when you’re done.”
“Oh, it’s just my work,” Lorena told him. “I wish I could say that this was exciting—but it’s just another damn design gig. I really miss the campaign.”
“Do you? That’s sweet of you.”
“It was so exciting to be with the people. At least we ate well then. Now … well, now, we plan to entertain. We’ll be the Senator and Madam Senator, and we’ll be living in this sorry dump for six long years, and we plan to cut a swath through high society.” She gazed about her drawing room, gazing at her newly peach-colored