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thrill. People were counting on you. Now figure it out. And he would. He always did.
    “Hal’s emotional,” Paul said. “People understand he’s emotional. If I sue him, I’m giving him a platform to keep this in the news. Our last poll said we’re twenty up. With that kind of lead, you play house odds and don’t gamble.”
    “This guy doesn’t need a platform,” Crully answered. “He’s got a billion dollars.” Crully wore a white shirt that seemed bright as a headlight, with the cuffs still linked, and a rep tie snug to the collar. Everybody else, except the Communications people who often had to put on a tie for the cameras, worked in jeans. But Crully preferred to demonstrate he was still a marine. He spoke in a low voice and tried to show no emotion as he rolled that fucking pencil in his fingers. In Paul’s experience, the Crullys of the world came with two speeds. When he went home to Pennsylvania he probably spent two days crying over his mother’s grave, and seething about what a drunken lout his dad had been, and hating his brothers. And then he returned to work with the bloodless air of a hit man. “And there’s another problem.” Mark pointed his pencil at Ray, as a cue.
    “So I got a call,” said Ray. “Old pal. Another
alter kocker
like me. Street-word is Hal hired Coral Glotten to design an ad campaign.”
    “Saying what?”
    “Probably saying you murdered his sister. And it’s not like you’re running unopposed. Murchison and Dixon will figure out how to use this. They all will.”
    “Let’s see the ads,” said Paul.
    Crully again dropped the pencil.
    “Great,” he said. “How much time and money do you want to spend trying to un-ring that bell? You have no choice. This is an election. Elections are about myths, about making them think you’re a god, not a mortal. You know that as well as I do.”
    “Can Hal just do that?” Paul asked. “Spend a zillion dollars on ads?”
    “Probably,” said Raymond. “It’s not a coordinated expenditure. Not so far as we know. He’s an individual exercising his First Amendment rights. At least as long as there are five clowns on the Supreme Court who think that spending money is a form of unrestricted free speech.”
    “Besides,” said Crully. “Suppose it is illegal. You want to go to court? Or the Election Commission? Then Hal won’t need to pay for ads. He’ll just hold news conferences every day about how you’re trying to muzzle him. Reporters don’t like muzzlers. They always figure they’re next. But that’s the point: You’re going to court. The only question is when. So do you go now, when an innocent person could be expected to express his outrage? Or in three weeks when you’re just whining about how much money Hal’s spending calling you names? This isn’t a close call,” said Crully. He lowered his chin so that Paul could see the flat look in his fair eyes.
    Mario Cuomo said you campaign in poetry and govern in prose, but as far as Paul could tell they were both trips to the abattoir, just different entrances. Governing and running were both brutal, with plenty of bloodshed, veins you opened yourself and spears in the sides from your opponents. Politics was always going to be the war of all against all-which included the people who were supposed to be with you. Crully, for example, wanted Paul to win. But only so Mark could run even bigger campaigns. He didn’t really care about Paul’s family or the complex accommodations they had made for decades to live with the terrible fact of Dita’s murder. The truth was Crully had taken this job so he could sit out the catfight between Obama and Hillary. By May, when the runoff election for mayor was scheduled to take place, there’d be a clear winner in the presidential contest and Mark could jump onto that campaign, probably to run a swing state.
    “Fine, Mark,” said Paul. “I hear you, but Hal’s going to use this to drag every stray dog and cat into the