The Candidate Read Online Free PDF Page B

head around the door to peer inside. Dee was sitting on the bar top, a whisky in one hand, holding court with a gaggle of staffers. They were giggling at one of her more lurid stories from campaigns past, like courtiers around a queen. Dee looked up and noticed Mike. She left her audience to pick up the pieces of the party without her for a moment, as she walked toward Mike. There was a swagger to her stride, just like some sort of cowboy. Mike smiled to himself.
    Dee thrust a beer bottle into Mike’s hands as he started to raise them in protest.
    “Don’t even think about not drinking it, buddy,” she said in a tone of voice that immediately forced him to put the bottle to his mouth. “We’ve got some celebrating to do. Latest poll news came out. Guess what? We’re up twelve points. Twelve fucking points!”
    Mike did some quick mental calculations.
    “Third place?”
    Dee shook her head.
    “Fourth. Stanton’s on 30 still. Then Grady and Shaw are on 20 apiece. But we’ve gone from virtually nowhere to 15. And our trend is upwards. We’re hot, Mike. We are HOT.”
    Mike swigged the beer and felt the cold liquid wash down his throat. But he had barely a moment to savor it before Dee carried on talking.
    “I’ve got some other news too. I’ve swung you an interview with our shooter. Tomorrow morning you go to Evansville jail. The prison governor is all sweet on Hodges and I told him giving us access was a personal favor. It’s not going to be a problem for you to get a bit of face time.”
    Dee stared at Mike and he nodded. Mike understood the sudden gravity of the task. “No problem.”
    “Good boy, Mike,” Dee said. “Find out everything you can. Remember, we stand in the way between the Senator and nasty surprises. That’s our job.”
     
    * * *
     
    THE PRISON guard leaned on the wall opposite Mike in the tiny interrogation room. He regarded the campaign worker with the look of a school boy examining an ant. Curious, half-disgusted, perhaps thinking of the effort it might take to squash him. He had a slab-like face that looked like it might have been cut deep from the winter ice in a frozen Iowa river.
    “So, you with the Hodges campaign, huh?” the man asked. “My boss likes him a whole lot. Seems to think he just might change the world.”
    Mike nodded. The man’s expression softened a little as he hitched up his belt, on which hung an array of keys, a set of handcuffs and a can of mace.
    “What do you think?” Mike asked.
    “I hadn’t heard of him until a week ago. But he seems like a good man,” the guard said. “Leastways, I’m glad he didn’t get shot.”
    Mike looked around him at the room, bare except for a table and two metal chairs. He had been waiting for someone to bring the prisoner to him for half an hour and he was praying there wasn’t a problem: that Dee’s links with the prison warden would hold up and nothing would go wrong.
    “She’s a strange one, though,” the guard continued. “She hasn’t said a word since she got here. Seems like a robot. Eats her food, does as she’s told, not a moment’s trouble. She just don’t say nothing.”
    “Not a word?” Mike asked. He tried making his voice sound casual.
    “Nope. Police think she’s just a crazy. Only lead they had was that she stayed a night in that flea-pit motel, the Havana, up on Route 55. But the place didn’t even ask her for a name. Apart from that she’s like a ghost.”
    “A ghost or something else? What do you think?” Mike asked.
    The guard looked at him warily, as if sensing some sort of trap. But he clearly liked talking about the mysterious prisoner and giving vent to his thoughts. He took a deep breath.
    “What do I think? I think she’s some sort of Indian. Off of one of them reservations out West. She sure looks like an Indian and God knows, they probably don’t keep records that much. The cops have one thing right, though. She’s crazy. Just take one look in her eyes and you see