For All Their Lives (36 page)

“We're a hell of a team, the four of us,” Mac said, craning his neck backward to include Jeopardy. “The four of us against one old man. I do believe we just made an enemy.”

With an energy he didn't know he possessed, Mac mucked the horse stalls, all twelve of them. He seethed and fumed, cursed and moaned his circumstances. He was a man, the army said so, his birth certificate said so. He was a married man whose wife said he was a father. He dug the pitchfork into a bale of hay with a vicious thrust. All he wanted, all he had ever wanted, was to belong, to be loved. For a little while God smiled on him. Because it was wrong, it was snatched from him in the blink of an eye. How was he supposed to live with that? Did it mean he was supposed to return to Alice and pretend her infidelity didn't make a difference? That would be living a lie too. “What do You want from me?” he cried. “Tell me and I'll do it. Just help me get through this,” he pleaded.

Jeopardy whickered softly, alerting the dogs to their master's strange new behavior. They nudged him, begging to be stroked, which he did. He squatted down, and the dogs pressed close. They felt warm, silky. “Okay, if this is all I get, I can learn to live with it,” he muttered.

 

M
AC ENTERED
B
ILL'S
Bar and Grill at fifteen minutes past five. His eyes took in the three senators, two congressmen, and one cabinet member at one table. At a second table three truck drivers from the Sealtest Dairy across the street munched on pretzels and draught beer. The volume on the jukebox was low, but he could still hear Hoagy Carmichael's rendition of “Stardust,” Sadie's favorite song. The bar was crowded. He sat down next to Nelson Rockefeller, who was in town for the day, and discussed the weather for ten minutes until Benny arrived.

Mac held up his draught beer to toast Benny's vividly flowered shirt.

“I'm all yours,” Benny said, throwing his arms out to indicate he was a free man. “Snap me up, buddy, you might not get a second chance.”

Mac downed his beer. “I thought I snapped you up last night.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you also said you were going to wear a flowered shirt. I know silk when I see it.” Benny guffawed. “You're forgiven. I'm a communications expert, so why don't we start to communicate?”

Sadie took that moment to enter the bar, a vision in her salmon-colored dress, which swished against her knees. She waved airily to the patrons, but she threw her arms around Mac and Benny. “Do you want to go upstairs or sit at your table?”

Mac's eyebrows shot up questioningly. “It's your call. You're going to run this show,” he said to Benny.

“The table. I think better with noise. The kids and all,” he muttered. “I can't think when it's quiet.”

“Dinner?” Sadie asked. “Bill's favorite, corned beef.”

“Sure,” Mac said. Both he and Benny hated corned beef, but if they didn't eat it, Sadie threw it out with tears in her eyes.

“Didn't you find out anything on Bill?” Mac demanded as he fired up a cigarette.

“I think old Bill's six feet under,” Benny said under his breath. “You sure you want those private dicks to keep on with this? It's costing a damn fortune.”

“Yeah, I do. I don't care what it costs. Goddamn it, I want to know now. It's getting personal with me at this point. I thought you said you had a lead.”

“The last report said there were four possibilities. Two haven't panned out. The dick is working on the third as we speak. It doesn't look good. It's personal with Dominic Snedeker, that's the dick's name. His business claim is he always finds his man. His reputation is at stake. I'm telling you, old Bill isn't on this earth.”

“I think he is, and when we finally do find him, I'm going to bend him into a pretzel. When I'm done doing that, you can straighten him out.”

“I'll be back later. Call me if you need me,” Sadie said, setting two corned beef dinners down on the table. Her smile was all-encompassing as she walked about the room, touching one man's shoulder, bending to whisper something in another's ear, asking about family, always smiling. The patrons preened.

“Okay, let's get to it,” Benny said, washing the hateful taste of corned beef down with the last of his beer.

They talked far into the night.

Two weeks later, the
Star
carried the banner headline:
WAR HERO TO TRY FOR VIRGINIA SENATE SEAT
.

Those in the know in the nation's capital drew in their collective breaths and immediately chose up sides.

The owner of the Star, whose picture was third from the right in the second row of Sadie's picture board, swung his paper's support to Mac. It was whispered among the power brokers that Marcus Carlin considered the man's support of his son an act of treason to their friendship. They never spoke again.

The smart money, and there was plenty of it, was on Malcolm Carlin, who was running against an old Democratic warhorse in the primary.

Mac pulled up his socks, tightened his belt, squared his shoulders, and looked the public square in the eye. “If you send me to Washington,” he told the voters, “I will never lose sight of the fact that by voting for me you trust me to do what's best for our state. I won't let you down.”

 

I
T WAS
A
warm summer day in early June with blue skies and fluffy clouds when Alice Carlin waylaid her husband as he was backing his car out of the garage. “Mac, I need to speak with you.”

She looks pretty, Mac thought as he cut the engine. “Yes?” God, they were so polite to one another.

“First of all I want to apologize to you for not being at your side when you announced. Even though your father . . . said some . . . He started talking about Jenny and how children like her don't live long . . . oh, he said so many things, none of them worth the breath he used to utter them. I just want you to know I would have been there that day, regardless of your father, but Jenny was running a very high fever. I couldn't leave her. You probably don't care, but I had to tell you. He's done a complete turnaround, Mac. He's your enemy now. You ripped his world apart when you refused to run for governor. Then when you thumbed your nose at him and announced for the Senate . . . he's not accepting it gracefully.

“I'm on your side, Mac, whether you believe it or not. I can't campaign with you because of Jenny. She takes too much of my time, and I won't neglect her. I've agreed, if you're willing, to do one interview with pictures the day after tomorrow. It's scheduled for eleven o'clock, right before lunch. Is that okay, Mac?” she asked anxiously.

“Why?” Mac asked suspiciously.

“Because I don't trust your father. I feel . . . he intimated . . . he has . . . I don't know,” she said miserably. “I think it would be better for you and your campaign if I align myself with you. Not for me, but for you. It's the truth, Mac.”

For some strange reason, Mac believed her. “What can my father do now? Nothing, it's too late. He can bluster and blow smoke, but that's about it. He's my father, for God's sake. I think you're overreacting with that enemy business.” There was no need to tell her he'd thought the same thing not too long ago. “I'll do the interview with you, and yes, it will help. I appreciate it, Alice.”

“There's no need to say you live in the guest house, is there? I don't want to be humiliated, Mac.”

“I'll be at the house in plenty of time. I won't say anything. How's Jenny?” he asked coolly.

“Fine. She's doing fine, Mac. Thank you for asking about her. She asks about you all the time. Of course, I'm the only one who understands what she's saying. She loves the red ball you bought her. She . . . she isn't coordinated enough to . . . to catch it. Yet. Someday she will be,” Alice said positively. “I work with her every day. I'm sorry, Mac, I've kept you long enough. I know how busy you are. They say that every night on the news. I'll see you on Wednesday then.”

“Okay.” Mac pretended not to see the tears in his wife's eyes. Guilt washed through him. Alice's offer was so sincere, so genuine, it was hard not to like her. The thought jolted him. They were acting like
friends. That
thought jolted him more. He continued to back the car out of the garage. He found himself smiling into the rearview mirror. Imagine being friends with your wife.

 

W
HEN
M
AC WALKED
into his busy campaign office on Thursday morning, Benny and his volunteer workers, most of them Vietnam vets, were holding copies of the
Star.
“This is great!” Benny chortled. “This is better than great! How'd you get Alice to do it? This is a wonderful interview. This picture of you holding Jenny in the air is . . . it's nice, Mac. It's good copy. It's
real
copy. There's a difference.” Noticeably absent from the interview was a quote or statement from Supreme Court Justice Marcus Carlin, who, according to the paper, was unavailable for comment.

Benny immediately started to pick apart the interview, looking for the pluses and minuses. “I love this one where you say your three weeks of intense jungle training was spent in San Francisco due to a military snafu. I imagine the army's face is going to turn several shades of red and purple. I can't find one negative in this whole interview, and, man, they gave you some serious space here. Will Alice mind if we spread this about, you know, use it over and over again?”

“I don't think so, but she only agreed to do this one. I think the reporters understood. She let them know she was behind me one hundred percent, and that was all they wanted to hear. My father now. . . they pretty much glossed over that. One of them said sotto voce, ‘Judge who?' ”

“You're gonna win the primary, Mac. I can feel it in my bones,” Benny said gleefully. “Your father . . . he'll come around. Better to have a son in the Senate than one clipping coupons. A governor is just a governor. Lighten up, Mac, it's all going to work out just fine. Trust me, buddy.”

“The primary is just the battle, Benny. I have to win the war in November,” Mac said quietly.

“You will,” Benny said confidently. “It's time to go to work. Big smiles everyone!” He was pleased at what he called Mac's shit-eating grin. He
was
going to make it.

 

W
HILE
M
AC AND
his campaign workers were rejoicing over the news coverage, Judge Marcus Carlin was ringing Alice's doorbell. He stomped his way inside and said to Olga, “Get Mrs. Carlin and then get lost.” His tone was so imperious, so arrogant, the dour-faced Olga ran up the steps to the second floor and rapped sharply on her mistress's door.

“Tell him I'm busy,” Alice snapped, “and there's no need for you to get lost. My husband pays your salary. Never mind,” she said angrily, throwing on a gold-colored robe. She tied the sash so tight, she gasped. “Stay here, Olga,” she called over her shoulder.

“What is it, Marcus?” Alice snapped. “I don't like it when you come here and interrupt my day. I'm due to take Jenny for a hearing test, so let's make this quick.”

“I thought we were allies, Alice. After all I did for you,” the judge said ominously. “I didn't like that article in this morning's paper. You swore to me you could bring Mac around to our way of thinking. He's made a laughingstock out of me. And you permitted it. You swore to me you could bring him into line, and what happens? He comes home and moves into the goddamn guest house. So much for your wiles, Alice. Why didn't you tell me you weren't woman enough to hold Mac?”

Alice was speechless. “You're blaming
me
!” she cried out shrilly when she finally found her voice. “It was
you
! He hates you! You hate him! I'm not a miracle worker.
You
told me he would step into line. Those are your exact words, Marcus. You're the one with the power. Do something for yourself and stop bothering me. Get it through your head, I have no influence over Mac. He damn well does what he feels like doing. It was my idea to do the interview, not his. I owe him that much support.”

“You owe me, Alice,” the judge said.

“This is getting us nowhere, Marcus. Mac is running for the Senate. Someone else is going to be governor. Cut your losses. Throw in with Mac now before it's too late.”

“After the fact? That's not my style, Alice. I'd rather see him ruined. I can do that you know.”

“You wouldn't! He's your son! How can you talk like this?” Alice cried wretchedly. Overhead she could hear Jenny wailing. Alice hated pressure of any kind. He looks insane, she thought fearfully.

“Did Mac tell you about the Vietnamese woman's son, whom he's been trying to bring over here?”

“What are you talking about, Marcus?”

“Are you all going to live together, Alice? Will she be your housekeeper? Will the little slant-eye play with Jenny? That's rich, a retard and a gook.”

“I—How dare you! I think you should leave, Marcus. I don't want to hear this. You'll do anything to get back at Mac. That makes you a sick man, Marcus. Sick!” she screeched. Overhead Jenny wailed louder. Damn, now she was going to have to cancel the child's hearing appointment. Once Jenny got upset, there was no controlling her.

“Really. Take a look at these. Or if you don't want to read them, I can tell you what's in them. While Mac was still in Vietnam, he started on the paperwork to bring a woman named Lily Gia and her son Eric here to the States. The woman is dead now, but Mac still wants to bring her son here. It's all there, read it. If you aren't too stupid, you should be able to put two and two together and come up with the right answer. You came in a poor second, Alice. That doesn't say much for you, now does it?”