Do You Want to Know a Secret? (45 page)

Eliza’s rental car
pulled across the acres of white hot parking lots that surrounded the fifteen-story Astrodome. The structure resembled a gigantic gray alien spaceship plopped down in a sea of asphalt. Eliza could picture little figures with antennae and silver space suits disembarking through the dome’s wide metal doors. Huge red, white and blue banners hung in front of the spaceship and state flags lined the walkway to the main entrance.

The Houston Astros, the Dome’s usual summer occupants, had been banished for nearly a month while it was readied. Bats and balls were replaced with the nuts and bolts required for converting the structure into a convention hall.

Literally nuts and bolts—120,000 of them. Huge grids holding thousands of lights hung from the ceiling and nets constraining 225,000 red, white and blue balloons were fastened to the top of the dome. Any evidence that baseball had been played in the space was banished. The scoreboards, billboards and advertisements that plastered the inside of the stadium were covered. An 88-foot podium had been constructed, with Haines Wingard’s lectern positioned where second base usually rested. Behind the podium, a 570-foot-long blue curtain sealed off about one third of the stadium’s 55,000 seats in an effort to make the massive dome seem more intimate.

The Astrodome transformers had worked their magic well. The backdrop for Senator Wingard’s official nomination and formal acceptance of his party’s candidacy for the nation’s highest post was powerful, patriotic and presidential. Eliza took a deep breath as she entered. It was spectacular! Even the most jaded journalist would have to admit that the convention hall was very impressive indeed.

Most of the 15,000 journalists who were covering the convention were stationed in a workspace set up in the adjacent Astrohall. Five hundred thousand square feet, about fourteen football fields, had been set aside for the broadcast and print reporters, producers, editors, researchers, columnists and managers who poured in from across the country and from around the globe to observe and report on the political spectacle.
Time, Newsweek
, the Associated Press, Reuters and Knight-Ridder hung out their identifying flags in front of their flimsily partitioned encampments. The
Wall Street Journal
worked across the way from the
Chicago Tribune
which abutted the
New York Times
. The
L.A. Times
, the
Boston Globe
and the
Baltimore Sun
were neighbors. A large area was reserved for foreign broadcasters. KEY shared a hallway and bathrooms with CBS, ABC and CNN. C-Span and NBC occupied their own sizeable portions of the Astrohall maze. The networks, though visible, were far from the only television representation. Local stations from throughout the United States had sent their own reporters and crews to give the convention a hometown perspective.

Wearing her mandatory-for-survival running shoes, the sneakers that would be on her feet all week, Eliza made her way from the Astrodome to the Astrohall and the KEY work area. She couldn’t help but appreciate the logistics and planning that went into the operation of this gargantuan machine called a convention. Once the banners were down and the cables ripped up at the end of the week, the planning would begin for the next convention four years ahead.

Eliza showed her press pass to the security guard at the entrance to the KEY area, realizing that he did not recognize her. Perhaps it was because her face was makeup-less or because she wore khaki walking shorts and a T-shirt. She was not particularly offended. The guard did not look like the type who rose early to watch morning news.

The KEY workspace had been designed as a small-scale broadcast center with areas for special events, finance and senior management. A closed section was marked off as a private office for Yelena. There was a correspondents and producers room, a crew room, and offices for the
Evening Headlines
and
KEY to America
. A central news desk had easy access to computers, copiers and fax machines. In the rear of the workspace, six editing rooms had been set up with equipment shipped from KEY in New York. A videotape library, a conference room and food service area completed the self-contained headquarters.

Pete Carlson was the first person Eliza saw. Ugh. She hoped this wasn’t an omen for what the rest of the convention would be like.

“Nice setup, hey, Eliza?”

God, he was so obvious in the way he stared her up and down. Creep.

“It looks that way, Pete,” she answered unsmilingly. “Have you been over to the Dome yet?”

“Sure have. Looks good. I’m on my way over there for a rehearsal right now.” Not wanting to sound tense, he added, “I sure hope they get the air conditioner to work inside the anchor booth.”

“I’m sure they will, Pete.” She couldn’t bring herself to wish him good luck and she was mad at herself for feeling the least bit sympathetic toward the snake. He was prime-time anchoring a national political convention for the first time. Though his ratings had edged up a bit in the last weeks, it was crucial that he deliver this week. The heat was on.

Sap! Don’t feel sorry for Pete Carlson. He’s been happy to screw you any way he could. Eliza considered what made a guy so sneaky and mean. Ambition? Insecurity? Probably both. But Pete had shown his true colors to Eliza when he sabotaged her in the live studio Q and A. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

If Pete Carlson knew about Bill and Joy, he could break a very sensational story and his ratings would be assured. Then it occurred to Eliza that, as anchor and managing editor of the network’s flagship broadcast, Carlson might well have been told by Range or Yelena. And if that was the case, she couldn’t imagine Carlson keeping it to himself. He could make a big splash with the news of the Bill Kendall–Joy Wingard love affair. No, he wouldn’t keep that to himself. Not unless he had something to gain by not reporting it.

Chapter 102

It was getting
harder and harder to do what he needed to do. The doorknockers, at least the kind he needed, were becoming increasingly more difficult to find. Were people catching on? Was there a plot to stop attaching his beloved animals to the formidable front doors of Manhattan town-houses? That thought depressed him further.

He didn’t ask for much. He loved his animals, and adding to his menagerie was the only pleasure he got. Besides, he only did what he was told. It had been almost two weeks since he’d found a new pet. Several new knockers had sprung up in the blocks he covered. Rosettes and dogwood blossoms, iron rings and brass ropes, even two sweethearts, their kiss captured forever in metal. But no new animals guarded their masters’ homes.

The man shuffled along slowly, discouraged, pushing his overstuffed cart. It was a hot night. He knew he had too much clothing on for July, but he was always cold. A trash can was up ahead, a chance for something to eat, or some cans and bottles he could trade for some money. He rummaged through. Someone had already been here. These days, there was even competition for garbage.

He glanced at a discarded newspaper. There was a picture of a man and a woman, smiling and waving from the top of a stair leading to an airplane. Underneath the picture, it was proclaimed that Haines and Joy Wingard had arrived in Houston, Texas, for the national political convention. Big deal. It didn’t and wouldn’t affect his life. No matter who became president, he’d still be homeless, wandering the streets.

He continued on his urban safari.

Two blocks later, his heart leapt. A shiny brass longhorn stared defiantly from a green lacquered door! He’d never done a longhorn bull before. The thought of those horns ignited the first pleasure he had felt in a long time. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When they opened, his eyes traveled to the small space next to the front stoop.

There was a spanking white wall.
A WET PAINT
sign was taped to the railing above, with an arrow pointing down.

“Tit for tat. Tit for tat. Spray them a longhorn, this for that.”

The homeless man found his spray-paint can buried deep within his plastic bag, and the video camera hidden in the parked car at the curb recorded as the rodeo art began.

Chapter 103

Only the last
four days of the convention got full-scale network coverage. The platform and rules committees had met the preceding week to hash out party specifics. Those dry and grueling sessions were not the stuff of which television news was made. The first session on Monday night at the Astrodome was when America would tune in to watch. From the opening gavel to the delirious demonstration planned to erupt after Haines Wingard’s acceptance speech on Thursday night, the convention was very carefully scripted by party planners. Scripted with television in mind.

KEY to America
, with Eliza Blake anchoring, was broadcasting every morning from the KEY skybox in the Astrodome. Harry Granger had remained in the New York studio. Monday morning’s show featured pieces on Houston’s preparations for the convention, how the Wingard presidential campaign was coming across in middle America, and how delegates viewed the Wingard ticket.

The last segment from Houston was a live interview Eliza conducted with Joy Wingard. The campaign staff made it clear beforehand that Mrs. Wingard wanted to promote the AIDS Parade for Dollars. One of the planned convention highlights was to be Joy’s speech on the AIDS battle. Eliza noticed that Nate Heller accompanied Joy to the skybox for the interview.

The stage manager, crouched next to the anchor desk in the cramped skybox, signaled for Eliza to begin.

“Mrs. Wingard, how do you think the publicity over Bill Kendall’s donation has helped the AIDS Parade?”

Joy answered the question predictably and smoothly. “The Kendall donation helped our fund-raising effort a great deal because Bill Kendall was a respected and well-liked public figure. People responded to him and trusted him. His support gave the AIDS Parade not only publicity, but credibility as well.”

“Last month, Mrs. Wingard, you toured AIDS facilities in Newark, New Jersey. Did you learn anything that you hadn’t known before?”