The reporters immediately surrounded Hal. Maria Sonreia, from Channel 4, who was in her heavy camera makeup, her eyebrows so perfectly defined that they could have been pasted on, asked Hal several times, “What exactly do you believe Senator Gianis’s role was in your sister’s murder?”
Tooley, who like Evon had stood by speechless, finally intervened, grabbing Hal by the arm and pulling him away.
“We have nothing else to say at the moment,” said Mel. “We may have a further statement tomorrow.”
Evon called for Hal’s car on the way to the elevator, and the limo, a Bentley, whose caramel leather always made her feel as if she were inside a jewel box, was at the curb when they got there. Delman, the driver, held open the door, smiling amiably as a traffic officer in an optic vest waved her lighted baton at him and told him to move. At Hal’s instruction, Evon jumped in. Delman would drop Hal at the office, then bring Evon back to pick up her car.
“Hal, what the hell was that about?” Tooley demanded, as soon as they were under way. Mel was a childhood friend of Hal’s. Among Hal’s many myths about himself was that he was ‘a city boy’ who had been raised in a bungalow in Kewahnee, not the Greenwood County mansion to which his father moved them when Hal finished junior high. He had no taste for the well-heeled suburbanites with whom he’d attended high school and college, and among whom he’d now raised his children, preferring a few grade school friends, like Mel, who truth be told had probably shunned Hal back then like everyone else. Unctuous by nature, Tooley nonetheless was direct when need be with Hal, who in the right mood could tolerate straight talk.
“You know you’re on page one tomorrow,” Mel said.
“Obviously,” said Hal. You could never forget with Hal that despite the emotional magma that frequently forced its way to the surface, he could sometimes be cunning.
“There isn’t any chance, is there, that I can talk you into issuing a public statement this afternoon retracting what you just said? If we get something out fast, then Paul may not sue you for defamation.”
“Defamation?”
“Hal, he’s running for mayor. You just called him a murderer. He’ll sue you for slander. He can’t ignore it.”
Hal was heaped inside his overcoat, arms across his chest, looking a little like a molting bird.
“I’m not retracting anything.” Having a billion dollars had an odd effect on people, Evon had come to learn. In Hal’s case, it often made him a baby. “Let him sue me. Don’t I have the right to express my opinion about somebody running for mayor?”
“Even with a public figure, Hal, the law says you can’t make accusations that show a malicious disregard for the truth.”
“It is true. Mark my words. The twins were in this together. I’ve known those two all their lives. There is no way one of them could have done something like this without involving the other one.”
Tooley shook his head.
“Hal, man, I’ve followed this case for you for decades. I’ve never seen a word that implicates Paul. And it’s a ridiculous time to make the charge. After twenty-five years, you suddenly pipe up, blaming him for his brother’s crime, just when Paul is odds-on to become mayor, and you’re the biggest donor to the other party?”
Hal considered all of this with a sour expression, his eyes skittering about behind his thick lenses like cornered mice.
“The guy pisses me off.”
Evon was in no position yet to fully comprehend the web of family resentments at play here. But at least one part of Hal’s fury was understandable. Dita’s murder had ended his father’s political career. Zeus had abandoned his campaign for governor within days of his daughter’s death. And here was Paul, scaling Mount Olympus, with the papers already saying that if he won, the governor’s office was likely to be next.
“I always thought he had something to do with it,” Hal said. “My parents would never hear that, neither one of them. My father kept telling us, ‘This is as big a tragedy for the Gianises as it is for us,’ and my mother, especially after my dad died, she just hated discussing the entire thing. And I kept quiet for their sakes. But they’re gone now and I’m speaking my mind. I think I’m actually going to run ads.” Hal nodded decisively. Evon was beginning to recognize that none of Hal’s remarks, here or back in the corridor, were completely spontaneous. He had been considering making a scene, and the potential aftermath, when he’d arrived today.
“That’ll only force him into court,” Tooley said. “You go that route, big fella, you gotta have some proof.”
“Evon will find the evidence.”
“Me?” She couldn’t contain herself. But she had spent three years now extracting Hal from the holes he blundered into.
“Call Tim,” Hal said.
“Tim?” asked Evon. Hal was referring to the PI he’d had tailing Corus Dykstra from YourHouse the day before.
“Tim knows all about this case,” said Hal. “He never thought we had the whole story. I bet he already has plenty of dope on Paul.”
They had reached the ZP Building, and Hal, who had a conference call on the YourHouse acquisition, hopped out so he could get upstairs to his office on the fortieth floor. But he stuck his head back into the car for one second to hand over a slip of paper.
“That’s Tim’s cell. Find him. He’ll help.”
3.
Horgan—January 10, 2008
Raymond Horgan’s generosity had been a fair wind at Paul Gianis’s back throughout his career. Stan Sennett, Ray’s former chief deputy, who was Paul’s second cousin, had gotten Paul his first interview with Ray in 1982, and they had clicked from the start. After Dita’s murder, Ray had held Paul’s job offer open while Paul worked with Sandy Stern on his brother’s defense, and that didn’t change even after Cass pled. Ray said he’d always taught his deputies to ask of any decision, ‘Would you think you were being fair, if the defendant was your brother?’ He doubted Paul would ever need that reminder.
In 1986, Ray lost the primary to his former deputy, Nico Della Guardia, and Paul left soon after to become a plaintiff’s lawyer. Even out of office, however, Ray continued to be a leading figure in the Democratic Farmers & Union Party. Horgan had helped guide Paul when he decided to turn to politics a decade ago, after two huge tort judgments, especially the tobacco litigation, basically made work a pastime for him. It was Ray who’d first introduced Paul to local labor leaders, and Ray who, four years ago, twisted the last two arms to secure the votes Paul needed as a reform candidate to become majority leader in the senate. Now Ray was general counsel to Paul’s mayoral campaign.
“Not mere falsity. But reckless disregard for the truth,” said Ray, reciting the standard of proof a public figure like Paul had to offer to win a suit for defamation. In his mid-seventies, Horgan was so red-faced beneath the frost of white hair that you couldn’t quite suppress the thought of a peppermint stick. He was hobbled after two knee replacements, and no longer even pretended that he could recall names. Some dismissed Horgan as a barnaclized pol. But he’d retained his canniness and an air of pure delight in the sly mechanics of power.
“And can we prove that?” Paul asked him.
“Should be a slam dunk,” said Ray. “What evidence do they have that you had any role in that murder?”
On the other side of the sleek conference table, Mark Crully, Paul’s campaign manager, dropped his pencil.
“We have to sue,” Crully said. Mark was a quiet, driven little guy, general of the backroom army you would never see on TV. He’d run campaigns all over the country for a decade, most recently winning a special election for a congressional seat in California that had been Republican for fifty years. He was good. But about one thing: winning. And he was testy now. He had no patience for lawyers. Or anyone else for that matter. “We have to sue,” he repeated.
Paul decided to ignore Crully, who often seemed to have his own view of who worked for whom. Paul spoke to Horgan.
“But it’ll be our burden to show I had
nothing to do with that murder, won’t it? It’s always a bitch proving a negative. And it’s not like we can do DNA on the blood at the scene. We’re identical twins.”
“True,” said Ray. “But we’ll get discovery. And the discovery will show Hal has nothing. Right?”
The three were sitting in the fishbowl conference room at the center of Paul’s campaign offices, glass walls on two sides. The design was Crully’s. He believed that a look of openness sent the right message, both to the campaign workers and to the press, on the limited occasions Crully admitted them. But Paul, who was accustomed to keeping his own secrets, couldn’t get used to it.
Looking through the glass to the tumbling office outside, you’d think this was a campaign with no troubles. There were probably one hundred people at work at 10 a.m., all but roughly twenty of them volunteers, hustling about with purpose. The space belonged to a guy Paul had known since law school, Max Florence, who’d donated two floors. They’d bought white modular panels with big windows, and had the entire office up and running the day Paul announced. It demonstrated formidability to his half-dozen opponents.
A full half of the office was given over to fund-raising. Most of the volunteers here were at the phone bank, dialing for dollars, from the lists Paul had developed in four different campaigns. Field, the second of the three major campaign operations, was situated right across from where they sat. Jean Orange was laughing about something with her two deputies; her metal walls were covered with maps of the county, green tags showing where they had opened local offices, red tags indicating the wards where the committeeperson or councilman had promised to help. Now that the holidays were over, she expected to have a thousand people hitting doors this weekend, identifying their voters. Communications, around the corner, was the place today where people were earning their keep. Tom Mileie, a thirty-two-year-old Internet expert, and his three staffers, not to mention both deputy campaign managers and the policy director, were all fielding calls from reporters who wanted to know what Paul had to say now that Hal Kronon had claimed again that Paul had helped murder Dita.
Crully interrupted once more.
“You have to sue this cracker. You gave him a day to calm down. We sent him a letter saying cut it out, and not only did he not cut it out, he repeated it to reporters this morning. So now we have to sue him.”
Paul had been in public life long enough that he didn’t get spooked by crises. They were, truth be told, part of the 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 courtroom. I mean, am I going to be giving depositions two weeks before the election?”
“You’re not giving shit,” Crully said. “You sue Kronon, and then the lawyers delay everything. He’ll file a motion to dismiss because you’re violating his right to free speech and we take weeks to answer and then there’s an election.” Crully threw the back of his hand at Ray, dismissive of the law and all its routine monkeyshines and its predictable inefficiency.
Ray generally found Crully amusing, perhaps because Ray had been on the team that found him. But Horgan looked nettled. He stood up to hang his suit coat on the back of his chair. Like Paul, he preferred just to ignore Mark at times.
“Are there risks, if we sue? Sure,” said Ray, as he rolled up his cuffs. “But Hal’s got you pretty well cornered here. He’s going to keep saying you murdered his sister to anybody who will listen. If you sue him, maybe a few more people pay attention. But there’s also a chance he shuts up. Maybe the judge makes him shut up. Net-net, I think you have to do it, Paulie. Otherwise, you’re gonna ride out the campaign wearing the collar for Dita’s murder. That’s a lot of weight to be trying to tote over the finish line. You need to say, ‘I didn’t do it.’”
“How about if I say I didn’t do it.”
“You need to back it up. You sue him, you have skin in the game.”
Paul closed his eyes to think. Even at moments like this, he loved this life. Or most of it. The money part was horrible and getting worse. Close to unbearable. You didn’t get really big dollars from anybody who didn’t have an agenda and a ring to be kissed. But the rest he still relished. He knew enough about himself to admit that he liked the heat of the spotlight—Lidia had taught all her children that they deserved attention. But he still found a thrill in the magnitu
de of the problems, and figuring out how to get them solved. The county had been playing a shell game for a decade—there wasn’t the money to run the schools or pay pensions, not if you’d passed fourth grade arithmetic. But he, Paulie Gianis, he would be the one working it out. There was no other job with this kind of impact, where the effect of your brief time on earth was magnified so far beyond your own circle. You could invent the semiconductor or make a movie and change lives, too, if people happened to bump up against those things. But in politics the effect was universal. Every person you passed on the street had a stake in what you did and usually an opinion about it. The world was what it was, full of love and cruelty and indifference. But it could get better, with less need, less violence, more opportunities. In his lifetime, black people had gone from the back of the bus to maybe, considering the results in Iowa last week, the White House. And if you put up with all the hard stuff, you could be laid to rest knowing you had helped make that kind of change happen.
“To be frank,” said Raymond, “the only thing that gives me second thoughts is that he’s basically daring you to sue.”
“That’s Hal,” said Paul. “The guy’s like a windup toy who turns his own key. If I win twenty million dollars in this lawsuit, he appeals for five years and doesn’t even notice when he writes the check. Besides, he thinks all Democrats are socialists who want to destroy the free enterprise system that made America great. He’s always been crazy-right. I remember when I was six years old, Hal had all these campaign banners for Barry Goldwater in his bedroom. This is 1964. There weren’t R’s in Kewahnee in those days. Even Zeus, his dad, only became a Republican when they moved to the suburbs and he fell in love with Reagan. The hard-right stuff was Hal’s defense against being a nerd. It was his way of saying he was the only guy who knew the truth.”