Power Failure Read online

  Tomlinson interrupted, “You, Jake. She’s known you since back before we came to Washington. She trusts you.”

  Jake’s memory flashed back to the nights he and Amy had spent in bed together, before she decided to marry Tomlinson.

  Trying to keep the reluctance out of his voice, Jake said, “Sure. Okay. I’ll do it for you, Frank.”

  “Thanks, Jake. I owe you one.”

  * * *

  Amy sent the family car—a maroon BMW sedan—to pick up Jake at the Hart building. She was sitting in the back seat, wearing a knee-length skirted suit of sky blue that complemented her honey-blonde hair.

  “Hi, Jake,” she said, smiling brightly, as he ducked in beside her.

  Jake studied her face. No tension, no worries, just her big cheerleader’s smile and sparkling blue eyes.

  “Big speech,” he muttered.

  “I guess,” Amy said. Before Jake could think of anything more to say, she added, “It’s sweet of you to come with me. I feel really protected.”

  Jake thought, You don’t need any protection. You’ve got ice water in your veins. But then he saw that Amy’s hands were clenched into fists on her lap. Is this bold front all camouflage? he asked himself. Is she really scared?

  “Is there anything I can do?” he asked. “Anything you need—”

  “Just sit out there and smile at me, Jake. Show me I have a friend in the audience.”

  Friend, Jake repeated to himself. Yeah, friend.

  “Okay,” he agreed. “Sure.”

  Amy chatted away blithely about the campaign and how well her husband was doing in the polls as they rode toward the newly renovated Westin Georgetown hotel, where the luncheon was being held. Jake said nothing, even though he knew that Tomlinson’s poll numbers weren’t gaining much on Sebastian’s. And her speech today could sink them altogether.

  As they approached the hotel Jake asked, “Do you have your speech?”

  Amy tapped her temple. “In here. I’ve got it all memorized.”

  Jake nodded. “I guess that’s better than reading it.”

  “Of course.”

  He wanted to ask her if she had gone to bed with Manstein that night, but found that he couldn’t. He couldn’t mention even the first word of the question. And, in truth, Jake was afraid of the answer Amy might give him.

  Instead he told her, “You know that Earl Reynolds has tipped off a couple of his news contacts about this.”

  Nodding, Amy replied, “Frank told me. Don’t worry, I’ll smile for the cameras, in all the right places.”

  “Don’t be nervous.” It was a stupid thing to say and Jake knew it.

  With a little laugh, she said, “I’m not as nervous as you are.”

  Jake realized that she was right.

  * * *

  As soon as they entered the hotel, Amy was immediately surrounded by the Career Women’s executive committee. Nearly a dozen women, ranging in age from their thirties (Jake guessed) to white-haired maturity. All smartly dressed, all smiling and clustered around Amy. Jake tagged along as they escorted Amy to the hotel’s ballroom, chatting and laughing, totally ignoring him.

  The ballroom was only about half full, almost entirely with women. Jake was surprised to see Tami across the crowd, standing at the improvised bar with a couple of guys. Must be newspeople, Jake thought.

  Amy was completely occupied with the fawning executive committee, so Jake made his way to the bar.

  He gave Tami a peck on the cheek. “You didn’t tell me you’d be here,” Jake said to her.

  “I didn’t know until an hour or so ago. Earl Reynolds asked me to mother-hen the news folks.”

  Jake nodded and ordered a club soda from the skinny Hispanic kid tending the bar. Only two news reporters. And one cameraman. They don’t expect anything worth headlines from this little soirée. With an inner sigh Jake told himself, Well, we’ll see.

  “Ladies,” came an amplified woman’s voice from the dais up at the front of the room. “Luncheon is served!”

  Jake had to leave Tami and go sit beside Amy for the lunch. The food wasn’t bad, he thought: thin slices of roast beef with some tastily done vegetables. Nobody’ll get fat on this, he realized.

  Then the organization’s chairwoman went up on the dais and introduced Amy, telling the assembled membership, “She’s going to reveal some of the joys and problems of being a prominent senator’s wife during a hectic national political campaign.”

  Amy rose to polite applause and stood behind the microphones. Jake glanced across the room at Tami; her eyes were on him, not the speaker. Jake smiled at her and she grinned back.

  Amy started talking about the hectic details of a political campaign. “Your life’s not your own anymore. And you’re traveling so much that some days you wake up wondering what city you’re in.”

  A few polite chuckles.

  “Laundry becomes a major problem,” Amy went on, with a rueful look. “When you’re down to your last clean pair of…” she hesitated just a moment, then went on, “… pantyhose, with three more speeches that afternoon, you’re facing a real crisis!”

  Considerable laughter.

  Slowly, Amy’s speech became more serious. She spoke about helping her husband to stay healthy despite all the demands on his time and energy, and her own encounters with the news media.

  “They want to know how I feel about women’s issues. I wish they’d ask about what I know about the problems women face in the workplace.”

  Hearty applause.

  Amy went on, “You’re under a microscope all the time. You can’t have a private life, can’t have a relaxed quiet evening at home, even.”

  Here it comes, Jake thought.

  “Why, one evening when I was at home while my husband was on a campaign trip, I invited a friend—a male friend—to have dinner with me at my home. Just a quiet dinner between two friends.”

  Jake looked over the audience. The women were totally focused on Amy. “The very next day the man told one of my husband’s aides that he was going to the media and tell them that I had invited him to my house while my husband’s back was turned.”

  Absolute silence from the audience.

  “He was going to suggest to the news media…” Amy’s voice broke a little. “… suggest that we’d had sex together. Some friend!”

  Jake heard hisses from the audience.

  Dabbing at her eyes, Amy continued, “He wanted money to keep his mouth shut. He wanted to blackmail me, blackmail my husband. Over an innocent little dinner!”

  Boos broke out across the ballroom.

  Putting on a rueful little smile, Amy said, “So one thing I’ve learned is that a woman has to be extra careful in everything she does. There’s no such thing as a quiet little dinner between friends. Not for a woman. People are always ready to believe the worst about you. Some people will try to exploit you, to use you—one way or the other.”

  She lowered her head demurely. Applause rose from the women in the audience, scattered at first, but quickly they rose to their feet, clapping vigorously, even calling out Amy’s name.

  Jake got to his feet too, thinking, Amy’s a cheerleader, all right. She’s got these women totally on her side.

  Q and A

  The committee’s chairwoman climbed up onto the dais again and put an arm around Amy’s shoulders. Leaning into the microphone, she said, “Thank you, Mrs. Tomlinson, for your forthright and informative speech.” Gesturing to the standing audience, she added, “We all appreciate your honesty very much.”

  Amy smiled bravely at the audience.

  The chairwoman continued, “We usually have a brief question-and-answer period now, but if you’d prefer to skip it…”

  “Oh no,” Amy said, in her little-girl voice. “I’ll try to answer a few questions.”

  The newsman standing beside Tami at the bar called out in a foghorn voice, “Are you telling us that you never realized how … uh, improper it would look for you to have dinner alone
with a male friend while your husband was out of town?”

  Her face a picture of innocence, Amy replied, “I never even thought about that. I mean, if a woman can’t have a dinner with a friend what are we supposed to do? Do you want to lock us in a tower whenever our husbands go out of town?”

  The newswoman asked, “The two of you weren’t alone, were you?”

  “The cook was in the house.”

  “Just the cook?”

  “The rest of the staff had the night off.”

  “Really?”

  Amy said, “My cook is very protective. I never for a moment felt uncomfortable or threatened.”

  One of the women in the audience raised her hand. Amy nodded at her.

  “And after dinner, he just went home?”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t even have an after-dinner drink?”

  Amy blinked at her. “No, we didn’t. We both had lots to do the next morning. I saw him to the door, he said good night, and that was it.”

  Jake looked around at the women seated at the luncheon tables. They want to believe her, he saw on their faces. Poor little rich girl, being threatened with blackmail by a big bad man.

  The news reporters seemed more skeptical, but they knew better than to try to badger Amy. Not here. Not now. Not in front of this audience of believers.

  The chairwoman stepped up to Amy’s side again. “Thank you so much, Mrs. Tomlinson. I think this has been the most interesting luncheon we’ve ever had.”

  They got to their feet again, applauding lustily. Amy dipped her chin in acknowledgement.

  Jake looked across the room toward Tami. The grin on her face said, She’s pulled it off.

  * * *

  It took fully half an hour for Amy to work her way from the dais to the ballroom’s door. Every woman in the audience, it seemed, wanted to speak to her, shake her hand, be near her.

  She should be the one running for president, Jake thought. She’d take a hundred percent of the women’s vote.

  Tami worked her way through the crowd, to Jake’s side.

  “Quite a performance,” she said into Jake’s ear.

  Jake nodded.

  Amy reached for Tami’s hand. “I’m so glad you’re here, Tami. Why don’t you and Jake come over to the house this evening and have dinner with us?”

  Tami looked up at Jake, who shrugged, then nodded. “We’d be happy to,” he said.

  * * *

  Jake got home early, and as he waited for Tami to arrive he scrolled through the TV news broadcasts. Nothing on the national networks, but all of the local stations carried brief reports on Amy’s luncheon talk.

  Just a snippet, but there was Amy standing at the lectern, looking somehow hurt and aggravated at the same time as she said, “… if a woman can’t have a dinner with a friend what are we supposed to do? Do you want to lock us in a tower whenever our husbands go out of town?”

  Then the screen showed the station’s anchorwoman shaking her head and saying, “There certainly is a different standard of expectation for a woman than for a man.”

  * * *

  As he tooled his Dart GT up the driveway of the Tomlinson residence, Jake saw several other cars already parked there.

  “This isn’t going to be a quiet family dinner,” Tami said.

  “No,” Jake said. “Looks like we’re in for an after-battle analysis session.”

  Sure enough, Lovett, O’Donnell, and Reynolds were already in the library with Senator Tomlinson and Amy. One of the butler’s assistants was handling the bar.

  Tomlinson, a heavy scotch already in his hand, greeted, “Jake! Tami! Come on in! What’re you drinking?”

  The senator wasn’t drunk, Jake thought. But he was certainly letting off steam that had been bottled inside him ever since their meeting in New Hampshire with Sebastian and Manstein.

  Reynolds was standing in front of the big wall-screen TV, clicking away on the remote control. Jake saw he was sampling various website blogs.

  The senator walked them to the bar, set up on a folding table. “What do you think of my wife’s performance?” he asked Tami. “Doesn’t she deserve an Emmy? Or an Oscar, even.”

  Tami smiled graciously. “She certainly won over her audience.”

  Jake nodded and asked the young liveried man behind the bar for a Jack Daniel’s. Tami ordered a white wine.

  Reynolds trundled over to the bar, a happy grin on his beefy face. “Even Lady Cecilia is congratulating her,” he crowed. “Amy’s the top story on tonight’s Power Talk.”

  The butler announced that dinner was served. Jake held his drink in one hand and Tami’s hand in the other as the whole group headed for the dining room.

  “It’s a triumph,” Reynolds kept repeating. “A triumph.”

  Jake saw relief and satisfaction on Tomlinson’s smiling face. Amy seemed pleased with herself.

  But he worried about what Sebastian’s reaction would be. There’s going to be a counterattack, he told himself. There’s got to be.

  But for this night, for this group, there was nothing but good cheer.

  Then Tami whispered in Jake’s ear, “The proof of the pudding will be in the poll results.”

  Iowa Caucus

  “The eve of St. Agnes,” Jake quoted to himself as he stared out the window of the Embassy Suites hotel at the snow sifting down from the darkened sky. “‘Ah, bitter chill it was…’”

  He frowned, trying to remember the rest of Keats’s poem. Something about a hare limping trembling through the frozen grass.

  From across the bedroom Tami asked, “What are you mumbling about?”

  Turning toward her, Jake said, “An old poem, about the coldest night of the year.”

  It was February first, in Des Moines, and it had been snowing most of the day and into the night.

  “It’s not that cold,” Tami said. “Not for Iowans. They’re used to this kind of weather.”

  “It’ll keep the turnout low,” Jake groused. “We need a big turnout to win.”

  Pointing to the muted television set against the wall, Tami said, “Projections call for Frank to come in second.”

  “To Sebastian.”

  “With Hackman a distant third.”

  Focusing on the screen, Jake saw a pair of news commentators jawing away in muted silence, but no numbers posted.

  “Too early for any returns,” he mumbled.

  The phone rang. Tami picked it up, then handed it to Jake. “Pat Lovett,” she said.

  Lovett sounded upbeat. “It’s going to be a long night. Why don’t you two come on up to the senator’s suite? We’ve got some decent desserts and drinkables. Homemade pies!”

  Jake glanced at Tami before answering. “Okay. Thanks. We’ll be there in a little bit.”

  Tami insisted on changing into “something more dressy” and started rummaging through the clothes hanging in the closet. Jake figured his slacks and sports coat would be adequate until Tami pointed out that there would probably be newspeople—and cameramen—in the senator’s suite. Reluctantly, Jake pulled on the one necktie he had brought along.

  Senator Tomlinson’s suite was already noisy and crowded with campaign workers and aides when Jake and Tami got there. And, just as Tami had warned, a trio of news reporters had ensconced themselves at the bar.

  As Jake ordered a cabernet for Tami and a Jack Daniel’s on the rocks for himself he heard one of the aides telling another:

  “… they waited until yesterday to have Manstein tell his story.”

  “The day before the voting here in Iowa,” said his companion, a tall slinky-looking young woman with glitter in her long dark hair.

  Earl Reynolds pushed into their conversation. “Manstein looks like a low-life bastard. People will figure, if he’s telling the truth, it means he set Amy up. If he isn’t telling the truth, then he’s a lying son of a bitch.”

  “It doesn’t help that he’s on Sebastian’s payroll, either,” the male aide added.


  Nodding sagaciously, Reynolds concluded, “Well, if Sebastian expects that jerk’s story to sink Frank’s chances he’s dead wrong.”

  “We’ll see soon enough.”

  “When the hell are the returns coming in?”

  “Pretty soon, should be.”

  Jake led Tami from the bar to the opposite corner of the jam-packed room, past the muted wall-screen TV, to where Senator Tomlinson—with Amy at his side—was shaking hands with a lineup of well-wishers. The senator spotted Jake in the crowd and grinned at him and Tami.

  “He doesn’t look worried,” Tami said, practically shouting to be heard over the noise.

  Frank’s still in campaign mode, Jake thought. Smile at everybody and press the flesh.

  He towed Tami past the Tomlinsons, toward a sofa where Pat Lovett and a pair of his aides were bent over some sort of graph. Lovett had a Bluetooth clipped to his ear.

  Tami said, “That looks like the kind of chart they use to bet on football games.”

  Jake shook his head. “That’s a county-by-county grid of the state of Iowa. Pat’s ready to fill in the numbers.”

  Lovett looked up as Jake and Tami approached. “Glad you could make it.” Gesturing with a nod of his head, “They’ve got some pretty good food in the next room.”

  Jake sipped at his Jack Daniel’s before replying, “Thanks. Can we get you anything?”

  “A million votes or two.”

  Jake grinned derisively and headed through the mob toward the next room, with Tami alongside him.

  * * *

  It was almost three a.m. Tami was sitting bleary-eyed on the end of the sofa where Lovett was still fiddling with his graph. Jake, too nervous to sit, had been pacing across the big room for nearly half an hour. The big TV screen showed the gross voting numbers, but now the script scrolling along the bottom of the muted screen showed that the network commentators were discussing the breakdown of the voting patterns.

  The final tally showed Sebastian had won, but not easily. He polled 43 percent of the Iowa vote, with Franklin Tomlinson at 38 percent, significantly more than had been expected. Governor Hackman had earned merely 19 percent of the vote, about half of what the “experts” had predicted.