Splitting Washington

By Daniel Koehler

J.D. CROWELL is fired as PRESIDENT ADDISON HUNTINGTON’S campaign manager over a public indiscretion with LIBBY CATTON, a beautiful mixed-race White Houser staffer.

Soon, however, J.D. discovers the real reason for his axing was not his affair with Libby, but rather the fact that her mother was BRIDGET DONOVAN, a Sixties’ radical still wanted for bombing federal buildings. Libby's radical past threatens both the President and MAYNARD KEYNES, the sports-and-entertainment Congressman who appears to be on the cusp of becoming America's the first biracial President.

Fleeing Washington anonymously for the sake of his family and Libby, J.D. finds a way to throw a monkey wrench into the political machinery of the aging President and also unmask the treachery of RASHAAD LEWIS, Keynes's murderous campaign manager.

PRAISE FOR "SPLITTING WASHINGTON"

"Bottom-fishing at the highest level of the D.C. cesspool."
DR. TERRY YAMAUCHI, former Clinton appointee

"A fast-paced political thriller ripped from today's headlines!"
ALEX AUGENBLEQC, author of "5 Fabulous Business Fables"

“'Splitting Washington’ is a delight to read, a real page turner. It is a prescient, engaging, ribald, and suspenseful tale about an American Presidential election campaign involving sex scandals and a viable third party candidate."
R.G. KERSHAW, U.S. Government Accountability Office analyst, retired

• Language: English
• Publisher: Daniel Koehler
• Release date: Jul 20, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452369082

Daniel Koehler

Daniel Koehler is the author of four novels, "Flyover Country" (2004), "The Sleeping Cab" (2006), "Unbankerly Behavior" (2008), and "Splitting Washington" (2010). His short pieces have appeared in The Best of Tales From the South, The Birmingham Arts Journal, New Works Review, BareBack Magazine, Inner Sins, The Rusty Nail, The Storyteller, The Harvard Bulletin, among others. Literary honors include finalist status in three international screenplay competitions and regional awards for his short stories.Prior to his writing career, he pursued professional interests in New York City. He has written software used extensively in the financial sector. He attended Leopold-Franzens Universität in Innsbruck, Austria, and is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and Harvard.

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PART I: AMERICAN GIZA

Chapter 1

J.D.? Look, he needs to see you today. The Oval Office. Two o’clock sharp.

You cannot be serious, I sputtered, conscious I sounded like John McEnroe whining about a line judge’s call.

I’m dead serious. Get moving. Chop chop.

Odd, I thought. Such terseness. That’s not Libby’s normal phone demeanor.

I gulped the last of my chocolate donut and chased it with a big swig of Starbuck’s espresso. Normally, when Libby calls from the White House, we shoot the breeze a bit, and sometimes I flirt with her for cheap thrills. Today, however, the President’s Appointments Secretary’s tone was anything but flirtatious.

Get Gail to come hold his hand then. She’s already in D.C.

Sorry, pal. You’re the campaign manager and Uncle Sam wants you.

What if I just RSVP ‘regrets?’

Right. You do that. How good’s your job security, J.D.?

Aw, Lib, he jumps crazy like this every other week.

For God’s sake, take the Gulfstream. It’s barely two hours door-to-door.

"I’m, uh, in a heavy meeting with our opposition research people right now, I lied. What does Quattro want anyway?"

Quattro was our super-secret reelection campaign code name for President Addison H. Huntington, IV. I had personally lobbied for the code name IV, as in drip, which I felt better reflected Addison’s true personality. However, the palace Mandarins deemed it too disrespectful and voted me down.

Libby sighed. Look, all I know is he’s obsessing about the polls again.

Tell him to chill. We’re on it.

Are you crazy? she said. I’m not going to tell the President of the United States to chill. You tell him.

"Maybe I will then. Ciao. Can’t wait to see you. Do you miss me?"

The slam dunk Libby performed with the receiver pretty much convinced me she didn’t.

My name is J.D. Crowell, and before Libby called, I had been enjoying a rare moment of peace, sampling the donut buffet the staff brings in and admiring the nascent verdure of the Boston Public Gardens from my office window. I sat back and propped up my feet on my Queen Anne desk with the finely turned cabriolet legs, still thinking of lovely Libby.

Okay, wrong verb. Fantasizing is probably more accurate.

One glance at Libby Catton and it’s self-explanatory.

I work out of the penthouse office of the Hampshire House on Beacon Hill, running the Reelect President Huntington campaign. The building houses our national campaign headquarters, and we have the run of the place since Addison owns it.

Nice digs—all period furniture and New England ambiance. Better yet, the lovely six-story brownstone also boasts the famous Cheers bar in its basement. Believe me, during campaign season I become very well acquainted with its bartenders.

84 Beacon Street is a far cry from the Bullfrog Car Wash in San Saba, Texas, where I began as a greenhorn political advisor. In my first race, I ran the car wash owner for city water commissioner and won handily, thanks to the free wax and detailing coupons we gave out at the polls. In theory, running a Presidential campaign is not all that much different, although the payoffs are a lot more expensive and the people receiving them a hell of a lot more disagreeable.

Over the years, I’ve learned that politics has much in common with multilevel marketing and other pyramid schemes: the higher you rise, the thinner the air but the fatter the paycheck. At forty-six, I stood atop the American Giza, having run one successful presidential campaign and now managing the incumbent in my second. The problem with standing atop the steep pyramid of your profession is that your future career path becomes somewhat limited.

You have two hundred and nine unread emails, my computer bleeped when I switched it on.

Not going to happen today, I replied to the machine.

My plan that Friday was to delay any major campaign decisions and coast into the weekend. Procrastination and inertia are much-maligned activities. They are by far the best campaign strategies for incumbents, especially weak incumbents like Addison.

It was a gorgeous morning in early May. The canopy of the Public Gardens’ arboretum sported sparse early budding, so I could still view the lagoon through it like a woman’s face beneath a fishnet veil. As I savored another welcome jolt of espresso, I watched a swan boat glide silently under the Make Way for Ducklings footbridge. That’s not the bridge’s real name, but that’s what I call it because I loved the book as a kid.

Crap. Another bullshit meeting, all because Addison’s skittish about the latest polls.

How typical.

I can’t tell you the number of times over the years I have seen this mania grip incumbents. You would think challengers would be the skittish ones, but once elected, incumbents cling to office like the last lifeboat on the Titanic.

Incumbents believe voters lie awake at night worrying about who they’ll support. Believe me, they don’t, but incumbents don’t get it. Their fear makes them get everything backwards and they go wild with public appearances. I’m talking pathological here—putting on grass skirts, coconut bras, and dancing the hula in televised political events days before the election. Such is the terror of the incumbent when faced with the prospect of losing his precious public fiefdom.

What they fail to realize, of course, is that panic campaigning is like trying to push a string; the harder you push, the more you doom the outcome. Not campaigning is the far better choice. I’ve seen it all before.

When an incumbent loses an election, the post-mortem is short: he either got murdered or committed suicide. Incumbents are the neediest bastards in the world, so the prospect of being murdered by the voters on Election Day sends angst coursing through their every synapse. However, unless you’re a total Milhous, voters don’t usually murder incumbents. Even if the electorate barely knows you, that’s probably a lot more than they know about your opponent. Incumbents enjoy the dubious status of being the tallest midget in the room.

So, don’t screw with voter inertia, I tell my reelection clients. People don’t like change, and you’re the comfortable old shoe they’re used to chewing on. However, if you go bananas and hit the campaign trail like the Keystone Cops, the voters smell your fear. It’s like putting a set of taps on a pair of well-broken-in brogans and stomping around in the public venues like a narcissistic flamenco dancer.

Trust me, panic campaigning will hasten your political obituary as surely as gobbling a handful of barbiturates. My sense is that such manic flesh-pressing both frightens and annoys the electorate. I mean, why should they entrust their prosperity and upward mobility to someone who once seemed so promisingly inert but now acts like a telemarketer on meth?

What voters want from their elected officials is for them to put their hand on the Good Book, promise to fulfill the duties of office, and then go away and do nothing like every other damn politician. Louisiana and Illinois, however, are special exceptions to this rule, probably because of the Napoleonic Code in the Sportsman’s Paradise and the Daleyonic Code in Crook County. In these places, politicians are expected to do nothing but steal until caught.

The landscape of Modern American Politics is littered with the bleached bones of Presidential hopefuls launching expensive panic campaigns and, for some reason, Massachusetts boasts a goodly large number of them. There’s something in the Massachusetts air that does not like a modern President and that gives me pause, since Addison resides there.

Read your history.

Sir Teddy of Camelot losing to the cardigan-clad commoner, Jimmy Carter; Dukakis’ desperate but laughable public relations foray as a tank jockey to shore up his image of being soft on defense; hapless Mitt Romney’s total dismantling at the hands of hoary old John McCain; John Kerry’s Swift Boats debacle after he pulled his war record out of mothballs and ran hard with it. And, lest we forget, recall that Massachusetts was the only state George McGovern managed to carry in 1972.

Many believe Massachusetts’ Presidential woes—its political curse of the Bambino, if you will—can be traced back to Richard Nixon as payback for his 1960 defeat. Those who believe Milhous’ vindictiveness bordered on the supernatural will tell you the Trickster placed a treacherous vendetta on the state in league with the unquiet spirits of the executed Salem witches. Whatever the cause, whenever the Dems nominate a Bay State Presidential candidate, the GOP licks its chops.

Outside Massachusetts, panic campaigning also yields dismal results. Who can forget Gore sealing his doom at the ballot box with his Social Security lockbox debate hysteria. Or let us hark back to 1967, when George Romney’s poll numbers plummeted from 40% to 7% after his seventeen-city tour of the nation’s ghettos to seek a meaningful racial dialogue. Perhaps the most egregious case of over-the-top campaigning was the Satyricon of the distaff Clinton’s, where the victory celebration started before the primaries. However, after Super Tuesday the flop sweat of denial became plainly visible on the ice maiden’s forehead. Her campaign promptly doubled down, maxed out its credit cards, and then dug into the candidate’s own pants suit pockets. Finally, in shock and despair, the Hillary for President campaign locked itself in the bathroom, drew a warm tub, and opened its wrists.

That’s why I always advise my incumbent clients never to underestimate the power of campaign inertia. First, it’s way cheaper and, second, the more you take the offensive, the greater your chances of making a complete fool of yourself in front of the electorate. This is my greatest fear about Addison hitting the campaign trail. The man is a gaggle of gaffes waiting to happen.

Play defense and you win elections. Play offense harum-scarum and you wind up beating yourself.

I have this on very good authority.

My chief function as an elite political consultant is to keep my charges on message and not allow them the latitude to wander off the reservation. Often this requires me to disabuse battle-fatigued clients of many venerated, but outdated, political rules of thumb. I’m talking about nostrums right out of the Farmer’s Almanac and Dale Carnegie that perpetuate the heresy that blitzkrieg campaigning actually helps.

Trust me, all the top political advisers know by heart who benefits from your panic: your opponent. And, of course, the media, as your campaign hemorrhages money buying more airtime. Panic campaigning is like a quarterback lobbing Hail Marys into double coverage. All the other side has to do is play prevent defense. And defense—as my high school football coach father taught me—wins championships.

I liken my inertia strategy for incumbents to NASA’s Inertial Guidance System, although unlike theirs, mine is anything but rocket science.

Hell, it’s not even science.

The simple truth is that what I offer a candidate is merely a practical application of the Universal Law of Holes, which states if you’re not in one, don’t dig one, and if you are in one, stop digging.

* * *

I snagged a cab at the old Ritz-Carlton for the trip to Hanscom Field, where I boarded a Gulfstream 650—Addison owns two—for the short flight to Dulles.

When we arrived, the limo my assistant, Elspeth, had ordered sat waiting on the tarmac of the private aviation facility near Chantilly, Virginia. As I settled into the commodious leather backseat for the forty-five minute drive to D.C., I whispered a silent prayer of thanksgiving that the limo sported luxury appointments. As I raided the minibar for a short whiskey and then another, I cursed Addison for what I knew would be just another silly hand-holding meeting with the leader of the free world.

My job today would be to explain why we were getting our ass kicked in the polls by this wog, as my boss referred to his Democratic opponent.

Until Maynard Keynes burst out of the fifteen-man rugby scrum that was the Democratic primary, none of us had given the loyal opposition a Chinaman’s chance of fielding anything but a retread for the Presidency. What a slap in the face it was when we found out, Hey, this guy Keynes could be a contender, to paraphrase Brando’s in On the Waterfront.

However, I knew Maynard’s greatest strength was also his greatest weakness. Despite his being a fresh face on the political scene, it was also a brown one. Overachieving, smart as paint, articulate, beautifully-educated, and a millionaire sports and entertainment celebrity, Maynard was quickly positioned by his handlers as the shining result of what the civil rights struggle in America had produced, the quintessence of a post-racial society who would unite America, and by extension, the rest of the overwhelmingly brown-skinned world as well.

In short, a secular Messiah.

I also knew that, as dearly as Main Street wanted to believe in Maynard’s idealistic image, it still had a hard time seeing beyond his skin color and blank political résumé. My gut told me mainstream America was not yet ready to hand over the White House to the help.

Of course, in the past, American sports and entertainment figures had fared well politically for one reason: as pop culture icons, their images already occupied the valuable real estate of the electorate’s consciousness. The mental high ground, LBJ called it.

Reagan’s image, for example, managed to combine sports and entertainment via one Hollywood B-movie role: the Gipper in Knute Rockne, All-American, and over the years, national politics had welcomed into its ranks a menagerie of ex-college football stars, cinematic action heroes, and aging rock idols.

In this election, however, my greatest fear was that Maynard Keynes would establish a beachhead in Washington for his particular brand of one-world diversity that would dominate the political landscape for years to come, much as Michael Jordan had come to dominate the hard court and Tiger Woods the manicured landscape of the PGA Tour.

Michael and Tiger were naturals, and Maynard Keynes, I suspected, was one, too, although it had yet to be proven that the rookie congressman’s African-Euro heritage would allow him to get up and down in two from the trap on the eighteenth hole of a sudden death playoff in the biggest Major in the world. My gut told me Maynard would choke: three-jab a six-footer; blow the lay-up; stare at a called third strike; fade at the tape.

Metaphorically speaking, that is.

Forgive me, but sports metaphors are occupational necessities in my profession, the machetes we use to cut a swath through the thicket of D.C. political cant. As Morris Udall once described the problem of political debate: Everything that needs to be said has already been said. The problem is that not everyone has said it yet.

Milhous loved football metaphors, always talking about game plans, blocking and tackling, and level playing fields. All Presidents like to think of themselves as quarterbacks, but the truth is they are really nothing more than marionettes wriggling on the strings of their puppet masters, their advisors and campaign contributors.

As my limo converged on the Beltway, my Blackberry rang.

Crowell, I answered and quickly drained my second whiskey.

A croaking toad of a voice burst from the tiny phone speaker. J.D.? Goddamn, son. Where the hell you at?

Hello, Judge, I said to my father-in-law. I’m here in D.C.

Did Jeanne tell you I been trying to get ahold of you all damn day?

No, not yet. Jeanne and I only talk after dinner.

Well, the Judge said, she’s usually on top of things, but lately she’s been slippin’. You think she’s goin’ through that change-of-life thing?

Hell, no, Judge. She’s only forty-one.

Well, I hope not. Listen, son, you need to shape up that office crew of Yankee women you got working up there in Boston. He huffed. Lord, it really chaps my ass to be put on hold. I finally had to hang up on them. Didn’t you tell them who the hell I am?

Everyone in Dallas called Jeanne’s father The Judge because he had served as a temporary judge on the Texas Supreme Court during the reapportionment of the Texas Congressional districts that gave the GOP a couple of more seats in Congress. When the Democratic State legislators ran away to Oklahoma to avoid a quorum, the Judge became an instant legend when he demanded Texas Rangers be sent to shanghai them.

What can I do for you, Judge?

It’s payback time, son, he bellowed.

I held the phone at arm’s length. Being a little deaf, my father-in-law tended to sound like the stereotypical loudmouthed Texan. Payback? For what?

I need a favor from that boss of yours I raised so much money for.

Judge, sir, this is really not a good time—

Not a good time? Hell’s bells, son. Let me tell you something—the company’s about to go down the tubes here in Dallas. You understand what I’m saying?

Yes, sir, I do but—

Listen, J.D., the damn Feds want to write down our whole goddamn mortgage portfolio, son. I do believe the Democrats are angling to take perfectly good properties and then give ‘em to the damn illegals to buy the Messican vote. I can’t stand much more of this, partner.

Look, Judge, Addison’s in a tough race and he’s fixing to jump crazy on me over the polls.

Jump crazy? the Judge said. Well, I guarantee you, his pale, scrawny ass don’t have far to jump. He chuckled bitterly. But his state of mind ain’t what I’m worried about right this minute. No sir.

I tried to put my foot down. Judge, we can handle this, okay? But somewhere down the chain of command. We don’t need to get Addison involved.

Let me tell you one damn thing, J.D., he rasped. The Judge don’t go ‘down the chain of command.’ You got that?

Right. Geez, I thought, he’s using the third-person again.

I don’t truck with the goddamn help, son, he said. Never have. Waste of damn time. I only talk to the top man.

In my mind’s eye, I could see the Judge mopping his red, fat face with a handkerchief. Even in the year-round air-conditioning of Dallas, he sweated like a field hand.

Besides, that silly bastard’s beholden to me.

Judge, I said, the President can’t risk the whiff of scandal—

Screw that. I can’t risk the whiff of insolvency, son. Not at my age.

Calm down, Judge.

For chrissake, J.D. All the sumbitch has to do is make a damn phone call. One measly little call to Fannie Mae. I could hear the Judge take a drag from his cigarette. Goddamn, it doesn’t take five million dollars of fundraising to buy a favor like this in Texas. All it takes is a steak dinner and a fifth of whiskey.

Well, that’s true, but D.C.’s not like Texas.

That’s the damn problem, son. The Judge snuffled. Now, listen up real good. He coughed and wheezed into the phone. You listening, J.D.?

You bet.

Certain things in politics are understood, son. His tone of voice was low and conspiratorial. Don’t matter whether you’re in Dallas, D.C. or Timbuktu. You know that and so does Big Boy.

Yes, but all I’m saying is—

Look, all in the world I’m saying is that nothing’s going to happen unless the order comes down from the top. You with me?

You’re absolutely right, Judge, I said, knowing resistance was futile when my father-in-law got his back up.

All Big Boy has to do is just pass the word to get the goddamn regulators off my case. Is that so hard? I swear, J.D., those government boys are dumb as a post and work about as hard. They don’t listen to reason, those sorry bunch of clock-watchers. His voice turned singsongish. Always talkin’ about their damn ‘guidelines’ and their precious ‘regulations.’ How you gonna do bidness with people like that, you tell me?

Sir, I said, I’m on it, okay? But I can’t do it right this minute.

Listen, J.D., I’m flying up thataways next week. I want you to get me in the Lincoln Bedroom and a fifteen minute appointment with the rich boy and I’ll do the rest. You hear?

Judge, wait—

Chapter 2

I didn’t need to look at my watch to know I was running late for Addison’s meeting.

After the limo crossed the Potomac over the Teddy Roosevelt Bridge, a detour routed us north by east through D.C. and we had to double back to get to Pennsylvania Avenue. As we neared the Willard Hotel, another delay appeared in the offing.

I stared out the heavily-tinted side window of the limo at the chanting mob waving political placards and spilling into the street. The throng engulfed the Willard like an amoeba, extending human pseudopodia around the hotel as though demanding it release Maynard Keynes or else be assimilated.

The limo came to a dead stop, and the driver climbed out and surveyed the traffic jam. We’re going to be here for a while, he said. He flopped back down behind the wheel. You might consider walking the rest of the way.

Let’s give it a minute or two.

In the sound-dampened pod of the limo, I felt trapped, a fly encased in the human amber of the partisan mob outside. Blinking my eyes, I could have sworn the limo had entered a time warp. For an instant, I felt like I was smack dab in the middle of The Million Man March.

Keynes Is Change. Keynes Is Change.

The chanting increased in volume, a collective hosanna rising toward the roof ballroom of the Willard where Maynard Keynes was speaking. Spontaneous events like this had been occurring across the country, causing Addison, already skittish about his poll numbers, to begin acting like a thunderstruck diva.

I got your ‘Change’ right here, the driver said to the mob, gripping his crotch. Move it.

Just what I need. I said. A freaking traffic jam.

I thumbed my Blackberry to dial Libby’s number and heard a series of scary electronic squelches worthy of R2D2. Then the LCD screen went blank.

No, I cried, pounding the battery pack. Oh Jesus, not now.

No flicker of electronic life emanated from the juiceless Blackberry.

Are you okay? the driver said.

Perfect, I snorted in frustration.

Hang in there, he said. I think it’s breaking up.

Relax, Crowell, I told myself. Breathe. You’ve got a spare battery in your briefcase. You always pack an extra during a campaign. Everybody does.

Crap. I was already on my spare.

There is nothing in this world quite so useless as a high-powered political consultant stuck in D.C. traffic with a dead Blackberry. I was accustomed to dealing with uselessness in others—politicians being the world’s highest-paid unskilled labor—but not myself.

Thirty minutes late for an urgent appointment with the President, I was amazed I wasn’t feeling more stressed. Even though Addison Huntington was arguably the most powerful man in the world today, I also knew that eight years ago he had been just another garden-variety American billionaire whom I had molded first into the Governor of Florida and then the guy the Secret Service refers to as the POTUS.

The fact of the matter was simple; I didn’t fear Addison Huntington enough to be scared of him nor personally like him enough to care if he were disappointed. It wasn’t career burn-out. It was more like being comfortably numb and indifferent.

Look at this cluster-fuck, the limo driver said. The D.C. cops need to turn the water cannons on these clowns.

Do you have a cell phone I can borrow, please?

No, sorry, the bearded, balding driver said. "They cut off my university phone when I, uh, retired."

I muttered under my breath and mopped my brow with the handkerchief from my breast pocket. The traffic still hadn’t moved, and I was seriously contemplating hoofing it the few blocks to the White House.

Some kids danced around the limo and shoved a placard that read Keynes Is Change against the windshield.

"Hah. The driver slapped the dashboard. Look at them—screaming in the streets for ‘Change.’ They don’t have a clue how good they’ got it."

If Huntington gets reelected, they’ll get ‘Change’ alright. Spare change.

Huntington? The driver scowled. Geez, what a stiff.

The limo began rocking. He shook his fist as the overzealous mob shook the limo.

Hey! Easy on the automobile, for cryin’ out loud.

Try the horn.

Reminds me of the Sixties, he said, honking repeatedly. Except without the intellectual ferment. Today, it’s a one-word slogan: ‘Change.’ What the hell does that mean? I heard the leather front seat squeal as he shifted his sedentary bulk around to face me. You know, I got laid off from the faculty at GWU because of Keynes.

Affirmative Action?

Please, spare me. He mopped his face with his hand.

Sorry to hear that.

Yeah, yeah, he said. You know, they say he was a poof back in the day.

Who? Keynes?

Yeah.

My eyes perked up. Maybe this cab ride wasn’t a bust after all, I thought. All those years in Hollywood could do that to him. Do tell? I said, moving my face closer to the glass divider.

The usual stuff, you know, he said, eyeing me in the rear view mirror. Schoolboys. They hushed it up.

Really?

God, this was big. How had our opposition research people missed something of this magnitude? This kind of dirt would light up Addison’s poll numbers like Times Square.

You’re sure about this?

Most definitely, the cabbie said. Researched the hell out of it. And I’ll tell you something else—he’s the guy who’s responsible for the big mess we’re in now.

Yeah, I’m surprised they don’t need a permit for this kind of demonstration, I said. What with the traffic standstill they’re causing.

Not the traffic. He labored to turn around, his tobacco-stained goatee inches from my face. The country. The economic mess the country’s in.

Huh? I said. How do you figure that? He’s just a freshman Congressman whose main accomplishment so far has been getting elected and looking good on television.

What?

The cabbie’s mouth fell agape and his eyes cut back and forth as he tried to fathom my last statement. No, see, I’m not talking about this guy Keynes. He hooked his thumb toward the Willard. I’m talking about Lord Keynes. You know? The Brit?

Damn. My stomach sank. I felt like a fast buck artist who bought a stock Black Friday on a tip from his shoeshine boy.

I tell you what, the cabbie continued. I wasted two years of my life writing my doctoral thesis on that limey fag bastard. You know? The deficit spending guy? Aggregate demand management?

Oh, yeah. Right. Sure, I mumbled, embarrassed by my naïveté.

I sulked, sinking back in the seat. I wasn’t particularly worried about running late for my meeting with Addison at the White House. What did irk me was that each time he had a panic attack, it was all-hands-on-deck until it subsided.

Until Maynard Keynes had burst onto the national political scene, working as Addison’s campaign manager had been the most stress-free gig in my twenty-two years as a political hired gun. Money and fund-raising had been a breeze. The coin was always there, thanks to Addison’s network of fat cats. Gail said it seemed to materialize like manna from heaven.

Four years ago, donations had poured into Addison’s coffers like oil revenues in Kuwait. Back then, the Democrats had elected a populist, Jimmy Dale Reynolds, who pursued a domestic issues agenda and promptly gotten the country in a tight overseas. The Middle East bitch-slapped Jimmy Dale over oil and Israel and then Congress raised taxes. For the remainder of his term, all Reynolds could do was twiddle his thumbs as the mother of all recessions hit the U.S.

Today, Addison’s polls were still lukewarm, even though the economy had improved thanks to the tax cuts the coattails GOP freshmen congressmen had ramrodded through Congress. Quattro’s big money donors were still dragging their feet, so the POTUS had to dig into his personal petty cash to pay the fees of the top campaign people—a cool five million between Gail and me.

Thanks to Maynard Keynes, who burst out of the pack on Super Tuesday to clench the Democratic Presidential nomination, our usual heavy-rollers were writing much smaller checks.

In the old days, the whales gave the same amounts to both sides to hedge their bets. They never cared who won as long as they had access to the Oval Office. Now, however, Section 527 organizations are the de rigueur medium for political whales. You’re familiar with getalong.org and thedailykaka.org, right? Well, we just heard the Sultan of Brunei’s funding one, Allah PACbar, to help Muslim candidates get better media coverage.

It’s a whole new ballgame and Maynard Keynes is the prime beneficiary.

Screw it, I said. I’m getting out here.

I tossed a balled-up hundred in the fee tray and flung open the limo door. Pushing my way through the passionate throng, I pointed my Bruno Maglis in the direction of the White House. As I threaded through the human bead curtain toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I reminded myself to sweet talk Libby into giving the Judge a couple of minutes’ face time with Addison.

I looked at my watch. Forty-five minutes late.

The billionaire-President’s wallet, I knew, was as thick as his tolerance for tardiness was thin. I tried to speed-walk amid the crush of people, and found myself cursing the District.

The limo driver was right; D.C. was a giant cluster-fuck. Someone, I thought, should take a huge wrecking ball and just demolish the whole lousy place so we could start over fresh.

Chapter 3

Do you have any idea how late you are? Libby asked.

Frankly, my dear, I know exactly how late I am.

Normally, I don’t high-hat the help, but I was on good terms with Libby—very, very good terms, in fact—so I wanted her to know I took umbrage at her tone of voice.

She gritted her teeth and shook her head.

But the important thing is, baby, you’re not late, I hope, I whispered. Right? I winked and then did a double-take. Please tell me you’re not late, Libby?

Shut up.

Make me, I said. Please.

I watched the stunning, amber-skinned biracial young woman of thirty-three rise to her full six-foot height. She stepped around her antique mahogany secretaire in the vestibule of the Oval Office and stood eye-to-eye with me. I was a lanky, out-of-shape, white male with salt-and-pepper hair in a four-thousand dollar business suit, and this was the White House and I was late as hell, but all I could think of at that moment was how heavenly she smelled.

That was actually incredibly funny, she said. Who writes your one-liners?

Yours truly, I said.