...Thus it was just over a week before the primary that Danny and Janine opened up almost the last full scale Executive Committee, “ExCom” to Danny, meeting of the campaign.

“Let’s get started. What’s the weather gonna be?” Weller asked one of the volunteer chairs who had become the Staff Weather Officer by default.

“It may be nice, sunny and warmish.”

“Merde,” said Danny.

“Don’t we want good weather?”

“Bad weather keeps the mouth-breathers at home. Our voters drive SUVs.”

“So we hope for bad weather?”

“We hope for locusts. We settle for bad weather.”

“I’m not convinced bad weather will hurt us,” said one of the “volunteer” advisors, a failed candidate who had turned to moneymaking pursuits.

“How not?” asked Danny.

“I think our support is so deep amongst Dems that we want them out at the polls.”

“With all due respect,” which Danny knew the chumped up little nobody understood meant absolutely none, “I mean, amateur analysis will not serve us at this stage of the show.”

“Neither will all your negativity. Your ‘kill or be killed’ media has lost us support.”

“When you’re over a target you get flak,” snapped Danny.

Carol Anderson interrupted, “Can we get back to business? Yes, I agree, we want bad weather. Next?”

“Budget?”

“We’ve taken in at least twenty percent beyond projected expenses,” answered Campaign Chair Darren Anderson, candidate spouse, moneyman and actual campaign manager, for he who controls the checkbook controls the campaign.

“Do we spend it?” asked Danny.

“Do we need to?” countered Darren.

“We’re quickly reaching the point of saturation. It can’t hurt.”

“Where would you spend it?”

“Last minute print. We could up that buy without overkill.”

“Do it,” said Carol, “Next? Let’s finish up, got a speaking engagement in thirty minutes.”

“Final thing. Carol,” he turned to Janine who handed him a paper, “here is a list of the polls we’d like you at and the schedule. You’ll travel by helo.”

Anderson took the list and glanced at it. “Shouldn’t I stay in one place more than ninety minutes?”

“In a perfect world, yes. But there are too many places we’re weak. Just enough time to get press.”

“Weak, who says we’re weak? The polls don’t,” said Finance.

“I know enough not to trust a local poll. Too much chance of contamination.”

“Contamination?” asked the candidate’s daughter, the sharpest of the group.

“The state party’s pollster has bigger clients. Long-term clients. Clients that may be interested in your numbers but who don’t share our goals in this campaign.”

“You mean he’d leak them?”

“Yes.”

“How do you stop that?”

“Go to a pollster way out of state. Mine’s in Utah. Knows nobody here, thus, no possible conflict of interest. Never met them, never want to either. You want complete impersonal objectivity. You guys already had your pollster when I got here, so I demurred.”

“That’ll be the day,” murmured Janine.

“So the numbers are low?” asked Carol.

“This race is too close to call.”

“What do we do?” asked Carol.

“The last two weeks are a sprint. If you look back, you lose a step. We work our firing solution and run like hell for the finish line.”

“Makes sense to me,” said Carol Anderson, “meeting adjourned.”



Hoare dialed Grendel.

“Found a target,” said Hoare.

“Gullible?”

“A real lamb. And for an unfathomable reason, quite smitten with our Danny Boy.”

“You’ve justified my investment in you.”

“You have him and his comely workmate under watch?”

“Only a matter of time with those two.”

“Then I can use that event to leverage my own operation.”

“My thinking also.”

“Then after this next move, we can renegotiate?”

“After this next nail in his coffin, yes.”





“What do we do if we lose the Anderson race?” asked Janine, now that they were safely back at Trooper Keogh’s.

“We hope we haven’t lost a bunch of others, and/or we lost by a small margin, and we go on to next year.”

“Will they hold a grudge?” As the m.o. for clients always was: if they won, they’d never heard of the consultant. If they lost, it was entirely the consultant’s fault.

“Nah, if they punt this one,” he took a sip of his Wild Turkey and Coke, “they might need us for the next run. Carol’s not a quitter, neither is her husband. You can feel it.”

“I like them too. Hope we don’t let them down.”

“Hold on sport, don’t start getting all squishy on me. I may faint.”

“Don’t faint yet Danny. The night is young.”

They had another cocktail.

That led to another. She suggested they go to a club she knew in Philly. Just to let off a little steam. What the hell he thought? She deserved a break; she’d been working hard.

Going back to the small house he was renting was too depressing to contemplate at that moment.

What the hell? He was up for a bit of fun.

On the way there she reached across the car seat and started stroking his neck. What was this? He’d never picked up this vibe.

When they reached the club they found an out of the way table by the bar and after another four cocktails apiece, decided to bar hop.

They departed in a cab from there and towards one of Danny’s haunts, La Majorca, an authentic Spanish (as in Spain, not as in the label many ignorant Anglos give to anything vaguely Hispanic) restaurant on South Street.

As he reached for his cell phone after he entered the taxi, she reached for his crotch. He made a vain attempt to ignore her.

“Janine, just a moment.”

“Why?” she purred in her patented little girl/sleepy cat tone.

“Let me just make this one call.” He told Noelle he was too drunk to drive, was going to stay in town with a pal and would meet her for lunch tomorrow. After all, if Noelle was THE ONE, he deserved at least one more time at the plate before forever hanging up his bat. Didn’t he?


At La Majorca, much to the distraction of the waiters, she waved her cigarette around so much she nearly set her hair on fire and permitted Danny liberties upon her person usually reserved for medical professionals. They left the restaurant and hailed another cab.

As they were waiting, she whispered in his ear, “Now.”

Alighting into the taxi, Danny requested, “The Sheraton Society Hill,” and was wisked there in three minutes. Not a peep from Janine but the soft throaty rumble against his neck that was her evening’s timbre of contentment. They arrived, quickly checked in and galloped to their room.

Wasting no time with preliminaries, which was not the norm for Danny, the event progressed to a strange stalemate where Janine had disrobed save for black slitskirt and thong. Danny had stripped down to his boxers and was endeavoring to control himself by thinking of baseball.

After he regained control, he slowly pulled off her skirt and massaged, as he did, her inner thigh with his tongue...