Chapter 25: Politicking

As the holidays rolled around, so did the political season. Mid-term elections were a year away, so candidates were getting serious about the primaries. Since I, in my FDC cap, was a campaign manager, this became time-consuming. It was well I had Cloudrest issues to give me another topic of conversation. City politics is tea party gossip gone wild. Elspeth made a chart of the various family trees, so that I could sort out some of the nepotism.

South Boston was doing better. Once I dried Veronica out, she started to enjoy her job. Since her regular job was only a step above turning burgers, I offered her a position and threw in an office. It was exactly the right thing.

Mark Twain said that the difference between almost the right word and the right word is like the difference between a lightning bug and a lightning bolt. In this case, I was lucky. I needed a permanent address in Boston and someone to man it. Veronica was the obvious person. It did not occur to me that running an office was a lifelong dream of Roni's.

It was a lesson that stood me well through the years. The term "Manager" has mystic powers. It was a tiny one-room office, but there was a desk, a phone and a filing cabinet. More importantly, the door read, "Veronica VanKampen, FD Consulting." It did not hurt that the address was a block north of Boylston Street. I suppose that put her uptown. In any event, Veronica cried when I showed her the office and handed her a box of business cards.

Naturally, within a week she was telling me she needed a bigger office and a secretary. By New-Year, I agreed with her. Mimi provided a list of names for the assistant. Veronica chose a mousy thirty-year-old Iraqi immigrant, Ibraim Wardani, who happened to be a bit of a tech whiz. Since Roni was heavily to the lesbian side of bisexual, I was not worried about romantic entanglements. I never thought to worry about Elspeth, but that was later.

As I mentioned, I was lucky when I set Veronica up in an office. The reason I agreed to the new office and the assistant was Commonwealth of Massachusetts vs. John Dorne. This was an assault case, of a man against his former employer. Mr. Dorne was laid off, a year before his pension vested and days before scheduled surgery. The Union was fighting the layoff, with what they considered a solid case. Following the assault, the company management doubled down.

Mr. Dorne walked into our new office, literally while Veronica was unpacking. He had heard through the grapevine (most likely over beers at a bar) about FDC's work in South Boston. Attached was some vague rumor that FDC was representing parole people in New Hampshire. That might not have gone anywhere, except he also knew of Veronica. To give her due credit, Roni cut a swath.

The Massachusetts Federation of Commonwealth Employees (MFCE) was considering a class action suit against the employer. Several other employees had been discharged with suspicious timing. What their case needed was statistical analysis showing a pattern and a person with letters after the name to defend them.

Since MBC&L was not the attorney for the Commonwealth entity, we took it on. More practically, I gave it to Veronica and Vivian. I had street knowledge of the area, but Veronica knew it in her bones. Vivian was turning into one of FDC's star talents. In due course, I would make her a partner. Between them, they would grow the Boston office to twenty full-time people in five years.

While my footprint in Boston was expanding, my presence in Manchester was vanishing. The road project was done. Rather than strongly pursue new business, I pulled back to the steady work I had developed in the Capital. Consulting in criminal cases was not lucrative, but it was quick and reliable. Consulting in civil cases was much more involved, but the payout was comparatively large.

As I mentioned, Vivian was becoming a major asset. Years later, I found out that one of Boston's leading law firms had offered her a partnership to jump ship. It was years later because Vivian never considered the job, or even told anyone about it. As far as she was concerned, it was DOA. What did I do to deserve loyalty like that?

Between court appearances in Concord and executive time in Boston, I spent a lot of time on the road. When the Looksett lease was up, I had moved down to Nashua. It put me closer to Cloudrest and cut the drive to Boston by a third. On December 21, that became important. Allan Morton discovered he had lung cancer. He wanted me to take over his bid for Nashua Alderman. I had barely a week before the year-end filing deadline.

You should understand that I remained plugged into the Nashua wife's network, even though I was no longer looking for a house. Indeed, there was an informal club meeting every first Thursday at Edna Gregg's house. We would sit for tea. I would share the progress on Cloudrest. The others in attendance would vary, but there were rarely fewer than six. Thus, I had people I could call to discuss the possibilities.

The results shocked me. If they did not already have a family member running, every one of the ladies urged me to run. Quietly, a couple of the wives or daughters of candidates also urged me to get in. I was reluctant, but I fit the legal requirements, so I paid the $50 filing fee and turned everything over to Elspeth. By this point, she was as familiar to the ladies as I was.

I drove to New Jersey for Christmas with family. Cindy was a cheerful toddler. She thought her big aunt was great fun to ride. While I was home I picked the brains of some of Sean's best consultants. In two cases, I picked his people. My Concord office needed a facelift. I installed one of my two pirated people to supervise the move to the new workspace. This time, Beacon Light had its own office and a full-time staffer. I was hoping to spend a lot less time there.

New Year I spent in Boston with Elspeth and Ro. I enjoyed it. The band played a lot of Latin dance numbers, so I spent some time on the floor. Elspeth was much better than I, but Richard had two left feet. Sheila might have done something with him, but I could not. New Year's Day we went to visit Adele. She and I had a long talk about families and how the generations link. I believe she was genuinely fond of me.