Chapter 103: The Women’s Vote

I was wrong about the effect the fight would have on the election, very wrong. Brew McRiley called me about seven in the morning, while I was still struggling to wake up. Marilyn answered the phone and then passed it over to me. I heard Brew’s voice even before I got the phone in my hands. “CARL! CARL! PICK UP! COME ON, CARL!”

I fumbled the phone for a moment before I could get it to my ear. “Brewster, calm down! What?”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“What? Huh? What are you talking about?”

“Last night! You should have called me!”

I sat up in bed, remembering the disaster. “Brew, I figured I would let you get a night’s sleep before telling you we were all out of jobs.”

“What are you talking about? Haven’t you read the paper yet?” he gushed. He was almost frothing at the mouth with excitement.

“Brewster, it’s only seven. The only thing I’ve read is the alarm clock. What’s going on?”

“Jesus, Carl, I had to read about it in the Sun! This is great!”

Great? Something didn’t sound right! “Brewster, what the hell happened? Andy have a heart attack while laughing at me?”

“Carl, what are you talking about? This is great news! You made the front pages of the Sun! They damn near put you up for sainthood!”

“WHAT?”

“Go read the paper!” he ordered. “I need to work on this!” He hung up.

Marilyn asked, “What’s going on?”

“Damned if I know. The Sun is doing something strange, I guess.” I grabbed my bathrobe and stumbled down the hall and went to the front door. I trudged down the driveway to the road. The newspaper was in a tube on the same post as our mailbox, and I had it open before I ever got back to the house. There it was, a quarter page article, just below the fold on the front page. ‘HERO CANDIDATE STOPS ASSAULT, SAVES DINER!’ There was even a photo of the Westminster Diner, and I have no idea how they did that, since I didn’t see Donaldson with a camera. I stopped reading and headed back to the house.

By the time I got back inside, the phone was ringing again. It was a request from WBAL for an interview. I stumbled through telling them yes, but to check with my campaign manager. As soon as I hung up, there was another call, this time from WJZ. How did they get my unlisted number? I was going to have to change phone numbers again.

At the next call I simply told Marilyn to answer and take a message. I sat down at the kitchen table and spread the paper out. Fletcher Donaldson had really outdone himself. He must have stayed up late on this one. After I left, he managed to get interviews with Nick and Lieutenant Hughes, and he must have driven over to the hospital and gotten in to see Amy and Collins’ wife. The story continued on to page three, and there were separate but attached stories on domestic violence and the need for more women’s shelters. He even managed to dig up the story they had on me from back in 1982, when they picked up the AP report on the fight in the bar in the Bahamas. The man had been busy last night!

Another couple of calls came in while I was reading, and Marilyn told people I was in the shower, but then she said, “It’s Brewster, and he doesn’t believe you’re in the bathroom.” I didn’t get to argue; she simply handed me the phone.

“Yeah, Brew.”

“This is great! Did you read the Sun yet? We have to jump on this right away!” McRiley was so excited he was babbling! It was like a political orgasm to him.

“I’m reading it now, Brew.”

“Great! I’ll meet you at your office at nine! Wear a good suit! We’re going to be doing some interviews! We have to follow this up!” He hung up before I had a chance to say another word.

I hit the button on the phone to hang it up. Marilyn looked over at me and asked, “Well?”

“Brewster’s so excited he just came in his pants.”

“That’s disgusting!” she said, grimacing.

“I agree!” I stood up and headed back to the bedroom. “I’m under orders to get to the office by nine. I’m not sure who’s working for whom.” I headed back to the bedroom. I hadn’t even brushed my teeth yet.

I hung around long enough to kiss my daughters before they went to school (Charlie didn’t get kisses; he was a big boy!) Then I kissed their mother, perhaps a little more enthusiastically, and headed out. When I got to the office, I got a standing ovation as I entered the lobby. I just rolled my eyes and ordered everybody back to work! That earned me a mixture of laughs and raspberries. John and Brewster simply grabbed me and hustled me into John’s office.

“You’re supposed to call me when you get involved with the cops!” said John.

“I’m supposed to call you when I get in trouble with the cops. I wasn’t in any trouble!”

“There’s a first time for everything, I suppose,” was his response.

“Hey, it wasn’t anything somebody else wouldn’t have done.”

“Yeah, but it was you,” said Brew. “Now we build on it. This is great!”

“How so?” I asked.

“Okay, so far you and Andy are running neck and neck. Now, that’s not bad, considering you’re a complete novice and he’s the incumbent, but it’s still too close to call. We need something to move you ahead, far ahead, and this is it. This helps on two fronts. First, it really shows you as the ‘law and order’ candidate. Normally that benefits the Republican candidate, and you were polling ahead on this, but this really cements it. The important part is the women’s vote. Women normally vote Democratic over Republican. There’s a real gender gap, and it is very difficult to close! You just nailed the gender gap!”

“Huh?”

“Listen, you already have them half in the bag because of your stand on abortion and women’s health issues. Fletcher Donaldson just reported you wanted to donate to a woman’s shelter. Were you serious on that?” he asked.

“Absolutely. I have no problems with that,” I told him.

John just nodded. Brewster continued, “And that takes care of the women’s vote. If the gender gap is normally on the order of ten to fifteen percent, and you just broke even, that gives you at least a five percent edge over Stewart.”

“Huh!” I said, as it sank in. “We probably should be polling again.”

He nodded. “We need to ride this. I’ve got you set up for a lunchtime interview down at WJZ and then something in the early afternoon with WMAR and WBAL.”

I nodded. “What do you think Andy’s going to do? Newton’s Third Law, remember. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction! He’s going to do something.”

McRiley blinked as he gave it some thought. It was John who answered first. “He’s going to label you as an out-of-control vigilante.”

Brew nodded. “Good, very good. That’s what I’d do. Then I’d get creative!”

“And lie,” I said, feeling like I was sucking a lemon.

“Andy doesn’t lie. He’s just morally flexible,” said Brew.

“Like a rubber pretzel!” I retorted.

John laughed. “Okay, get out of here the pair of you. I have to earn a living, you’ve got to make phone calls and answer emails, and you’ve got to figure out our response to Andy,” he said, pointing first to me and then to Brewster.

“Already working on it!” assured Brewster.

At the appointed time, Brew and I drove out for the rest of the day. As usual, once I had agreed to run for office, I had been driving either the Caddy or Marilyn’s minivan. The 380, my beloved 380, was up on blocks for the duration. The day after the election, one way or the other, I was going to drive it around! In the meantime, I had to drive an American car. If somebody commented on my driving around an expensive car, I usually said one of two things. “You got to love that big Detroit iron!” was the first thing, usually along with, “It’s a great car!” If they were still pissy, I would just say that I wasn’t going to apologize for being successful.

The WJZ interview was live on their noon news broadcast. The other two would be aired on the six o’clock news, as would highlights from the WJZ interview. Everybody wanted to know the gory details and how I handled the problem. I simply reiterated a few key points, like the fact that the first thing we did was call for the cops, that I had several black belts and knew how to handle myself, and that I simply did what anybody else would have done. The interview with the guy from WBAL was the last of the day, and by the time I did that one, Andy Stewart had just denounced me as a rogue vigilante. I was asked for a response, so I simply chuckled and said, “Well, I think it’s pretty obvious what Congressman Stewart would have done, and it’s the same thing he does on everything related to the safety of the citizens of the Maryland Ninth - nothing!”

Throughout the day, while I drove us around, Brew was busy yapping on his cell phone, a MicroTAC like mine, only he carried a pair of spare batteries around with him. He just smiled after we heard what Andy had to say, and then gave me marching orders for Friday. Marilyn and I were to meet him at the Westminster campaign headquarters at eleven in the morning, looking ‘presentable’ (by which I guessed a suit for me and a dress for Marilyn.) He had a grin on his face like a cat dining on a canary dinner.

As we drove over the next morning, Marilyn asked, “Do you know what Brewster has in mind?”

I shook my head. “Not a clue, but he is having way too much fun with this. He’s got something big planned.”

“He’s like an evil puppeteer!” she said, laughing, her hands making controlling motions over an invisible marionette.

“And I’m the puppet!” I agreed.

I wasn’t surprised when the campaign staffers applauded when we entered the campaign office, and then Brewster yelled out, “I give you the next Congressman for the Maryland Ninth!” which got me another round of cheers and applause.

“Thank you! Thank you! Now let’s make sure this happens!” I said back, smiling. “What do I need to do to help you do that?” I wandered around asking what people were up to and making encouraging noises. You have to make sure the ‘little people’ know they’re appreciated, because there are no little people. The lowest level person in an organization, any organization, can screw things up royally if they get pissed at you. If you start treating them as little, you will be sorry, and sooner rather than later!

At half past, Brew bundled us back outside and into my car. “Will you tell me what is going on?” I asked.

He smiled at me. “We are going over to the Westminster Diner for a press conference...”

“At the diner?”

“ ... where the Chief of Police is going to endorse you for Congress!”

“Holy crap! That’s my first endorsement, isn’t it?”

Brew nodded. “With this one, I bet we can get a bunch of others. We’re also going to announce a $5,000 contribution to the local women’s shelter, and Nick and the waitress are going to be there, too.”

“Well, haven’t you been a busy little beaver,” I told him.

“So, get in the car and drive!” he ordered.

I got in the car and turned to Marilyn. “Did you bring the checkbook? Chuckles here is enjoying himself so much he never mentioned bringing the checkbook!”

“Drive!” ordered Brew. “And think of something nice to say on camera. ‘Thank you!’ would be appropriate.”

“Screw you, Brewster,” I said with a laugh.

It was only a few minutes to the Westminster Diner, and it was obvious that Brewster McRiley really had been a busy little beaver! There was a podium with several microphones on it out in front of the diner, with a Westminster Police car to the side, and several cameras in front, in position to catch both the diner and the police car in the background. Both WMAR and WBAL had vans in the back of the parking lot, and there were heavy electric cables running around the area.

There were several people in the doorway to the diner I recognized. Nick Papandreas was in a suit that looked a touch tight around his middle, Amy was looking nervous and had a large white bandage on the side of her head, and the Westminster Chief of Police, George Tilden, was standing there and drinking from a cup of coffee. I waved at them, but Brew held me back from going over to say hello. Both Amy and Nick waved back, and George nodded and gave me a two fingered salute.