“Damn, I should’ve thought of that,” he said. “Lisa!” he screamed to his assistant, causing Isabel and Ed to flinch. “Find out if Clemens scored an invite to Close-up… Bel, if they did ask him, we’re dead meat—who in their right mind would invite that turkey to his own Thanksgiving Dinner? Unless they had to.”
She didn’t remind Bill that he was the one who had foisted Hank Clemens on her as her running mate to help bolster her stocks with the conservative base. She’d agreed, for sure, but now realised how big a mistake she’d made. It was almost John McCain and Sarah Palin from 2008 all over again, except Isabel had insisted on Hank keeping his mouth closed, and so far he’d done that. She wasn’t going to have her running mate shooting from his lip. Unlike Palin, who knew what she wanted to say but found it hard to put two words together, at least correctly, Hank’s problem was that he wavered on policy, except on guns and moral issues. Unless he was closely scripted, he could take more positions than the Kama Sutra.
“The point is, Bill… if Hank’s invited, it’s me who’s the dinner.”
She heard Bill cover the mouthpiece, and waited.
“He’s at his hoity-toity racquet club,” Bill tittered in a falsetto whine. “One where the members can’t use their cell phones. Bel, when you’re elected, don’t ever let Hank take you to his damn club if there’s a war looming, okay?”
Isabel’s other line was ringing. It was Gregory. She joined up the two calls.
“I told them,” said Gregory, “you know, no info, no dice. Well, not those exact words, different w…”
Ed was shaking his head in disbelief that Isabel could have retained this verbal stumblebum as her key strategist. For Isabel, Gregory’s rambling usually brightened up her day. He was an experienced campaign manager with the capacity to crack everyone up while making a deeply insightful point. She’d told him, many times, he was doing himself a disservice by it, since most people’s first, and wrong impression was that he was a fool.
“Get to the point,” said Bill, cutting Gregory short.
“It’s about one of Isabel’s parents.”
She went as white as one of the Limoges porcelain figurines she’d bought for the Adam mantel. “Not my moth…”
“It’s your father.”
Thank heavens. She exhaled deeply, and her eyes rose to the high ceiling. All she knew about her father was the photograph… and the little her mother had told her. But had her mother lied about that, too? Had they found him alive somewhere? No… it wasn’t possible, or he’d surely have revealed himself before now. In person. To her. Not on some TV show.
Ed’s mind was also racing, and what started to emerge out of the bushes was the dread that Isabel’s father’s business activities might not have been very suitable for a US president’s dad. JFK got clean away with a supposed bootlegger and stock market manipulator for a father, but Ed feared coca was in another ballpark altogether, especially these days with the war after war on drugs, none of which was ever won. Bolivia was infamous for its coca trade, and if her father had been a coca-runner it could be utterly disastrous, especially when added to the Karim Ahmed debacle that was still beating them up.
“So,” snapped Ed, “what about him?”
“Ah… it’s who he is,” said Gregory.
Ed leant forward, close to the phone speaker on the white marble tabletop in front of them. “Who he is, or who he was?” He glanced at Isabel to see her fingers digging into her palms.
“Was. Sorry,” said Gregory. “Yes, it’s about who he was. My mistake. He’s been dead for years… as we all thought… I mean, knew…”
“But,” interrupted Isabel, “we know who he was. My mother told…”
“Apparently, we don’t,” said Gregory. “Your mother’s story stacks up, according to… well, a source… except for two things, though I can’t see why they’re such a big deal…”
“What things?” asked Isabel, her stomach tightening even more, if that were possible.
“She told you he died before you were born. But it was after.”
“No! How long…?” she jumped up, hating her mother even more, and starting to imagine all those years she might have known him and what they might have done together.
“It was only a month.”
“But my birth certificate says…”
“If she could lie to you, why couldn’t she lie to the hospital? Maybe it was to get higher welfare benefits as a widow? I don’t know.” Before Isabel could readjust, Gregory continued, “And she also told you he was a Bolivian businessman, right? Murdered for ransom?”
“Ri-ight,” said Isabel, her hesitance apparent to all on the call. She’d been thinking the same things as Ed.
“Wrong,” said Gregory. “He lived in Bolivia, sure, but he was Chilean. And not just any old Chilean. He was way up in Chile’s elite... a diplomat, high-ranking.”
Isabel started to speak, “A diplo…?”