Chuck Gendron shook his head numbly. With one of his shaking hands he was massaging the left side if his chest - just in case. His eyes kept falling to the photographs. The damning photographs. What if his secretary came in right now? He stopped massaging his chest and began gathering up the pictures, stuffing them back into the envelope.
'He gave me Chairman Mao's little red book,' Greg said. A chuckle rumbled up from the barrel chest that had once been so thin, part of a body that had mostly disgusted his idolized father. 'And one of the proverbs in there ... I can't remember exactly how it went, but it was something like, "The man who senses the wind of change should build not a windbreak but a windmill." That was the flavor of it, anyway.'
He leaned forward.
'Harrison Fisher's not a shoo-in, he's a has-been. Ford is a has-been. Muskie's a has-been. Humphrey's a has-been. A lot of local and state politicians all the way across this country are going to wake up the day after election day and find out that they're as dead as dodo birds. They forced Nixon out, and the next year they forced out the people who stood behind him in the impeachment hearings, and next year they'll force out Jerry Ford for the same reason.
Greg Stillson's eyes blazed at the banker.
'You want to see the wave of the future? Look up in Maine at this guy Longley. The Republicans ran a guy named Erwin and the Democrats ran a guy named Mitchell and when they counted the votes for governor, they both got a big surprise, because the people went and elected themselves an insurance man from Lewiston that didn't want any part of either party. Now they're talking about him as a dark horse candidate for president.'
Gendron still couldn't talk.
Greg drew in his breath. 'They're all gonna think I'm kiddin, see? They thought Longley was kiddin. But I'm not kiddin. I'm building windmills. And you're gonna supply the building materials.'
He ceased. Silence fell in the office, except for the hum of the clock. At last Gendron whispered, 'Where did you get these pictures? Was it that Elliman?'
'Aw, hey. You don't want to talk about that. You forget all about those pictures. Keep them.'
'And who keeps the negatives?'
'Chuck,' Greg said earnestly, 'you don't understand. I'm offering you Washington. Sky's the limit, boy! I'm not even asking you to raise that much money. Like I said, just a bucket of water to help prime the pump. When we get rolling, plenty of money is going to come in. Now, you know the guys that have money. You have lunch with them down at the Caswell House. You play poker with them. You have written them commercial loans tied to the prime rate at no more than their say so. And you know how to put an armlock on them.'
'Greg you don't understand, you don't...'
Greg stood up. 'The way I just put an armlock on you,' he said.
The banker looked up at him. His eyes rolled helplessly. Greg Stillson thought he looked like a sheep that had been led neatly to the slaughter.
'Fifty thousand dollars,' he said. 'You find it.'
He walked out, closing the door gently behind him. Gendron heard his booming voice even through the thick walls, bandying with his secretary. His secretary was a sixty-year-old flat-chested biddy, and Stillson probably had her giggling like a schoolgirl. He was a buffoon. It was that as much as his programs for coping with youthful crime that had made him mayor of Ridgeway. But the people didn't elect buffoons to Washington.
Well - hardly ever.
That wasn't his problem. Fifty thousand dollars in campaign contributions, that was his problem. His mind began to scurry around the problem like a trained white rat scurrying around a piece of cheese on a plate. It could probably be done. Yes, it could probably be done - but would it end there?
The white envelope was still on his desk. His smiling wife looked at it from her place in the lucite cube. He scooped the envelope up and jammed it into the inner pocket of his suitcoat. It had been Elliman, somehow Elliman had found out and had taken the pictures, he was sure of it.
But it had been Stillson who told him what to do.
Maybe the man wasn't such a buffoon after all. His assessment of the political climate of 1975-76 wasn't completely stupid. Building windmills instead of wind-breaks.. . the sky's the limit.
But that wasn't his problem.
Fifty thousand dollars was his problem.
Chuck Gendron, president of the Lions and all-round good fellow (last year he had ridden one of those small, funny motorcycles in the Ridgeway Fourth of July parade), pulled a yellow legal tablet out of the top drawer of his desk and began jotting down a list of names. The trained white rat at work. And down on Main Street Greg Stillson turned his face up into the strong autumn sunlight and congratulated himself on a job well-done - or well-begun.
Chapter Fifteen
1.