Consider Tom Dennison: most people couldn’t tell a thing was wrong in 1918, but things weren’t going so well for him. It was an election year. The coalition Tom put together had been in charge over twenty years by then. He ran everything in town. The board of commissioners, the utilities board, the police force. He had the mayor on his side, of course. To a guy on the street the Dennison machine looked rock solid. But Tom would have known the inside workings of everything and how fragile his organization actually was. It all depended on the vote. Any single election year could topple what he’d built. He wouldn’t have been able to rest, thinking about that.
To top it off, the opposition paper was making him out to be a crook again. They did it to annoy him. Tom had never stolen anything a guy wasn’t willing to give of his own free will, through carelessness or greed. Tom was a gambler. This was the profession he claimed—not boss, as the opposition paper called him, not crook or embezzler or racketeer or anything else. Being a gambler was an honorable thing, as far as Tom knew. A gambler didn’t steal. He won.
This time he’d done nothing. A traveler’s wife had some jewelry stolen from their room. The hotel manager said to go and ask Tom if he knew who took it. Tom could have left them in the wind. He didn’t know who took the jewelry, a diamond necklace and ring, not offhand. But Tom was a decent man. He found out. Some grifter came through on his way to Kansas City and somehow talked the woman out of her possessions. These things happened. How this woman ended up alone in a hotel room with a man she just met, that was her business. Tom didn’t care. He tracked the thief down to KC and made sure the woman’s things were expressed back with apologies. Nothing was lost in the deal by anyone. Everyone was happy, save the grifter. But then the World-Herald had to run a note on it, a paragraph or so, with a quote from the woman. She blabbed Tom’s name. It wouldn’t have been a big deal at all if it wasn’t for the name Dennison being mentioned next to the name Pendergast. If Tom was connected to Pendergast, who was known for running a crooked machine down in KC, then a bunch of people in Omaha were connected to Pendergast too. The inference wouldn’t sit well. Tom knew how important it was to run things clean. It wasn’t enough to just do right.
That was why he was going to Frank’s house for lunch. To square things with the benefactors. Frank spoke for the benefactors. He was important. He paid for things. So there would have to be an explanation for the article. Tom and Frank alone. A sit-down in the wallpapered front room of Frank’s house, some ham sandwiches and beer. Tom wouldn’t even take the beer. He didn’t bother with spirits. That was the truth. People might not believe it, but that’s how it was. Tom asked for a glass of milk, and the maid went to get it.
“I hope it isn’t your stomach,” Frank said. He laughed and Tom laughed too. “A grown man drinking milk.”
Frank was tall, good looking, his dark hair combed back, charming in his way. Rich, connected, unperverted. He came from a good family and married into a better one. Tom considered him a man. That was important. Frank was somebody Tom could talk to. He was younger than Tom—Tom turned fifty-nine that October—but that was okay, most people were younger than him those days. They’d figure things out, and then Tom could tell the boys what to do. They’d keep things up and running in this town just as long as they could.
Tom felt fine during lunch. The ham was all right. Ribbons of fat gelled cold through the meat, there was Dijon mustard and paper-thin slices of onion. Frank wasn’t even mad about the thing in the newspaper. “I want to talk about the vote,” he said. There was a city election in three months—it had been twenty years since the slate Tom backed lost an election. “Oh. Nothing to worry about there,” Tom said, naming off what good news there was to tell. The sound health of candidates on their ticket. The stifling of scandal. How they even got the Germans on Clandish over to their side this last year, because Wilson promised to keep the country out of the war and it got him elected. Sure, Wilson backtracked on that, but Tom didn’t think most voters would hold a grudge.
“You got it under control is what you’re saying.” Frank sat back and dabbed his mouth with a napkin. He’d put too much mustard on his sandwich and the overspill kept him occupied.
Tom didn’t say much—he rarely did—but the thought of the vote wore him out. He had a bad feeling this time. Leaning back into the fine sofa, full from the milk and ham, he murmured something about this maybe being the last time he ran an election, and how it bothered him that the odds might go against them.
“What do you mean by that?” Frank leaned in to stir his coffee. His mouth turned down, his face still and smooth as ivory. “We’re going to lose? That’s what you mean?”
“No,” Tom said. “I don’t mean that. It’s just a feeling. Something strange.”
“Jeez. Is that what you actually think? What are we paying you for?” Frank stood to look out the curtains. “Think you can still handle the job?” he asked. “Think you’re up for another election? Think it’s time to quit? Let somebody else take a hand at the trigger?”
“Sure,” Tom said. “Sure, I’m fine.”
Tom told Harry to drive the Olds 45 up north of the city. He wanted to see some countryside. His doctor said he needed rest, that he should avoid the office for a while, get as much fresh air as he could. It was what doctors always said: fresh air, clean water. Tom was inclined to believe them, he just didn’t know how to implement such advice. He could head home early, surprise Ada. He could skip out to his kennel. There were some new fox terrier pups, he could see how their training was going. Or the stables. Tom owned the fastest palomino pony in the world.
Tom didn’t do any of these things. He had Harry drive in the country. A long drive would give him time to come around to what Frank had said.