There was a banquet that night at a warehouse cleaned out for the purpose. Mayor Dahlman would be there. Frank would be there. The city commissioners. Billy set it all up. A regular thing in an election year. There would be a big spread. Rotisserie chicken and roast duck with apricot jam, mashed potatoes still steaming they were so hot, canned carrots and peas and tomatoes, white bread with butter and orange marmalade. There would be wine and rye whiskey and a keg of Storz Triumph that had been held over for the occasion.
Tom didn’t feel well, but these kinds of things were necessary from time to time. He’d rather be at home with his feet up by the fire, his daughter Frances beside him, Ada bringing broth. The doctor said Tom should have shook off what was bothering him by now. It had been months. Still some illness dragged on him, a little bit more each week. Walking pneumonia, the doctor guessed. Tom’s breathing was bad. Ada said he’d had an apoplexy. “Wouldn’t that explain it all,” he mocked her. “My brain broke.” He felt bad about his repartee later, but setting his wife straight was a necessary thing. Ada couldn’t keep going on about it like that, not with an election to win, not with Frank and the benefactors showing doubt. Tom had his hands full enough without worrying about water filling his lungs or his wife thinking he’d had a stroke.
Billy Nesselhous stopped by Tom’s house before the banquet to talk things over. Billy was the only one Tom was honest with about being sick. They’d known each other a long time. Billy had been a rangy street kid himself once but was short and fat now, almost all his hair gone, his nose swelled up like a red balloon. Tom figured he had no room to judge. He probably looked worse. Two old gamblers. Partners of the famed, now-defunct Budweiser Saloon. It was Billy who helped Tom set up his first policy wheel and gambling room when he came to Omaha. Billy was from here and knew the lay of the land, and they had mutual friends in Denver. That was enough in those days.
Tom was in the kitchen when Billy arrived. He’d changed into his tuxedo and was having broth to warm up. Ada offered Billy some, but he’d had whiskey on the ride over and the broth wouldn’t mix well.
Billy wanted to compare notes on the election to make sure he was up to speed. It was his feeling that they’d pull it out again, easy, and he tried to convince Tom to share his optimism. Cowboy Jim Dahlman, their incumbent mayor, took first in the open primary a couple months before, which had surprised Tom. Maybe it surprised nobody else, but that didn’t matter. Primaries were bullshit. Particularly when nobody was eliminated. Billy was persistent, though. He said Tom read too much into the threat of reform. Tom got to feeling down and unnerved himself, and maybe even Frank, talking about losing. “You spooked yourself.” Billy fiddled with the silverware. He didn’t like having to be the wise one. “You feel bad, that’s it. What was it the doc said? Wandering pneumonia?”
“Walking.”
“Sure. That’s it. But you got to keep your chin up. Tonight especially. We don’t win without these men. Keep the money flowing. That will make you feel better. If we take this election, you’ll be tip-top in no time.”
Maybe Billy was right. Tom felt bad, and that was what made him think they’d lose. That was all. He’d feel better when they won. Winning always did that. If they held on through the municipal vote two months down the road, he’d collect from who owed him. It would be summer. He’d head out with Ada to San Diego like she wanted. If they took the municipal, he’d feel fine.
“I think you’re onto something,” he told Billy. “I feel better already.”
“Sure you do. You just need some cheering up. That’s what I’m here for.”
They went through it again and Tom did feel better. The fear of losing had dragged him down, that was all. He never could stand somebody getting the better of him.
Maybe it seems peculiar that Evie and Jake fell in love so quickly. But it was a common occurrence at the time. People fell in love over the course of an afternoon, in a moment out on the walkway if it was a nice day, and were married by the nearest justice of the peace if it felt right. It happened that way for most people on Clandish. If two people loved each other, they loved each other. Why shouldn’t they be together?
They weren’t married, so maybe it wasn’t love, but Evie got Jake to herself evenings in her rooms, and she made the most of what time they had together. She was content to cloister away with him, to listen to Irving Berlin and eat soft green apples, to read aloud from the clothbound Ovid he bought, one that reminded him of the library his father kept back home, he said. She cooked in sloppy, eclectic styles. Sautéed catfish with onions and peas. Hot potato salad. Buttered noodles, vegetable chop suey with wild artichokes. He ate quickly then finished what morsels Evie ignored on her plate, the half she left untouched. Jake was such a country boy. He sometimes drank a whole quart of buttermilk with dinner. He came to her pretty much every night as winter turned to spring, his arms full of presents he’d bought for her—more records, new bottles of roseate perfumes. It was nice to have him up in her place. The gamblers Evie worked for had let her keep the room, even after Ugo vanished, and said they’d get back to her when they needed something. Whatever you want, she’d said. She didn’t want to lose the room, even if that meant she owed the gamblers. Of course, she didn’t tell Jake about the deal she’d made. He had his secrets, Evie figured, his little sneaking from his boss, and she had hers.
She and Jake told stories from when they were kids. Games they’d played; people they recalled randomly, for often tawdry reasons. That made them merry. They talked about what they read in the Metamorphoses and listened to hot jazz on the phonograph. She said dopey things to him, like “Don’t fall in love with me,” and, “If you were smart, you wouldn’t be here,” and he acted like she was teasing. She prepared baths. Mineral-rich, nourishing baths she concocted with great care. He stopped by to warm and wash, to lay in the water with his woman.