The polling room was an airless ten-by-twelve-foot cell on the other side of the door. This was a gambling room any other day of the year. There was a phone on the wall, used to call in bids on a policy game. Behind the table, where the roll was taken, two slot machines sat dormant under green blankets. Jake stowed his suitcase under the blankets too. He felt eyes on his back as he did this, as if the men dreamed what ingenious new weapon he carried.
Voters crowded to sign the roll book. They were given a ballot and shuffled to a corner to fill in the blanks. An election official was there, some junior clerk from the county courthouse, to make sure each voter knew the address that corresponded with the name he was claiming (that he read it off a slip didn’t matter) and that the voter filled in the ballot on his own. These were the only rules that needed to be enforced. As far as the official was concerned, there was no other room at Mecklenburg’s than the one he sat in. He was deaf to the instructions Meinhof shouted, deaf to the barroom hopping above. After a voter finished marking the slate, the ballot was exchanged for a slip that certified he’d voted. This wasn’t anything official. It entitled him to whiskey and sausage at the bar upstairs.
It was like this all day. Jake and Meinhof moved them from room to room. Bouncers pushed the rowdy ones to the curb, to streetcars running express back to Union and Burlington Stations. These voters would be out of state before anyone else knew they were here.
The sun shined through the front windows in the afternoon. This surprised Jake when he came up to the barroom. He’d been underground since 5 a.m. Before that he’d been riding in the dark most of the night. He soaked in the sunshine that washed through the big front glass. More than a few election workers sat on car fenders in the street. They drank Irish coffee and pawed at plates of sausage and cheddar cheese. Most of these had never owned a vehicle, so the pride of driving a new car—Model Ts and Packard Twins—showed on their ruddy faces. Even if they were exhausted from working thirty hours straight, the exhilaration of Election Day kept them going. This was something they’d talk about the rest of their lives. The time they drove a Studebaker around the Ward on behalf of Tom Dennison and their beloved, infamous mayor, Cowboy Jim Dahlman. The lieutenants traded stories. It was boyish fun. To see them joking, staying up night and day to help a politician. One could almost forget what happened at the Santa Philomena. There was no stain of violence in a man’s smile as he chatted up a potential vote. No melee on Clandish, no sabotage, no Cypriot dying. (Not unless you had the eyes to see them.)
Jake sat at the bar until the votes needed to be counted. He picked at some fried potatoes and ham, a beer in front of him he didn’t drink. It was late afternoon. Many election workers made their way to Mecklenburg’s, having finished for the day. Jake saw them in the mirror behind the bar. Some were his friends, Ingo and Rudi, men he’d hired. They didn’t invite him to join them. They were busy boasting of capers they pulled. A smutty poem about a priest and nun they’d printed—with a forged endorsement from the opposition on the back—and distributed in Catholic neighborhoods. A circular they mailed last week in hostile districts, falsely notifying voters that the election had been moved to Wednesday, and that a man could vote by phone if he wished. All of them buzzed at how they busted up Josie Washburn’s speech the night before. They marveled at how they’d pitted rivals against each other, at how quickly fighting was stoked and debate stifled. They tipped beers in celebration. Unbuttoned their shirts halfway. Let cigarette smoke drift out their nostrils.
Ingo saw Jake watching. He smiled and lifted his drink. Ingo was amused at what he saw, Jake realized. He understood this amusement once he saw himself in the mirror. He looked like shit. He was tired, decrepit in a way. He hadn’t shaved in a week. Jake had been on a mad dash two days and accomplished nothing. He hadn’t even managed to run away. The suitcase was in the basement waiting while he sat on a bar stool eavesdropping. The truth of the matter was that Jake was at war in Omaha. He owed money. He’d crossed people who shouldn’t be crossed—and they knew about his escape plan. No amount of imagination could change this.
Once the polls closed, the election official went upstairs at Ingo’s request and drank on the house while Jake and Meinhof counted votes in the basement. The ballots were kept in a steel lockbox, but Meinhof had a key. He dumped ballots on the table when they were alone. “Let’s get to it,” he said.
The first time through they separated the ballots into two piles—those supporting Tom Dennison’s Square Seven and those supporting the reform slate. The counting was easier like this. Few ballots split either ticket. The first count showed a victory for Dahlman and the Square Seven, but before they restored the ballots to the box, and the box to the clerk, Meinhof called Dennison’s office with the numbers. From the way Meinhof’s face dropped, it was clear there was a problem. The numbers weren’t coming in right. Districts outside the River Ward were going to their opponents in staggering numbers. Normally the machine relied on something close to a split in the outlying districts—with the Ward tipping the results in their favor. That wasn’t the case this time. The reform politicians, the churches—they’d gotten their people out. It put pressure on the Ward to produce.
“We’ve got to do it again,” Meinhof said, the telephone on its hook.
“Again?”
“Yeah! That’s what I said. Go through the box. Find more that aren’t right and toss them out. Make them wrong yourself if you have to. That’s what Billy said.”
Meinhof called again after they recounted. Jake knew the gain wouldn’t be enough. He’d heard Tom talk about what might happen on Election Day, and he knew, as Meinhof slammed down the receiver, that the worst-case scenario was coming true. The deficit was insurmountable. No matter what margin the River Ward delivered, it wouldn’t carry the day.
“Screw it,” Meinhof said. He stomped around and swore. His face twisted as he rushed to the table and swept a mound of voting slips to the floor, ones marked for the reform ticket. “We’ll make the numbers,” he said. There was nothing wrong with these ballots, they hadn’t been altered. Meinhof tore them in half and kicked them in among the carpet of stomped cigar stubs, then stopped, hands gripped under the beveled edge of the table, the flop of his hair undone. Meinhof smiled, maybe aware of the furniture turned over, the dust prints from his boots on opposition ballots. He dropped the table on its feet and looked like he might laugh.
“What are you doing?” Jake asked. “If you were going to fix the numbers, why—?”
“Get out,” Meinhof said. “I’ll finish without you.”
Jake squeezed the suitcase handle. He tried to relax but couldn’t. His anger embarrassed him. So he turned and climbed the stairs without looking back. Let Meinhof fix the numbers. It wouldn’t make a difference, not even if the machine claimed the Ward was unanimous in its support of Dahlman. The switch was in. It was over.