“Wolcott?” Viv says.
“With a married cop during her first trial, a witness, no less.”
Sam shakes his head. “It’s not the right time.”
Vivian turns to Axel with a plea. “You’ll find the girl, won’t you, son?”
Sam tells her their son is doing everything he can, short of going out in the streets himself.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Axel says.
Sam shakes his head. “We need you here, son. We finished barely three points ahead of Wolcott. You need to go to sleep and wake up thinking about how to widen that gap before December tenth. The runoff is–”
“It’s been four days,” Jay says. “She’s been missing four days.”
Sam looks across the room at Neal, who nods once and then quickly turns to the makeup artist and the tech guy in the ratty T-shirt. “Can you excuse us a moment?” As the two shuffle out of the room, they all watch in silence–Jay, Axel, Sam and Vivian, Russell Weingate, and Neal, of course, who waits until the door catches before speaking again. “Look, the campaign is going to release a statement today, outlining our assistance on the case, Axel’s ties to the area, his concern for the family of the missing girl. Marcie is drafting it now.”
“But we’d like to keep Axel as far away from this as possible,” Sam says.
“Campaign statements, interviews with the cops, we’re handling it all.”
“We don’t ever want him to have to lie about Tuesday night.”
“Lie?” Jay says, staring at Axel.
The candidate shrugs. “It’s nothing, really.”
“Lie is probably too strong a word,” Neal says.
Sam sighs. “There were plans made for Tuesday night, big stroll down Pleasantville’s streets, knocking on doors, folks wanting a handshake, the way things have always been done. But the night got past us, and in the end–”
“You never showed,” Jay says, realizing. He remembers Ruby Wainwright’s description of the celebratory pound cake that sat untouched on her kitchen counter. “So you were never in Pleasantville Tuesday night?” he asks Axel.
“No one from the campaign was.”
“Which we’d rather not have advertised,” Sam says.
“We’ve had the precinct in our column since Axel filed papers to run,” Neal says. “We can’t afford to lose our core support over a few hurt feelings.”
“Where were you then?” Jay asks Axel.
“Dinner with a few donors downtown.”
“Eyes on the prize,” Sam says, dabbing at the grease on his chin.
Neal turns to Jay. “We appreciate you checking on the situation. It was good of you to come last night, but we’ve got this handled.” He puts a hand on Jay’s shoulder, the gesture a naked attempt to usher Jay out of the hotel suite.
“Actually there’s something else.”
From his coat pocket, Jay pulls out the folded-up copy of the flyer, the printed accusations against Axel and his campaign over the Buffalo Bayou Development Project. “You got some folks in your old precinct worried.”
Axel takes the paper from Jay, unfolding it.
His lips move slightly as he reads the words.
“What is this?”
“We’re tracking it down right now,” Neal says. He and Sam exchange a look. It’s clear they knew about the flyer already, and their candidate did not.
“What is the Buffalo Bayou Development Project?” Jay asks.
“Nothing that anybody in Pleasantville ought to worry about,” Sam says.
Axel is still holding the flyer. “Where did this come from?”
“It’s Acton or Wolcott,” Neal says; “it came out a few days before the general.”
“It’s a dirty trick is what it is.” Sam pushes away the leftover bits of food, reaching into his pockets to light a cigarette. He’s on his good leg mostly, his left hip swung out to the side, boot dug into the carpet. “You see they made it look local, like someone in my neighborhood has a problem with Axel, as if anyone in Pleasantville would put out anything like this without coming to me first,” he insists, coming dangerously close to saying, “without asking me first.” Through a helix of smoke, Sam studies Jay, doing the math in his head, how a flyer distributed to the residents of Pleasantville made it into Jay Porter’s hands. “Who gave it to you?” he asks, even though he knows Jay better than that. He trusts Jay, that’s always been clear. Hell, Jay wouldn’t have signed his first client in Pleasantville without Sam saying it was okay, that Jay was the best out there, especially for a case like theirs. But, early on, Sam discovered that being “mayor of Pleasantville” wouldn’t grant him special access to Jay’s process or progress, which he had on more than one occasion insinuated was his due. No, the case was Jay’s, and his clients were entitled to his discretion, even now.
“Doesn’t matter. The point is there are some folks out there worried about what this means, whether this is another threat to the neighborhood. There’s a group out there talking about selling and getting out of Pleasantville before the next blow comes,” Jay says, pointing to the bayou development flyer. “The same ones pushing for a cheap settlement in the civil lawsuit, just to wrap it up quickly. So you can see why this would present a problem for me.” The mobile phone in his pocket rings. He checks the screen, but doesn’t recognize the number. He lets it go to voice mail.