“Sorry, man.”
“We can’t pull this off without you.”
“I’m aware of that.” Willie Vasquez-Washington, drumming his fingernails on the oak. “Any other time. Palmer, but not now. I’ve been planning this vacation for years.”
Which was a complete crock, Stoat knew. The junket was being paid for secretly by a big HMO as a show of gratitude to Willie Vasquez-Washington, whose timely intervention had aborted a potentially embarrassing investigation of certain questionable medical practices; to wit, the HMO encouraging its minimum-wage switchboard operators to make over-the-phone surgical decisions for critically ill patients. What a stroke of good fortune (Stoat reflected wryly) that Willie Vasquez-Washington played golf every Saturday with the State Insurance Commissioner.
“Willie, how’s this? We fly you in for the Toad Island vote, then fly you straight back to Banff. We’ll get a Lear.”
Willie Vasquez-Washington eyed Stoat as if he were a worm on a Triscuit. “And you’re supposed to be so damn sharp? Lemme spell it out for you, my brother: I cannot skip the special session and go skiing, like I want. Why? Because they would crucify my ass in the newspapers, on account of the newspapers have bought into the governor’s bullshit. They think we’re all headed back to the capital to vote more money for poor little schoolkids. Because, see, the papers don’t know jack about your bridge scam. So I am one stuck-ass motherfucker, you follow?”
Now it was Willie Vasquez-Washington’s turn to lower his voice. “I’m stuck, man. I gotta go to this session, which means no skiing, which means the wife and kids will be supremely hacked off, which means—sorry!—no new bridge for Honorable Dick and his friends.”
Palmer Stoat calmly waved for another round. He handed a genuine Montecristo Especial No. 2 to Willie Vasquez-Washington, and lighted it for him. Stoat was mildly annoyed by this impasse, but not greatly worried. He was adept at smoothing over problems among self-important shitheads. Stoat hoped someday to be doing it full-time in Washington, D.C., where self-importance was the prevailing culture, but for now he was content to hone his skills in the swamp of teeming greed known as Florida. Access, influence, introductions—that’s what all lobbyists peddled. But the best of them also were fast-thinking, resourceful and creative; crisis solvers. And Palmer Stoat regarded himself as one of the very best in the business. A virtuoso.
Shearwater! Jesus H. Christ, what a cluster fuck. It had cost him his wife and his dog and nearly his life, but he would not let it cost him his reputation as a fixer. No, this cursed deal would get done. The bridge would get funded. The cement trucks would roll and the high rises would rise and the golf courses would get sodded. The governor would be happy, Robert Clapley would be happy, everybody would be happy—even Willie Vasquez-Washington, the maggot. And afterward they would all say it never would have come together except for the wizardly lobbying of Palmer Stoat.
Who now whispered through a tingling blue haze to the vice chairman of the House Appropriations Committee: “He wants to talk to you, Willie.”
“I thought that was your job.”
“Face-to-face.”
“What the hell for?”
“Dick’s a people person,” Stoat said.
“He’s a damn Toyota salesman.”
“He wants to make this up to you, Willie. He wants to know what he can do to make things right.”
“Before the session starts, I bet.”
Stoat nodded conspiratorially. “They’ll be some money floating around next week. How’s your district fixed for schools? You need another school?”
“Man. You serious?” Willie Vasquez-Washington laughed harshly. “Suburbs get all the new schools.”
“”Not necessarily,” said Palmer Stoat. “There’s state pie, federal matching, lottery spill. Listen, you think about it.”
“I am not believin’ this shit.”
Stoat took out a fountain pen and wrote something in neat block letters on a paper cocktail napkin. He slid it down the bar to Willie Vasquez-Washington, who chuckled and rolled the cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other.
Then he said: “OK, OK, I’ll meet with him. Where?”
“I’ve got an idea. You ever been on a real big-game safari?”
“Not since I took the bone out of my nose, you asshole.”