I felt a ghost of the lost feeling I had had when my father died. I had never seen Bonforte, I had had nothing from him but a few scrawled corrections on typescript. But I leaned on him all the way. The fact that he was in that room next door had made the whole thing possible.
I took a long breath, let it out, and said, “Okay, Rog. We’ll have to.”
“Yes, Chief.” He stood up. “We’ve got to get over to that meeting. How about that?” He nodded toward the safe-districts list.
“Oh.” I tried to think. Maybe it was possible that Bonforte would reward Bill with the privilege of calling himself “the Honorable,” just to keep him happy. He wasn’t small about such things; he did not bind the mouths of the kine who tread the grain. In one of his essays on politics he had said, “I am not an intellectual man. If I have any special talent, it lies in picking men of ability and letting them work.”
“How long has Bill been with him?” I asked suddenly.
“Eh? About four years. A llttle over.”
Bonforte evidently had liked his work. “That’s past one general election, isn’t it? Why didn’t he make him an Assemblyman then?”
“Why, I don’t know. The matter never came up.”
“When was Penny put in?”
“About three years ago. A by-election.”
“There’s your answer, Rog.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Bonforte could have made Bill a Grand Assemblyman at any time. He didn’t choose to. Change that nomination to a ‘resigner.’ Then if Mr. Bonforte wants Bill to have it, he can arrange a byelection for him later-when he’s feeling himself.”
Clifton showed no expression. He simply picked up the list and said, “Very well, Chief.”
Later that same day Bill quit. I suppose Rog had to tell him that his arm-twisting had not worked. But when Rog told me about it I felt sick, realizing that my stiff-necked attitude had us all in acute danger. I told him so. He shook his head.
“But he knows it all! It was his scheme from the start. Look at the load of dirt he can haul over to the Humanity camp.”
“Forget it, Chief. Bill may be a louse-I’ve no use for a man who will quit in the middle of a campaign; you just don’t do that, ever. But he is not a rat. In his profession you don’t spill a client’s secrets, even if you fall out with him.”
“I hope you are right.”
“You’ll see. Don’t worry about it. Just get on with the job.”
As the next few days passed I came to the conclusion that Rog knew Bill better than I did. We heard nothing from him or about him and the campaign went ahead as usual, getting rougher all the time, but with not a peep to show that our giant hoax was compromised. I began to feel better and buckled down to making the best Bonforte speeches I could manage-sometimes with Rog’s help; sometimes just with his okay. Mr. Bonforte was steadily improving again, but Capek had him on absolute quiet.
Rog had to go to Earth during the last week; there are types of fence-mending that simply can’t be done by remote control. After all, votes come from the precincts and the field managers count for more than the speechmakers. But speeches still had to be made and press conferences given; I carried on, with Dak and Penny at my elbow-of course I was much more closely with it now; most questions I could answer without stopping to think.
There was the usual twice-weekly press conference in the offices the day Rog was due back. I had been hoping that he would be back in time for it, but there was no reason I could not take it alone. Penny walked in ahead of me, carrying her gear; I heard her gasp.
I saw then that Bill was at the far end of the table.
But I looked around the room as usual and said, “Good morning, gentlemen.”
“Good morning, Mr. Minister!” most of them answered.
I added, “Good morning, Bill. Didn’t know you were here. Whom are you representing?”