He shook hands with Morris Udall and Henry Jackson. Fred Harris clapped him on the back. Ronald Reagan gave him a quick and practiced politico’s double-pump and said,
‘Get out to the polls and help us if you can.’ Johnny had nodded agreeably enough, seeing
no point in disabusing Mr. Reagan of his notion that he was a bona fide New Hampshire voter.
He had chatted with Sarge Shriver just inside the main entrance to the monstrous Newington Mall for nearly fifteen minutes. Shriver, his hair freshly cut and smelling of after-shave and perhaps desperation, was accompanied by a single aide with his pockets stuffed full of leaflets, and a Secret Service man who kept scratching furtively at his acne.
Shriver had seemed inordinately pleased to be recognized. A minute or two before Johnny said goodbye, a candidate in search of some local office had approached Shriver and asked him to sign his nominating papers. Shriver had smiled gently.
Johnny had sensed things about all of them, but little of a specific nature. It was as if they had made the act of touching such a ritual that their true selves were buried beneath a layer of tough, clear lucite. Although he saw most of them – with the exception of President Ford -Johnny had felt only once that sudden, electrifying snap of knowledge that he associated with Eileen Magown -and, in an entirely different way, with Frank Dodd.
It was a quarter of seven in the morning. Johnny had driven down to Manchester in his old Plymouth. He had worked from ten the evening before until six this morning. He was tired, but the quiet winter dawn had been too good to sleep through. And he liked Manchester, Manchester with its narrow streets and timeworn brick buildings, the gothic textile mills strung along the river like mid-Victorian beads. He had not been consciously politician-hunting that morning; he thought he would cruise the streets for a while, until they began to get crowded, until the cold and silent spell of February was broken, then go back to Kittery and catch some sacktime.
He turned a corner and there had been three nondescript sedans pulled up in front of a shoe factory in a no-parking zone. Standing by the gate in the cyclone fencing was Jimmy Carter, shaking hands with the men and women going on shift. They were carrying lunch buckets or paper sacks, breathing out white clouds, bundled into heavy coats, their faces still asleep. Carter had a word for each of them. His grin, then not so publicized as it became later, was tireless and fresh. His nose was red with the cold.
Johnny parked half a block down and walked toward the factory gate, his shoes crunching and squeaking on the packed snow. The Secret Service agent with Carter sized him up quickly and then dismissed him or seemed to.
‘I’ll vote for anyone who’s interested in cutting taxes,’ a man in an old ski parka was saying. The parka had a constellation of what looked like battery-acid burns in one sleeve. ‘The goddam taxes are killing me, I kid you not.’
‘Well, we’re gonna see about that,’ Carter said. ‘Lookin over the tax situation is gonna be one of our first priori-ties when I get into the White House.’ There was a serene self-confidence in his voice that struck Johnny and made him a little uneasy.
Carter’s eyes, bright and almost amazingly blue, shifted to Johnny. ‘Hi there,’ he said.
‘Hello, Mr. Carter,’ Johnny said. ‘I don’t work here. I was driving by and saw you.’
‘Well I’m glad you stopped. I’m running for President.’
‘I know.’
Carter put his hand out. Johnny shook it.
Carter began: ‘I hope you’ll…’ And broke off.
The flash came, a sudden, powerful zap that was like sticking his finger in an electric socket. Carter’s eyes sharpened. He and Johnny looked at each other for what seemed a very long time.
The Secret Service guy didn’t like it. He moved toward Carter, and suddenly he was unbuttoning his coat. Some-where behind them, a million miles behind them, the shoe factory’s seven o’clock whistle blew its single note into the crisp blue morning.