AllFreeNovel
Share Us
16
Mia
New York City
Tuesday afternoon
Mia stepped out of theGuardian Building into a splattering cold rain that could freeze your bones and couldn’t believe it when a taxi actually pulled over. She stepped quickly into amazing warmth. The driver addressed her in pure Brooklyn. “I hope you’re going more than two blocks, lady.”
“I am indeed,” Mia said and settled herself. “Eighty West Forty-Ninth, at Sixth Avenue.”
He fed the taxi into the sluggish traffic, looked in the rearview. “I’ve taken three or four people there in the last couple of days—it’s that guy Harrington’s campaign headquarters, right?”
She’d lucked out. A native New Yorker, a nearly extinct breed in New York City. His driver’s ID said he was Vincent Toledo. He looked to be in his midfifties with sharp dark eyes and ears sticking straight out from a nearly bald head. He had a flattened nose, probably broken more than once. “Yes, that’s right. And what do you think of Harrington? Will you vote for him for mayor?”
He gave her another look in the rearview. “Nah, fellow’s just a calf, can’t know his butt from his elbow, too young to know any of the players who make this town run right. I know he’s swimming in dough, his mama and daddy bankrolling him. No, give me Paulie O’Connor, he’s my guy, Brooklyn born and raised, our borough president since the Bloomberg days. He knows all the players, all the right people, he knows how to get things done. Remember the garbage strike last month? He put a word in the mayor’s ear and got that shut down like that.” And Vincent snapped his fingers. “Paulie knows whose palm to grease, knows whose back to scratch. I’ll tell you, the mayor knows what he’s got in Paulie, listens to him all the time. But, if not Paulie, then maybe they should change the law; it’d be okay if the mayor stayed in.”
“Unfortunately, the mayor is termed out. No changing that law.”
“I know, I know, but I can wish, can’t I? Bums me out. But Harrington? No way. With him, we’d have garbage up to our armpits.”
Pure gold. Mia opened her tablet as fast as she could and kept him talking. By the time the taxi pulled to a stop at the curb in front of Harrington’s campaign headquarters, it had stopped raining. Mia gave him a big tip. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Toledo. Thanks for your opinions. I’ll be sure to include them in the article I’m writing.”
“You might win a fancy award if you do. Nobody could disagree with me, unless they’re idiots.”
She stood a moment, staring after his cab, barely moving in the heavy traffic. She wondered if Harrington knew Paulie O’Connor. She looked up at the Walcott Building, five years old, all steel and glass. Even in the dull winter light, the acres of glass sparkled. Did his family own the building? She wouldn’t be surprised. She glanced down at her watch. Five minutes until her scheduled interview with Harrington.
Mia took the escalator to the second floor and stepped into a long open room that would soon be Harrington’s official campaign headquarters. It was filled with people on a mission, some carrying chairs, printers, boxes of supplies, setting up workstations. Mia barely missed running into a plump older woman carrying an armful of large cardboard posters with Harrington’s handsome face, his mouth beaming out a smile, a pithy quote underneath, on their way to being plastered throughout the city. The woman only nodded and sailed by her. She spotted Cory Hughes, Harrington’s campaign manager, looking as dapper and smooth as he had last night, only today he was in his shirtsleeves, eyeing his watch. She knew he’d been around the political block many times, for both parties, a politico to his heels. Milo had told her Hughes didn’t believe much in political philosophies, what he loved was the game and winning the game. His last success was running Governor Siever’s campaign. Milo thought Alex Harrington had a good chance of winning with Cory driving the bus.
Hughes spotted her, jogged over, a big smile on his face. “Good morning, Mia, good to see you again. You’re right on time, but then you always are, I’m told. Alex is up to his eyeballs today with interviews but I know he particularly wanted to meet with you.”
A line she’d expected, but that was okay, it was one of the rules of the game—make the candidate seem as busy and important as the president but with just enough time for one special journalist.
She gave him a grin and followed him past cheek-to-jowl desks, tangles of electrical cords, computer monitors, and signs everywhere, propped against the desks, against every wall. Many of the volunteers, most under twenty-five, had their cells pressed against their ears or were stuffing envelopes, making huge stacks of them. She could easily tell the volunteers from the paid staff because only the volunteers bothered watching her, wondering who she was and if she was important. The old hands who drew a check recognized her as a reporter and didn’t pay her any attention. She saw Miles Lombardy, Harrington’s senior staffer she’d met at the fundraiser last night, leaning over someone at a desk, speaking quietly. He looked up, gave her a small wave, but didn’t come over.
Cory Hughes ushered her into a glass-walled office to see Alex Harrington sitting behind a banged-up rented desk, with several rented chairs as derelict as the desk in front of it. Obviously a man of the people. He’d taken off his Armani jacket and rolled up his sleeves, the poster boy for the busy candidate hard at work. He ended his cell phone call when he saw her and rose.
He gave her a big smile. “Thanks, Cory, for bringing Mia back.” When Hughes had removed himself, closing the door behind him, the noise level fell magically to a low distinct rumble. He said, “Thank you for coming. Cory has assured me he trusts you to be unbiased. As I told you last night, I’ve been impressed with your blog Voices in the Middle. I think you’ll find echoes of some of your thoughts in my own campaign, and in my agenda for the city. It’s very brave of you, isn’t it, given the current no-holds-barred political climate? Too many of us have reduced politics to defending our own tribe, our own turf, rather than nurturing what unites us, and working to make the city a better place to live. Bloodying each other isn’t going to get us there.”
Harrington had quoted practically verbatim from her blog, which meant he’d done his homework before she’d arrived. He was being smart, careful, stacking the deck in his favor as best he could. Mia nodded, smiled at him as he came around his desk, pulled out a chair for her. She stepped forward and shook his outstretched hand, a strong hand, with a firm grip. Had he practiced it? She looked down and froze, her breath caught in her throat. On his left wrist was a thick silver link bracelet. Automatically, she looked at his left earlobe. Of course there was no sign of a tear. Stop it—don’t be an idiot, lots of men wear bracelets like that, they’re popular, manly. Get a fricking grip.
Harrington said in his pleasing baritone that had carried, she remembered, to the very back of the large ballroom, “Please call me Alex. Come, sit down, let’s talk. May I call you Mia?”
He’d already called her Mia, but of course she nodded, sat, and opened her tablet. A staffer knocked and came in, bearing coffee, tea, and cookies. She said as she set the plate down on the desk, “I rescued these yummy Scottish shortbreads before the hordes could ravage them. I love your blog, Ms. Briscoe.” She was out the door before Mia could even say thank you.
“That’s my campaign secretary and guard dog, Mrs. Millicent. Her last name is never used. Her sister’s been my secretary at First Street Corp. for as long as I’ve been New York director.”
Mia took a shortbread to be polite, but since it wasn’t chocolate it didn’t really count as a treat. She accepted a cup of black coffee.
Alex Harrington sat back down, steepled his long fingers, and cocked his head.
Mia said, “My taxi driver thinks you’re too young, too green to know your butt from your elbow and your daddy and mommy are bankrolling you. And what does a Bostonian know about what New Yorkers want and need?” She smiled, paused a second. “Are you ready to deal with opinions like this?”
To her surprise, Harrington threw back his head and laughed, a rich laugh. Sincere? Mia waited, the smile still firm on her mouth, and watched him.
He stopped laughing and straightened, suddenly serious. “I consider myself a New Yorker. I’ve lived here seven years now, it’s my home. As I’m sure you know, I’ve been in charge of the New York office of the First Street Corporation for six of those years, which means my elbow and my butt have done a lot of living in New York, and believe me, I’ve learned a lot. Am I green? Well, if your taxi driver means am I buddies with all the movers and players in the political game here in New York, I’m not, but that has its benefits, too, and I’ll be saying so in my campaign. When I’m elected you can be sure I’ll meet them fast enough because they will come to me, and I’ll be the one who decides what I’ll give them, if what they want is in the interest of keeping New York the greatest city in the world. That’s what a good manager does, Mia, in politics or in business; I’m a very good manager with years of practical hands-on experience, and I have the vision and drive to make New York flourish under my hand.”
She typed in canned, fluent, a dollop of humor, well spoken.
