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a pretty woman like you on my arm.”
    â€œI’ll go with you,” Billy said.
    And Gabe said, “Me, too.”
    They left.
    Naturally, I turned to Kate and said, “So you don’t have any idea what’s bothering Laura?”
    â€œNot really. Laura keeps everything to herself.”
    â€œWell, I’ll keep a closer watch on her. See if I can figure anything out.” I glanced at my watch. “We better get to the auditorium.”
    She took my hand. Squeezed it. “God, I hope he doesn’t fuck it up tonight.”

CHAPTER 4
    I once had a congressional client who thought I should pick out a comely maiden in the crowd and bring her backstage after the speech was over. You know, the way Elvis used to have his Memphis boys do it. I gave him a choice. I could function as his consultant or his pimp, but I couldn’t do both such taxing jobs at the same time. He took my point but he wasn’t happy about it. One day after he won the election he fired me.
    I once had a senatorial client who took so many personal flights on corporate jets that his own staffers joked that he needed to register as a lobbyist.
    I once had a congressional client who was a virulent supporter of civil rights but would not eat in a place where black people worked in the kitchen and would not shake hands with gay men for fear of AIDS.
    They come in all shapes, sizes, and degrees of greed, lust, megalomania, pettiness, treachery, and—never underestimate this factor—plain stupidity. In other words, they’re pretty much like the rest of us.
Sometimes you’re amazed that a pol you’ve always thought of as a dreadful hack on the other side of the aisle will do something so noble it’s breathtaking. Likewise, you’ll see one of your own do something so cynical and underhanded, you’re genuinely shocked and wonder if you know this man or woman at all.
    Part of my job as a consultant is to simply babysit and hand-hold. The congressional staffs do the same thing. The more focused the public event, the more danger there is. Tonight I was wishing I’d brought a cyanide capsule along to put under my tongue in case things went badly. One tiny little bite on the capsule and I’d be out of my misery.
    We were seated in the front seats, aisle right. Lake’s people were seated aisle left. We all waved and smiled at each other, of course, resisting the impulse to flip each other off and then rush across the aisle and beat the holy shit out of each other.
    Both groups were well-dressed, excited. They didn’t hope to learn anything. They just wanted to see a career destroyed. The other fellow’s. Of course. They wanted that single slip of the tongue that would forever paint the candidate as a clown. Fodder for comedians, pundits, and editorial writers. These were political gladiators up onstage tonight and they’d damned well better make it bloody.
    A few of Lake’s staffers glanced over at me and made faces insinuating that they felt sorry for me. That Warren was doomed. Not if he just stuck to the prep we’d given him. Staff and consultants alike spend hundreds of hours sifting through information from many sources trying to define a few issues that their man or woman can base a campaign on. Some of the time the issues are obvious. Other times you have to manufacture an issue. The other side is generally better at this because their voters like bombast. They can plug in to talk radio and pick up two or three issues a day. Our side likes to think of itself as more noble and sophisticated. Even if this is true, and it certainly isn’t true all the time, noble and sophisticated can easily translate into boring. Think of our last four or five presidential candidates.

    For all the prep we did with him, Warren was actually better when he didn’t stick to the prep. When he spoke simply and directly and passionately about his beliefs. The problem was, once he got