Walking in Darkness Read Free

there were so many memories everywhere in Washington?
    That was why he was glad to get out of Washington, happy to see the run-up to the primaries starting, because that was what this was all about. Don Gowrie had called a press conference two days before he was due to fly to London to begin a tour of Europe. He was going as part of a Senate commission looking into restrictive market practices which might damage the US but it was an open secret that he was using this opportunity to renew his friendships and strengthen his ties with influential people in Europe. Gowrie was throwing his hat in the ring without actually announcing the fact and he had called a press conference to deny that that was what he was doing. The political pundits had not been fooled but their votes were not what he was looking for; he was appealing to the electorate over their heads, and the voters out there in Heartland America would probably take him at his word because Don Gowrie was a charmer, a man with fireside warmth, a man who breathed sincerity.
    Steve enjoyed electioneering, tramping state to state, following the politicians out into the real world, where the voters lived, where life was not as cocooned, as cosy and incestuous as it was back home in the capital. The smell of battle put a brighter light into the eyes of politicians and journalists alike.
    They were all in the bar that afternoon, waiting for two o’clock when the ballroom doors would be opened for the press to rush in. Like the Gadarene swine, thought Steve, looking at their faces in the hard electric light, faces that knew everything and valued nothing, eyes that were bright and shiny and blank as if they had not yet been switched on.
    They were drinking and talking, telling dirty jokes to each other, boasting about their latest lay or their handicap at golf, complaining about their wives or the alimony they paid their ex-wives, and the ones with the dreamy expressions were talking about cars. Nobody was listening to anyone else. A few were just drinking steadily, silently, almost relentlessly; they were the old hands, the soaks, remnants of years of drinking in bars while they waited for something to happen, men who didn’t care anymore, just did the job and then went home to an empty apartment and drank until they passed out.
    ‘What d’ya think, Stevie?’ one of his crew shouted, leaning forward to peer at him along the bar. ‘You know the guy – d’ya think he’s got a bimbo stashed away somewhere, or not?’
    Steve shrugged. ‘I don’t know him that well, Jack. He doesn’t tell me his bedroom secrets, if he has any.’
    ‘Didn’t I read somewhere that you once dated his daughter?’ another reporter along the bar called out.
    Steve ignored him. Jack finished his beer then looked regretfully at the foam-flecked, empty glass. Steve hoped Jack wasn’t going to have another drink; he had had quite a few already and in that huddle in the ballroom the cameraman was going to need a steady hand. Jack was a big guy with broad shoulders and muscles like whipcord, he could carry weights that would make most men’s knees buckle, but he had a weak head where drink was concerned and Steve didn’t want their picture wavering all over the place; he was hoping to get a good slot in the night news running order. You were only as good as your last story and to keep your reputation you had to keep getting your piece into the front of the news.
    The TV people had all their equipment set up already in the ballroom. They always got the prime position, right up in front of the platform. TV had more influence than the rest of the media; one picture on the news at night was worth any number of articles in the press. They had left their cameras and mikes and lights under the watchful eyes of the security men. No need to be afraid someone might get at their stuff here, steal it or wreck it, in the local headquarters of the Republican Party. There were enough security men around to stop