"Mrs. Richmond. Health and Human Services Liaison."

"Finally. Jeezus, I been on hold for a quarter of an hour and my kids are going nuts here. Kin you hear 'em?"

The sound of the kids got louder for a few moments and Eleanor realized that this woman must be holding the phone out toward them, waving it around a motel room or trailer full of screeching and fighting rug rats like a rock star pointing his microphone at the crowd. Another Commerce City resident, no doubt.

"Yes, I believe I can, ma'am," Eleanor said. "How may I help you?"

A brief moment of stunned silence on the other end of the line. "Well, didn't I already just explain that about three times?" Then, her voice farther away: "Brittany! Ashley! You stay away from your goddamn brother or I'll tan your hides!"

"I don't know, ma'am," Eleanor said, "you never explained it to me."

"Well, I explained it to the other gal."

"Well, ma'am, I'm not quite sure who the other gal is. But I'd be happy to listen if you'd care to explain it again."

Another silence. Eleanor couldn't figure out why this woman was being so quiet until her voice came back on again, and it was obvious that she had begun to cry. "Well, I ain't going through the whole goddamn thing again! But let me tell you, bitch, that if it don't get taken care of today, I'll-

"You'll what, ma'am?"

"I'll go out and find wherever it is that I'm s'posed to register and get myself registered to vote and go out and vote against that old fuck that you work for next time he comes up for reelection! Bitch!" Then the woman slammed the phone down.

The phone began ringing immediately. Eleanor was starting to get the hang of this now; she pushed the button with the blinking light next to it.

"Hello, Senator Marshall's office," she said.

"Finally!" someone said. Black female. Then, away from the phone: "Hey, I finally got through!" Then, back into the phone: "You have any idea how long I been waiting on the line?"

"A quarter of an hour or so?"

"Shit, I been waiting all day."

"It's only 9:13 - but I'm sorry for the delay, ma'am. How can I assist you?"

"I took my little daughters to a unlicensed day-care at my neighbor's house down the street and when I come home from work, her boyfriend had come in during the day and molested 'em, and I want to know if I can force him to take an AIDS test."

"Did you call the police?"

"Shit no. Why would I want to call them?"

"Because a very serious crime has been committed."

"Shit. I called you for serious advice, girl."

"I'm giving it to you. Call the cops. Tell them what happened. Send the bastard to jail."

"This G done already told me if call the cops he come kill me."

"Ma'am, how could being killed possibly be any worse than having your daughters raped?"

Stunned silence. "What kind of an attitude is that?"

"It's a reasonable attitude. It's the kind of attitude that any parent should have."

"Well, who are you to be telling me this?"

"I'm a woman who was raised right by her parents and who's been trying to raise her two kids right."

"What are you saying, that I ain't been raised right?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying, if you care so little for those two precious daughters of yours that you won't even seek justice for them. If anyone in my family ever got raped, nobody would rest until the perpetrator was dead or behind bars."

"Well, I didn't call you up so you could give me abuse." "Girlfriend," Eleanor said, "I'm gonna tell you something real important right now and you better listen."

"I'm listening," the woman said. She sounded cowed and meek now.

"This that I am saying to you is not abuse. It's the truth. It's just that sometimes the truth is so harsh that when people hear it spoken, it sounds like abuse. And one of the problems we got in this country, not just among black people but with everyone, is that everyone is so easy to offend nowadays that no one is willing to say the things that are true. Now, I just told you what to do. You go and do it. And if you have to go out and get a gun to protect you from that son of a bitch that raped your daughters, you damn well better do it, because that's your responsibility, and if you can't handle it, then you don't deserve to have those two little angels that are a precious gift from God."

Eleanor slammed the phone down. It started ringing.

"Senator Marshall's office."

The creaky voice of a very old man said, "Help! I've fallen and I can't get up!"

"Good morning, Senator Marshall, how are you?"

"Wide awake and full of inspiration, after that!"

"After what?"

"Your motivational talk to that young woman. Well done!"

"You were listening to that?"

"I always listen in on my liaison staff," Senator Marshall said. "It's an essential part of the job. And if I had managed to get through to you before you actually swung into action, I would have given you fair warning. But now you know."

"Well, I don't normally shoot my mouth off this early in the morning, but-"

"You weren't shooting your mouth off. You were doing just fine. All those people out there are crying for more welfare checks when what they really need is to have someone like you pound some common sense into their heads."

"I don't necessarily agree with that," Eleanor said, mortified.

"Anyway, nice to see you changed your position on gun control. You're going to fit right in at the Alamo!"

"Who said anything about gun control?"

"You did," Senator Marshall said. "You were pro-gun control, weren't you?"

"In theory, yes," Eleanor said, "but I have a gun, and I know how to use it."

"Well, tell me something. If that woman you were just talking to had to fill out a bunch of forms and get permission from the government to have a gun, she wouldn't be able to take the advice you just gave her, would she?"

Eleanor shook her head in exasperation. "You are just full of piss and vinegar, aren't you?"

"No, I just like a good discussion, is all."

"I have important people to talk to," Eleanor said, and hung up on him. Her phone rang immediately.

25

Aaron Green put his feet up on his desk at Green Biophysical Systems in Lexington, Massachusetts, enjoying the first lull in the action since his big conversation with Cy Ogle back in January. They had ironed out all of the problems that they could think of having to do with the PIPER miniaturization project. Responsibility had been transferred to the shoulders of the Pacific Netware people. Aaron had brought in a New York Times and a Boston Globe, and was reading some astonishing results from the Illinois primary, which had taken place the day before.

Several members of the party in power had challenged the incumbent President. Usually such efforts were purely symbolic, but the President's policy on the national debt had provided fodder for a more serious challenge this time around, and these candidates had racked up some surprisingly high numbers.

The situation in the other party was even more interesting. There were two announced candidates - three, if you counted the Reverend William Joseph Sweigel, which almost no one did. Everyone knew, and had known since Super Tuesday, that the real race was between Tip McLane and Norman Fowler, Jr., the boy billionaire of Grosse Pointe.

But apparently in the last week before the Illinois primary, unspecified persons had initiated a write-in campaign for William A. Cozzano, the Governor of Illinois, who was in the hospital recovering from a stroke. It seemed to be a genuine, spontaneous ground swell. People had begun showing up in T-shirt stores and asking to have Cozzano printed on shirts and hats. Crudely fashioned, xeroxed Cozzano posters had begun showing up on mailboxes and in car windows.