A Flash of Green by John D. MacDonald Page B

Elmo Bliss, and a little nervous wondering what comes next. Because I know what comes next for everybody, boy, and that’s a black hole in the ground, and of all the people who have lived and died in this world, maybe one tenth of one percent even got a name on top of the hole they’re in.”
    He leaned back. After a long silence Jimmy said, “You’re uncomplicated in a complicated way, Elmo. How about good and evil?”
    “I’ll keep doing enough good to make it no problem living with the bad, and let somebody else keep score. This is my time to be here, and I want the meat in my mouth and room to taste the juice. There’s getting to be so many people crowding the earth, it makes it easier.”
    Jimmy was startled by the concept. “Easier?”
    “Everybody fights hard to be ordinary and inconspicuous, just one of the group. Fifty years ago there were so many unusual fellas around, you had to be hell on wheels to get any attention at all. Nowadays the people of the world are so hungry for somebody different that a lot of half-bright men stand out. Watch the news. Every month or so some little pissant will get up on his hind legs and say something stupid and startling and find out he’s a public figure.”
    “Maybe it isn’t that simple.”
    “We’ll have a chance to find out, Jimmy. Right now I’m not running again. I don’t have to. I’ve got the county. Old Elihu is being eat up by the cancer; and the heart has gone out of Sam Engster, so when two new commissioners go on this fall, they’ll be the ones I put there, Brade Wellan and Willy Bry. In four years I’ve put a lock on this county nobody can shake off in a hurry, and I’ve made a lot of grateful friends in five other counties and in Tallahassee. I haven’t been either so greedy or so pure I’ve made the boys nervous. I built up and run a successful business. I’m a family man. I’ve worked hard for the party. I come over real good on television. I’ve been on the right side of the issues that have come up. Four years from now, when I’m ready to make my move, I’ll be forty-four. Now you tell me the size of the bite I’m thinking about.”
    Jimmy Wing considered it carefully. The nape of his neck felt cool. “Senator?”
    “Not my style, boy, but you’re moving in the right direction. I don’t want to try to get elected to a club where you wait twelve years before you’ve got any weight or voice. Governor, Jimmy. Governor of the Sunshine State.” He got up abruptly and went over to a cabinet, brought back a bottle and two glasses, poured drinks. “Twelve-dollar brandy, Jim. And right now we drink to setting up the machine that’s going to do it. Right now that machine is just you and me. And years from now, boy, we’ll both remember how we started it together.”
    Jimmy Wing sipped the brandy. “Forgive me, Elmo, but … it seems a little fantastic.”
    “With a whole four damn years to set it up?” He reached into a lower drawer of one of the desk pedestals, fumbled and came up with two fifty-dollar bills. He slapped them on the desk in front of Jimmy.
    “And here’s the first investment in the campaign, Jim. Go ahead. Pick it up. Don’t look so worried. You’ll keep right on at the paper until things get so hot and heavy you’ll have to come over with me full-time. But I sure want you to have regular expense money for the little things you’ll be doing for me. It isn’t salary, Jim. It’s for expenses. I’ll be accounting for it, so you don’t have to worry about it. You’ll get that every week, and when you quit the paper, I’ll triple it. Pick it up, boy!”
    “What will I be doing for you?”
    “Gathering information. Writing speeches. Giving out news items. Sort of a public-relations job, I guess you’d call it, and eventually you’ll be a personal aide and press representative. You’ll be my Salinger. There won’t be anything you won’t know about, and you’ll be in on the strategy. You rate yourself