“You reaching into your wallet for this guy?” Carney said.
“Got to pay to play. The Board of Estimate alone.” Every Democratic hopeful in next year’s races would demand tribute from the greater Dumas community. And get it. “You?”
“He’s already got his hooks in.” Carney nodded toward his wife and daughter, who were welcoming one of the old guard—Gideon Banks, from the telltale withered neck—into their conversation. The month before they had informed him that he lived with the founders of Women for Oakes. May designed the logo. Harlem needs this, Harlem needs that. “Isn’t it time, you know, we had someone a little younger in charge?” she asked. Elizabeth had engineered a rescheduling of this affair so that May would be home from college. May was volunteering in Oakes’s campaign office this summer, on top of her filing job at Seneca Travel & Tour. Carney had offered her a job at the furniture store, at more pay than her mother was offering—learn the ropes, get a feel—but she had passed.
“Oakes got you coming and going.” Pierce laughed. “You see Ray Jones showed up?”
“Sends a message,” Carney said. Jones was schooling some young campaign aides by the window, waving an unlit cigar like a conductor’s baton. Time was, you had to get the nod from J. Raymond Jones if you wanted to be a judge, or borough president, or head up to Albany. Then Bobby Kennedy outmaneuvered him back in ’67 and got Jones booted from his throne at the top of Tammany Hall. The former kingmaker still had juice, though. David Dinkins, Charlie Rangel, and Percy Sutton—the heirs to Jones’s Carver Democratic Club—couldn’t show their faces at this event for obvious reasons, but Jones’s presence let people know that Alexander Oakes had the tacit approval of the Harlem clubhouse. Or hadn’t earned their disapproval. Once Sutton officially announced that he was forgoing another term as borough president to go after Abe Beame, any endorsement of Oakes could be out in the open.
That spring Carney had made the switch from Eyewitness News to NewsCenter 4. There was a little black-and-white Panasonic in his office that he put on at five. The Eyewitness News theme was a classic, no question, but Chuck Scarborough’s mix of empathy and gravitas proved a fine companion as the workday wound down. Which meant Carney had seen Sutton do his coy little dance about a bid for Gracie Mansion a few times. “I’m not now a candidate for mayor,” he told the cameras as he departed the Harlem State Office Building, “but I certainly have the capacity to be mayor. If Abe Beame doesn’t run, and the polls continue to show me doing as well as I am, I think I would make the run for mayor. In fact, I’m rather certain I would, and with a large body of support.”
So: Sutton was going to throw his hat in the ring and waited for the most providential moment to announce. By announcing early, Oakes was well positioned. And if Sutton ultimately decided against a mayoral run, Oakes could step down and endorse the man’s reelection, bank the exposure and money for his next campaign. His press conferences when he was at the DA’s office, his Homes 4 Harlem promotion, this campaign bid—the Boy from Strivers’ Row had mastered getting his name out there.
Was the trio playing “The Star-Spangled Banner”？ This fucking bicentennial shit was driving Carney batty. It was inescapable, like a dome of red, white, and blue smog. He had to come up with a July Fourth sales ad by Friday and was stumped. He feared that any patriotic, flag-waving bullshit he included in his promo would come off as exactly that.
“Look who it is—Mr. Man,” Pierce said.
John squeezed through and shook Pierce’s hand. He socked Carney in the arm and said, “Hey, Daddy.” They were almost the same height. John’s cuffs stuck out of his jacket sleeves. Carney had bought him that jacket last winter.
He told John it was nice of him to come out and support his mother. John nodded and said, “You, too.”
It had leaked out, his contempt. In general, Carney tried not to expose his kids to his private menagerie of animosities and disdain unless the target was remote （“This Joe Namath is a lot of hot air”） or educational, providing a lesson about the disreputable types one encounters on life’s journey （“That old man at the corner store tried to shortchange me again but you know I count my change”）。 Alexander Oakes might be a pretty boy sponging off the ill-gotten gains of his family, the emptiest of the city’s empty suits, a mediocrity powered by greasy charm…he could go on…but the man was an old friend of their mother and if Carney was doing his job as a father May and John would arrive at their own appraisal in time.
Perhaps John had overheard last Thursday when Elizabeth discussed the hors d’oeuvres and Carney said, “How about a pig in a blanket?” It was entirely possible John had been in earshot. Or perhaps last night when Carney had asked his wife when to show up for “the event,” as if a third world dictator were throwing himself a parade and every citizen had to show up or face the firing squad. Maybe John had been within earshot when Elizabeth responded, “You’ve always been mad at people who had it easier than you. It’s not his fault.”
Carney: Hmmm.
“I know you think he’s had it all handed to him,” she said, “but the thing about Alex is that he’s a hard worker.”
“Of course.”
“Do you want me not to do it?”
“I’d never tell you what to do.”
“Yeah, Ray, but you’d let me know. You wouldn’t say it but you’d let me know.”
No, John couldn’t have overheard because they’d been in bed with the door closed. Carney had turned over and said he was looking forward to tomorrow, might even iron a shirt.
Yes, his animosity had leaked out at some point. Carney drained his drink to the ice. To ground himself he tapped his jacket pocket, where he kept the envelope containing five grand for Andy Engine.
Since New Lincoln had let out for the summer, John had been working at this Baskin-Robbins down on Madison in the Eighties. Carney had offered John his old summer job at the store and was informed that the ice-cream shop had “more girls.” When Carney was his age, he considered himself lucky to get any job, let alone two. Luck meant that when Big Mike took off for weeks, or months, chasing a setup or a woman, Carney was able to pay for groceries. And Ma Bell, and keep the lights on. He didn’t wish that burden on his children. Scoop away, but—seeing his son in a blazer conjured an image of John smoking a pipe and snapping his fingers for scotch—stay away from places like this when you grow up.
Carney reached over to squeeze his son’s arm, like he did when the boy was little. These growing bones in there. John asked if he could see Midway with J.J. at the Loews 86th. It was the voice he used to hit up Carney for an advance on his allowance.
“The Charlton Heston?”
“It’s in Sensurround.”
Carney nodded. “You can’t hang out all night.”
The boy promised not to. Then grinned.
Leland clinked a tall thin glass with a spoon. The band cut out. It was Carney’s natural instinct to creep toward the door when people started speaking at events, to facilitate a quick getaway if necessary. He obeyed it.