Someone set a bottle of scotch on the ornate coffee table and everyone took a glass. Not my first choice of drink, but this was good stuff, hot and silky.

"Tomorrow, health care," said Peshke. "Prescription drugs and universal care."

"Great," said the governor.

Peshke ran off an impressive agenda for tomorrow. He listed seven stops, mostly up north but some down south as well. Rallies and speeches. Press interviews. Two fundraisers, one at lunch and one in the evening in a wealthy suburb.

"Holly Majors is asking about House Bill 100," said Madison. "The abortion bill."

Peshke groaned. The governor seemed to slide down in the couch a notch or two.

"What's the drop date on that?" he asked.

"Three days from now."

The governor shook his head. "I'll have to send a thank-you note to Tully and Wermouth," he said.

Grant Tully, I assumed he meant by the reference. The senate majority leader. I remembered my talk with Jon Soliday, Tully's lawyer, who'd tried to talk me out of ever taking a position with the governor's administration-correctly so, as it happened. From what Jon had told me and from what I'd read recently, there seemed to be no love lost between the governor and the senate majority leader.

Wermouth, I didn't know, but I was guessing he was the guy who ran the House.

Hector, as always, enjoyed his role as my guide through this process. "The House is Republican. They pass a slate of abortion bills every year. This one is parental consent. Teenagers have to get consent for an abortion."

"Got it."

"And the senate passed it, too, even though they have a Democratic majority. Some people see it as a moderate compromise between the hard lines."

"Some people," said Peshke. "Personal PAC and some of the pro-choice groups, they aren't 'some' people. And they're our biggest supporters." He looked at the governor. "Bryant came out again today and confirmed he'd sign the bill."

Hector leaned into me. "See, that works for Willie's base, the downstate vote. They're in the mushy middle. That puts Bryant on the same page with the Republicans."

"And that's where we should be, too," Peshke said to me, although I sensed he was really delivering the message to the governor. "The issue becomes a non-issue. Personal PAC has to be with us in the fall. We're still pro-choice, but with a moderate position. Anything's better than a pro-lifer in office. And for the people in the middle on this issue, it's a wash."

"But we don't run in the fall unless we win in March." Madison, who had been on her cell phone, sat down and joined the discussion. "I don't like the downstate numbers, Governor. We need the city turnout."

"We go to the left of Bryant on this, the downstate numbers will look even worse," Peshke rejoined.

"I disagree." Madison made no pretense of addressing Peshke. She was looking at Snow. "We're already left of Bryant. Guns? Gays? Forget it. The governor vetoes House Bill 100 and nothing changes down there-we're still the city liberals to them-but up here, we turn out more."

"No. No." Peshke was shaking his head. "It hurts us more in the general than it helps us in the primary."

"You can't win in the general unless you win the primary, Pesh."

"And you can't win in the general if you sabotage yourself in the primary, Maddie."

"All right." The governor pushed himself from the couch and moved to the window, glass of scotch in hand. "Y'know, it would make my life a whole lot easier if you two could agree on this."

Hector leaned into me. "This is exactly what the Republicans want. It's why they passed the bill so quickly this session. And the senate didn't do us any favors, either. The governor has to sign or veto this bill within sixty days of receiving it. They knew the deadline would fall in the heat of the primary. They're trying to put us in a box."

"They want us to veto," said Peshke. "It will make their week. Another lefty city liberal. Edgar Trotter courts the downstate Democrats on this issue in the fall."

"I have to win the primary, Pesh." The governor drained his scotch and breathed out.

"Governor." Peshke stood up. "Who even knows how much this will help? If you're a pro-choice voter, odds are you aren't a gun lover, anyway. You're not going to vote for Willie fucking Bryant. And you're sure as shit not going to vote for Edgar Trotter or whomever the GOP turns out."

"They'll stay home," Madison said.

"Bullshit. Bullshit." Peshke was getting red in the face now. Something about Madison seemed to work him up. The turf battle. There was more than strategy at stake here, I sensed. This was about pride of authorship. "Pro-choicers are some of the most politically active people in this state. They're not going to vote? Really? They're going to run the risk that Willie Bryant wins? Governor Snow is better than Willie Bryant to them any day."

"They'll stay home," Madison said again. "They'll stay home and hope that we lose. It will send a message. They're not fucking around. Every Democrat who runs in the future will have learned something. At our exp-"

"It matters to them that much?" asked the governor. "That much that they'd run the risk of electing the wrong person to prove a point?"

"I think it does, Governor, yes."

He looked back at the group, a gleam in his eyes. "Then let them prove it," he said. "Let them prove it."

"How do they-"

"What are there-four or five groups of them, Maddie? NOW, Personal PAC, Women for Choice . . ."

"Right. Freedom to Choose."

"Okay, four of them. They want me to take a position that could hurt me in the general? Okay, then they can help make sure I win the general. A hundred thousand from each of them. A hundred fucking thousand from each of them. No more of this staying-neutral-in-the-primary crap. A hundred thousand from each of them. Right now. And then I veto that damn bill."

The room was quiet for a moment. Peshke kept to himself, as he'd lost the argument. Madison was thinking through what he'd said. Slowly, she began to nod. "Okay," she said, with a confidence that felt forced.

My heart skipped a beat. The U.S. attorney's office's collective heartbeat would, too. The governor was now on tape, courtesy of FeeBee in my pocket, instructing his chief of staff to shake down some special-interest groups to purchase a veto.

"Yeah. Yeah." The governor's enthusiasm was growing. "They want me to stick my neck out for them like that? It doesn't come free. Why should it? Get right on that, Maddie, okay?"

"Yes, sir."

"What do you think?"

I was watching Madison, who looked tired and frustrated.

"Hey. Hello?"

Hector nudged me to let me know what I had just come to realize, that the governor was talking to me. "What do I think?" I asked. "I'm just a lawyer, Governor. And not for the campaign."

The governor looked at me, then at Madison.

"He's handling some issues on the state side, sir."

This was an important point to make. If I was a lawyer for the campaign, we might have a problem with the attorney-client privilege, and the conversation I was recording could not be admitted in court. I was just another guy in the room, not the lawyer. Not for this.

"Okay, well, I'm asking anyway." Snow looked at me.

"Okay," I said. I cleared my throat. "If you want my legal opinion, you can't make a quid pro quo, one for the other. You can't say you'll veto the bill, but only if they give you campaign contributions."

Another important point. Now I had made it clear that the issue they were discussing was illegal, and therefore not covered by the attorney-client privilege under the crime-fraud exception.

The governor stared at me. Nobody spoke. The silence, in this animated room, was deafening.

"Of course I can," the governor said. "People can't give money to candidates they support?" He looked at Madison. "What the hell's he talking about?"

I was talking about the difference between voluntary and compulsory contributions to a candidate's campaign. Interesting, how easily the governor was able to wrap a shakedown in the blanket of democracy and freedom of speech.

"We can work out the details later," Madison said.

The governor seemed okay with that. I had the sense that these were the words Madison often used to defuse issues. Snow didn't want to be bothered by minutiae.

Thankfully, the conversation segued. Soon, everyone was tired and began to filter out. Madison cast a look in my direction, but what could she say to me? I was right, and I'd been asked a direct question.

"Hold back, Jason," the governor said to me. So I did. Madison and Pesh had left, leaving Hector and me with the governor. Hector excused himself, I think to use the bathroom or make a call or something. It was just going to be me and the governor, I guess. A tongue-lashing? A warning to watch what I say? If I'd expected to have any kind of a future with this guy-which is presumably what he thought I wanted-I might have been nervous.

"Sit, sit." The governor took a chair and so did I. "Hey, I heard what happened to your family a while back," he said. "I'm sorry to hear about that. If there's anything I can do."

He'd thrown me, I admit. I'd long become used to such statements, though not recently, and not from a guy who I thought was going to chew my head off.

"I appreciate that."

"I've got a daughter myself," he said. "I can't even imagine. Anyway," he added, pointing a finger at me, "I've heard from Charlie that you're a great asset. I appreciate everything you've done. So keep up the good work, okay? We can do some really good things for you."

"Thank you, sir."

"Tomorrow afternoon, we have that thing, right? That death-row inmate?"

"Antwain Otis, yes, sir."

"Make me look good in there, okay?" He winked at me.

I got up to leave. I looked for Hector, who was talking on his cell in the other room. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to wait for him, but I didn't bother. I walked out of the suite and nodded to the security detail. I left the Ritz-Carlton and walked into the cool night air, not entirely sure how I was feeling.

SUITE 410 HAD SUDDENLY become a busy place. In the sole conference room, a transcriber was listening to the conversations captured today by my F-Bird and typing it up. I'd given a debriefing to Chris Moody and Lee Tucker. I could see Moody doing the calculations as I went on.

"So the governor has to either sign or veto this abortion bill by when?" Moody asked me.

"They said three days, I think."

"And he wants the money from those pro-choice groups before then?"

"It wasn't clear. I'm sure he would."

Chris Moody absently scratched his cheek. "You'll follow up on this?" he asked. "This will involve you?"

I really wasn't sure. I'd done a lot of "fundraising" with Charlie but didn't know if I would have anything to do with the shakedown of these abortion-rights' groups.

"Tell me again what he said about Cimino," said Tucker.

I didn't remember precisely. "'Charlie says you're a great asset,' something like that. It's on the F-Bird."

Both Moody and Tucker would analyze that phrase over and over. I could see them playing it to Charlie Cimino one day soon. We know you talked to the governor about your "fundraising." We have the governor on tape saying so. But other than using it on Charlie, would it be enough on its own to get the governor? I didn't see how. It was flirting with the line but not crossing it.

Tucker put his hand on my shoulder. "You're all set for tomorrow?" My interviews with the supreme court candidates, he meant. My instructions from Madison Koehler had been to make this look like a legitimate evaluation and vetting process. So I'd chosen a handful of candidates-three men and two women; three white and two black-in addition to the prohibitive favorite, by which I mean the shoo-in, George Ippolito.

Chris Moody joined us. "You're careful in your choice of words," he said, not for the first time. "You don't directly confront the issue. But try to stick the branch out and see if Ippolito grabs for it."

"He probably won't," I said. "If he has any brains, he'll play dumb."

Moody nodded. "Does he have any brains?"

I laughed. George Ippolito didn't have many. But on matters political, I suspected he had a little more going for him than he did on questions of law.

Moody stretched his arms. It was coming up on one in the morning now. I knew he wouldn't be leaving until he'd listened to the F-Bird from today. He'd listen and relisten, read and reread, the words of Governor Snow today. The case was kicking into final gear now, and he wasn't going to lose another high-profile political corruption case.

73.

THE NEXT MORNING, I MADE IT TO THE STATE OFFICE by seven. I had a packed day. In the morning, I was meeting with five of the six judges I was interviewing for the supreme court appointment. In the afternoon, I would finish with the guy who was going to win the beauty contest, George Ippolito. Then at two-thirty, the governor and I were going to sit down with a group of lawyers and clergymen seeking to spare Antwain Otis from execution a few days from now.

The judge interviews started at eight sharp, a half-hour each with fifteen minutes in between each one for some cushion. I'd be done by eleven-thirty.

I reviewed my list again. Four trial judges, two appellate. Had this been a real contest, I probably would have focused primarily on appellate court judges, as they are the closest in line to the supreme court, they have a set of published opinions to review, and they are accustomed to considering pure questions of law. Also, had this been a legitimate vetting process, I'd have talked to other lawyers-Paul Riley, for example-to get recommendations.

But this wasn't a contest. This was a sham. And if the governor were going to choose a judge from the trial-court level to sit on the state's highest court, which would come as a surprise to many people, I needed to lay the groundwork for it. Thus, the four trial judges on the short list. I wanted the word to get out that the governor was thinking outside the box, so to speak-he was looking beyond the ivory tower of the appellate court to judges who had gotten their hands dirty, who were on the front lines. So when Snow ultimately chose Ippolito, it wouldn't look so odd that he'd picked a judge from the trial level.

It was with no shortage of dark humor that I observed my dual role here, the layers of deception I was mired in. I was assigned by the governor's office to throw up a curtain of legitimacy around an illegal appointment-for-endorsement deal while, at the same time, I was assigned by the federal government to leave a little hole in said curtain so they could peek through. Talk about the fox guarding the henhouse.

I'd written up a list of ten mostly softball questions, covering judicial philosophy and ethics and attorney discipline, for the interviews this morning. If you were a fly on the wall, you would have found the morning's interviews to be little different from the exchanges you see in the Senate Judiciary Committee when questioning nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court. Just for the fun of it, I wanted to ask them if they thought Roe v. Wade should be overruled.

But it wasn't fun. It was, at best, a waste of time for the "candidates" and me. At worst, I was raising the hopes of people who had absolutely no chance of getting the appointment and who might be tarnished by association once the feds closed in.

I scheduled George Ippolito as the only afternoon interview, figuring I should save the worst for last. Plus it made the most sense from a practical standpoint. I needed to be wearing FeeBee for Ippolito, but I wouldn't wear it for the other interviews. It had been one condition I had laid down that the feds had accepted. It was bad enough I was stringing along these other judges, bad enough that they might be tainted by this whole affair later. I wasn't going to record their conversations with me when there was no reason to believe they were corrupt.

So I placed a little separation in time between Ippolito and the others and I went down to the food court in the basement of the state building after the other five interviews, ostensibly for a quick lunch. I dropped my tray of pasta on a table in the foyer just as another customer-one Lee Tucker-was vacating said table, leaving behind the F-Bird.

Back at my office, FeeBee in tow, I felt a knot form in my stomach as the receptionist informed me that Judge George Ippolito was here to see me.

George Ippolito was somewhere in his mid- to late fifties, I gathered, from his weathered features. His wispy hair was the color of sandpaper, which I assumed came from a bottle. He had liquid eyes, a tight mouth, and a thick nose that owed to a few too many nights at Rusty's or Sidebar, one of the lawyer hangouts for the criminal bar. He was a reliable drinker, though no one was ever sure if that included daytime sauce. Judging from his temperament on the bench, it wouldn't be a stretch to think he added a little flavor to his morning coffee, but I can't say I ever heard him slur his words in the times I was before him. He was an asshole, but a sober one.

I could see from his expression when he walked in that he recognized my face, and he obviously knew my name, but he hadn't previously put the two together. I'm sure he'd had hundreds of prosecutors pass before him in his day and they blurred together.