The chief teller hesitated for a moment. "I'll need a letter of authorization before I can transfer such a large amount," he said. "It's way above my limit."

"Yes, of course," said the chairman, and removed the standard form from his top drawer and quickly filled in the relevant figures. Tom didn't comment on the fact that it was also the largest sum he had ever authorized. He passed the form across to the chief teller, who studied the details carefully. He looked as if he wanted to query the chairman's decision, and then thought better of it.

"Immediately," emphasized Tom.

"Yes, sir," said the chief teller, and departed as quickly as he had arrived.

"Are you sure that was sensible?" asked Julia.

"Aren't you taking an unnecessary risk?""We have the property and your five hundred thousand, so we can't lose. As Nat would say, it's a win-win proposition." He turned the checkbook around and asked Julia to sign it and print beneath her signature the name of her company. Once Tom had checked it he said, "We'd better get back to City Hall as quickly as possible."

Tom tried to remain calm as he dodged in and out of the traffic while crossing Main Street before jogging up the steps to City Hall. He kept having to wait for Julia, who explained it wasn't easy to keep up with him in high heels. When they reentered the building, Tom was relieved to find Mr. Cooke was still seated behind his desk at the far end of the hall. The chief executive rose when he saw them heading toward him.

"Hand over the check to the thin man with the bald head," said Tom, "and smile."

Julia carried out Tom's instructions to the letter, and received a warm smile in return. Mr.

Cooke studied the check carefully. "This seems to be in order, Mrs. Kirkbridge, if I could just see some form of identification."

"Certainly," said Julia, and took a driver's license out of her handbag.

Mr. Cooke studied the photo and the signature. "It's not a flattering picture of you," he said. Julia smiled. "Good, now all that is left for you to do is sign all the necessary documents on behalf of your company."

Julia signed the council agreement in triplicate and handed a copy over to Tom. "I think you'd better hold on to this until the money is safely transferred," she whispered.

Mr. Cooke looked at his watch. "I shall be presenting this check first thing on Monday morning, Mr. Russell," he said, "and I would be obliged if it were cleared as quickly as is convenient. I don't want to give Mrs. Hunter any more ammunition than is necessary only days before the election."

"It will be cleared on the same day it's presented," Tom assured him.

"Thank you, sir," said Mr. Cooke to a manhe regularly had a round of golf with at their local club.

Tom wanted to give Julia a hug, but restrained himself. "I'll just run back to the bank and let them know that it all went smoothly, then we can go home."

"Do you really have to?" asked Julia. "After all, they won't be presenting the check until Monday morning."

"I guess that's right," said Tom.

"Damn," said Julia, bending down to take off one of her shoes, "I've broken the heel running up those steps."

"Sorry," said Tom, "that was my fault, I shouldn't have made you rush back from the bank. As it turned out we had more than enough time."

"It's not a problem," said Julia, smiling, "but if you could fetch the car, I'll join you at the bottom of the steps."

"Yes, of course," said Tom. He jogged back down and across to the parking lot.

He was back outside City Hall a few minutes later, but Julia was nowhere to be seen.

Perhaps she had slipped back inside? He waited a few moments, but she still didn't appear. He cursed, leaped out of the illegally parked car and ran up the steps and into the building to find Julia in one of the phone booths. The moment she saw him, she hung up.

"I've just been telling New York about your coup, darling, and they've instructed our bank to transfer the three million one hundred thousand before close of business."

"That's good to hear," said Tom, as they strolled back to the car together. "So shall we have supper in town?"

"No, I'd rather go back to your place and have a quiet meal on our own," said Julia.

When Tom pulled up in his driveway, Julia had already removed her coat, and by the time they reached the bedroom on the second floor, she had left a trail of clothes in her wake. Tom was down to his underwear and Julia was peeling off a stocking when thephone rang.

"Leave it," Julia said as she fell to her knees and pulled down his boxer shorts.

"There's no reply," said Nat, "they must have gone out for dinner." "Can't it wait until we get back on Monday?" asked Su Ling. "I suppose so," admitted Nat reluctantly, "but I'd like to have known if Tom managed to close the Cedar Wood deal, and if so, at what price."

"Too close to call" ran the banner headline in the Washington Post on election morning. "NECK and neck" was the opinion of the Hartford Courant.

The first referred to the national race between Ford and Carter for the White House, the second to the local battle between Hunter and Davenport for the State Senate Chamber. It annoyed Fletcher that they always put her name first, like Harvard before Yale.

"All that matters now," said Harry as he chaired the final campaign meeting at six that morning, "is getting our supporters to the polls."

No longer was there any need to discuss tactics, press statements, or policy. Once the first vote had been cast, everyone seated around the table had a new responsibility.

A team of forty would be in charge of the car pool, armed with a list of voters who required a lift to their nearest polling place, the old, the infirm, the downright lazy and even some who took a vicarious pleasure in being taken to the poll just so they could vote for the other side.

The next team, and by far the largest, were those who manned the bank of phones back at headquarters.

"They'll be on two-hour shifts," said Harry, "and must spend their time contacting known supporters to remind them that it's election day, and then later to make sure they've cast their vote. Some of this group will need to be called three or four times before the polls close at eight this evening," Harry reminded them.The next group, whom Harry described as the beloved amateurs, ran the counting houses all over the borough. They would keep a minute-by-minute update on how the voting was going in their district. They could be responsible for as few as a thousand voters or as many as three thousand, depending on whether theirs was a built-up or a rural area. "They are," Harry reminded Fletcher, "the backbone of the party. From the moment the first vote is cast, they'll have volunteers sitting outside the polling stations ticking off names of the voters as they go to the polls. Every thirty minutes those lists will be handed over to runners, who will take them back to the house where the full register will be laid out on tables or pinned to a wall. That list will then be marked up-a red line through the name for any Republican voter, blue for Democrats, and yellow for unknown. One glance at the boards at any time, and the captain of the precinct will know exactly how the vote is progressing. As many of the captains have done the same job for election after election, they'll be able to give you an immediate comparison with any past poll. The details, once "boarded," are then relayed through to headquarters so that the phoners don't keep bothering a pledge who has already cast their vote."

"So what's the candidate supposed to do all day?" asked Fletcher, once Harry had come to the end of his briefing.

"Keep out of the way," said Harry, "which is why you have a program of your own. You will visit the forty-four counting houses, because they all expect to see the candidate at some time during the day.

Jimmy will act as your driver, known as "the candidate's friend," because we certainly can't afford any spare workers wasting their time on you."

Once the meeting had broken up, and everyone had dashed off to their new assignments, Jimmy explained just how Fletcher would spend the rest of the day, and he spoke with some experience, because he'd carried out the same exercise for his father duringthe previous two elections.

"First the no-no's," said Jimmy when Fletcher joined him in the front of the car. "As we have to visit all forty-four houses between now and eight o'clock this evening when the polls close, everyone will offer you a coffee, and between 11:45 and 2:15 lunch, and after 5:30 a drink. You must always reply with a polite but firm no to any such offer. You will only drink water in the car, and we'll have lunch at 12:30 for thirty minutes back at headquarters, just so they realize they've got a candidate, and you won't eat again until after the polls close."

Fletcher thought he might become bored, but each visit produced a new cast of characters and a new set of figures. For the first hour, the sheets showed just a few names crossed out, and the captains were quickly able to tell him how the turnout compared with past elections.

Fletcher was encouraged by how many blue lines had appeared before ten o'clock, until Jimmy warned him that the time between seven and nine was always good pickings for the Democrats as the industrial and night-shift workers vote before they start, or after they have finished work. "Between ten and four, the Republicans should go into the lead," Jimmy added, "while after five and up until the close of the polls is always the time when the Democrats have to make their comeback. So just pray for rain between ten and five, followed by a fine warm evening."

By 11 a.m. all the captains were reporting that the poll was slightly down compared with the last election when it had closed on fifty-five percent. "Anything below fifty percent, we lose, over fifty and we're in with a shout," said Jimmy, "above fifty-five and it's yours by a street."

"Why's that?" asked Fletcher.

"Because the Republicans traditionally are more likely to turn out in any weather, so they always benefit from a low turnout. Making sure our people vote has always been the Democrats' biggest problem."

Jimmy stuck rigidly to his schedule. Just beforearriving he would hand Fletcher a slip of paper with the basic facts on the household running that district. Fletcher would then commit the salient points to memory before he reached the front door.

"Hi, Dick," he said when the door was opened, "good of you to allow us to use your house again, because of course this is your fourth election." Listen to reply. "How's Ben, is he still at college?"

Listen to reply, "I was sorry to hear about Buster-yes, Senator Gates told me."

Listen to reply. "But you have another dog now, Buster Junior-is that right?"

2.88 Jimmy also had his own routine. After ten minutes he would whisper, "I think you ought to be leaving." At twelve, he would begin to sound a little anxious and dispense with think, and at fourteen, he became insistent. After shaking hands and waving, it always took another couple of minutes before they could finally get away. Even with Jimmy keeping to a rigorous schedule, they still arrived back at campaign headquarters twenty minutes late for lunch.

Lunch was a snack rather than a meal, as Fletcher grabbed a sandwich from a table that was heaped with food.

He took the occasional bite as he and Annie moved from office to office, shaking hands with as many of the workers as possible.

"Hi, Martha, what's Harry up to?" asked Fletcher as he entered the phone room.

"He's outside the old State House doing what he does best, pressing the flesh, dispensing opinions, and making sure people haven't forgotten to vote. He should be back at any moment."

Thirty minutes later Fletcher passed Harry in the corridor on his way out, as Jimmy had insisted that, if they were still going to visit every counting house, then they had to leave by 1:10. "Good morning, Senator," said Fletcher.

"Good afternoon, Fletcher, glad you were able to find time to eat."The first house they visited after lunch showed that the Republicans had gone into a slight lead, which continued to increase during the afternoon. By five o'clock there were still fifteen captains left to visit. "If you miss one of them," said Jimmy, "we'll never hear the end of it, and they sure won't be there for you next time around."

By six o'clock the Republicans had a clear lead, and Fletcher tried not to show that he was feeling a little depressed. "Relax," said Jimmy, and promised him it would look better in a couple of hours' time; what he didn't mention was that by this time in the evening, his father always had a small lead and therefore knew he'd won. Fletcher envied those who were running for seats where they weighed the votes.

"How much easier to relax if you knew you were certain to win, or certain to lose."

"I wouldn't know how that feels," said Jimmy, "Dad won his first election by 121 votes before I was born, and during the past thirty years built up his majority to just over 11,000, but he always says if sixty-one people had voted the other way, he would have lost that first election, and might never have been given a second chance." Jimmy regretted the words the moment he said them.

By seven, Fletcher was relieved to see a few more blue lines appearing on the sheets and although the Republicans were still in the lead, the feeling was that it would go to the line. Jimmy had to cut the last six houses down to eleven minutes each, and even then he didn't reach the final two until after the poll had closed.

"What now?" asked Fletcher as he walked away from the last house.

Jimmy checked his watch. "Back to HQ and listen to the tallest stories you've ever heard. If you win, they will become folklore, and if you lose, they will be disowned and quickly forgotten."

"Like me," commented Fletcher.Jimmy turned out to be right, because back at HQ everyone was talking at once, but only the foolhardy and naturally optimistic were willing to predict what the result would be. The first exit poll was broadcast minutes after the last vote had been cast and showed that Hunter had won by a whisker.

The national polls were predicting that Ford had beaten Carter.that "History repeating itself," said Harry as he walked into the room. "Those same guys were telling me that Dewey was going to be our next president.

They also said I'd lose by a whisker, and we cut both those whiskers off, so don't worry about straw polls, Fletcher, they're for straw men."

"What about the turnout?" asked Fletcher, recalling Jimmy's words.

"Too early to be sure, it's certainly over fifty percent, but not fifty-five."

Fletcher looked around at his team and realized that it was no longer any use thinking about how to gather in votes, as the time had come to count them.

"There's not much else we can do now," said Harry, "except to make sure that our tellers register at City Hall before ten. The rest of you should take a break, and we'll all meet up at the count later. I have a feeling it's going to be a long night."

In the car on the way to Mario's, Harry told Fletcher he couldn't see a lot of point in them turning up much before eleven, "so let's have a quiet meal and follow the party's fortunes in the rest of the country on Mario's television."

Any chance of a quiet meal evaporated when Fletcher and Harry entered the restaurant, and several of the diners rose to their feet and applauded the two men all the way to their table in the corner.

Fletcher was pleased to find his parents had already arrived, and were enjoying a drink.

"So what can I recommend?" asked Mario once everybody had settled down.

"I'm too tired to even think about it," said Martha. "Mario, why don't you go ahead and choose for us, as you've never taken any notice of our opinion in the past.""Of course, Mrs. Gates," said Mario, "just leave it to me."

Annie stood up and waved when Joanna and Jimmy walked in. As Fletcher kissed Joanna on the cheek, he glanced over her shoulder to see Jimmy Carter on Mario's television arriving back at his ranch, and moments later President Ford stepping onto a helicopter. He wondered what sort of a day they'd had.

"Your timing is perfect," said Harry as Joanna took the seat next to him, "we've only just arrived. How are the children?"

Within minutes, Mario returned carrying two large plates of antipasti, while a waiter followed with two carafes of white wine. "The wine is on the house," declared Mario, "I think maybe you make it," he said as he poured a glass for Fletcher to taste. Someone else who wasn't willing to predict the result.

Fletcher put a hand under the table and touched Annie's knee. "I'm going to say a few words."

"Must you?" said Jimmy, pouring himself a second glass of wine. "I've heard enough speeches from you to last a lifetime."

"It will be short, I promise you," Fletcher said as he rose from his place, "because everyone I want to thank is at this table. Let me start with Harry and Martha. If I hadn't sat next to their dreadful little brat on my first day at school. I would never have met Annie, or indeed Martha and Harry, who have changed my whole life, although in truth it is my mother who is to blame, because it was she who insisted that I went to Hotchkiss rather than Tail. How different my life might have been if my father had had his way." He smiled at his mother. "So thank you."

He sat down just as Mario reappeared at their table carrying another bottle of wine.

"I don't remember ordering that," said Harry.

"You didn't," said Mario, "it's a gift from a gentleman sitting on the far side of the room.8I"That's very kind of him," said Fletcher, "did he leave his.,, name?"

"No, all he said was that he was sorry not to be able to give you more help during the election, but he's been involved in a takeover. He's one of our regulars," added Mario, "I think he's something to do with Russell's Bank."

Fletcher looked across the restaurant and nodded when Nat Cartwright raised a hand. He had a feeling that he'd seen him somewhere before.

K "How did she manage it?" asked Tom, his face ashen.

"She chose her victim well and, to be fair, she paid meticulous attention to detail."

"But that doesn't explain. ."

"How she knew we would agree to transfer the money? That was the easy part," said Nat. "Once all the other pieces had fallen neatly into place, all Julia had to do was call Ray and instruct him to move her account to another bank."

"But Russell's closes at five, and most of the staff leave before six, especially at a weekend."

"In Hartford."

"I don't understand," said Tom.

"She instructed our chief cashier to transfer the full amount to a bank in San Francisco, where it was still only two in the afternoon."

"But I only left her alone for a few minutes."

"Long enough for her to make a phone call to her lawyer."

"Then why didn't Ray contact me?"

"He tried to, but you weren't in the office and she took the phone off the hook when you got home, and don't forget when I called you from LA, it was three thirty, but it was six thirty in Hartford and Russell's was already closed."