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of a diligent newspaper reporter, which he had been before setting up shop as a political consultant.
    Hypocrisy did not bother him, as long as he understood the real truth being obscured. Attempts at larceny, in small doses, didn't either, though he was of the general view that they were usually unrewarding, as well as foolhardy.
    Jack Gullighy was a familiar name to readers of the gossip columns—he was adept at promoting himself as well as his clients—and his public image was that of the jolly Irishman, red haired, bearded, of medium height and heavyset. He was also skillful at adapting that persona as circumstances required. With the cardinal or the clergy he was the former altar boy, deferential and dutiful. In a meeting of tough-talking pols he was the toughest of all, with a longshoreman's vocabulary. He could even hold his own with a group of New Agers, his beard giving him a gurulike appearance as he spoke of "closure" and "issues" and "self-esteem."
    In his personal life, Gullighy had taken seriously the Ten Commandments, so carefully inculcated by the Jesuits—seriously, that is, as a guide for disobedience. Married and divorced twice—the Gaelic charm apparently stopped at the domestic threshold—his personal relationships with women were as awkward as his professional maneuvers were deft. If he ever spoke bitterly, it was about how his two greedy ex-wives had left him impoverished.
    Impoverishment was a gross exaggeration, as Jack had become a highly successful political operative. His freelance fees were high, but those paying them were more often than not rewarded withsuccess. Eldon had been so grateful for his help in navigating the dangerous shoals of city politics that he had invited him to be his press secretary. Gullighy did not want to take the hit to his income, but he finally gave in to Eldon's relentless pressure, promising only to stay in the job for two years.
    Now he wondered what disaster had occurred, for surely it was not good news for which he was being summoned to Gracie Mansion at eight o'clock in the morning (he usually began the day at City Hall at nine). Edna, who had called him at home, had simply said that there was a "serious problem" and, in passing, that drinking with Leaky Swansea was involved.
    Gullighy knew that Eldon's drinking evenings with Swansea were a potential time bomb. Before he had signed on to Hoagland's campaign he had conducted the two-tier private interrogation that he always made a prerequisite to accepting any political assignment. First there was an interview with the candidate, looking him straight in the eye and asking if there was anything—
anything—
in his past life that could prove embarrassing in the campaign. Eldon had said there was nothing, but after prodding acknowledged that as a young instructor at the University of Minnesota he had fallen behind on his car payments and been threatened with repossession. Not a problem.
    Phase two was an interview with the candidate and his wife. Same question. Eldon repeated that there was nothing, but Edna quietly prompted him. "Your outings with Leaky Swansea, dear." Whereupon Eldon acknowledged his "occasional" nights out with his old roommate but pointed out, rightly, that they had never resulted in scandal or trouble, drunkenly boisterous as they sometimes had become. And that they were not, at least in his view, all that frequent.
    Gullighy was a master of what he chose to call "Preemptive Prophylaxis," and had spread the word among his reporter cronies that Eldon "was not adverse to having a good time"—and was himself relieved that there were no furtive abortions, adorable illegitimate offspring, talkative mistresses, seduced and abandoned graduate students, secret S&M practices or other delectable truffles for the press to root out and feed on.
    .    .    .
    Gullighy found the First Couple a portrait in dejection when he joined them in the dining room at