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He can scream at me. I'm from Brooklyn. I know from screaming. Wait till Orlando has to deal with Americans-of-the-press. Wait till the guy from the Concord Monitor gets his first six A . M . screaming phone call, 'You're an assassin, a flicking assassin!' I would say he blows his stack in the first seventy-two hours. His polls peak the first day of the campaign. He begins to slide. He can't handle adversity. It could be very ugly"
    "We'll see," I said.
    "Or we won't see."
    I was at the Mansion about ten minutes early, just in case the governor needed anything. Susan called down from the top of the stairs: "Henry? You're going to want to see the Human Torch. He's in the study" Richard Jemmons was curled up on the couch, hands pressed between his legs, as if they'd been sucked into his thighs, watching The Honeymooners on the big screen. I clicked it off and said, "To the moon, Alice."
    "On."
    "No."
    "Fuck you."
    "Fuck me? You stupid redneck sonofabitch. What goes on in that fucked-up head of yours? You never heard of Anita Hill? Man, you are so lucky she's cool."
    "I wouldna done it if she wasn't cool," he sneered.
    "Richard, you will not do that again." It was Susan, in the doorway. "You will not even wink at a muffin. You will not call any person who works for us Winona, even if her name is Winona. If you do, the best you can hope for is that we'll can your butt. A more likely scenario is that I'll conic after your scrawny little ding-a-ling with a pair of garden shears."
    The governor came in. He didn't say anything; he just let Susan handle it. He was wearing a short-sleeved knit shirt--colors of the nineties, purple and teal--jeans and cowboy boots. Both Stantons, in fact, were wearing jeans. The effect was not overwhelming, in either case. In fact, their studied informality seemed particularly lame when Jimmy Ozio came in--still in his black suit, white shirt, gray tie. "Hey," Jack Stanton said. It was Southern for hi, but with some yelp mixed in, I thought, as Ozio crunched his hand. A campaigning pol's hands are, inevitably, pretty tender from overwork. Jimmy nodded around, once again casing the joint. He saw Richard on the couch. "You're Dick Jemmons?" He said.
    "Richard," Richard said, pulling a hand out from between his legs, but still stuck in fetal on the couch. "Yeah."
    "Nice work in Jersey last year," Jimmy said. "Orlando thinks you're almost as smart as he is."
    Very nice: a light touch, making fun of the old man. Jimmy was a pro. This wasn't going to be easy.
    "So, you like barbecue?" the governor asked.
    "Hamburgers and hot dogs?" Jimmy's game was elegant: You play Southern, I'll play Northern. We'll see who cuts the shit first. "We're gonna have to take you out to a real, old-fashioned Southern pit barbecue," the governor said. "What you say, Richard? Wet or dry?"
    "The boy takes off that tie, we can take him to Fat Willie's," Richard said. "Ozio, you ever eat pig with your hands?"
    "Raw or cooked?"
    it magnificent. He and Susan had Jimmy in the Bronco; I trailed with Richard in my old Honda. "So y'all livin' down here?" he asked. I wasn't living much of anywhere. I'd spent the first few months with the governor, often just the two of us, traveling the country. It was an apprenticeship. I learned how he worked, and thought. We had entered the race officially in September, but it didn't change the routine much. We did the money thing, mostly--but he didn't get all googly around rich people, the way most pols do; nor did he carp about them behind their backs. Money had no magic for him; the folks did. He was lovely with the people, dispensing his meaningful handshakes, listening to their stories; he had a knack--no, it was more than a knack; it was something deeper, more profound and respectful--for making it clear that he had listened to them and understood, and cared. He never left a room--it was small rooms, mostly, those first few months--without knowing everyone's name, and he would remember them. Even in