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said.
    â€œMaybe
I’ll
give him a call, since the idea is for him to be
my
lawyer,” a female voice said sharply from near the doorway.
    Rep twisted around in his chair to see Lena Lindstrom striding in, carrying a platter laden with oatmeal-raisin cookies. She was wearing a mustard yellow chamois shirt and faded blue jeans, softened a bit by a candy-apple red apron with something embroidered on its breast in elaborate white script. Carlsen reached for the platter as she approached the gray folding chair where he’d perched, but with a curt, “Guests first,” she jerked it away from him and offered it to Rep.
    Murmuring his thanks he took two cookies that were still warm. He noticed hand-painted rosemaling designs in vivid red, blue, and gold decorating the platter’s edge. He found this reassuring. Like the apron, it was the kind of homey touch you wouldn’t stumble over if you were advising, say, Karl Rove.
    She set the platter on the front edge of the farther work table, where Ole and Carlsen could both reach it. Then she picked up the fourth beer, opened it, and parked herself on the corner of the same table. This allowed Rep to read the script embroidered on her apron:

    WHEN IN DOUBT
    GO NEGATIVE

    Great
, Rep thought.
I’m not counseling Karl Rove, I’m advising Lucretia Borgia.
    â€œYou’re right, of course, that you should call the lawyer,” Ole said. “When I said I’d call him I was referring to myself as your surrogate.”
    â€œRight,” Lena said. “You and Bill Clinton ought to be competing for surrogate of the year.” She accompanied this with an almost but not quite winsome giggle that sent Miller Genuine Draft dribbling from the corner of her lips down her chin.
    â€œI’ll get in touch with Walt on my way back to Milwaukee and tell him to expect your call.”
    â€œLemme ask you something,” Lena said. “Do a little polling. Do you think the government should discriminate on the basis of race in conferring economic privileges? I don’t mean affirmative action. I mean should the government say, ‘Here’s a way we’ll let you make money, but only if you’re the right color.”
    â€œIs this a trick question? I’d say the answer is no. Is the government doing that?”
    â€œNext time you’re in Madison,” Ole said, leaning back in his chair, “ask for a license to open a casino. See what happens.”
    â€œCasino gambling?” Rep asked. “You think you can make that a wedge issue?”
    â€œIt’s all in how you spin it. You can’t be in favor of expanding casino gambling, because then you get some of the Protestants mad at you. And you can’t be in favor of restricting casino gambling, because then you get the rest of the Protestants and all of the Catholics mad at you.”
    â€œAlong with most of the atheists,” Lena said.
    â€œBut what you can do,” Ole went on, “is say that whatever the rules are, they ought to be the same for everybody. You shouldn’t have one particular racial group—”
    â€œNative Americans, for example,” Lena interjected.
    â€œâ€”allowed to make wampum hand over fist fleecing patsies while everybody else is shut out of the teepee.”
    â€œEspecially if they do it by pouring money into the Madison shakedown machine, otherwise known as the Wisconsin Legislature.”
    â€œThat’s the hook you were talking about, I take it,” Rep said.
    â€œIt is.” Ole nodded his head in emphatic confirmation. “The key is getting out front on the issue and being pitch-perfect in the way you frame it. Then whichever position the other guy takes, he either makes somebody mad at him or everybody mad at him.”
    The doorbell rang.
    â€œI’ll get it,” Ole said jovially to Lena as he levered himself up from his chair. “If it’s your lawyer I’ll call