The Side of the Angels by Christina Bartolomeo, Kyoko Watanabe Page A

does his skin get dry? Washington is a frigging swamp.”
    The outside door opened. There was a string of bells attached to it, and when the door was pushed the bells jangled like beauty shop bells.
    â€œMargaret put those up,” said Tony.
    â€œWhat for?”
    â€œTo make the place homey, she said. She does a lot of that.”
    Through the door stepped one of the last people I expected to see here, and he was sauntering toward us with an air of welcome that did not deceive me.
    â€œYou’ve got to be kidding,” I said to Tony under my breath.
    â€œGoreman sent him.”
    If Doug Hamner had stepped foot within a hundred miles of one of Tony’s campaigns, it could only be in the empty title of second in command. Had Hamner been forced on Tony in any other capacity, Tony would have quit. The antagonism between them was long-standing. The antagonism between Doug and me was pretty venerable too.
    I unwillingly shook Doug’s offered hand, which was moist, no larger than mine, and far too soft. I noticed that he was wearing his fanny pack, a zippered pouch that hung from his belt and held God knew what. He always wore it in front—like a colostomy bag, Tony had once said. It went oddly with his suit and tie.
    â€œAre you ready to be put to work?” said Hamner. “I have a lot for you to do.”
    â€œOh? You’re helping Tony out, then?” I knew that would irritate him.
    Hamner was nicknamed “the Hamster” by his fellow organizers, due to his slight overbite and his small, quickly gesturing hands. He’d hurriedly been brought on board at the national by the Toilers’ new president, Jerry Goreman, when that old warhorse Frank De Rosa died. Doug was only one of the many yes-men from Goreman’s Chicago local who rushed off to buy standby seats from O’Hare to Dulles while the last strains of “Solidarity Forever” were still echoing down K Street from De Rosa’s funeral extravaganza at St. Matthew’s Cathedral.
    Doug was shoehorned into the organizing department, not because he had the faintest idea of how to run an organizing campaign, but because Goreman needed a spy on the ground in Weingould’s territory. Weingould tried to neutralize Doug by assigning him to small races that were already in the bag, where he couldn’t do much damage. Doug got very puffed up at these illusory successes, speaking frequently of his “win record” at Toilers staff meetings. One of the more venerable reps had commented to Doug once, on extreme provocation, “You know, sonny, it’s easy to hit a home run when the pitcher hangs one over the plate.” But since the only sport Doug followed was bicycle racing, it was feared that he had missed the point.
    He’d gotten puffed up in other ways, I saw now. He’d gained about twenty pounds since I’d last seen him, and it wasn’t flattering to his Germanic countenance or his age, which must be close to forty-five now. You wouldn’t call him heavy yet, but the extra weight transformed what had once been a pretty-boy handsomeness to a curdled attractiveness on the verge of running to fat. So rosy-cheeked was he, so yellow-brown of hair and droopy mustache, that if you’d put a beer stein in his hand and stuffed him into a pair of lederhosen, he could have walked into any Oktoberfest in Bavaria and been taken for a native.
    â€œNow that you’re here,” said Doug, “there are a few meeting notices Margaret hasn’t been able to get to, and some ad copy for the Knights of Columbus banquet program which is due tomorrow. I thinkyou’d better do the meeting notices first; we can hit the night shift with those.”
    â€œActually, Weingould’s hired me for some pretty specific writing and PR assistance, Doug, so I’m afraid I’m going to have to limit ad hoc favors like that. But if you like, I can look over anything
you’ve
written