Chapter Nine A: Midnight Caller

Nina’s private cell phone rang startling her from sleep. It was the line with the Liechtenstein number and only one person had it. Hmmm, she thought smiling, as she reached for the phone. Only three hours and already he misses me.

“Hello Lover,” she whispered when she opened the phone.

“Jeez, Nina,” Marvin practically shouted into the phone. “Can’t you put a leash on that lady? We won’t be able to run a senatorial campaign if she succeeds in alienating key voter segments like this. Why didn’t you tell me she was going to Burns Ditch?” Nina had just clinched the deal with Marvin earlier this evening, and sealed it with a little more than a kiss. All she had to do was get rid of the new guy and she was confident she could scare him off without actually having to come out against him. But this call was out of the blue.

“What are you talking about, Marvin?” she practically screeched back.

“You mean you don’t know?” Marvin responded in disbelief. “She barged into the harbormaster’s office this afternoon and demanded he stop dredging. Accused him of all sorts of things. They had a royal row and he threw her out of the office promising she wouldn’t get a vote from Portage County or any of the northwestern quadrant for that matter. Christ, Nina, that’s 30% of our voter base. She can’t just blow them off if she is serious about this campaign. I promised to use my information for her campaign, but if she’s going to throw it away, I quit.”

“Take it easy, Lover,” Nina cooed. She was seething at this bit of info, but she didn’t want Marvin to know she wasn’t in control. He was too valuable an asset and the way she was paying him had benefits for her, too. “She just was going up there to ditch the new guy,” she continued. “Something must have gotten out of control. I’ll see to it that she issues a formal apology to the Harbormaster and patches everything over. They were getting on well this fall.”

“What do you mean, ‘ditch the new guy,’” Marvin asked.

“Oh it’s something she does with everyone who comes to work for her. You’ll see soon enough. She takes them up to show them the harbor and the dunes, as if they’ve never seen them before, to give them her spiel on business and environment. It must have been an accident that she ran into Brian Borden on this trip.”

“Accident or no accident,” Marvin said, “it may take more than a formal apology to calm them down right now. I’ve been called by three corporate presidents in the steel industry in the past hour and they all want me to pull out the stops to put her career to an end. I’m going to have to walk a pretty fine line to look like I’m working for them while I’m getting your girl positioned to run.”

“I know you’re up to it, baby,” Nina murmured. “You know that thing you keep wanting me to do that I won’t? Well, I will if you make this go away.” He could take his pick of the things she wouldn’t do that he wanted, it didn’t make a difference. She knew better now how to control him than she did when they’d dated in college.

“You know I’ll do my best, girl,” he responded mollified. Now doubt he was already figuring out which thing he wanted. “I don’t know why you had to leave tonight. We were just getting going.”

“That’s the problem,” she smirked. “I have to work in the morning. You can lay in bed. If I stayed with you I’d never make it to staff meeting and we can’t afford any gossip just now, right?”

“Yeah, right. But you know it’s gonna happen babe, just as soon as I fix this up.”

“I’m counting on it,” she whispered back. “Now go to bed and let me get some sleep. I’m going to need my rest for the performance I’ve got to give tomorrow. ‘Night now.”

Sleep was the furthest thing from Nina’s mind as she whipped the covers off her and started pacing up and down in the bedroom when Marvin finally hung up. Damn! What was that idiot thinking, letting the Congresswoman get in a shouting match with a stupid harbormaster. What was he doing? She had to get rid of him as quickly as possible. She couldn’t afford an unknown screwing up her plans for her Congresswoman.

It was 1:30 in the morning. She wasn’t getting any more sleep tonight anyway. She showered and dressed, tossed a change of clothes in her overnight bag and headed for the office to prepare for tomorrow’s staff meeting.

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