Till You Hear From Me: A Novel by Pearl Cleage Read Free Book Online

light on him already, any attempt to involve him in something where discretion is required is immediately doomed, and Tavis Smiley is impossible to predict and therefore to control, which brings us to Reverend Dunbar. Well known, well respected, mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore. He’s ripe for a change in party affiliation and I don’t have to tell you what a PR bonanza that would be for us. Not to mention access to the list of those hundred thousand new voters he put on the rolls in time for November fourth.”
    “Needless to say, those votes are overwhelmingly Democratic,” Stan said, like the word itself left a bad taste in his mouth. “And if I may speak frankly, neutralizing his efforts is going to be the cornerstone of our first Georgia initiative.”
    Now we’re getting to it, Wes thought. “Define ‘neutralize.’”
    Stan passed the question off to Oscar with a glance. “We want to purge the Georgia voter rolls of as many of those new Democratic voters as we can,” Oscar said carefully. “Since these churches all did their registration drives at the same time, we can easily isolate and remove them if we can get a crack at that list.”
    “Go on.”
    “We’ve got somebody on the inside of the elections office, but we need the membership lists from those churches. There are atleast ten of them in the network, as best we can tell, but there doesn’t seem to be a master list anywhere.”
    Old-school
, Wes thought. “How can I help?”
    Stan was pleased at Wes’s directness. This was going to work out just fine. He’d deliver the money they had picked up in Texas and be on a plane back to Boston by noon.
Piece of cake
.
    “First thing we need is a solid assessment of what we’re dealing with,” Stan said. “It could be a hundred thousand names, but it could be twenty-five thousand. Who really knows?”
    Oscar nodded. “As soon as we get the lists, we’ll compile a master list and shoot the whole thing over to our guy in elections. The ones we can purge on technicalities, we will. The ones we can’t, we’ll target with misinformation. You know, bogus changes in polling places, threats to put folks in jail for back child support—the usual.”
    He smiled at Wes. They both knew how to do this kind of work and they both knew the other one was good at it.
    “At the same time, we’ll begin setting up speaking engagements for Reverend Dunbar in front of audiences who will respond positively to criticism of the White House agenda. With this guy’s movement credentials, press coverage is a given.”
    Wes got up and walked over to the window. It was always good to appear to consider the full ramifications of the proposed trickery. He folded his arms and gazed down at the people in the street below; the very picture of a man in the midst of careful internal deliberations.
    “Can you help us out, Wes?” Oscar prompted him gently.
    Before he could answer, Stan spoke up quickly. “There is one more thing.”
    Wes turned back to the two men and smiled as if pleased to be released from his reverie.
    “There’s always one more thing,” he said.
    “We’ve got a bit of time pressure. Our guy down there in elections is retiring at the end of April. That gives us just three months to work with. Is it doable?”
    “Is there support for it at the appropriate level?”
    “Top priority down the line,” Stan said. “Whatever resources you need are already in place.”
    Wes walked back to his chair and sat down, aware that Stan’s watery eyes were following his every move closely. “I’ll need to go down and make an initial assessment before I can suggest an approach that makes sense,” he said.
    Stan nodded. “Of course.”
    “But I can practically guarantee that we can work within your timetable.”
    Stan’s face almost managed a real smile. “That’s good to hear, but what makes you so optimistic?”
    Wait for it
, Wes thought.
Make him wait for it
.
    “Because, gentlemen,”