Truth Like the Sun by Jim Lynch Read Free Book Online

blow it up. Just ask the Kingdome.”
    “Roger,” Teddy grumbled. “
Focus
. What’re you gonna tell these people?”
    He laughed. “The truth. What else do I got?” He shuts up, though, and tries to imagine everything that might entail.
    A couple moments later, Teddy rested a cold hand on his shoulder, slid it to his neck and squeezed. “Let ’em know you’ve always been on their side, and you hope they’ll be on yours. You’ve got it. Just don’t fly off the handle on the mayor or the police, for Chrissakes.”
    Of the many times he’d accompanied candidates into this conference room, he’d never seen it this packed. Fifteen burly men crowded the table. Another dozen lined the walls. Roger shook the closest hands, instantly feeling ancient and brittle as Teddy dropped too swiftly onto a wooden chair and muzzled a groan.
    As the room quieted, Roger thanked everyone for meeting on suchshort notice. They fidgeted, muscles twitching beneath hairy forearms. “As some of you may have noticed, I’ve been around awhile.” He expected snickers, at least grins, but missed entirely, then heard himself listing former union leaders he’d known. He knew how gauche this must sound. Ambition is fine, he used to tell candidates, as long as you don’t show it. “I’ve watched the power of unions shrink around here,” Roger said, wishing he’d shut up and listen. “Yet this is still a stronghold and just needs to be stronger.”
    Making eye contact wasn’t getting any easier, and he knew he was saying the same things politicians had said in this room since the beginning of time. So he cut to the companies he’d heard might be
amenable
—he almost said
vulnerable
—to organizing. The chairman yawned without opening his mouth. “Thanks, Mr. Morgan, but we’ve been working on them for years now.”
    When Roger asked what they were looking for in a mayor, they shifted in their seats until the chairman softly said, “I think you know.”
    “Then can we just lay it on the table here?” He bit off a smile that he knew looked phony. “What do I need to do to get your support?”
    He listened to the chairman tell him what he already knew while scolding himself for rushing this meeting in the first place. These people weren’t here to meet the next mayor. They were here to see a relic. His suit, his shoes, his hair—everything about him straight out of some wax museum. He heard belly laughs through the walls as they strolled out.
    “Blew that one,” he said once they stepped outside and Teddy lit a Pall Mall. He’d cut back during his sixties, but once he’d turned seventy he’d said the hell with it and went back to burgers, ice cream and unfiltered cigarettes.
    “You’ll find your way,” Teddy said, his breath catching on the smoke. “You were better in there than you think you were.”
    “Nah, I didn’t connect. Not even close. They didn’t know who I was.”
    “You kiddin’ me?” Teddy licked a knuckle to remove a tobacco speck from the tip of his tongue. “Why you think so many showedup? But you know what, I’m not helping you any. You should bring in that young hotshot Ryan what’s-his-name who ran Gilbey’s campaign. That kid is a shark, and he’d come cheap.”
    “Yeah, but I wouldn’t listen to him.” Roger started toward the car. “I barely listen to you.”
    Driving away, the city suddenly felt oddly foreign. Everywhere he looked people were muttering to themselves or mumbling on cell phones. Who could tell the difference anymore? And the half-empty office towers looked generic and disposable, like they’d get knocked down and hauled to the dump once the party was really over. Even the new street signs seemed hostile—
Click it or Ticket! Litter and it hurts!
Why the hell, he wondered, would anyone want to be mayor of a city he no longer recognized?
    “The machinists matter more anyhow,” Teddy volunteered. “What you just did was your practice round, okay? But you think you can