I hope you can forgive me for the length of time this has taken, but I am new to this and envisioned the story as much smaller. However, it seemed to take on a life of its own, as did the characters. I would like to thank tchr for the editing which went well beyond just fixing my truly terrible punctuation. I had to make major changes to the text after his last edit to fix the story problems he found so you will find some punctuation mistakes, but the story is easier to understand.
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The Hudson River flowed majestically toward New York Harbor. The view from the tall west side office building's 44th floor was breathtaking as Edward Kincade, Governor of New York, looked out his office widow and considered the ancient waterway. The Hudson was shaped by the glacial melt-off over ten-thousand years before. As a river, it was more a finger of the ocean. The ocean tide reached north as far as and sometimes farther than Poughkeepsie, a city midway up the river valley. Now with the rise of sea level the ocean and river threatened the lives and welfare of the millions who lived and worked in the great city below the Governor's office. Kincade had envisioned himself as the savior of his city, but as always his reach exceeded his grasp.
On this Sunday he was in his office attended by the four most powerful men in state government. The Speaker of the State Assembly, the Majority Leader of the State Senate, the Attorney General and the verbose and pompous Harvey Millhouse, Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, the oddly named highest state judicial body. The topic that brought these powerful men together was the latest fuck up.
Harvey was explaining in his most boring fashion why the Court could not state in advance that the particular piece of legislation was unconstitutional, in other words why he would not stick his neck out to save the party and in particular the Governor from looking both foolish and hypocritical. The Governor had taken Harvey's class on torts at Harvard and he had been just as boring there, if somewhat more useful.
"Ok Harvey we get it. We're 'hoisted on our own petard' and you're not going to help us get down," Speaker Stanley Schwartz said.
"Well I just can't," Harvey responded.
"It's all my fault," Paul Devenback, Senate Majority Leader said.
"Stop beating yourself up Paulie these things happen. The Republicans have been in charge so long in your house that you guys are out of practice," the Speaker said.
For years the Republicans held a slim majority in the state senate under a deal that allowed the upper house to be gerrymandered Republican while the lower house was gerrymandered Democrat. It mattered not which party the votes favored in any particular election. The parties found mutual benefit in their deal which assured power in at least one house of government to each party no matter how the voters were inclined.
When State Senator Mark Hoffman brought his wife of twenty-seven years to the Mercy General emergency room one night, beaten and bleeding, she claimed to have fallen down the stairs. The hospital personnel did not believe her and reported the abuse. Nothing happened! The DA was the Senator's brother.
The Republican State Senate had passed a special bill to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate the incident. Hoffman was in fact one of the few upstate democrats in the state senate. The Assembly responded under the shrew leadership of Stanley Schwartz, veteran of some of the bitterest and dirtiest battles in Brooklyn Clubhouse politics.
The Assembly Bill called for the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate state elected officials, a Corruption Czar. You would have to be a fool to vote for such a bill. Therefore, each house had passed a bill. The Democrat Assembly could say they passed a bill to investigate and the Republicans refused to sign it. The Republicans could claim the Democrat bill was a sham. Everything was fine until Sherry Smith finally succumbed to breast cancer.
In Stanley's view Sherry was a great dame. She was a Republican, but he always got along with the overweight black woman who he kidded about her weight and who gave it right back to him. She was good on women's issues and minority rights, but incredibly conservative. She held a gerrymandered district in Buffalo by force of personality. It should have swung the other way but she wouldn't let it. She fought the cancer just as hard, but lost.
Then there was that prick Pleasly, Franklin (not frank) Pleasly was a self-righteous SOB who got elected solely on holding the most heavily Republican seat in either house. He died in a whorehouse of a heart attack although that location was never reported in the press. His death meant two special elections. But no sweat the most the Republicans could lose was one.
Taking no chances, a conservative Christian mother of three boys was nominated to succeed Pleasly. She was early forties, slim, brunette, and attractively put together. No raving beauty, but very good looking and articulate. The pundits said Sara Monk, the wife of Dr. Monk an oral surgeon, couldn't lose. Unfortunately she did.
Sara was a stay at home mom who had backed conservative causes both financially with her husband's money and by being a dedicated campaign volunteer. She had been elected to the local school board and the town council. It was in this last job that she met a much younger attorney and began a brief liaison. It was minor and was over, but unfortunately in the age of cellular phones and selfies the pictures still existed.
Three days before the special election Sara Monk's nude and suggestive photos were all over the net. The scandal broke too close to the election for damage control, and the last shoe to drop was the boyfriend's ex-wife saying that Sara was the cause of the divorce. In a less conservative district it might not have mattered so much.
The democrats were ecstatic when they took control of the State Senate. This lasted one whole day. The outgoing majority leader brought the assembly's version of the special counsel bill to the floor and then sat down. If Paul Devenback had been more experienced he could have held his side together and thumbed his nose at the opposition, but he wasn't.
The radical left on his side of the chamber knew what they wanted: payback. What better way to get it than pass a radical reform bill. The best Paul could do was amending the bill to limit the term to five years. So there it was a bill no sane politician wanted sitting waiting for the Governor's signature. A bill he had endorsed when he was sure it would not pass.
The last man in the room was Sydney (Sid) Levy, the Attorney General, in New York an elected position. How Sid, the most honest and caring man that the others had ever known, was even nominated was a mystery, but here he sat with four political sharks. Sid was thirty five, the father of six, and husband of Ruth, an orthodox Jewish woman who believed in her faith to the exclusion of everything except her family. The meeting was on Sunday because the day before had been the Sabbath. Sid would have come the day before, but the others knew what a price Ruth would make him pay.
"Well, Attorney General any advice?" the Governor asked.
Sid had been dreading this moment. He was uncomfortable with these men at the best of times. Now he was asked to give an opinion that he believed they could not agree with.
"Well the bill has certain deficiencies which could be corrected by the right appointment:
1.It is too general; it does not give a clear mandate, which means you need a strong person to fill the position.
2.There is no money appropriated which means until the next budget or the supplemental if there is one, this person must operate without funds. I will of course provide what assistance I can for support, but I cannot hire personal for another agency. So you need someone who is innovative.
3.Finally you need someone independent, that the public will respect, but who will understand human frailty. Not someone holier than thou, but still-I don't know-I guess hero enough for the public to look up to.
My opinion is: If you have someone like that, sign the bill and appoint him or her, but if you can't find the right person, veto it and take the bad press."
Sydney finished his statement to a groan from the Majority Leader and the Judge clearing his throat. The Governor was oddly quiet. Then Stanley said, "Got someone like that in your back pocket Ed?"
The Governor looked down then turned back to the window watched the Hudson for a minute then picked up the phone.
"Betty get me Don Pleasant, Jr., not Sr.—Jr." He then turned back to the others and said, "Why don't we refill our coffee cups while we wait."
The Governor had placed his head of security's son into a position to keep him informed on Patrick Sullivan. Better safe than sorry. The moment he heard of the attack he had wondered. The more he learned, the surer he was that the situation needed to be carefully watched. His own involvement was minimal, and the situation was stable for now.
