Of all the TIMCO corporate jets, Senator Landon Meyer most enjoyed the Gulfstream 550. It wasn’t the largest. It wasn’t the newest. He just liked the layout. The couches for taking a nap. The facing leather seats for reading or conversing. The hardwood mahogany tables, a bathroom better appointed than the one in his Senate office, and a galley better stocked than his liquor cabinet at home.
Staring out the window as the plane flew west from Washington, D.C., toward Silicon Valley, Landon didn’t feel at all guilty about the corporate largesse. He reimbursed TIMCO for the expense, or at least what the Federal Election Commission would accept as the expense. More importantly, he didn’t conspire with TIMCO or any other contributor to draft and enact favorable legislation, they simply shared a commonality of worldview that he molded into federal law.
Landon let his gaze travel around the Western-themed cabin interior with photos of the Texas oil fields in the 1920s, horse-drawn wagons, cattle in the distance. Suede fringed throw pillows. Bucking bronco painted dinner plates.
Did he like the TIMCO officers? No, not really. He never liked oilmen and their good-old-boy pretense. But that wasn’t a consideration. That he didn’t entirely trust TIMCO weighed on him, and for good cause, like the refinery explosion during his first senatorial campaign.
As far as unions and environmental activists were concerned, there was no such thing as an accident. There were only conspiracies.
Even now, Landon still felt sadness, even grief, for the victims and their families-and outrage. Not because of their desire for compensation-how else can a capitalist society measure loss-but because of the class action lawyers and the greedy clients they’d recruited from the neighborhoods surrounding the Richmond refinery. He still couldn’t see what the big deal was about residents sheltering in place for a few hours while the smoke cleared. Small sacrifice for the money TIMCO brought into their community. Despite that, they demanded millions of dollars, two thousand dollars a household.
Landon glanced down at the Government Accounting Office analysis of a revision of the federal workers’ compensation law to set limits on payouts. It reminded him that the only useful thing that came out of the tragedy was an example and an argument for tort reform.
But what had damaged him was the TIMCO executives’ sixty thousand dollars in personal contributions paired in his opponent’s commercial with photos of the burning refinery and with demands for better regulation. And it cost him six hundred thousand dollars in television time to buy back the voters’ goodwill.
It was a good thing Brandon came up with enough money in the final days to pay for the media blitz vilifying his opponent for her disastrous reversal on the death penalty and for her acceptance of the jihadists’ campaign contribution.
Anyway, Brandon had said the explosion really was just an accident, and Landon had no reason to doubt him. Brandon had even given him a copy of the OSHA root cause analysis, and Landon had distributed it to the press.
End of story-except for a lingering dark mood, the kind horror movie watchers carried with them as they left the theater and novel readers felt after closing a book.
And, staring at the TIMCO logo stitched into the leather seat across from him, he knew it would always linger.
B randon was standing by a Lincoln Town Car parked on the tarmac at the San Jose Jet Center when the Gulfstream rolled to a stop.
My earnest little brother, Landon thought as he climbed down the stairs. Always looking so perfectly earnest.
He wondered what Brandon looked like on the bench, and was certain it couldn’t be called earnest.
Brandon took two steps forward and shook Landon’s hand. The chauffeur had the rear door open by the time they started for the car.
“What’s first?” Landon asked as the limousine rolled toward the airport exit and the on-ramp to the freeway heading south.
“The first meeting is at two o’clock down at Conner Micro. The group is calling itself Silicon Valley Executives for Regulatory Reform.”
Landon thought for a moment, then chuckled.
Bewilderment replaced Brandon’s earnestness. “What?”
“Who made up that name?”
“I did.”
“Better ask me first in the future. The acronym sounds too much like ‘sever’ or even worse, ‘severe.’ In either case, it’ll invite sarcasm on the cable news shows.”
Brandon squinted into the distance, then asked, “How about just Executives for Regulatory Reform? Like ‘ear,’ as in we listen.”
“I think that’ll come out ‘err’ like in ‘error.’ ”
Landon noticed Brandon looking down and shaking his head. “Don’t worry, little brother, we’ll come up with something.”
Brandon raised his head and smiled.
“Before we descended into acronym hell,” Brandon said, “I was about to say I made reservations at Chez Nous. They’ll give us a private room so we can talk a little strategy while we eat. And I’ll wait there while you go lean on the contributors.”
Landon looked at his watch.
“I think I’d like to stop and see Janie,” Landon said. “It’s been a while since I’ve been home.”
“How about next time? We’ll be cutting it too close.”
“We can talk on the way.”
“But-”
Landon’s uncompromising expression cut Brandon short. He punched the intercom. “New plan. 910 Oregon Avenue, San Mateo.”
The driver took the first exit, swung under the freeway, and headed north.
“How’s your progress been?” Landon asked.
“Just short of ten million in pledges in the last week.”
Landon’s head swung around. “Ten million? How’s that possible?”
“I had a lot of chips to play.”
“What? You threaten to put people in the federal penitentiary if they didn’t contribute?”
It was Brandon’s turn to laugh. “Criminals rarely have any money. Despite all the talk about drug kingpins, dope dealers really don’t do all that well. Turns out most of them sleep on their mother’s couches.”
“So we’re only talking about another five or so in the next three weeks?”
“But it’ll be a lot harder. People are tapped out, or are at least having trouble reaching the bottom of their pockets.” Brandon grinned. “Makes me want to give them sort of a political wedgie and bring their pockets up a few inches.”
Landon laughed and shook his head. “People will be shocked to learn Machiavelli has a sense of humor.”
“Let’s not tell them.” Brandon pointed at Landon’s watch, then bit his lip. “We really don’t have time to stop.”
“We’ll make time.”
“T hey’ve kept up the lawn nicely,” Landon said, getting out of the limousine at the curb. He then pointed along the walkway. “Wasn’t there a tree here? A poplar or something?”
“I don’t remember,” Brandon said.
“You mean you haven’t been here since we came out together last time?”
Brandon shrugged. “You know how it is. There are only so many hours in a day.”
Landon wasn’t surprised, but wondered how their parents raised sons with such different attitudes, different feelings, maybe even different loyalties, toward family.
He felt himself well up as he cut across the grass and his heart ached even before he spotted her headstone: Jane Meyer, Born 1956-Died 1960, Now with God.
Landon stared down the marble slab, remembering the collision.
Or at least thinking he was remembering it.
He’d told the story so many times in speeches over the years, drawing so many different lessons as his political needs shifted, he wasn’t sure of the truth-except that a drunk driver had killed his little sister.
Even as a child he’d understood exactly what had been taken from him, from his parents, from their grandparents. From Brandon, he wasn’t so sure.
One thing Senator Landon Meyer knew with certainty, and without regret, was that he’d been the first six-year-old in human history who believed in the death penalty.
F ive minutes later, after a brief prayer, Landon took in a long breath and said:
“Let’s go get some money.”