“We’ve been thinking, talking informally,” Finn said, addressing Addis. “Do we swing it behind Mumfries? He refuses to say anything publicly about his intentions. And he and Kelly haven’t said anything to any of us, right?”

Carey and McGreer nodded, and they all looked at Addis.

“I don’t know anything,” Addis muttered. “Isn’t this a bit too—”

“And—who knows?—there might be someone else out there with a plan,” Finn went on. “Nick, hear anything from your friend, Senator Palmer?”

Addis shook his head. He had spoken briefly to the senator at the funeral. Anything I can do to help, I will, Palmer had said.

“Dickerson?” McGreer asked. The previous year the black congressman had threatened to challenge Hanover in the primaries, but he had not entered the race.

“I don’t think so,” Addis said. “It will look a bit opportunistic. And his son is in trouble for a cable business deal in Oakland. The U.S. attorney is looking into it. Dickerson thinks we started that rolling. We didn’t, and I told his people that. But he still believes—which probably will keep him out.”

“And do we want him out?” Carey asked.

No one replied.

“I suppose that depends on who we want in,” Carey said, answering his own question.

The discussion was beginning to anger Addis. He wondered if perhaps he was too sensitive. The number of days to the election was finite and growing shorter. Didn’t they have a responsibility—maybe even a responsibility to him—to plot instead of mourn? That might be so, but did it have to seem so enjoyable?

Damn, I am out of it.

“Isn’t the first move up to the V-Vi … the President?” he asked.

“Sounded like Lem there, Nick,” Carey said quickly.

“Fuck yes,” McGreer said to Addis. “He’d be the easiest, maybe the best. Continuity and all that. Probably what Bob”—he hesitated—“would have even wanted. Mumfries helped him get here and was on the team.”

Addis let it pass.

“Not sure Margaret would agree with that,” Carey said.

“But we’re not committed,” Finn interjected.

“Not yet,” Carey added.

Addis had it figured. McGreer was pushing Mumfries. Carey was worried he would be cut out of Mumfries’s campaign—and its spending. He had never gotten along with Kelly. Finn was doing what he always did: calculating, extrapolating, gaming it all out. And each was worried that a loop existed that he was not in.

“Mumfries will have to say something in the next few days,” McGreer said. “Everyone in Chicago is in a fucking panic. Every state chair, too. Every fucking delegate. And even the fucking airlines are calling.”

“Let them come and vote for Hanover,” Addis said.

The others looked at him.

“The delegates. On the first ballot. Most are committed, right? Then, I suppose, we’ll have an open convention.”

“I have someone researching the rules,” Finn said.