know I had been part of Levi’s staff previously. He seemed satisfied, or at least a little less skeptical.
“Can you come back at 6:15 tonight?” I asked. “I will make sure to introduce you to Levi right away.” I was trying to sound casual, but the truth was that I wanted to begin on a positive note with a reporter who would be covering the campaign. “We’re not open yet,” I said smiling. “I need a few more hours with my staff to get ready.”
JP agreed to return in a few hours. We exchanged business cards and I wrote my cell on the back of mine. We shook hands to seal the deal, but as I turned to leave, he held on to my fingers a second longer than I expected, causing me to look up into his brown eyes. His face was framed by dark, curly brown hair that had been cropped short. He was wearing a blue-green plaid shirt with a navy sweater vest and Levi’s.
“OK, so I will see you in a few hours then,” I said, pulling my hand away.
JP smiled. “You’ll definitely be seeing me again.”
True to his word, JP returned and stayed for most of the party, interviewing guests and, of course, Levi. I kept a close eye on him, but could not detect anything but professional intentions when it came to the candidate. Levi, having already been a congressman, needed very little help with the media.
The kick-off party had been a success, the festivities lasting longer than any of us had expected. As I was cleaning up later that evening, I thought for a moment about how things had gone. More than 100 supporters dropped by to celebrate and take home a campaign sign. It may seem odd, the fixation with campaign signs. But for a candidate they’re important. To drive or walk through an area or a specific street and see a sign in every window is a powerful visual. It’s street-level advertising and it can be quite successful. It also can be intimidating to your opposition, although we didn’t know quite yet who that would be.
Pleased, I went to sleep that night happy that things had begun so smoothly.
The success of the evening was one of the topics I was prepared to review with Gabriel and the rest of the team when we held our de-briefing meeting later in the day. Thanks to the end of daylight savings, darkness arrived much earlier, which meant we could begin our meeting sooner.
At the moment, it was early morning and I was stretching in my bedroom, preparing to go for a run in the park. I pulled on my running shoes and slipped a spare front door key into a small pocket in my running tights. By the time I made it out the door, the pink light of dawn was peeking over the edges of the sky from the east, but racing to beat it was a cold, wet fog. I could hear the horns blowing off the coast as I set off on my run, and by the time I made it to the music concourse near the de Young Museum, the fog had made it all the way into the city. I was curious to know if today’s wet mess was the result of nature or something else. I wasn’t aware of anything special going on, but it was likely I didn’t know everything that went on with the Council. I was only a human consultant for them, after all, and not a full-fledged member. I quickly passed the museum and headed down a side path that cut behind the building and onto another road. By the time I turned the corner to head west and go deeper into the park, the mist was so thick I could not see more than a few steps ahead.
The low pitch of the foghorns could be heard every few seconds now, no doubt warning large cargo ships away from danger out on the bay. I was so distracted listening to the repeating rhythm that it took me a moment to register that there was a man standing on the sidewalk in front of me. I stopped myself abruptly mid-run and waited. Thanks to the fog, he seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. That would have been startling enough, but what was more shocking was his appearance.
Approaching me was a tall man with tight, curly black hair. He wore a garish suit consisting of