Hope Rides Again Read online

  ALSO BY ANDREW SHAFFER

  Obama Biden Mysteries

  Hope Never Dies

  Parodies and Satires

  The Day of the Donald:

  Trump Trumps America!

  Ghosts from Our Past: Both Literally

  and Figuratively: The Study of the Paranormal

  Catsby: A Parody

  How to Survive a Sharknado

  and Other Unnatural Disasters

  Fifty Shames of Earl Grey: A Parody

  Nonfiction

  Literary Rogues: A Scandalous

  History of Wayward Authors

  Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love

  This is a work of fiction. All names, places, and characters—including those based on real people, living or dead—as well as characterizations and opinions are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real people, places, or events is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Andrew Shaffer

  Cover illustration © 2019 by Jeremy Enecio,

  Levy Creative Management NYC

  All rights reserved. Except as authorized under U.S. copyright law, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Number:

  2018961370

  ISBN: 9781683691228

  Ebook ISBN 9781683691235

  Cover design by Andie Reid

  Cover illustration by Jeremy Enecio

  Production management by John J. McGurk

  Quirk Books 215

  Church Street

  Philadelphia, PA 19106

  quirkbooks.com

  v5.4

  a

  TO THE WINDY CITY, WITH LOVE

  “MAY THE HINGES OF YOUR FRIENDSHIP NEVER GO RUSTY.”

  —Irish proverb

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Also by Andrew Shaffer

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  1

  What a bunch of malarkey.

  That had been my response when I’d seen Murder on the Amtrak Express on the paperback rack at the airport. Some two-bit hack had written a potboiler starring yours truly, Joe Biden. Not only that, but the money-grubbing publisher had the gall to slap my mug on the cover. There I was, grimacing behind the wheel of a silver Pontiac Firebird Trans Am—a car I’d never driven in my life. Now, six chapters in, my initial assessment of its literary merit was unchanged. Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover.

  I might as well have flushed my fifteen bucks down the crapper.

  My cab screeched to a halt, sending the book tumbling from my hands. The cabbie—a dead ringer for Bears legend Mike Ditka—laid on the horn. A half dozen pedestrians dashed in front of us, tying up four lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic on Lake Shore Drive.

  Traffic had been stop-and-go since Midway. What should have been a twenty-minute drive into Chicago had already taken double that.

  “Is there another route?”

  Ditka shook his head. “St. Paddy’s Day weekend. Holiday’s tomorrow, but the parade’s today. Your friend Obama picked da wrong morning for his ecumenical forum, if you ask me.”

  “Economics,” I said. “It’s a global economics forum.”

  Ditka glared at me in the rearview mirror. I could tell he wanted to say something smart, but he was having a rough time getting the old hamster to spin the wheel. A woman in a tight pair of green hot pants raced to catch up to her friends, feather boa in tow. My driver redirected his attention accordingly.

  I should have expected the zaniness. St. Patrick’s Day was the second biggest day on the Irish American calendar, right after November twentieth (birthday of the forty-seventh vice president of the United States). Outside of Boston, there wasn’t another American city that took more pride in its Irish heritage than Chicago. By noon, the sidewalks would be stained with Guinness.

  We started moving again. I groped around under the front seat for the book. My fingers brushed it, but the cab braked hard and it slipped away. Thank God I hadn’t eaten anything this morning. If I had, it would have been all over the backseat. There was a reason most cab seats were vinyl.

  “Lose something back there?” Ditka asked, craning his head around as we inched forward. The hedgehog on his upper lip was dotted with spittle.

  “Nothing important,” I said. The book belonged under the seat. I’d read cereal boxes with better character development. In the parlance of Tony the Tiger, the book was not grrreat.

  Wave after wave of pedestrians were now jaywalking around us, weaving between cars. Horns honked, with little effect. Traffic had come to a complete standstill.

  I couldn’t see the Tribune Tower, but I knew it was situated along the river. A mile away, give or take a city block. If I were still in office, I could have arranged a helicopter extraction. Good ol’ Marine Two would’ve gotten me there faster than you could say “Scott Pruitt.” Those heady days, however, were long gone—and besides, I’d never taken advantage of my position as a public servant like that.

  I glanced at my watch. Quarter till nine. The prayer breakfast would be wrapping up shortly. If I hoofed it from here, I still had a chance to catch the keynote address. I might miss Barack’s introduction, but I wasn’t in town to see him. Not this time.

  I cleared my throat. “Just let me out here.”

  Ditka shrugged. No sweat off his stones. I paid my fare in cash, stepped out onto the curb. A cool breeze rolled off Lake Michigan. All I had to do was head west until I hit the Magnificent Mile, then turn north. In the midst of a city-wide bar crawl.

  “Be careful out there,” Ditka shouted through the open door. “It’s snake weather.”

  The Mazda in front of him moved forward three inches, causing a line of cars to honk like mad when the cab didn’t follow suit. I threw them a gentle wave, which instigated another chorus of honking. Tough crowd.

  “Snake weather, huh?” I said, lingering at the open door.

  “Su
pposed to warm up into da fifties today,” Ditka said. “First nice weekend of spring is always the most dangerous. The city thaws, the snakes come out. Pickpockets, swindlers. Gangbangers with itchy trigger fingers. Criminals of every stripe.”

  A solitary green feather floated past my face. I batted it away. He might have been yanking my chain, but I didn’t think so. There was something in the air. The Midwest had been under a blanket of snow and ice since early December. Three-plus long months of tension simmering below the surface, unleashed by Mother Nature.

  I snorted. “Don’t worry about me,” I told him. “This isn’t my first rodeo.”

  It wasn’t until I shut the door that I remembered I’d never been to a rodeo.

  2

  Every city has its own springtime fragrance. Visit Wilmington and you’ll wander into a botanical paradise not unlike my wife’s shampoo. Washington would forever be associated in my mind with the sweet smell of blossoming magnolias and cherry trees.

  As Chicago thawed that March morning, my nostrils were assaulted with a pungent stew of corned beef, cabbage, and horse manure. It was enough to make me nostalgic for the Senate chambers in August in the seventies, when air-conditioning was still considered a luxury. Back before global warming had made it a necessity.

  I ducked into a souvenir store for a little St. Paddy’s flair to blend in with the downtown crowd. I was already strapped for time, but I would be in real trouble if anyone recognized me. The last thing I needed was to be engulfed by hundreds upon hundreds of well-wishers chanting “Run, Joe, run!”

  I modeled a green-and-white striped scarf in a mirror. Behind me, I caught a glimpse of a short, squat fellow with a reddish chinstrap beard. Green jacket: check. Newsboy cap: check. A damn leprechaun. All he was missing was a pot of gold.

  “Next.”

  The clerk was waving me up to the counter. I turned around, scanning the store for the leprechaun, but there were only a couple of young women snapping photos of each other in four-leaf-clover sunglasses. Huh. I handed the clerk a twenty.

  “Keep the change,” I said. “I don’t need a bag.”

  His hand was still outstretched. “It’s $34.99, sir.”

  “For a scarf?”

  “It’s a nice scarf.” He motioned to a display of garish green socks adorned with shamrocks and mugs of green beer. Two pairs for ten bucks. “If you’re looking for something on the cheap side…”

  I handed him another twenty.

  This time I asked for the change.

  Nobody gave me so much as a second look over the next eight city blocks. It wasn’t because of the scarf. I was just another white-haired Irish American in a city swimming with Celtic cud chewers. I passed no fewer than twenty-three doppelgängers who could have made good money impersonating me at birthday parties and confirmations.

  The sidewalk in front of the Tribune Tower was blocked off with sawhorses—not for the parade, but for the protestors. A small crowd of twenty or thirty Occupy activists were milling about, wielding posters attacking the usual suspects.

  NO BORDERS, NO BANKS.

  STOP CORPORATE GREED.

  MR. OBAMA TEAR DOWN THIS WALL (STREET).

  Not exactly the homecoming welcoming committee.

  Not exactly surprising, either.

  A pair of cops on horseback watched the fracas. They paid no attention as I skirted around them. They were only one line of defense, however. A muscled-up heavy in a too-tight suit was blocking the main entrance doors. Had to be private security. I’d never seen a Secret Service agent with the Van Heusen label still stitched onto their sleeve.

  A man in an ivory suit and fedora barreled out of one of the revolving doors. He brushed past the security guard, and I stepped to the side to avoid being bowled over. The man met my eyes as he passed. A VIP pass hung on a lanyard around his thick neck. He wore a look of determination—he had somewhere to be. And by the way his eyebrows were angled, he didn’t look too happy about it.

  I removed my shades and turned to the guard. An Irish and an American flag were flapping above us in the wind.

  “This the conference?” I asked.

  “Need to see your pass.”

  “I should be on the list. Biden. Joe Biden.”

  Without taking his eyes off me, he loosened the walkie-talkie from his belt like he was unholstering a pistol. “If you’re not wearing a pass—”

  The revolving door behind him spun again. The woman who emerged was wearing a sharp blue top. I noticed she didn’t have a conference pass clipped to it. I had half a mind to ask the guard why this woman didn’t need a pass, but I already knew the answer: it was Michelle Obama. And Michelle Obama did whatever the heck Michelle Obama wanted.

  3

  The Tribune Tower lobby was small but elegant, with tall, cavernous ceilings. A video board welcomed us to THE RISING HOPE CENTER‘S FIRST ANNUAL GLOBAL ECONOMICS FORUM—SATURDAY, MARCH 16, 2019. First annual? Barack always liked to go big or go home.

  “Welcome to Chicago,” Michelle said, embracing me. “You’re looking good, Joe. Have you lost weight?”

  “My doctor tracks all that bunk. I’ve been hitting the hotel StairMasters pretty hard, though. Life on the road.”

  Michelle marched us around a metal detector. There were suits everywhere. A couple were well dressed enough to be Secret Service. “You sure picked a wild day to visit Chi-Town,” she said. “Surprised the police aren’t in riot gear.”

  “The protestors hardly look like they’re going to riot. They look more like they need a ham sandwich and a nap.”

  “The ones with the signs?” She scoffed. “Barack will spend an hour discussing the resource-based economy and collaborative commons with them later. No, I was talking about the shamrock crowd.”

  “I wouldn’t worry. You’ve got more muscle here than a Gold’s Gym,” I said. “And I’m not just talking about your arms.”

  She playfully slapped at me and led me down an escalator.

  “Did I miss him?” I asked.

  “Barack? He should be in the green room.”

  “I meant his pal. Caruso.”

  “Oh, him,” she said. “He’s still on stage. We’ll swing by there and you can peek in.”

  A week ago, Barack had called me out of the blue to say that Caruso, a rapper turned social-justice activist with strong ties to Chicago’s African American community, was delivering the opening keynote at today’s event. If I was serious about running for president—and serious about winning—this was somebody I needed to meet. There’d been a lot of talk since 2016 about winning back White America. Here was a chance to hear firsthand about the issues facing Black America. Barack would be in and out of the conference all day, but Caruso had agreed to sit down with me for a private one-on-one after his speech. I couldn’t ride Barack’s coattails forever when it came to minority outreach, especially since he wasn’t likely to stump for anyone in the Democratic primaries. Not even someone he’d traded friendship bracelets with.

  Michelle and I stopped at a pair of double doors where a black teenager was standing, hands clasped in front of him. He was dressed in a crisp white shirt and black slacks, like a Jehovah’s Witness. You could see your reflection in his polished shoes.

  “You’re welcome to catch the rest of the speech from the back of the room,” Michelle explained to me. “He’s supposed to wrap up”—she looked at her Apple Watch—“in fifteen minutes. You might want to cut out early and head to the green room.”

  “The green room. That must be for St. Patrick’s Day, right?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I meant because it’s green and…never mind.”

  “Oh, I get it, Joe. I get it.” She turned to the teen by the door. “Can you show Mr. Biden to the green room when he’s ready?”

  The kid hesitated. “I’m not supposed to leave my post, ma’am.”

  “I’ll send another volunteer down to take over as usher. You’re almost off anyway, right?”
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  “Got to get to work at the freight yard by eleven.”

  “We’ll get you there.” She turned to me. “Joe, this is Shaun Denton. He’s part of our Rising Stars program. The next generation of community leaders, homegrown right here in Chicago. Shaun and the rest of the volunteers here are from Pastor Brown’s church.” A call came in for her. “If you’ll excuse me.”

  It was just the kid and me. I shook his hand and introduced myself. He looked a little star-struck, believe it or not. I liked him already. “Where your shades at?” he asked.

  “My aviators? Let’s see…” I pretended to pat down my pockets and then, voilà, I whipped them out of my jacket. “Wanna try ‘em on?”

  He grinned. “Pretty fly,” he said, modeling my glasses. “I seen you before. At Grant Park. Eleven years ago.”

  “Election night. You must have been a baby.”

  “Ma took me. First black president and all. Said she wouldn’t believe it unless she saw it with her own eyes. I’m glad she lived to see it.”

  When he removed my aviators, his eyes were wet. “I read your book,” he said as he folded my sunglasses carefully, something to do so he didn’t have to make eye contact. “The whole thing.” He sounded a little sheepish about that, but I could only grin like a fool.

  “You did?”

  “Had to do a report for school. There were all these copies at the Rising Hope Center. Mrs. Obama brought them in for us.”