Appearing with the Indians at Tip’s the night before the convention opened hadn’t been my idea. Blame it on Ginny Tran, press secretary extraordinaire at 27. “It’ll be so cool,” she’d insisted. “The vice president’s campaign manager onstage at Tipitina’s. You were almost a rock star once, it’ll be fabulous. Show that we’re confident right before the convention. And anyway, you should get out. You look like crap.” So I’d left our war room down at the Windsor Court Hotel and committed to doing something enjoyable for a couple of hours. It had been so long, I’d forgotten what it was like.

Ginny was lying, of course. At least that part about me being almost a rock star. I’m sure she wasn’t lying that I looked like crap. I’d grown up in New Orleans and been a journeyman guitar player in a not-so-bad blues/funk band, my major distinction being that I was the only white guy in the group. What was really embarrassing—at least it would have been if anybody had known it—was that I’d made it into the band with the help of my father, Powell Callahan, one of the last white civil-rights heroes, or so everyone seemed to believe. Powell Callahan knew everybody in town. The lead singer in the band was the son of a lawyer, once a civil-rights lawyer, now a corporate hotshot just off Canal Street, an old friend of my father’s from the “movement days.” J. D. Callahan, the only guitarist who networked his way into a black/funk band. It was silly. They dumped me after a year.

Of course, I knew that a photo op with the Indians onstage at Tip’s wasn’t going to get us a single delegate, but I had gone along with it. Why not? It wouldn’t hurt, and if it made me look a little hip and cool and confident, that was just great. God knows I sure didn’t feel like any of those things. I hadn’t slept worth a damn in months, I had a woman candidate who was on the verge of becoming unglued at any moment, a force of nature called Armstrong George about to devour us like a hungry wolf, and, to top it all off, they had to go and have the damn convention in my hometown. For Christ’s sake, was God spending all of His time trying to screw with me, or just most of it.

But the big moment, the magic one, would come if we could just get a half-dozen more delegates and pull Hilda Smith back from the dead. Then, at least for a few days, I’d be a genius. And on the side, I could finish cutting my deal to have my own political show. That was the plan: make this my last campaign and get famous as a pundit. After months of work, it was all lined up, if I could just pull off this come-from-behind miracle. All I had to do was beat back the forces of darkness and vanquish Armstrong George. Even if we lost to Democratic senator Tommy Aldrich in the general election, at least I would be hailed for doing what no one expected—saving Hilda Smith. The show was going on the new Amazon Channel, and since I’d gone to them with the idea, all neatly packaged, I’d been able to keep partial ownership of the show. That meant quasi-serious dollars if the show worked and we found an audience. The deal was already signed, but they had an out clause if Hilda lost the nomination.