Native Speaker by Chang-rae Lee

Harry of the City knows. Did I tell you where we’ve got you placed?”
    â€œI thought it was public relations.”
    â€œThat too. We’ve gotten lucky. They’re opening a new office in Flushing next week and they need volunteers. Everyone’s talking about taking on the mayor. My opinion—Kwang will get squashed. Old man De Roos is too slick. Anyway, you’ll do some phone work for John Kwang’s second.”
    â€œHow did you hook me?”
    â€œTemp agency. Totally legit.”
    Jack said, “This is cake, Parky.”
    â€œNo problemo,” Hoagland pitched in. “Anyway, she handles the PR and media. Her name is Sherrie Chin-Watt.”
    Jack snorted. Sitting up straight in the chair with his thick legs bowed, he looked like a Cossack dancer. He was mincing the floor with his feet. “Even a councilman has a PR man. Or woman.”
    â€œWe all need one,” Hoagland said. “My wife, Martha, is mine. She sends out weekly flyers to the neighbors that remind them that I’m a quantity. She includes the slightest hints that I’m an unstable personality. How I am an insomniac. That I still sometimes wet the bed.”
    â€œIs it working?” Jack asked.
    â€œDamn right. No more dog shit on my lawn. It’s clean. No more Girl Scouts at the door, either. No more Scientologists. We live in peace.”
    â€œWho is the woman?” I asked Hoagland, half-recognizing her name.
    Hoagland did the drill on her, calling it out with a straight voice.
    â€œSherrie Chin-Watt. Chinese American, born in San Francisco. Berkeley B.A. Did her law degree at Boalt. Law Review. Her parents run a small wig shop. Nothing special. She’s around your age, Harry, thirty-three or thirty-four. Was married last year to your garden-variety investment banker, corporate finance. Her first marriage, his second. He works too much, sixty, sixty-five hours a week. Headed for the grave. Again nothing special, no real angle there for us. They own a co-op on Central Park West and a bungalow out in East Hampton. No children as yet. She suffers from endometriosis.”
    â€œWhere’d you get that?” I asked.
    â€œI’m friendly with a prominent gynecologist. Coincidence.”
    â€œJesus.”
    â€œShe had a successful laser surgery last year, though she’s not pregnant yet. They sleep in separate rooms because he snores. Other items. They went to Morocco for their honeymoon. They usually eat out, though not together. She lettered in volleyball in high school. Solid setter. She still calls home twice a week. What else? Before signing on with Kwang last year, she was an attorney for the ACLU office in Los Angeles. She made a name for herself then. If you’ll recall, she defended that Indonesian crank in Santa Monica who trained his goat to fart into a portable mike at political rallies.”
    â€œFree speech,” Jack said.
    â€œSure, sure. The guy was saying they were only being silenced at Republican events.”
    â€œRepublicans have the technology,” Jack said.
    Hoagland sneered at him. “But Kwang knew her even before that. Apparently she met him while she was in law school, after some talk he’d given there. She’s been with him less than a year now, but things are heating up fast. What, the election’s in two years? They’re not involved yet. Big yet.”
    â€œI’m sure you would know,” I said.
    â€œOh, I do,” Hoagland belched out. He grimaced, knuckling the back of his thumb into his upper stomach. The doorway held him up. He quickly peeled away the foil wrapping from a roll of antacids.
    â€œI know every rotten shit fucking thing going down in this hemisphere,” he said.
    â€œI keep forgetting.”
    â€œHa!” He coughed. “You don’t forget anything. That’s why I love you so much, remember? Anyway, you’re going to do Kwang right. Jack will be with you all the way.