Excerpts from QUEEN BEE, a novel by EUGENE KENNEDY to be published by Doubleday & Co. this month
Copyright 1982 by Eugene Kennedy

The assumption of power

TIME: 1990s
PLACE: Chicago
SITUATION: Mayor Thomas H. Cullen, longtime mayor of Chicago, has just suffered a stroke and lies in serious condition in the hospital, where his daughter Maureen stands vigil. Alderwoman and vice-mayor Ann Marie O'Brien, an inexperienced but shrewd politician, has already taken a number of moves designed to assure her appointment as interim mayor until an election 10 months hence. At a press conference called shortly after Cullen's hospitalization, she continues her bold attempt in the face of fierce opposition from a cluster of aldermen and city power brokers.

Ann Marie stood impassively at the center of the storm of news conference questions. How is the Mayor? Are you taking over? Short answers. Deadpan. Focus on the day, what had to be done for the city in the aftermath of the storm. No speculation about Cullen's condition. Thank you, gentlemen.

"One more question." It was Paul Michael Martin, a lock of black hair tumbling down his forehead, his best lover's smile in place.

"Mrs. O'Brien, when the Mayor was sick a year ago last Christmas, there were stories that some influential aldermen wanted him to step down temporarily in favor of then Vice-Mayor Matthew Hogan." He paused and glanced around at the other reporters. What's the matter with you guys? Afraid to ask the big question? He smiled again at Ann Marie. The members of the crowd were extras watching the stars play a scene together. "Have any aldermen made this kind of suggestion to you today? If so, what was your response? And would you name them, please?" Barone, his patron in many ways, wouldn't like Martin's question at all. The hell with it. Only he could play this card with Ann Marie.

Ann Marie waited until all eyes were on her. Nobody expected her to give a straight answer.

"Nobody has asked me to take over," she said flatly, "and I have no intention of doing so. I am merely carrying out my legal obligations." The tension in the room relaxed. "However," and the atmosphere stiffened under the wind-up tone of her voice, "however, I have been approached by aldermen who think that the Mayor should be replaced. They have suggested, rather strongly, that I hold a special City Council meeting in which they could carry this out." The reporters froze, stunned by her directness. "I think such talk is premature and in bad taste. Our only thoughts about Mayor Cullen are for his complete recovery. I will fight any effort to stage a coup d'etat as long as I have the responsibility of Vice-Mayor."

"Names, Mrs. O'Brien?" This from Martin through the bustle of the suddenly alert reporters.

"You ought to be able to figure that out for yourself," Ann Marie snapped and turned away from the microphones as a dozen reporters hurled follow-up questions at her. She went through the rear door into the Mayor's outer office and asked Helen Morrison if there were any messages.

"All the networks have called. Lots of calls from all over." Helen Morrison lifted a sheaf of notes from her desk. "George Ohland is handling the press office. He can take care of all of this for you. . ."

"I'll look at them in the car," Ann Marie said as she chirped brusquely. "Get your pad, Helen. You're coming with me."

"The Governor wants to talk to you. He called during the news conference."

"We'll get him later," Ann Marie said as she turned toward her waiting bodyguards. "Let's go. This is going to be a long day." She turned back toward Helen, who was stuffing a stenographer's notebook into her large pocketbook. "Okay, Helen, let's move it."

The sights of the Kennedy Expressway unfurled past the windows of the speeding car. Ann Marie was on the telephone.

"Put him on. I don't care if he is at a meeting." Ann Marie fumbled in her purse for a notebook to which a small silver pencil was attached.

"Mrs. O'Brien?" It was the corporation counsel.

"Yes. I want a briefing on something. What are the laws governing the situation we're in right now?

"Well, Mrs. O'Brien, the City Council has a lot of authority and responsibility in a situation like this."

"You're saying they run the show, is that it?"

"What I am saying is that, in our system of government, the City Council is very strong. They have the power to select from among their members an acting Mayor. The idea of having a Vice-Mayor came up after Daley died. It was merely meant to cover a short interim between the vacancy of the Mayor's office and the action of the Cily Council."

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Ann Marie was a temporary caretaker, that was all. While she kept things going for a few days, other people were making plans. Maureen and Richler, Rafferty, Wendel, and their colleagues. Bankers, union leaders, Cousin Fitzie too. Everybody was cutting some kind of a deal. There wouldn't be room for her in any of them. She had tied her star to Cullen. She had helped save him once. Now he had plunged down silently beyond the horizon, and Richler was back with his foxy advice. Richler had never liked her...

"Is that all, Mrs. O'Brien?"

Ann Marie was jolted back into the moment. "I want the citations for all these. And for something else. Who has the power to declare the Mayor too ill to carry out his duties?"

"I've been researching that, Mrs. O'Brien. It's all in the Municipal Code."

"Just a minute. I want to write this down."

"I'll have copies for you when you get to your office."

"Fine, but I want the citations anyway." Ann Marie crooked the phone at her shoulder and adjusted the small notebook on her knee.

"Page 108, Mrs. O'Brien, Chapter 24. Paragraph 3 dash 4 dash 5 discusses vacancy. Then the next paragraphs explain the City Council's obligation to elect one of its members. It depends on how much of the Mayor's term is left before the next election. If it's less than a year the Council elects somebody to fill out the whole term. If it's at least a year, there must be a special election within six months. That's the gist of it."

"And the City Council makes all the decisions."

"The City Council makes all the decisions."

"Thanks." Ann Marie hung up the phone and closed the notebook. She sat tensely on the edge of the seat. She wished she were already back in her office, back where she could at least do something, before something was done to her. She picked up the phone again and dialed her own office. Busy. She dialed again. Still busy. "Can't this damned thing go a little faster?" she asked petulantly.

The driver nodded and picked up speed. Ann Marie felt tightness throughout her body. She wouldn't relax until she could hack free of the web of frustration around her. She glanced out of the window at the jumble of the city flashing past. Brick everywhere, bricks of every age. Bright-red bricks, pale-yellow bricks, dark-flaking bricks on old churches and apartment buildings, hard, unyielding walls everywhere. Where would she be after the dust settled? An alderwoman from the Northwest Side with a voiceless mentor? Ready to be dropped from the ticket in the next slating? Whoever became Mayor would only serve until the scheduled election next April. Ten months. . .

She dialed her office again.

"Helen? Never mind about that. I'll handle that when I see you. No, no. . . Now call Channel Two and cancel me off the noon interview. . . I don't care what you say. I'm busy, tied up. . . Anything. Got that? Did you get any message from Paul Martin?. . . Good. I'll see you in an hour or so. . . A prayer service at the Cathedral tonight? Six o'clock. Okay."

She saw Franklin Barnes at five. Stuffy, elegant Franklin Barnes talked in vague terms about the future of the city. When Ann Marie asked him directly about the old Mayor, Barnes smiled faintly and said, "Well, that's a difficult matter for you and the City Council to decide." Barnes didn't speak up for Cullen. The crusty banker knew that the Council was getting itself together to declare Cullen incompetent to govern. Barnes also knew what was expected of Ann Marie. "Stability, Mrs. O'Brien, and continuity. These are the things the city needs. A prolonged period of uncertainty, well, that would raise questions in the credit markets. . ." They had gotten to Franklin Barnes. The WASP counterpart in pious hypocrisy to Francis Rafferty.

The call from Louis Fairfield, head of the Chicago Teamsters Union, was also clear. Keep things on an even keel. Sure, it's too bad about the Mayor. But life goes on, doesn't it, Mrs. O'Brien? Ann Marie tightened up inside again. Goddamn these men anyway. Half the men in her life couldn't speak, the other half wouldn't shut up. And where did it leave her? She felt achy after hanging up from Fairfield's call. Ann Marie catstretched and ignored the buzzer from her secretary. The buttons on her telephone danced with lights. Ann Marie rose from her chair and walked over to the windows. She gazed dreamily down at the streets, gloomily shadowed by the buildings on the eve of summer. The buzzer sounded insistently. She walked back to her desk.

"Hello," Annie said curtly.

"Ann Marie? This is Maureen. . ."

That's all she needed. "Yes?"

"Ann Marie, I want to talk to you about my father."

"Yes, go ahead."

"You sound so faraway."

"Busy day, Maureen. Not much sleep. How's your father?"

"I think he's doing fine."

"But what do the doctors say?"

"They seem very pleased too. They say with luck and some therapy he could do very well."

"How long, did they say?"

"Several weeks, I'm not sure. They say he has a strong constitution. My grandfather — his father — lived to be eighty-eight. Did you know that?"

Ann Marie held the phone numbly. Maureen wanted her to front for her father, make it sound like the second coming was right around the corner. The Cullens were not used to having people say no to them.

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"Ann Marie, we've heard that the Council wants to declare my father incompetent. We're depending on you to fight for us, to hold the fort for a few more days."

"Maureen, there may not be much I can do."

"What do you mean, not much you can do? If they don't have a Council meeting until next week, that would be something, that would be a lot."

"Maureen, this isn't so simple. This isn't like the last time."

There was an uncomfortable pause.

"They've got you lined up, is that it?" Maureen's directness surprised her. The Mayor's daughter was defending her nest. Ann Marie was trying to defend hers. And the old mayor lay in the hospital, quiet as a village after a snowfall. Everybody wanted Ann Marie to act in their behalf. The politicians, the builders, the bankers, the unions. Hold our coats, Annie dear, while we divide the pie. Throw Paul Martin in and count the media too. The Captain Charles O'Brien Senior Citizens Center. Rafferty. Wendel. Barone. Pictures of her and Martin leaving 1325 Lake Shore Drive together. . .

"Maureen, I have to act for the good of the city."

"You wouldn't be there where you are except for my father. You know that, don't you?"

"Your father always told me to put good government first, to put it ahead of politics."

"What do you think he wants you to do now?" Maureen was as strong as her father.

Ann Marie paused. "Maureen, there's no point in talking about this now. I feel bad about your father. I'm going to the Cathedral to pray for him in a few minutes. But I'm going to have to do what I think is best. Now, you'll have to excuse me . . ."

"That's all you've got to say?" Maureen was angry.

"There's nothing more I can say right now. Life has to go on. Goodbye." Ann Marie lowered the phone slowly to its cradle. Was Maureen still speaking as Ann Marie hung up? She stood there gazing down at the flashing buttons. The buzzer sounded again. Her secretary was on the line. "The car is ready for you to go to the Cathedral now."

"This is Bishop Roache, rector of the Cathedral," the monsignor said as another handsome Irish face beamed at her above a mantle of purple. The Cathedral proper was already crowded and the organist filled the old structure with familiar hymns while the last of the important guests were being seated. People turned to look as Ann Marie marched, as though to her first communion, down the aisle.

"You have an important decision to make, Ann Marie." Monsignor Fitzmaurice moved his mouth no more than a ventriloquist as he paced solemnly at her side. Ann Marie shot a hostile glance at him and then turned her face back toward the sanctuary. Strains of the "Ave Maria" washed over them. So they had gotten to Fitzie too. "I'll pray for you," he whispered through his unmoving lips as he left her at the first pew on the right and passed on up into the sanctuary proper. Ann Marie genuflected and made the sign of the cross, the quick knee bob and the blurred hand motion of the lifelong Catholic, and knelt down. She kissed Matthew and bussed Aunt Molly. She held her finger to her lips as Matthew blurted out a question.

Directly across the aisle sat Maureen Cullen Coleman, her sallow-faced husband Lawrence, and their children. Cap Malloy, a black rosary twined in his fingers, sat next to them, his head bowed. The organ shifted into Mozart and the Governor, a smiling young man who always looked like he had just returned from a skiing holiday, slipped in next to Ann Marie. He introduced himself and settled back on the bench. "Bad knee," he whispered hoarsely to Ann Marie. She raised her eyes to the huge crucifix suspended above the main altar. Beyond that, high in the splayed light above the sanctuary, she could make out the round flat red hats of Chicago's dead cardinals suspended in space. She had been intrigued by them, hanging like stuffed birds above a museum hall since she was a little girl, their once-powerful wearers gone to dust long ago. Life did go on. The organist wandered into reedy arpeggio on the high range of the scale as the Lieutenant-Governor, sausage-skinned into a khaki summer suit, edged into the pew.

"Is this long?" Matthew whispered to his mother. She looked down at him. "No, Matthew, you just be good. Don't fidget so." He made a face, part resignation and part restlessness. Cathedrals were no places for little boys on almost-summer evenings. Ann Marie looked at Matthew again. He had changed a lot. He was getting big. Had she missed his growing somehow? How much longer would he be a little boy?

"Pardon me, Mrs. O'Brien." A young priest in black cassock and white surplice stood in front of the pew. "Since you'll be doing one of the scripture readings, we thought it would be better if you moved next to the aisle. It'll be easier for you to get in and out." Ann Marie looked up into the priest's youthful face. He could hardly be thirty. My God, Matthew was getting older and the priests were getting younger. She nodded, rose, and as the state officials shunted their knees sideways, she made an awkward passage to the aisle seat. She looked across the profiles of the Governor and his Lieutenant at Matthew. He was looking back at her, his eyes wide, as though a border gate had been lowered between them.

The organist struck an introductory chord, repeated it like a man getting his balance, and filled the Cathedral with an entrance hymn, "O God, Our Help in Ages Past." A double line of priests, followed by scores of monsignors, three auxiliary bishops, and Monsignor Fitzmaurice preceded Francis Cardinal Meehan in procession out of the sacristy at the side of the Cathedral. The organ boomed and the string of clergymen hooked across the front of the church and back up into the sanctuary.

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Monsignor Fitzmaurice bowed to the Cardinal and cut solemnly back across the sanctuary to the lectern, a bronze slab supported by miniature bronze evangelists, clustered like a team of gymnasts.

"My dear friends," he said smoothly, "we welcome you to this service of prayer for the return to health of our beloved Mayor, Thomas H. Cullen. . ." He droned on unctuously as Ann Marie studied him from beneath a lowered brow. He would be in line with the rest of them if she accepted Barone's plan. Ann Marie looked back at Matthew, who was leaning against Molly. Relatives everywhere she looked. A patched-up family, all right. She turned her head to watch Maureen Cullen Coleman, who was speaking softly to one of her own children. Ann Marie didn't harbor

The Mayor's daughter was defending her nest. Ann Marie was trying to defend hers. And the old mayor lay in the hospital. . .

any doubts about what Maureen would do if she could get her hands on the power of the Mayor's office. She might talk sweetly, but there wouldn't be much room for Ann Marie. The Cullens didn't give anything away easily.

"This first reading is that by the Honorable Matthew Hogan, representing the judiciary. . ." Monsignor Fitzmaurice stepped down from the pulpit as the judge took his place and opened the red-bound book that lay on the slanted lectern. He fumbled for his glasses. "A reading from the letter of James. . ." Matty Hogan, my predecessor as alderman and Vice-Mayor, Matty the slumlord in judge's clothing. . . "If anyone of you is ill, he should send for the elders of the church, and they must anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord and pray over him. . ." Matty sounded very ecclesiastical. Judges and bishops. Was there a dime's worth of difference between them, anyway?

Monsignor Fitzmaurice stepped away from the lectern and smiled at his cousin, who was being escorted from the first pew to read a passage from scripture. She did not look at him as she stepped to the lectern. She glanced out into the vastness of the Cathedral. Maureen Coleman looked up at her stonily. Rafferty, his lips pursed above folded arms, sat a few rows behind her. City Council members were scattered throughout the congregation — Wendel, Noto, Carney, Johnson, Ramirez looking expectantly toward her. Richard Barone grinned almost obscenely up from the sixth row of pews. She turned and looked back at the Cardinal. He also smiled, the only pleasant smile she had received all evening. The Cardinal seemed jovial, friendly, a man too innocent for Chicago. Where had they ever found him? Ann Marie turned back and looked down at the book spread open before her. She pulled a green ribbon placemarker aside. The church breathed expectation; everybody was waiting for her to do something.

"A reading from the gospel according to Luke." She paused and again scanned the rows of faces, as varied as pawed-over vegetables on a grocer's counter. "Jesus left the upper room to make his way as usual to the Mount of Olives, with his disciples

The Mayor's job was not a cup she wanted to pass away from her. As she read she felt keenly that she wanted to hold on to it, to take it for herself

following." Her voice was firm and clear. "When they reached the place he said to them, 'Pray not to be put to the test.' "

Ann Marie cleared her throat. "Then he withdrew from them, about a stone's throw away, and knelt down and prayed. 'Father,' he said,'if you are willing, take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, let your will be done, not mine.'"

These quotations were scalding echoes from her Catholic girlhood. They did not fit her now and she knew it. But they did speak to her. Everything seemed to have a message for her. The Mayor's job was not a cup she wanted to pass away from her. As she read she felt keenly that she wanted to hold on to it, to take it for herself. She didn't want to let go of anything. If she did, what would be left for her. . .?

Ann Marie concluded the reading, the congregation responded and, escorted by an acolyte, she walked back to her seat.

It was like a dream. What in God's name was she doing, reading the scriptures about Jesus to this crowd? She didn't like herself for doing it, she didn't like the scattered officials who wanted her to cover their takeover, she didn't like Maureen or anything much about the Cullens at the present moment. But she couldn't say, she wouldn't say "Let this cup pass. . ."

The dignitaries poured out rapidly, spreading out and down the steps, turning to shake hands with each other while they waited for their cars to pick them up. Vincent tried to keep an eye on the arriving herd of limousines, but the steps became so crowded within a few minutes that it was impossible to watch the line of vehicles carefully. As several other policemen arrived, things began to move more smoothly. A trio of plainclothes bodyguards emerged from the doors, signaling for a clear path. Maureen Cullen Coleman, her husband and children, hurried quickly out and down the steps to the Mayor's official limousine, ignoring the questions shouted by reporters over the heads of the crowd.

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Another wave of handshakers emerged and dispersed down the steps. Matthew and Aunt Molly followed a policeman out of the church. Then, in the company of her cousin and a police officer, Ann Marie, her face as ungiving as the facade of the Cathedral itself, stepped through the doors. She paused a few feet from Captain Vincent.

"Captain," she said firmly without

'And so, in a dramatic move . . . Vice-Mayor Ann Marie O'Brien has made one of the most startling statements in the history of the city'

really looking at him, "tell the television people that I'd like to make a statement." She turned to her bodyguard, gave him an order, and waited serenely while Captain Vincent called for a patrolman to deliver the message to the television crews. The crowd, like a millipede brought suddenly to attention, held its position and shifted back around Ann Marie. The camera crews pushed through the sluggishly parting bystanders. Other news reporters struggled to make their way closer to the Vice-Mayor. Did she have word on Cullen's condition? Was she going to name names about the aldermen she had mentioned at her morning news conference? Paul Michael Martin emerged from the Cathedral doors behind her, waving a signal at the camera crew from his channel.

Ann Marie bit her lower lip lightly as she waited for the cameramen to get into position. Was it tension or concentration? Monsignor Fitzmaurice raised his eyebrows uncertainly as he watched his cousin. Headstrong. Everybody had always said that about her. Sam Noto was halfway down the main steps. He watched Ann Marie sullenly, holding a crumple of unlighted cigar in his hand. Richard Barone had almost reached the curb when he noticed the puff of excitement spread out around Ann Marie. He waved his driver off and watched the Vice-Mayor attentively. Rafferty forced a smile as he looked across at Ann Marie from the place he had taken next to Monsignor Fitzmaurice.

Ann Marie looked directly into the cameras.

"I have an announcement I'd like to make." She paused on the edge of the diving board. Life, as everyone told her, had to go on. "We have just concluded a prayer service for the good health of Mayor Thomas H. Cullen, a man greatly admired and loved in our city. Because he is so highly regarded it is difficult to say what I have to." She paused again as the impact of her words struck those near her in the crowd. People strained forward to hear her. "We all want Mayor Cullen to return to full health. I have visited him in the hospital. I know that he cannot return to his office for many weeks, perhaps months, at the earliest. As you know, I have opposed those who want to make his health an issue prematurely. Nevertheless, I am now convinced that something must be done. I want it clear that I make this statement on my own initiative."

"Sadly, and with a heavy heart, I must face the fact that the city needs a Mayor. For his own health, Mayor Cullen cannot serve at this time. He may never be able to return to his duties. We cannot have a makeshift interim government. We love the Mayor, but we must do what he would want us to do: put the city and its people first. I have been praying about what he would tell us if he were here. I am, therefore, asking the City Council to convene tomorrow morning at ten o'clock for the purpose of declaring the office of the Mayor vacated because of illness according to the Municipal Code, Chapter 24, Paragraph 3 dash 4 dash 5. I will propose that they elect from among their members a Mayor who will serve out the remaining months of Mayor Cullen's term. I am saying this now because I think it is in the best interests of Mayor Cullen and our great city. I will not take any questions. Thank you, gentlemen."

Photo By Todd Brennan

Ann Marie turned away quickly as her bodyguards and a number of patrolmen led by Captain Paul Vincent formed a moving cordon around her and escorted her through the stunned crowd to her waiting car.

On the top steps Paul Michael Martin had taken a microphone and moved into camera range. "And so, in a dramatic move on the steps of Holly Name Cathedral, Vice-Mayor Ann Marie O'Brien has made one of the most startling statements in the history of the city, a move that may alter the face of Chicago politics and government permanently. . ." The clip and its clone on other channels were repeated a dozen times that evening as the city, like a great organism, recoiled under the impact of the news and then began to react.

Eugene Kennedy, professor of psychology at Loyola University, is the author of more than 20 books, including Father's Day, which won the Carl Sandburg Award for fiction in 1981. His essay, "The End of the Immigrant Church," appeared in the August issue in the humanities essays (second series) sponsored by the Illinois Humanities Council.

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