The guards at Winstead's mansion recognized him, of course, and tipped their hats. Harker grinned amiably at them and passed through, but he felt inward discomfort. Their jobs were pegged down by civil-service regulations; his had not been, and he had lost it. In an odd way it made him feel inferior.
He traveled the familiar journey upstairs to the Governor's office. Winstead was there to greet him with outstretched hand and a faintly abashed smile.
"Jim. So glad you could come up here."
"It's not a courtesy call, Leo. I'm here to ask some advice."
"Any way I can help, Jim, you know I will."
Harker experienced a moment of disorientation as he took a seat facing Winstead across the big desk that had been his until a few months ago. It was strange to find himself sitting on this side of the desk.
He looked for ways to begin saying what he had come here to say. He sensed the other man's deep embarrassment, and shared it in a way, because the awkwardness of this first meeting between Governor and ex-Governor was complex and many-leveled.
Winstead was ten years his senior: a good party man, a reliable workhorse who had come up through the ranks of the Manhattan District Attorney's office, and who had turned down a judgeship because he thought he had a shot at the race for Governor. But the party had chosen the bright, meteorically-rising young Mayor, James Harker, to be the standard-bearer instead, and an avalanche of Nat-Lib votes from downstate had swept Harker in.
Then it had been necessary to discard Harker four years later, and good dependable old Leo Winstead was trotted out of private law practice to take his place. The Nat-Lib tide held true; Winstead was elected, and now it was the ex-prodigy who entered private law practice instead of using the Governorship as a spring-board into the White House.
Harker said, "Leo, you carry weight with the party. I don't any more."