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The first was Steve Lowry , The Speaker 's point man , a political troubleshooter dispatched whenever the affairs of the party were in disarray . A California Girl stops traffic on Madison Avenue . He chose the Committee on National Economic Affairs not for intellectual challenge or parochial interest , but because its existing chairman , Congressman Senior Younger , Jr. ( D. - Id ., 1 C.D . " " No , " Steve Lowry said , " but we regard the fundamentals in Ezra 's district as a problem . I would have to say that it all began-or , rather , it all began to end-the morning Faith Honeycomb passed out on the floor of the Salon Jean-Luc . It was a strategy that would have worked had it not been for the fact that , thirty-six years later , Congressman Senior Younger , Jr ., was 114 years old and had been in the Congress for seventy-eight years , still more years than Congressman Wheezle had been alive . I looked around me as people resumed what they had been doing before Faith Honeycomb had had the poor taste to crash into the French tile floor . Steve Lowry looked at his watch . Old Western travelers cut their initials into the stone , the earliest signature dating from 1522 . " Nonetheless , " Lowry continued , " we ca n't afford to run a mill town candidate in a high-tech election . " Buddy Youngblood moved to the edge of the sofa as Lowry retreated into it . They carried Faith past Jean-Luc 's station and through the reception area , nearly toppling the enormous vase of freesia and baby roses that was placed there each morning . The woman in the seat in Faith 's station-the one Faith had just started to work on-calmly ordered a seafood salad and iced tea from Nello 's . I looked down at Faith , who appeared to be sleeping peacefully on the floor , her lips curled up into a rare , small smile .