cameraman who scrambled out with the reporter. Both were grateful to escape with their scalps intact.
Irish snatched up the telephone and punched out a number he had memorized by now. “Good morning,” a pleasant voice answered, “Palacio Del Rio.”
“I need to speak to Mrs. Rutledge.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t put your call ”
“Yeah, I know, I know, but this is important.”
“If you’ll leave your name and num ”
He hung up on her saccharine spiel and immediately called Van’s number. It rang incessantly while Irish paced as far as the telephone cord would reach.
“When I get my hands on him, I’m gonna hammer his balls to mush.”
He collared a gofer who had the misfortune to collide with him. “Hey, you, drive over there and haul his skinny ass out of bed.”
“Who, sir?”
“Van Lovejoy. Who the fuck do you think?” Irish bellowed impatiently. Why had everybody chosen today to turn up either missing or stupid? He scrawled
Van’s address on a sheet of paper, shoved it at the terror-stricken kid, and ordered ominously, “Don’t come back without him.”
Avery emerged from the hotel, holding Mandy by one sweating hand. The other was tucked into the crook of Tate’s elbow. She smiled for the myriad
cameras, wishing her facial muscles would stop cramping and quivering.
Tate gave the cameras his most engaging smile and a thumbs-up sign as they moved toward the waiting limousine parked in the brick paved porte
cochere. Microphones were aimed toward them. Bleakly, Avery thought they resembled gun barrels. Tate’s voice carried confidently across the city racket
and general confusion. “Great Election Day weather. Good for the voters and for the candidates in each race.”
He was bombarded with questions regarding more serious topics than the weather, but Eddy ushered them into the backseat of the limo. Avery was
distressed to learn that he was riding with them to Kerrville. She wouldn’t have Tate to herself, as she had hoped. They hadn’t been alone all morning. He
was already up and dressed by the time she woke up. He breakfasted in the dining room on the river level of the hotel while she got Mandy and herself
dressed.
As the limo pulled away from the curb, she glanced through the rear window, trying to locate Van. She spotted a two-man crew from KTEX, but Van wasn’t
the photographer behind the Betacam. Why not? she wondered. Where is he?
He wasn’t among the media waiting for them at their polling place in Kerrville, either. Her anxiety mounted, so much so that at one point, Tate leaned
down at her and whispered, “Smile, for God’s sake. You look like I’ve already lost.”
“I’m afraid, Tate.”
“Afraid I’ll lose before the day is out?”
“No. Afraid you’ll die.” She held his gaze for several seconds before Jack intruded on them with a question for Tate.
The ride back to San Antonio seemed interminable. Freeway and downtown traffic was heavier than normal. As they alighted from the limo at the
entrance of the hotel, Avery’s eyes scanned the milling crowd again. She sighted a familiar face, but it wasn’t the one she wanted to see. The gray-haired
man was standing in front of the convention center across the street. Van, on the other hand, was nowhere in sight.
Irish had promised. Something was wrong.
The moment they reached their suite, she excused herself and went into the bedroom to use the telephone. The direct line into the newsroom was
answered after ten rings. “Irish McCabe, please,” she said with breathless urgency.
“Irish? Okay, I’ll go find him.”
Having worked election days, she knew what nightmares, and yet what challenges, they presented to the media. Everybody operated on a frantic
frequency.
“Come on, come on, Irish,” she whispered while waiting. She kept remembering how still and intent Gray Hair had stood, as though maintaining a post.
“Hello?”
“Irish!” she exclaimed, going limp with relief.
“No. Is that who you’re holding for? Just a sec.”
“This is Av ” When she was abruptly put on hold again, she nearly sobbed with anxiety.
The phone was picked up a second time. “Hello?” a man asked hesitantly. “Hello?”
“Yes, who is- Eddy, is that you?”
“Yeah.”
“This is, A uh, Carole.” “Where the hell are you?”
“I’m in the bedroom. I’m using this line.” Evidently, he had picked up the extension in the parlor.
“Well, make it snappy, okay? We’ve got to keep these lines open.”
He hung up. She was still on hold. Her call to the newsroom had been ignored by people with better things to do than track down the boss on the busiest
news day of the year. Distraught, she replaced the telephone and went to join the family and a few key volunteers who had assembled in the other room.
Though she smiled and conversed as it was expected of her, she tried to imagine where Van could be. She comforted herself by picturing him downstairs
in the ballroom, setting up his tripod and camera to cover what would hopefully be Tate’s victory celebration later in the evening.
For the time being there was nothing more she could do. There must be a logical explanation for the switch in plans. Because she hadn’t been apprised,
she had let her imagination run away with her. Irish and Van knew where she was if they needed to contact her. Resolving to keep her panic at bay, she
moved toward the sofa where Tate was sprawled.
True to his word, he’d gone to the polls dressed casually, wearing a leather sports jacket over his jeans. He appeared perfectly relaxed as he told Zee,
who was taking orders, what he wanted for lunch.
Avery sat down on the arm of the sofa. He absently draped his arm over her thigh and caressed her knee with negligent possession. When Zee moved
away, he glanced up at her and smiled. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
And then he remembered. She watched as memory crept back into his eyes, eating up the warm glow in his gray irises until they were cold and
implacable once again. He gradually lifted his arm away from her.
“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said.
“Yes?”
“Did you ever take care of birth control?”
“No. And neither did you.”
“Terrific.”
She couldn’t let his contempt intimidate her into keeping her distance. For the remainder of the day, she didn’t intend to get any farther away from him
than she was at the moment.
“Irish, line two’s for you.”
“Can’t you see I’m already on the frigging phone?” he yelled across the pandemonium in the newsroom. “Put ‘em on hold. Now,” he said, speaking into
the receiver again, “did you try knocking?”
“Till my knuckles were bloody, Mr. McCabe. He’s not home.”
Irish ran his hand down his florid face. The gofer was calling in with news that made absolutely no sense. “Did you look through the windows?”
“I tried. The shades are down, but I listened through the door. I couldn’t hear a single sound. I don’t think anybody’s in there. Besides, his van’s not here. I
already checked the parking lot. His space is empty.”
That was going to be Irish’s next suggestion. “Christ,” he muttered. He had hoped that Van would be at home, sleeping off a night of overindulgence, but
obviously he wasn’t. If his van wasn’t there, he wasn’t at home, period.
Irish reasoned they might have gotten their signals crossed and that Van had gone straight to the Palacio Del Rio, but after checking with the crew there,
they reported they hadn’t seen him either.
“Okay, thanks. Come on back in.” He pressed the blinking light on the telephone panel. “McCabe,” he said gruffly. He got a dial tone in his ear. “Hey,
wasn’t somebody holding for me on two?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, they’re not there now.”
“Guess they hung up.”
“Was it a guy?” he wanted to know.
“A woman.”
“Did she say who?”
“No. Sounded kinda ragged out, though.”
Irish’s blood pressure shot up. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
“I did!”
“Jesus!”
Arguing with incompetents wasn’t going to help anything. He stamped back into his office, slammed the door behind him, and lit a cigarette. He couldn’t
be certain it had been Avery on the phone, but he had a gut instinct that it had been. Maybe that’s what was making his gut hurt so bad his rotten instincts.
He took a swig of antacid straight from the bottle and yanked up the telephone again. He dialed the hotel and got the same cool voice as before. When he
demanded to be connected to the Rutledge suite, the operator began her same unruffled litany.
“Look, bitch, I don’t give a fuck about your fucking instructions or who the fucking calls are supposed to be routed through. I want you to ring her suite now.
Now, got that? And if you don’t do it, I’m gonna come over there and personally take your fucking head off.” She hung up on him.
Irish paced his office, puffing smoke and chugging like a steam locomotive. Avery must be beside herself. She would think they’d deserted her.
Van, that irresponsible bastard, hadn’t shown up at the hotel where he was supposed to be, where she would be watching for him, relying on him. His calls
weren’t being put through to her, so she had no way of knowing that he’d frantically been trying to contact her.
He stormed back into the newsroom as he pulled on his tweed blazer. “I’m going out.”
“Out?”
“What, are you deaf? Out. If anybody calls or comes looking for me, tell ‘em to stay put or leave a message. I’ll be back when I can.”
“Where are you…?” The subordinate was left talking to wisps of cigarette smoke.
“You’re sure he’s not there?” Avery was struck with disbelief. “I phoned earlier and ”
“All I know is somebody said he went out, and I can’t find him, so I guess he’s out.”
“Out where?”
“Nobody seems to know.”
“Irish wouldn’t go out the day of an election.”
“Look, lady, it’s a madhouse around here, especially since Irish decided to split, so do you want to leave a message, or what?”
“No,” she said distantly. “No message.”
Feeling that she’d been cut adrift, she hung up and wandered back into the main room. Her eyes automatically sought out Tate first. He was talking with
Nelson. Zee was ostensibly listening to their conversation, but her eyes were fixed on Tate with that faraway absorption that often characterized her.
Jack and Eddy were downstairs seeing to the arrangements in the ballroom while carefully monitoring returns as they were reported. It was still several
hours before the polls closed, but early indications were that Tate was staying abreast of Dekker. Even if he didn’t pull out in front, he’d given the
pompous incumbent a good scare.
Dorothy Rae had pleaded a headache earlier and gone to her room to lie down for a while. Fancy was sitting on the floor with Mandy. They were coloring
together.
On a sudden inspiration, Avery called her name. “Could you come here a minute, please?”
“What for?”
“I… I need you to run an errand for me.”
“Grandma told me to entertain the kid.”
“I’ll do that. Anyway, it’s getting close to her nap time. Please. It’s important.”
Grudgingly, Fancy came to her feet and followed Avery back into the bedroom. Since the incident a few nights earlier, she had been much more pleasant
to be around. Every now and then, traces of her recalcitrance asserted itself, but on the whole, she was more congenial.
As soon as she closed the door behind them, Avery pressed a small key into Fancy’s hand. “I need you to do something for me.”
“With this key?”
“It’s a post office box key. I need you to go there and see if there’s something inside. If there is, bring it back with you and hand deliver it to me no one
else.”
“What the hell’s going on?”
“I can’t explain right now.”
“I’m not gonna go chasing ”
“Please, Fancy. It’s terribly important.”
“Then, how come you’re asking me? I usually get the shit detail.”
“I thought we were friends,” Avery said, turning up the heat. “Tate and I helped you out of a jam the other night. You owe us a favor.”
Fancy chewed on that for a moment, then flipped the key in her palm several times. “Where’s it at?” Avery provided her with the address of the post office
branch. “Jeez, that’s a million miles from here.”
“And you said half an hour ago that you were tired of being cooped up in this friggin’ hotel suite. And I believe that’s a quote. Now, will you do this for me?”
Avery’s demeanor must have conveyed some measure of the urgency and importance of the errand because Fancy shrugged. “Okay.”
“Thank you.” Avery gave her a hard hug. At the bedroom door, she paused. “Don’t make a big deal of leaving. Just go as unobtrusively as possible. If
someone asks where you are, I’ll cover for you.”
“Why so hush-hush? What’s the big secret? You’re not screwing a postman, are you?”
“Trust me. It’s very important to Tate to all of us. And please hurry back.”
Fancy retrieved her shoulder bag from the credenza in the parlor and headed for the double door of the suite. “I’ll be back,” she tossed over her shoulder.
No one gave her a second glance.
FORTY-EIGHT
Fancy lifted her hip onto the stool and laid the small rectangular package she’d taken from the post office box on the polished wood surface of the bar.
The bartender, a mustached, muscular young man, moved toward her.
The smile she blessed him with had been designed in heaven for angels to wear. “A gin and tonic, please.”
His friendly blue eyes looked at her skeptically. “How old are you?”
“Old enough.”
“Make that two gins and tonic.” A man slid onto the stool beside Fancy’s. “I’m buying the lady’s.” The bartender shrugged. “Fine with me.” Fancy assessed
her rescuer. He was a young executive type insurance or computers, she would guess. Possibly late twenties. Probably married. Looking for kicks away
from the responsibilities he had assumed so he could afford his designer clothes and the timepiece strapped to his wrist.
This was the kind of trendy place that attracted singles or marrieds on the make. It was filled with worthless antiques and glossy, gargantuan greenery.
The bar created a vortex during happy hour that sucked in yuppies from their BMWs and Porsches by the scores.
While she was analyzing him, he was analyzing her. The gleam in his eyes as they moved down her body indicated that he thought he’d scored big.
“Thanks for the drink,” she said.
“You’re welcome. You are old enough to drink, aren’t you?”
“Sure. I’m old enough to drink. Just not old enough to buy.” They laughed and toasted each other with the drinks that had just arrived.
“I’m John.”
“Fancy.”
“Fancy?”
“Francine, if you prefer.” “Fancy.”
The mating ritual had begun. Fancy recognized it. She knew the rules. Hell, she’d invented most of them. In two hours possibly less, if they got hot
sooner they’d be in bed somewhere.
Following her heartbreak over Eddy, she’d sworn off men. They were all bastards. They wanted only one thing from her, and it was the same thing they
could buy from the cheapest whore.
Her mother had told her that one day she would meet a guy who truly cared for her and would treat her with kindness and respect. Fancy didn’t really
believe it, though. Was she supposed to sit around, bored out of her skull, letting her twat atrophy while she waited for Prince Charming to show up and
bring it back to life?
Hell, no. She’d been good for three days now. She needed some laughs. This Jim, or Joe, or John, or whatever the hell his name was, was as good as
any to give her some.
Like a freaking Girl Scout, she had run Carole’s errand, but she wasn’t ready to return to the hotel suite and sit glued to the TV set as the rest would be,
watching election returns. She would get there eventually. But first, she was going to have some fun.
Finding a parking place anywhere close to the hotel was impossible. Irish finally found one in a lot several blocks away. He was heavily perspiring by the
time he entered the lobby. If he had to bribe his way into the Rutledges’ private suite he would do it. He had to see Avery. Together they might figure out
what had become of Van.
Maybe all his worries were for nothing. Maybe they were together right now. God, he hoped so.
He waded through the members of an Asian tour group who were lined up to check in. Patience had never been one of Irish’s virtues. He felt his blood
pressure rising as he elbowed his way through the tourists, all chattering and fanning themselves with pamphlets about the Alamo.
From amid the chaos, someone touched his elbow. “Hi.”
“Oh, hi,” Irish said, recognizing the face.
“You’re Irish McCabe, aren’t you? Avery’s friend?”
“That’s right.”
“She’s been looking for you. Follow me.”
They navigated the congested lobby. Irish was led through a set of doors toward a service elevator. They got inside; the gray doors slid closed.
“Thanks,” Irish said, wiping his sweaty forehead on his sleeve. “Did Avery…” In the middle of his question, it occurred to him that her correct name had
been used. He glanced across the large cubicle. “You know?”
A smile. “Yes. I know.”
Irish saw the pistol, but he wasn’t given time to register the thought that it was actually being aimed straight at him. Less than a heartbeat later, he
grabbed his chest and hit the floor of the elevator like a fallen tree.
The elevator stopped on the lowest level of the hotel. The lone passenger raised the pistol and aimed it toward the opening doors, but didn’t have to use
it. No one was waiting.
Irish’s body was dragged down a short hallway, through a set of swinging double doors, and deposited in a narrow alcove that housed vending machines
for hotel employee use. The space was lit from overhead by four fluorescent tubes, which were easily smashed with the silencer attached to the barrel of
the pistol.
Covered with shards of opaque glass and stygian darkness, Irish McCabe’s body was left there on the floor. The assassin knew that by the time it was
discovered, his death would be obscured by another.
Prime time had been given over solely to election returns. Each of the three television sets in the parlor was tuned to a different network. It had turned out
to be a close presidential race still too close to call. Several times, the network anchors cited the senatorial race in Texas between the newcomer, Tate
Rutledge, and the incumbent, Rory Dekker, as one of the closest and most heated races in the nation.
When it was reported that Rutledge was showing a slight edge, a cheer went up in the parlor. Avery jumped at the sudden noise. She was frantic, walking
a razor’s edge, on the brink of nervous collapse.
All the excitement had made Mandy hyperactive. She’d become such a nuisance that someone from the hotel’s list of baby-sitters had been hired to keep
her entertained in another room so the family would be free to concentrate on the returns.
With her mind temporarily off Mandy, Avery could devote herself to worrying about Tate and wondering where Irish and Van were. Their disappearances
didn’t make sense. She had called the newsroom three times. Neither had been there, nor had their whereabouts been known.
“Has anyone notified the police?” she had asked during her most recent call. “Something could have happened to them.”
“Listen, if you want to report them missing, fine, do it. But stop calling here bugging us. Now, I’ve got better things to do.”
The phone had been slammed down in her ear. She wanted to drive to the station as quickly as she could get there, but she didn’t want to leave Tate. As
the hours of the evening stretched out, there were two certainties at play in her mind. One was that Tate was about to win the Senate seat. The other was
that something dreadful had happened to her friends.
What if Gray Hair had been stalking her, not Tate, as Van had suggested. What if he’d noticed her interest in him? What if he’d intercepted Van this
morning as he reported to work? What if he’d lured Irish away from the TV station?
It made her nauseated with fear to know that a killer was in the hotel, under the same roof as Tate and Mandy.
And where was Fancy? She had been gone for hours. Had something happened to her, too? If not, why hadn’t she at least phoned to explain her delay?
Even with Election Day traffic, the round trip to the post office shouldn’t have taken much longer than an hour.
“Tate, one of the networks just called the thing in your favor!” Eddy announced as he came barreling through the door. “Ready to go downstairs?”
Avery whirled toward Tate, holding her breath in anticipation of his answer. “No,” he said. “Not until it’s beyond a shadow of a doubt. Not until Dekker calls
and concedes.”
“At least go change your clothes.”
“What’s wrong with these clothes?”
“You’re going to fight me on that to the bitter end, aren’t you?”
“Till the bitter end,” Tate replied, laughing.
“If you win, I won’t even care.”
Nelson walked over to Tate and shook his hand. “You did it. You accomplished “everything I expected of you.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Tate said a bit shakily. “But let’s not count our chickens yet.” Zee hugged him against her petite frame.
“Bravo, little brother,” Jack said, lightly slapping Tate on the cheek. “Think we ought to try for the White House next?”
“I couldn’t have done anything without you, Jack.” Dorothy Rae pulled Tate down and kissed him. “It’s good of you to say that, Tate.”
“I give credit where credit’s due.” He stared at Avery over their heads. His expression silently declared just how wrong she had been. He was surrounded
by people who loved him. She was the only deceiver.
The door opened again. She spun around, hoping to see Fancy. It was one of the volunteers. “Everything’s all set in the ballroom. The crowd’s chanting for
Tate and the band’s playing. God, it’s great!”
“I say it’s time to break out the champagne,” Nelson said.
When the first cork was popped, Avery nearly jumped out of her skin.
John’s arm grazed Fancy’s breast. She moved away. His thigh rubbed hers. She recrossed her legs. His predictable passes were getting tiresome. She
wasn’t in the mood. The drinks no longer tasted good. This wasn’t as much fun as it used to be.
I thought we were friends.
Carole’s voice seemed to speak to her above Rod Stewart’s over-amplified, hoarse sexiness and the din the happy hour imbibers were creating.
Carole had treated her decently in the last few months in fact, since she’d come home from the hospital. Some of the things she’d said about self-respect
were beginning to make sense. How could she have any self-respect if she let guys pick her up in joints like this this was classy compared to some of the
dives she’d been in and do anything they wanted with her, then dispose of her as easily as they threw away a used rubber?
Carole didn’t seem to think she was a dimwit. She’d entrusted her to run an important errand. And what had she done in return? She’d let her down.
“Say, I gotta go,” she said suddenly. John had leaned over to lick her ear. She nearly knocked him off his stool when she reached for her purse and the
padded envelope still lying on the bar. “Thanks for the drinks.”
“Hey, where’re you going? I thought, well, you know.”
“Yeah, I know,” Fancy said. “Sorry.”
He came off his stool, propped his hands on his hips, and angrily demanded, “Well, what the hell am I supposed to do now?”
“Jerk off, I guess.”
She drove toward the hotel with indiscriminate speed, keeping an eye out for radar traps and cruising police cars. She wasn’t drunk, but alcohol would
show up on a breath analyzer. Downtown traffic made the irregular maze of streets even more of a nightmare, but she finally reached the hotel garage.
The lobby was packed. Campaign posters bearing Tate Rutledge’s picture bobbed above the press of people. It seemed that everyone in Bexar County
who had voted for Tate Rutledge had come to celebrate his victory.
“Excuse me, excuse me.” Fancy wormed her way through the crowd. “Ouch, dammit, that’s my foot!” she shouted when someone backed over her. “Let
me through.”
“Hey, blondie, you gotta wait on the elevators same as everybody else.” The complainer was a woman wearing a veritable armor of Rutledge campaign
buttons on her chest.
“The hell I do,” Fancy called back. “Excuse me.”
After what seemed like half an hour of battling through the crowd as alive and working as a bucket of fishing bait, she stood up on tiptoe and was
dismayed to find that she still wasn’t anywhere close to the bank of elevators.
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