Mirror Image (33 page)

Avery flattened herself against the corridor wall, at a loss for words. Fancy swept past her. She smelled unwashed and used. Avery shuddered with disgust.

The elevator arrived almost immediately after Fancy summoned it. Before stepping into it, she shot Avery a gloating smile over her bare, bruised shoulder.

For several seconds Avery stared at the elevator's closed doors, then looked toward the room Fancy had come out of, although she already knew who it belonged to.

Tate was wrong about his best friend. Eddy wasn't as scrupulous as Tate believed. Nor was he as bright.

TWENTY-SEVEN

From Houston the campaign went to Waco, and from Waco to El Paso, where Tate was the undisputed champion of the Hispanic voters. The Rutledges were received like visiting royalty. At the airport, Avery was handed a huge bouquet of fresh flowers." SehoraRutledge, como estd '?"one of their greeters asked.

" MuyMen, gracias. Y usted ? Como se llama?"

Her smile over the cordial welcome faltered when the man turned away and she happened to lock gazes with Tate.

"When did you learn to speak Spanish?"

For several heartbeats, Avery couldn't think of a credible lie in any language. She had minored in Spanish in college and was still comfortable with it. Tate spoke it fluently. It had never occurred to her to wonder if Carole had spoken it or not.

"I. . .I wanted to surprise you." "I'm surprised."

"The Hispanic vote is so important," she continued, limping through her explanation. "I thought it would help if I could at least swap pleasantries, so I've been studying it on the sly."

For once, Avery was glad they were surrounded by people. Otherwise, Tate might have pressed her for detailson where and when she had acquired her knowledge of Spanish. Thankfully, no one else had overheard their conversation. Tate was the only one she could trust completely.

Being with Jack, Eddy, and a few of the campaign volunteers as they traveled from city to city had provided her with no more clues as to who Carole's coconspirator was.

Carefully placed questions had revealed little. Innocently, she had asked Jack how he had managed to get into the ICU the night she regained consciousness. He had looked at her blankly. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Never mind. Sometimes the sequence of events still confuses me."

He was either innocent or an adroit liar.

She had tried the same ploy with Eddy. He had answered by saying, "I'm not family. What would I be doing in the ICU?"

Making threats on Tate'slife,she had wanted to say.

She couldn't say that, so she had mumbled something about her confusion and let it go at that, turning up nothing in the way of opportunity for either of them.

She hadn't been luckier in discerning a motive. Even when Tate disagreed with his confidants and advisers, as he often did, they all seemed devoted to him and his success at the polls.

In lieu of a campaign contribution, a private business-man had loaned the entourage his private jet. As they flew from El Paso to Odessa, where Tate was scheduled to speak to independent oil men, the key personnel aired some of their differences.

"At least talk to them, Tate." Eddy was being his most persuasive. "It won't hurt to listen to their ideas."

"I won't like them."

The argument over whether or not to hire professional campaign strategists was becoming a frequent one. Weeks earlier, Eddy had suggested retaining a public relations firm that specialized in getting candidates elected to public office. Tate had been vehemently opposed to the idea and remained so.

"How do you know you won't like their ideas until you've heard what they are?" Jack asked.

"If the voters can't elect me for what I am—"

"The voters, the voters," Eddy repeated scoffingly . "The voters don't know shit from Shinola . What's more, they don't want to. They're lazy and apathetic. They want somebody to tell them who to vote for. They want it drummed into their feeble little minds so they won't have to make a decision on their own."

"Great confidence you're showing in the American public, Eddy."

"I'm not the idealist, Tate. You are."

"Thank God I am. Rather that than a cynic. I believe that people do care," he shouted. "They do listen to the issues. They respond to straight talk. I want to get the issues across to fee voters without having to filter the language and phraseology through some bullshitting P.R. jargon."

"Okay, okay." Eddy patted the air between them. "Since that subject is a sore spot, let's table it for now and talk about the Hispanics."

"What about them?"

"Next time you're addressing an audience of them, don't lean so hard on their integrating into our society."

"Oursociety?"

""I'm thinking like an Anglo voter now."

"It's important that they integrate into American society," Tate argued, not for the first time. "That's the only way we can keep society from being distinguished as yours, ours, or theirs. Haven't you been listening to my speeches?"

"Stress that they maintain their own customs."

"I did. I said that. Didn'tIsay that?" he asked everyone within hearing distance.

"He said that." It was Avery who spoke up. Eddy ignored her.

"I just think it's important that you don't broadcast the message that they should give up their culture in favor of Anglo America's."

"If they live here, Eddy—if they become citizens of this country—they've got to assume some of the customs, primarily the English language."

Eddy was undeterred. "See, the Anglos don't like hearing that their society is going to be invaded by the Hispanics, any better than the Hispanics like having Anglo customs crammed down their throat, including a new language. Get elected first and then make a point of that integration bit, okay? And try to avoid addressing the drug trafficking problem that exists between Texas and Mexico."

"I agree," Jack said. "When you're a senator you can do something about it. Why wave die drug problem like a red flag now? It gives everybody room to criticize that you're either too harsh or too soft."

Tate laughed with disbelief and spread his hands wide. "I'm running for the U.S. Senate, and I'm not supposed to have an opinion on how to handle the illegal flow of drugs into my own state?"

"Of course you're supposed to have an opinion," Jack said, as though he were humoring a child.

"Just don't bring up your plans to remedy the problem unless specifically asked to. Now, as for this Odessa crowd," Eddy said, consulting his notes.

Eddy was never without notes. Watching him organize them, Avery studied his hands. Had those hands inflicted the scratches and bruises on Fancy, or had she come to him for refuge after another cowboy had worked her over?

"For God's sake, try to be on time to every engagement."

"I explained why we were late to that breakfast speech this morning. Carole had been trying to reach Mom and Dad, and finally caught them at home. They wanted to know everything that was going on, then we each had to talk to Mandy."

Eddy and Jack looked at her. As always, she felt their unspoken criticism, although she had done her best not to cause them any inconvenience on the trip. Out of spite, she said to Jack, "Dorothy Rae and Fancy sent you their love."

"Oh, well, thanks."

She slid a glance at Eddy when she mentioned Fancy's name. His eyes focused on her sharply, but he returned his attention to Tate. "Before we land, get rid of that tie."

"What's the matter with it?"

"It looks like shit, that's what's the matter with it."

For once, Avery sided with Eddy. Tate's necktie wasn't the most attractive one she'd ever seen, but she resented Eddy being so tactless about pointing it out.

"Here, switch with me," Jack suggested, tugging at the knot of his tie.

"No, yours is worse," Eddy said with characteristic candor. "Switch with me."

"Fuck you both and fuck the tie," Tate said. He flopped back in the airplane's plush seat. "Leave me alone." Resting his head on the cushion, he closed his eyes, effectively shutting out everybody.

Avery applauded him for telling them off, even though he had shut her out, too. Since the night in Houston when they had come so close to making love, Tate had taken even greater strides to keep his distance from her. That wasn't always easy because they had to share a bathroom, if not a bed. They went to ridiculous pains to avoid being seen unclothed. They never touched. When they spoke, they usually snapped at each other like two animals who had been sharing the same cage for too long.

Tate's even breathing could soon be heard over the drone of the airplane's engines. He could fall asleep almost instantly, sleep for several minutes, and wake up refreshed—a skill he had developed while in Vietnam, he had told her. She liked watching him sleep and often did so during the night when she found her mind too troubled to give over to unconsciousness.

"Do something."

Eddy had leaned across the narrow aisle of the airplane and roused her from her woolgathering. He and Jack were glaring at her like interrogators. "About what?"

"About Tate."

"What do you want me to do? Start picking out his neckties?"

"Convince him to let me retain that PR. firm."

"Don't you feel that you're doing an adequate job, Eddy?" she asked coolly.

Belligerently, he thrust his face close to hers. "You think I'm ruthless? Those guys wouldn't take any of your crap."

"What crap?" she shot back.

"Like your screening Tate's calls."

"If you're referring to last night, he was already asleep when you phoned. He needed the rest. He was exhausted."

"When I want to talk to him, I want to talk to him right then," he said, jabbing the space between them. "Got that, Carole? Now, about these professionals—"

"He doesn't want them. He thinks they build a phony, plastic image and so do I."

"Nobody asked you," Jack said.

"When I have an opinion about my husband's campaign, I'll bloody well express it, and you can go to the devil if you don't like it!"

"Do you want to be a senator's wife or not?"

A silent moment elapsed while they collectively cooled their tempers. Eddy went on in a conciliatory tone, "Do whatever it takes to get Tate out of this rotten, short-tempered mood, Carole. It's self-destructive."

"The crowds don't know he's in a foul mood."

"But the volunteers do."

"Jack's right," Eddy said. "Several have noticed and commented on it. It's demoralizing. They want their hero on top of the world and radiating a lust for life, not moping around. Get him right with the world, Carole." Having concluded his pep talk, Eddy resumed his seat and went back to scanning his notes.

Jack frowned at her. "You're the one who's put him in this blue funk. You're the only one who can get him out. Don't play like you don't know how, because we all know better."

The heated exchange left Avery feeling frustrated and unable to do anything about a bad situation they clearly blamed on her.

It was a relief to land and leave the compact jet. She plastered on a smile for the crowd that had gathered to meet them. Her smile dissipated, however, when she spotted Van Lovejoy among the press photographers. He turned up everywhere Tate Rutledge went these days. His presence never failed to unnerve Avery.

As soon as it was feasible, she stepped into the background, where it would be harder for the lens of a camera to find her. From that vantage point, she looked out over the crowd, constantly on the alert for anyone looking suspicious. This crowd was largely comprised of media, Rutledge supporters, and curious onlookers.

A tall man standing at the back of the crowd arrested her attention, only because he looked familiar. He was dressed in a tailored western suit and cowboy hat, and she first took him for one of the oil men Tate was there to address.

She couldn't pinpoint where or when she had seen him before, but she didn't think he'd been dressed as he was now. She would have remembered the cowboy hat. But she had seen him recently, she was sure of that. The barbecue in Houston, perhaps? Before she could cite the time and place, he faded into the throng and was lost from sight.

Avery was hustled toward the waiting limousine. At her side, the mayor's wife was gushing like a fountain. She tried to pay attention to what the other woman was saying, but her mind had been diverted by the gray-haired man who had so adroitly disappeared an instant after they'd made eye contact.

As soon as the immediate area was cleared of the senatorial candidate, his entourage, and the media jackals, the well-dressed cowboy emerged from the telephone cubicle. Tate Rutledge was an easy target to follow through the airport. They were both tall, but while Tate wanted to be seen, the cowboy prided himself on his ability to merge into a crowd and remain virtually invisible.

For such a large man, he moved with grace and ease. His carriage alone commanded respect from anyone who happened to fall into his path. At the car rental office, the clerk was exceptionally polite. His bearing seemed to demand good service. He laid down a credit card. It had a false name on it, but it cleared the electronic check system it was run through.

He thanked the clerk as she dropped the tagged key into his hand. "Do you need a map of the area, sir?" "No, thank you. I know where I'm going." He carried his clothes in one bag, packed efficiently and economically. The contents were untraceable and disposable; so was the rented sedan, if that became necessary.

The airport was located midway between Midland and Odessa. He headed toward the westernmost city, following the limousine carrying Rutledge at a safe, discreet distance.

He mustn't get too close. He was almost certain Carole Rutledge had picked him out of the crowd while her husband was shaking hands with his local supporters. It was unlikely that she had recognized him from that distance, but in his business, nothing could be taken for granted.

TWENTY-EIGHT

A king-size bed.

"I don't envy the women of Texas. Like the women of every state in this nation, they're faced with serious problems—problems that require immediate solutions. Daily solutions. Problems such as quality child care."