The Governor's Lady (39 page)

“How are you?” Cooper asked.

Mickey grunted, put the paper aside. “I’m trying real hard to make it to March. Six weeks to go on a ticker that’s running on two cylinders. March, I can handle. Not February. It might snow again, and that would cut down on the funeral crowd.”

“But with a good band and an open bar, they might brave the elements.”

“You’ll see to that?”

“I reckon.”

“I mean a really good band. Maybe the Eagles.”

“I thought you’d say Guy Lombardo.”

“Ha! He’s dead. But that would be a hoot, a dead guy playing at my funeral.”

“What on earth do you know about the Eagles?”

“You’d be surprised what I know,” Mickey said.

“No, at this point, I probably wouldn’t. What do you know about Plato?”

“Personally?”

“Yes.”

“Everybody has secrets,” Mickey said. “Why?”

She told Mickey about Carter’s call.

Mickey pondered it. “Maybe, all of a sudden, there’s more than speculation. But so what? The homosexual thing isn’t the issue it used to be.”

“It might be for Pickett,” Cooper said.

“Yes, knowing the stakes now, it might be. I do know this: Pickett wouldn’t be where he is without Plato Underwood. If there’s been a rift of some kind after all these years, it’s cataclysmic. I know some people who might know.”

“Don’t wear yourself out with the telephone.”

Mickey smiled. “In my next life, I’m going to have one implanted in my head. All I’ll have to do is think of somebody I want to talk to and, bingo, I’m connected.”

Cooper’s cell phone rang. Wheeler.

“I looked it over,” he said.

“And?”

“On the surface, it seems straightforward. But it’s a pretty big deal, and it’s apparently been in the works awhile, and I haven’t heard a whisper about it. Did I miss it, or has it been kept completely under wraps for some reason? It has an odd smell about it.”

“I’m getting some pressure to sign it,” Cooper said.

“That says something. I need a few days to do some digging, see if I can figure out what’s what.”

“Buried bodies?”

“Maybe. I’ve got my shovel out. This is what I do.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s why I keep you around.”

After disconnecting, she told Mickey about the land swap.

“Follow the money,” Mickey said.

“But no money is involved,” Cooper said.

“Don’t be so sure. Money, real money, is quiet. So quiet you have to listen hard to hear it. The noise in politics, it’s mostly about what people call ‘issues.’ Folks at opposite ends of the spectrum yelling at each other. The gun nuts and Bible thumpers over here”—she stretched out one arm—“and the bleeding hearts and tree-huggers over here”—she plucked the air with the other. “Smoke and fire, thunder and lightning. But back in the shadows, being quiet, are the people with the big money, people who stand to make a lot
more
money, depending on who holds office. And they don’t really care which bunch it is, gun nuts or treehuggers. They can do business with either, or anything in between, or both at the same time. Whatever works. They are happy letting the circus go on, the nastier and noisier the better, because that’s what gets attention.”

“That’s incredibly cynical.”

“Don’t get me wrong, money people have ideas and opinions, but they rarely let them get in the way of their money. So always, always, follow the money. Wheeler knows that better than anybody. If there’s a body, he’ll find it.”

She awoke with a start. A commotion outside in the hall, a scurrying of footsteps, light filtering under the door. Estelle’s voice. She sat up,
trying to get her bearings. Pitch black at the edge of the window shade. The clock: just after five-thirty.

She threw back the covers, pulled on a robe, and padded down the hall, slippered feet making tiny squeaking sounds on the carpet. The door to Mickey’s room was open. Estelle was hovering over the hospital bed, cranked up so Mickey was in a near-sitting position. Mickey gasped wretchedly for breath, body rigid, face ashen, eyes wide.

“Cough, Miz Mickey,” Estelle ordered. “Cough and get that junk out of there.”

Mickey made a feeble attempt that degenerated into a desperate, rattling wheeze. She spotted Cooper in the doorway. “Don’t,” she rasped, “don’t let them!” She looked terrified.

“Can I help?” Cooper managed.

“No,” Estelle snapped.

Cooper closed the door, backed away, stood motionless listening to the agonized sounds from the other side. She paced the hallway with a gathering sense of dread.
Just when we
…

She didn’t know how long it took, but the door finally opened, and Estelle poked her head out. “It’s all right, Miz Lanier. She just had a bad spell. Hard time breathing. I’m getting her settled down. Can you fix you and me some coffee?”

She was back in fifteen minutes with two cups. They sat together in the hall and drank.

“She’s resting,” Estelle said.

“Is she …?”

“It’s getting worse. Fluid and congestion building up around her heart. It squeezes everything—breathing, blood flow. She’s losing ground, but as sick as she is, she’s got a fierce will.” Estelle sipped her coffee. “She talks about nothing but you. To me, to everybody she gets on the telephone. I think you’re the one keeping her here.”

“Does she need to be in the hospital?”

“She doesn’t want to go.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“And that’s not for me to say. Ask Dr. Cutter.”

Wheeler called while she was getting dressed. “I’ve got to make a trip out of state.”

“Where?”

“The people making the swap with the state, they’re incorporated in Virginia. I don’t know anything about them, and the Secretary of State’s Office ain’t gonna give me information on the phone. So I’m going up there.”

“Is that really necessary?”

“The more I sniff around, the stronger the smell gets.”

“All right,” she said. “Mother had a bad time early this morning. She’s slipping. Get back as quickly as you can.”

Mickey was sleeping, mouth open, face slack. Gaunt, wasted flesh against the stark white of the pillow. Tortured breathing. Machines beeped and gurgled. Cooper went first to the window, pulled back the edge of the curtain. Almost six-thirty now, gathering light beyond the trees to the east. In the light from the security lamps across the front of the mansion, a cover of lingering snow. Everything quiet and still. Waiting.

She sat, leaned back in the chair, one arm resting on the side of the bed, and closed her eyes, letting all the air out, breathing so shallowly that time and her mind seemed to pause, turn inward. Then she felt a mere hint of a touch, fingers on her arm. She opened her eyes, looked
at Mickey’s hand, studied it, took it in her own. Mickey’s breathing seemed to ease. She gave Cooper’s hand a weak squeeze.

Cooper looked at Mickey’s fingernails—gnarled, yellowed, much too long. Then she laid Mickey’s hand aside, rose, went to the door, called down the hall for Estelle: “I need some fingernail clippers.”

“Do her toenails while you’re at it,” Estelle replied. “They need it, too.”

Nolan was there an hour later. He spent awhile with Mickey and then joined Cooper downstairs for breakfast.

“The hospital?” she asked.

“It would make things easier, but it’s not a necessity. She’s adamant about not going. She can stay here, if that’s what she wants and you’re okay with it. We’ll make her as comfortable as possible, try to keep her off the telephone, make her rest.”

“Can you give her something to knock her out?”

“I offered, but she told me she’s got to have her wits about her if she’s gonna keep you straight.” He smiled. “Whatever else is slipping, her sense of humor is intact.”

The resignation letters from Pickett’s cabinet members were on her desk. Seven were leaving immediately. Twelve remained, and most of those, she thought, would have to be replaced. She needed her own Posse. All that to do, a budget to put together, a legislative session coming up. And Wheeler gone. She was spinning her wheels, losing momentum. She felt helpless.

Pickett called. “I’ve talked to Woodrow.”

“And?”

He didn’t say anything at first, then: “All the ruckus you’re causing—the cabinet, Burgaw—he’s pissed.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him everything’s okay. I’m handling it, you’re totally on board. The cabinet business, I reminded him he’ll want his own people anyway. I got him settled down.”

“Whatever you and Woodrow have between you means nothing to me.”

“You’re wrong there,” Pickett said. “It means a helluva lot to you. So when you and Woodrow cross paths, don’t screw it up, Cooper.”

“Don’t screw it up for
you
. You couldn’t care less what happens to me, as long as it doesn’t step on your toes. But I’m stuck with a lieutenant governor who has his own agenda, who thinks he’s going to waltz in and take over my office—
my
office—without earning it, and in the meantime doesn’t have any reason to help me get anything done.”

“Dammit, Cooper, I’m trying to help you!”

“And damn you, Pickett! You have become a lying, underhanded, self-obsessed asshole. And with all of those qualities, you’ll probably make a good president.”

Mickey looked better—weak, shaky, diminished, but some of her color had returned, and her voice was stronger.