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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.
“Enough of this shit,” she muttered. She caught the arm of the man nearest her. “If you can get me into an elevator, I’ll give you a blow job you’ll never forget.”
* * *
A sudden hush fell over the room when the parlor telephone rang. All eyes swung toward the instrument. The mood was collectively expectant.
“Okay,” Eddy said quietly, “that’s him.”
Tate picked up the phone. “Hello? Yes, sir, this is Tate Rutledge. It’s good of you to call, Senator Dekker.”
Eddy raised both fists above his head and shook them like a winning boxer after a knockout. Zee clasped her hands beneath her chin. Nelson nodded like a judge who had just been handed a fair decision from the jury. Jack and Dorothy Rae smiled at each other.
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I feel the same way. Thank you. I appreciate your call.” Tate replaced the receiver. For several seconds he sat with his hands loosely clasped between his knees, then he raised his head and, with a boyish grin, said, “Guess that means I’m the new senator from Texas.”
The suite was instantly plunged into chaos. Some of the aides jumped into chairs and began whooping like attacking Indians. Eddy hauled Tate to his feet and pushed him toward the bedroom. “Now you can go change. Somebody go catch an elevator and hold it. I’ll call downstairs and tell them to give us five minutes.” He yanked up the telephone.
Avery stood wringing her hands. She wanted to cheer and shout with joy over Tate’s triumph. She wanted to throw her arms around him and give him a kiss befitting the victor. She wanted to share this jubilant moment with him. Instead, she shook like Jell-O, congealed with fear.
When she joined him in the bedroom, he was already stripped to his underwear and was stepping into a pair of dress slacks. “Tate, don’t go.”
His head snapped up. “What?”
“Don’t go down there.”
“I can’t—”
She grabbed his arm. “The man I told you about—the gray-haired man—he’s here. I saw him this morning. Tate, for God’s sake don’t go.”
“I have to.”
“Please.” Tears formed in her eyes. “Please, believe what I’m telling you.”
He was buttoning his pale blue shirt. His hands paused. “Why should I?”
“Because I love you. That’s why I wanted to assume the role of your wife. I fell in love with you while I was still in the hospital. Before I could move or speak, I loved you.
“Everything I’ve told you is the truth. A threat has been made on your life. And yes, a chance for a terrific story presented itself to me and I took it, but…” Here she clutched his shoulders between her hands and appealed to him. “But I did what I did because I wanted to protect you. I love you and have from the beginning.”
“Tate, they’re—” Eddy came barging in. “What the hell is going on in here? I thought you’d be dressed by now. They’re tearing the place apart downstairs, waiting for you to put in an appearance. Everybody’s gone nuts. Come on. Let’s go.”
Tate looked from his friend to Avery. “Even if I believed you,” he said with quiet helplessness, “I don’t have a choice.”
“Tate, please,” she begged, her voice tearing like paper.
“I don’t have a choice.”
He removed her hands and quickly finished dressing. Eddy coached him on whom to thank publicly. “Carole, you look like hell. Before you come downstairs, do something with your face,” he ordered as he pushed Tate through the door.
