“Like I said, I’m just staying aboard ship to point out the shoals. I still think you’ve tackled an elephant with a flyswatter, but if that’s your game I’ll help out all I can, right up to the funeral.” Suffield ran strong fingers through his shaggy pelt of gray hair. “How’d it go with Guest arid Trumble?”
“I’ve been ditched as far as the primary’s concerned. Trumble may run against me, but I’ve got a pledge from both of them that if I win the primary in spite of their opposition I’ll get the full backing of the party in the election campaign.”
“That’s better than nothing, then.”
“Frankly it’s more than I expected to get.”
“Nuts. You like to undersell yourself—I’ve pointed it out before. They need you almost as much as you need them, when you come right down to it. Neither party has very many hotshots around with your brand of vote-getting charisma. Aside from Lindsay, who’s left besides you? All the rest of them are tired. No—Woody Guest will go pretty far off his usual base if that’s what it takes to keep you from switching over to the Democratic Party. You may get more Republican support than you think.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Don’t forget they ditched Lindsay in the primaries when he ran for reelection.”
“And then he won in spite of it and they welcomed him back into the fold because if they hadn’t he could have made hell for them.”
“Maybe,” Forrester said again, not at all convinced. “Anyhow I think we’ve got to assume I’m not going to be the fair-haired Republican boy for a while. I’ve got to run an independent campaign without clubhouse support and we’ve got to plan accordingly.”
“Yeah. A paper clip, a Band-Aid, a rubber band, a wad of chewing gum and a shoestring.”
“A pretty thick shoestring. I expect it’ll take half a million dollars to beat the machine in the primaries and if I have to I’m prepared to put it up myself.”
“Jesus. You really are serious about this. You’d have to mortage the ranch.”
“No. Old James Hayden Forrester socked away a pretty good pile of real estate and invested capital and I’m good for a few million without dipping into the cookie jar at home.”
“But if you spend it and lose you won’t have a thing to show for it.”
“If Defense spends thirty billion dollars on Phaeton Three and one of the damned things blows up in its silo what do you think we’ll have to show for that?”
“Okay, okay.”
“Have you seen Top Spode?”
“Today? No. He called and talked to Ronnie but she didn’t tell me what it was all about.”
“He’s on a job for me and I think I want to call him off. If he calls after I leave, tell him to get me at the ranch.”
“All right. But I think maybe I’d better spend the rest of the afternoon making the rounds, seeing what kind of support we can drum up for you in the primary. You must have a few friends left and I want to reach them before the opposition gets to them.”
“Good idea.”
“I’ll use the phone in the front office, then.” Suffield uncoiled himself and strolled to the connecting door. He paused there and turned and spoke after an interval. “Listen, about Ronnie—”
“What about her?”
“Just—well, this might not be a good time to let it ripen into something. You know?”
“What the devil are you talking about?”
“I mean, it’s not so long since Angie died, is it? You’ve got the voters to think about.”
“For God’s sake, Les!”
Suffield showed his discomfiture. “What would it look like, right now? Rich prominent widowed Senator gets hot pants for his dewy-eyed secretary. I mean, you’d be laying yourself open to all kinds of locker-room snickers, and you don’t need that kind of gossip right now—things are tough enough without it.”
“Let’s just leave my personal life and Ronnie’s out of this.”
“In politics that ain’t so easy, amigo.” Suffield turned through the door and pulled it shut behind him.
Forrester stared at the closed door for a long time before he reached toward the In box.
Tucson was a prime example of how boulevards and superhighways created a centrifugal force that flung vital energies out of the downtown area. The stores had moved out to glittering suburban shopping centers and the old-town decay was particularly depressing in the hard sunshine: the abandoned business sites seemed singularly out of place under the vast cobalt sky. A traffic light halted Forrester between a cut-rate furniture store, peeling yellow stucco, and a rancid little hotel with its doors wide open and its sagging chairs inhabited by girls in thin dresses who would come out on parade after dark. A theater marquee advertised “mature adult films” and the titles were in Spanish.
He let in the clutch and the Mercedes growled up the ramp and out into the left lane. He went southeast at a good clip, driving too fast for the traffic, darting from lane to lane to pass daydreamers and trucks. Past the VA Hospital towers and the municipal airport and the dusty end of Davis Monthan Air Force Base; past the Truckers’ One Stops and dreary motels, out into the uninhabited cactus flats with distant mountains on all the horizons. Dinosaur-shaped billboards flashed by—SEE Colossal Cave! I Mi.
He left the Interstate at Mountain View Junction and sped south into the hills on the blacktop county road, tires whistling on the sharp turns. He had all the windows open and the wind roared in his ears and tangled his hair.
The arid plain gave way to brush hills and now he was coming into the grass country with scrub timber on the higher slopes; he made the acute turn into the secondary road and the Mercedes leaped forward toward home.
The Forrester ranch had been carved out of the old Spanish Baca Float grant; it was the size of a small European nation. He passed herds of browsing Angus cattle and saw a jeep bouncing across a distant pasture; dust raveled high in the Mercedes’ wake. Beyond the low ridge to the southeast he could see the big red-rock landmark Ronnie had painted: it rode along with him.
He passed the manager’s big house and half a mile of workings: crew quarters, outbuildings, feedlots, corrals, smithy, gasoline pumps, the grass landing strip. The gravel drive took him up the long curve through great heavy trees to the hilltop from which the hacienda commanded twenty miles of Forrester grass in any direction. His grandfather’s vaqueros had dubbed it the hacienda; in fact it was an Edwardian architect’s idea of a Georgian manor and the front was a white colonnade two stories high. Angie hadn’t liked it very much: it was too much house, she had felt diminished by it. It had been built in an era when servants were more plentiful than masters.
Ronnie had heard the snarl of the Mercedes and she was on the porch when he walked out of the garage. He watched for her quick slanting smile, teeth white against her tan face. She wore a light sweater with the sleeves pushed up casually above the elbows. The wind spun her hair around her face; she combed it away with her fingers and tossed it back with a shake of her head. When he started up the steps her mouth softened and parted and her breasts lifted; when he reached the top step and lifted his hands she came obediently into his arms. Her nails dug into him and her voice was thick and sweet in his ear: “Welcome home.”
The falling six-o’clock sun burst through the windows of the big front room. Mrs. Gutiérrez tried to keep everything shut up when he was gone—she hated the sun, it faded everything. Ronnie said, “I know it lets the dust in but it’s too glorious a day. I’m afraid I’ve opened every door and window I passed.”
“Good.”
“How did it go?”
“Scottsdale? Better than I’d hoped.” He told her about it while he made drinks.
They sat down on the huge divan with their hips and shoulders touching. With the sun in her face she was squinting and wrinkles had gathered at her temples and forehead. She had confessed she would be forty next month, and that was both unbelievable and irrelevant: with her bone structure and health she would still be lovely and ageless twen
ty years from now.
When he had told her about the conference she wriggled loosely and gave him a serene unhurried kiss; then she left him momentarily, flowing toward the kitchen. When she returned she was tasting an index finger. “To prove I’m not a total failure at domestic science I’ve cooked dinner for us. I hope you like roast lamb.”
“I love it.”
She came forward in relief. “When I think of all the things I want to learn about you the mind boggles.”
“I don’t like seafood much. The occasional swordfish steak, that’s about it. I hate shellfish. But it doesn’t really matter, does it, Ronnie?”
She was biting her lip in feigned alarm. “But I adore seafood. Don’t you see we’re completely incompatible?” And laughed at him and kissed him again. “I just can’t keep my hands off you—isn’t that a terrible thing to say?”
“You’re so beautiful tonight,” he murmured, and wrapped his arms around her.
“Absolutely delicious,” he said and patted his mouth with a napkin. “Perfection.”
“I’m not a bad cook, really. I was nervous and the asparagus got overdone.” She smiled quickly. “Actually I’m sort of a cozy quiet girl, you know. I like to cook for you.”
They cleared the table together and went into the front room holding hands like children. The setting sun veined the clouds like pink-white marble and the rich warm light was soft against her face. She sat on the floor at his feet. The coffee made a good smell; he seared his mouth with the first sip and set the cup down. She rested her head against his knee and smiled up at him; her hand crept toward his and she said, “Darling.”
“What?”
“Nothing. I was tasting the word. Darling. It has a good sound.”
“It does to me.” He touched the tip of her nose with a forefinger and she wrinkled her nose at him.
“You have strange gold flecks in your eyes. It makes you look as if you’ve got little incandescent lights inside.”
“Top used to swear I could see in the dark.”
She sat up. “Oh damn. Now that does it. I really am going to pieces over you. What would Amy Spencer’s Secretarial School think of me? He called you this afternoon.”
“Who?”
“Jaime Spode. He said to tell you he’d engaged a female operative from Orozco’s agency, whatever that means, and that he expected to deliver the goods tonight. And he said he’d had Orozco put a tail on the subject in Scottsdale, and the subject had driven straight from the meeting to a filling station on Camelback Road and of all things put in a phone call from the pay booth to Orozco himself. Does that make sense to you? There’s more.”
“The subject is Ross Trumble. Top’s been trying to get something from him. Go on.”
“Well Orozco told Jaime he’d had a call from Trumble trying to locate a man called Gus Craig—one of Orozco’s operatives. Trumble seemed terribly upset about him. Orozco made some phone calls but he couldn’t find Craig either. Jaime explained to me that Orozco ordinarily won’t tell one client anything about another client, but Trumble isn’t an agency client so if Craig had any private deals with him that was no concern of the agency’s.
“I’m trying to report this the way Jaime told it to me, but it doesn’t make too much sense to me. Orozco’s people trailed the subject into Phoenix. Trumble parked on a side street and walked into a small hotel in a state of great agitation. He made several calls from the telephone booth in the lobby and he spent two hours writing a letter on hotel stationery. He bought stamps at the desk. Orozco’s man got close enough to read Trumble’s handwriting and Jaime said this might be important because Orozco’s operative saw the address Trumble wrote on the envelope. It was yours. The ranch here.”
“Here?”
“That’s what Jaime said. Why would Trumble write a letter to you? He’d just been with you.”
“I have no idea.”
“Anyhow Jaime said Trumble mailed the letter and spent a few hours hobnobbing with his political cronies in Phoenix and got on the road toward Tucson around four-thirty. Jamie called here about five and told me to tell you all this. He said he’d be in touch with you later tonight or in the morning.”
“Did he say where I could reach him in the meantime?”
“No. I assume he’ll be following Trumble, so he probably doesn’t know where he’s going to be.”
Forrester said, “I was going to call him off. But maybe it’s just as well to let him go ahead. Writing to me—it’s curious.”
“So am I.”
“Not much point worrying about it until we have more to go on.”
She lifted her hair loosely, high above her head, and let go and shook it out. “Coffee’s getting cold.”
“Let it wait.” He took her hand and stood up and lifted her to her feet. She smiled again; her hands touched his shirt, shyly, and slid up the back of his neck.
“Odd how you find love only when you’re not looking for it.”
“Just let this go on forever,” she whispered, and covered his mouth with hers.
She stood taut in her skin and Forrester rolled over on the bed and said drowsily, “You cried again.”
“I know. I’m foolish—it’s silly. Every time we make love I’m terrified—what if this is the last time?”
“You’re thinking of him again. It’s a mistake to hang on to the past too tightly.”
“It’s not that. Not the way you think, darling.”
“Then what?”
“I can’t explain it. There are things it’s better not to know about the people you love.”
When she blinked her eyes were moist again and he stood up and held her against him. “Never mind,” she said. Her voice was muffled against his chest. “Let’s just think about here and now. That’s all there really is.”
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
She only shook her head and went ahead of him into the bathroom.
They showered together and afterward he took the phone off the hook.
Chapter Nine
“He’ll be along any time now. You’d better get over there.”
The girl shifted her buttocks in the car seat and kissed Spode with moist warmth and suction. She reached for him and smiled. “He’s a fat slob. If I had my druthers—”
“Git,” he said good-naturedly. He reached across and patted the far side of her rump. “I’m doing my best to act like a stoical stony-faced Innun and I wish you’d quit waving it at me or I’m likely to lose my cool.”
She was a sleepy girl with pale blond skin and the vaguely pretty face of a plastic mannequin, sewed into a tight skirt that showed little signs of strain at the seams and a blouse that revealed more than a small area of creamy breasts with a sweat-shine in the cleft between them.
Spode had parked at the curb in the middle of the block, farthest from the street lights. Across the street the house was dark, a big low ranch-style on a landscaped hundred-foot lot. When the girl opened the door to get out she blew Spode a regretful kiss. Spode said, “He can drink you under the table. He may be a fat slob with a bad case of lechery but he used to be an FBI agent. Don’t sell him short. Keep your head.”
“I get sixty dollars a day from Orozco—what do you think he pays me for, my virginal innocence?”
“Just don’t get cocky, Jill.”
“How long am I supposed to keep him occupied?”
“Midnight at the earliest. Preferably one o’clock.”
“Where will you be at two o’clock, then?”
Spode grinned.
She stood there fitting into her clothes like a girl facing a seventy-mile-an-hour wind, breasts and buttocks swelling. Spode said, “Bet your ass.”
“I’ll see you then.” She walked away swiveling and Spode’s eyes followed her hungrily; she reached the far curb and stepped back into the shadows beside the hedge. Spode shifted his attention to the rear-view mirror and kept it there, waiting for headlights.
The first car was a false alarm. The li
ghts came along the street slowly and at first Spode thought it was their man because the car slowed to a crawl fifty feet behind him. But evidently the driver didn’t know the neighborhood and was looking for house numbers on mailboxes. The car drew level with Spode’s and the driver was looking the other way, looking at Trumble’s house; the driver studied the dark house for ten seconds and then drove forward. Spode had only a glimpse of the face in the reflection of dashboard light and there was nothing remarkable about it—a brown bland middle-aged face. The car moved away picking up speed, a pale Ford sedan. Insurance salesman, probably.
A breeze blew through the car and Spode hunched to light a cigarette, cupping his hands together against the wind. A gust of laughter carried across lawns from a house down the street. Someone’s TV or stereo was turned up, a girl hoarsely singing “Have I Stayed Too Long at the Fair?”
He hadn’t heard that song in years and it took him back to the early days with the Agency.
He was still in the Army then. In a bar in Highland Park, New Jersey, sitting at the curve of the bar listening to the bouncer tell the kids to keep their glasses off the jukebox; he was taking another drink and knowing his mouth would taste rancid by midnight. Trying to decide whether to re-up. His enlistment was about to expire and he really didn’t know what he could do outside the Army, and just then two guys in neat gray suits walked in and took the stools on either side of him and started talking. They had an easy jocularity and a casual way of getting right down to friendly first names—“I’m Donald Coe, just call me Don.”
They had signed him up that night.
When his enlistment expired he took four weeks off in New York and screwed everything that would hold still long enough and at the end of the month reported to the huge building in the Virginia woods outside Washington. They had kept him busy for fifteen years but in the end he had quit because he couldn’t stand their brand of incestuous paranoia: he hated being watched constantly by security officers who even peeped on men’s rooms. Anyhow toward the end they’d had him at a desk where all he did was disburse vouchers for confidential “Class A” funds that came out of hiding places in Congressional budgets. In the beginning the recruiters had looked up from the clipboards and warned him, “You may find yourself in some pretty tight places. Do you still want the job?” But they hadn’t scared him out; they’d bored him out.
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