Deep Cover (26 page)

“As for Ronnie, I told her she could take the afternoon off. I'm holding the fort, standing by to repel boarders and whatnot. She said to tell you she's gone out to the ranch and you're expected there for dinner.” Suffield's eyes were round with innocent mockery and his wide mouth grinned. “The way she said it sounded downright proprietary.”

There was a stack of correspondence on the desk bound up in a heavy rubber band. Forrester glanced at it and Suffield said, “Your first bundle of hate mail. I thumbed through it. Mostly unsigned, of course. When they get that blasphemous they don't like to put their names on it.”

“To hell with them then.” Forrester swept the stack into the wastebasket.

“Sure. But maybe you ought to keep count. Give you a rough tally of sentiment.”

“So far the mail's been running eight to one.”

“For you?”

“Yes.”

“How about that?” Suffield said. “There have been a few columnists' blind items in the Washington papers over the past week. I don't know if you saw them.”

“No. Blind items? What about?”

“You know the kind of thing. Not mentioning names but thick with insinuation. Young Republican white knight gets tarnished armor, will be dumped by party machine for insubordination. You know the drift. A lot of people including the Secretary of Defense and several Senators have agreed to appear on panel TV news shows to shoot your position full of holes. I might remind you at least thirty-two Congressmen own interests in television stations and most of them by some odd coincidence are pretty far over to the right.”

“What's that got to do with anything?”

“Just that it may make it kind of hard for you to get your message across to the Great Unwashed. Unless you want to shell out the price of an aircraft carrier to buy your own television time.”

“You mean national television time? Why would I spend money on that? This is Arizona, Les.”

“I didn't get the impression you wanted to run for President of Arizona.”

Forrester only smiled. Suffield said, “The point is the networks are lining up a lot of big guns. I've heard rumors about rumors to the effect that the President himself may throw a few needles your way at his next TV press conference.”

“I always Welcome publicity.”

“Not that kind you don't. Believe me. But I think you don't recognize that the parent companies of all three TV networks are deeply committed in aerospace contract work. Ordinarily the network bias runs toward the liberal side of things, as Mr. Agnew pointed out a few years ago, but when you start tromping on aerospace you're stepping on a very sore corn.”

“I take it this is Lesson Number Four in Suffield's Elementary Politics.”

“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 twenty 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.