"Because Joey sticks his nose-hold on." Hector reached into his pocket and looked at his cell phone. "Ah, shit. Hang on." He opened his phone and lowered his voice. "Dame un minuto, querido. Te vere pronto."

Hector closed the phone and placed it in his suit pocket. "Ah, I'm drunk." The momentum had broken. I just had him on the verge of an explanation.

"Don't leave me hanging, Hector," I said, as he began to move toward the limo door.

"I don't want to talk about that anymore," he said, grunting as he bent down to step out into the cool night air. Since I was his "guy," that meant I was supposed to accept that decision without comment. "C'mon, Carl wants us up there."

Dame un minuto, querido, he'd said to whoever had called him. Te vere pronto. My summer studying in Seville hadn't gone for naught. Give me a minute, dear. I'll see you soon. Hector had been talking to someone he cared about.

"Vmonos," Hector called to me.

I pulled up alongside him and we got in the elevator. I didn't get what I wanted, but at least now, I'd have an opening in the future to raise the topic again.

Peshke answered the door to the suite when we knocked, talking in his earpiece to someone and holding a glass of champagne in the other. The governor was out of his suit, wearing an oxford and blue jeans. The governor pointed at me when I walked in. "Jason, quick-the center fielder for the 'seventy-six Yankees?"

"Mickey Rivers," I said.

The governor waved a hand toward Brady Mac. "That's one of the easiest questions ever. I mean, that was before free agency changed everything, Mac."

In one corner of the suite, Madison Koehler and Charlie Cimino were having a more serious conversation. Madison seemed to be dishing out and Charlie receiving. I couldn't imagine about what; Charlie had largely relegated himself to the sidelines since his brush with law enforcement. He saw me out of the corner of his eye and motioned me toward him.

"Madison and I were just discussing that some of the contractors we contacted about contributions haven't ponied up yet," he said. "We were thinking another phone call from you would be in order. Remind them of their commitment and their nice fat state contract that they want to keep."

It was true-some of the contractors still hadn't paid the extortion money to preserve their current contractual relationship with the governor's office. But the vast majority of them had, and given how spooked Charlie had become after learning that Greg Connolly was wearing a federal wire, and his subsequent decision to lie low, I figured we would let those few stragglers go.

I guess the little charade that we'd orchestrated with my visit to the U.S. attorney's office with Charlie's handpicked lawyer, Norm Hudzik, had convinced Charlie that the feds had no idea what he and I had been up to. That, and his overall greed and desire for maximum credit with Governor Snow, made him eager to squeeze every single dollar of campaign contributions out of his schemes.

"You want me to call them and remind them we can pull their contracts if they don't pony up?" I asked. It was a bit on the nose, I thought, once it came out of my mouth.

"If it's not too much trouble," said Madison with her typical sweetness. "Or do you have a moral objection again?"

Close enough, I figured, for Chris Moody's purposes. Madison Koehler had just directed me to use interstate wires for the purpose of coercing campaign contributions, which probably made her a co-conspirator in the shakedowns Charlie and I had performed for the last two months.

And now I had an opening to raise a subject I'd been wanting to tap, the whole reason I was doing this damned undercover work.

"Not a moral objection," I said. "It's just that, after Greg Connolly, I wasn't sure if we wanted to keep a lower prof-"

"What about Greg Connolly?" Madison's head snapped in my direction. "What does he have to do with this?"

"Nothing, it's nothing," said Charlie. "He just means, after Greg died, we-we were worried-y'know, that maybe they might investigate him or something."

"For getting a blowjob on Seagram Hill and then getting jumped? What does that have to do with us?" Madison looked alternatively at Charlie and me. She seemed genuinely puzzled.

Genuinely so. I like to think I can read a lie, and she wasn't lying. She didn't know, I decided. She didn't know the truth about Greg Connolly. She didn't know how he'd really died, and she didn't know that he'd been wearing a wire for the feds.

Wow.

"Forget about Greg," said Charlie. "He has nothing to do with this."

Madison wasn't following, but she also didn't care. "Collect on that money," she said.

Madison stalked off, and Charlie shot me a look. "The fuck are you doing?" he whispered.

"I thought she knew," I said. "The thing with Greg?"

"She knows what I fucking let her know," he said. He was whispering but also drawing in close to me, practically speaking into FeeBee. "No, she doesn't know."

"Well, maybe if you'd tell me who does know, I could avoid putting my foot in my mouth."

"Another way is you just don't mention it, period, smart guy."

Charlie broke away. He was angry. I was surprised. Madison Koehler didn't know that Greg Connolly had been exposed as an undercover informant? She didn't know that he'd been murdered? I hadn't thought that was possible. I'd thought everything went through her. I'd been working under the assumption that she was a part of this whole thing.

"Hey, all the secret stuff in the corner!" Governor Snow was calling out to us. "How about you join the party already?"

I returned to the fold, to the group sitting in the main area of the suite. Hector and Peshke and Madison were arguing about what to do with the abortion bill, the thing about parental notification for teenagers. The governor would have to sign it or veto it in the next forty-eight hours.

"I'm with Maddie," said Hector. "Veto it. You're pro-choice, Carl. Act like it."

"You can be moderately pro-choice." Peshke was sounding like a broken record. "Sign it and neutralize the topic during the primary. You still own the abortion issue in the general."

The governor looked bored with the discussion. He nodded at Charlie, who was now joining us. "Hey, Ciriaco," he said, using his formal name, "what's with your guys not paying? Maddie says we're still short about a hundred and fifty thousand from your people?"

"Working on it, Governor."

"Well, can you work on it some more?"

"Yes, sir."

I channeled Christopher Moody, wondering if these statements got him anything. By themselves, I thought, they didn't. This was the second time they'd have the governor on tape talking about what Charlie and I had done. The first time, the governor had just told me that he'd heard I did a good job. And this second reference just now, a little closer to the fire but still not on the nose. Still no admission. Neither of his statements indicated that he knew precisely the nature of what we'd been doing-the illegality, the extortion. For all anyone would know, the governor was just talking to a fundraiser about fundraising.

It would produce more than one clenched jaw in the U.S. attorney's office. The governor, without knowing it, was walking on a tightrope and constantly threatening a misstep, but thus far had managed to stay upright. He'd referenced a few of our schemes-George Ippolito; the jobs in his administration; and Charlie's and my shakedown-but never with any admission that he knew we were doing something illegal.

The only thing he'd come out and said that would be illegal, as I thought about it, was his suggestion the other day that we shake down the pro-choice groups for a hundred thousand each in exchange for his veto of the parental-notification abortion bill. And I hadn't heard him mention it again. I had no idea if that was even a "go."

Someone pulled a television front and center. We started watching campaign commercials the governor was planning to air in the last days of the primary. Some of them were the stars-and-stripes positive ones; more of them were negative ads that showed unflattering photos of Secretary of State Willie Bryant with sinister background music and assorted innuendo and spin.

After debating the merits of various ads and strategizing over the amount of ad buys in the various television markets over the coming days, the group was flattened and drunk, with much to do tomorrow. Everyone got up to retire, either to the hotel suites or to home.

I looked over at Madison, who'd been sitting next to me and was now preparing to exit. I was still rattled by the realization that she didn't know about Greg Connolly. She'd seemed like the puppet master behind everything. I'd been sure she was a part of the decision to eliminate Greg, that something like this wouldn't have happened without her sign-off.

Now, to my continued amazement, I had to cross her off my list. I'd have to reevaluate everything. Because my operating premise was that the person ordering the murder of Greg Connolly was higher on the food chain than Charlie Cimino, and after eliminating Madison, there was only one person left who fit that description.

I looked at him, Governor Snow, who it so happens was looking at me. "Stick around," he mouthed to me.

Sounded like a good idea to me. "Sure," I said.

"Hey," Hector said to me, turning me and walking me toward the door. "If you're tired, just take off. You don't need to stick around if you don't want."

Interesting that Hector would say that. Maybe he liked keeping tabs on me-his "guy," after all-and didn't want me getting one-on-one face time with the governor.

"No, it's okay," I said. I thought a little one-on-one was just what I needed right now. With his defenses down thanks to the liquor, this might be the best chance I'd have to find out what the governor knew, and when he knew it.

80.

THE ROOM FELT EMPTY AND LARGE WITH EVERYONE gone, all the aggressive banter evaporated. The governor poured himself another glass of champagne and offered me one, which I accepted. Anything to encourage dialogue.

"Sometimes it's nice just to talk with regular people," the governor said. "You strike me as regular. I mean, nonpolitical."

"That I am." I sat on the couch. He took the chair across from me. His face was flush and his eyes were bloodshot. He was drunk. Drunk but content. He loved everything about being governor.

"Let me ask you something," he said. He nodded toward the television. "That ad-the one about Willie Bryant, that supervisor in his office who was caught taking bribes? What did you think of that?"

I knew what I thought, but I didn't want to rock the boat. "He'd do the same to you," I said. "Rough-and-tumble politics."

He sipped his champagne and eyed me. "Give me the honest dope."

"I don't like negative ads," I said. "I mean, if everyone under Bryant is committing crimes, then okay, it's a relevant point." I stopped for one moment to consider the irony of that statement.

"But," I went on, "I take it from this ad that it was just one bad egg in his office. So I wouldn't read much into this, other than Willie Bryant's opponent is running a negative ad, trying to blame him for one rogue employee."

Governor Snow smiled. "Y'know, I pay these people a lot to think like a regular voter. But the truth is, they're so close to this-I mean, these guys hate Willie-I'm not sure they see things right. I think I agree with you."

"They get people elected," I said. "I don't."

"Right." He drained his drink and poured himself another. He rolled his neck, seemed to be unwinding after a day of being on camera. "How come you quit playing football?" he asked.

"I was kicked off the team after that fight."

"Right, but-why didn't you go somewhere else? You could have gone anywhere."

I shrugged. "Inertia, I guess. I was an idiot."

"Okay, then, why are you here?"

I wasn't sure how to answer that. He seemed to respond well to the no-bullshit, regular-guy talk, so I didn't want to light him up with sweet nothings. On the other hand, you can never underestimate the human ego, the capacity to believe favorable things about yourself.

"You seem like a winner," I said, stifling the gag reflex. "I like to go with the winner."

He watched me, maybe trying to decode what I was saying.

"You have to understand the rules before you play a game," I went on. "I think you're a guy who understands what he has to do to win. I want to be with the guy who brings a gun, not a knife, to the gunfight. I mean, you can't be a good governor unless you're governor, right?" I'd heard someone else say that. Carlton Snow probably said that to himself every day.

God, I hoped this was working, because it was all I could do not to laugh. I was trying to get him comfortable enough to talk about the things happening under him that fell somewhere outside the legal boundaries. I wanted it to be a source of pride, an emblem of his ambition.

"So, why are you here?" he asked me again.

I thought I caught his meaning, but I didn't have a clever response. "Why does anyone want to be with a winner?"

The governor moved from the chair to the large window overlooking the north side of the city. The commercial district had gone dark but the area to the north was scattered with lights, the yuppie crowds enjoying late-night dining, theater, the bar scene. Profiled against the cityscape, and notwithstanding the oxford and blue jeans, Carlton Snow looked more like a governor than at any time I'd seen him.

"It's hard to find people I trust," he said. "Everyone wants something. Everyone has their own agenda. Mac, I trust him from going back, but he just needs someone to follow, y'know? Maddie and Pesh and Charlie-I trust them because their interests intersect with mine. They only get what they want if I get what I want." He drank from his glass and looked out over the city.

He was a personable guy. I'd seen that in him from the start. It might have been practiced, but I didn't think so. That, in fact, seemed to be his chief attribute. I didn't see anything in him that particularly demonstrated superior intelligence, and certainly no great command of policy, but he could probably enjoy the company of just about anyone. That quality, in some ways, made him perfect for the job of governor, but in other ways made him wrong for it. If I was reading him correctly, he was longing for real relationships and not just lackeys who whisper sweet nothings.

But why was he sharing this with me?

"What about Greg Connolly?" I asked. It was a risk, of course, a cymbal crashing during the mellow music. But what the hell, the booze was making me impatient.

The governor did a quick turn in my direction before returning his gaze to the window. "Greg. Greg, he surprised me. He surprised me."

"How so?"

"I didn't know. None of us did."

Know what? I wanted to say. But I held my tongue, because the governor was already preparing to elaborate.

"I knew that guy my whole life, Greg. He had a great family. He loved his wife. He had this other side to him, and it made him do things like-like skulk around in a park after dark?" He blew out a sigh. "Christ, what a way to go. I looked at Jorie later that day-she wouldn't even talk to me. I mean, what is she supposed to think? What is she supposed to tell her boys?"

The governor seemed to be getting a bit emotional. And I was getting more and more confused.

After a moment, the governor cleared his throat. "He could have told me. I wouldn't have cared. I mean, it's one thing if you're an elected official, right? But Greg? He was behind the scenes. He could be whatever he wanted, I wouldn't have cared. He had a job with me for life. I wouldn't have cared about his damn sex life."

I didn't know what to say. I surely wasn't going to get an admission from him about Greg Connolly's undercover role with the federal government. And it was becoming awfully damn clear to me that he had no idea about it. I mean, this guy was a politician, a bullshit artist, but he couldn't fake what he was doing here. Not when he was half in the bag, at least, and not with me watching everything about him to look for signs of a lie.

Jesus Christ. Unless I had lost all ability to read people, neither Governor Snow nor Madison Koehler knew anything about Greg being a snitch. They couldn't have been behind his murder. Where the hell did that leave me?

"Now Hector," the governor said, turning to me. His voice had regained something, I wasn't sure what. "Hector, I trust. He understands me. I can tell that guy anything. That's a powerful thing, y'know? To know you can trust someone with a secret?"

I nodded. I was still a little flustered here.

He walked up toward the couch and stared at me. He seemed far removed from the guy mourning the loss of his friend only two minutes ago. Some people can turn on and off like that. "So, can I trust you, Jason? Like I can trust Hector?"

I felt some internal detector queue up. This wasn't a throwaway question, but I didn't quite get the drift. Regardless, there was no reason not to play along. Besides, I was still playing to a recording device in my pocket, and the feds would expect the same answer from me.

"Of course you can," I said.

He sat down next to me and turned to me. "Like Hector?"

"You can trust me," I said, getting annoyed now and more confused.

"So tell me what you want," he said. "You want to be a judge? You want some director job or something?"