"The sin of the week, by Fancy Rutledge."

She giggled. "Mother's positively morose and Mona looks at me with the same regard she would have for a cockroach in her sugar canister. Grandma, Grandpa, and the little spook were due back, which would only make things worse, so I decided to split and come here, where all the action is."

Wryly, he said, "As you can see, there's not much going on tonight."

Undaunted, she curled up in the easy chair he'd been occupying and popped the tomato into her mouth. It was the same vibrant color as her lips. Her teeth sank into it. The juice squirted inside her mouth.

"The truth of the matter is, Eddy darlin ', I ran out of cash. The automatic teller said it couldn't give me any money 'cause my account's overdrawn. So," she said, raising her arms over her head and stretching languorously, "I came to my best friend for a little loan."

"How little?"

"A hundred bucks?"

"I'll give you twenty just to get rid of you." He withdrew a bill from his pants pocket and tossed it into her lap.

"Twenty!"

"That'll buy you enough gas to get home."

"With nothing left over."

"If you want more, you could get it from your old man. He's in room twelve-fifteen."

"Do you think he'd be pleased to see me? Especially if I told him I'd just come from your room?"

Not deigning to answer, Eddy consulted his watch. "If I were you, I'd start home before it gets any later. Be careful driving back." He headed for the door to let her out.

"I'm hungry. Since you've been so stingy with your loan, I won't be able to afford supper. I believe that entitles me to some of this sandwich." She took a wedge of the triple-decker sandwich from the plate and bit into it.

"Help yourself." He pulled a straight chair from beneath the table, sat down, and began eating a wedge of the sandwich. He perused one of the computer readouts while he chewed.

Fancy slapped at it, knocking it out of his hand. "Don't you dare ignore me, you bastard."

The glint in his eyes looked dangerous. "I didn't invite you here, you little whore. I don't want you here. If you don't like it here, you're welcome to leave any timeathe sooner the betteraand good riddance."

"Oh, Eddy, don't talk like that."

Her knees landed on the carpet as she scooted out of the chair. Suddenly contrite, she walked forward on them until she reached him. She stretched her arms up and slipped her hands inside his shirt, laying them on his bare chest. "Don't be mean to me. I love you."

"Cut it out, Fancy."

His request went unheeded. She wedged herself between his knees and kissed his stomach. "I love you so much." Her mouth and tongue moved avidly over his sleek, hairless belly. "I know you love me, too."

He grunted with involuntary pleasure as her long nails lightly scratched his nipples. She unbuckled his belt and unfastened his trousers.

"Jesus," he moaned when she lifted his hard flesh out of his underwear. His fingers dove into her wealth of blond hair. He roughly twisted bunches of it around his knuckles. From above, he watched her red, red lips slide down over his stiff organ. Her mouth was avaricious, without temperance, modesty, or conscienceaan amoral mouth that had never been denied or disciplined.

He gasped her name twice. She raised her head and appealed to him, "Love me, Eddy, please."

He struggled to his feet, drawing her up with him, against him. Their mouths met in a carnal kiss. While her hands worked frantically to get his shirt off, he reached beneath the tube for her panties. Flimsy things, they came apart in his hands.

She cried out with surprise and pain when he crammed two fingers up inside her, but she rode them with crude pleasure. She had already shoved his trousers and underwear past his knees. He pushed them to his ankles and walked out of them as he lifted her to straddle his lap.

Together they fell onto the bed. He shoved up her dress and buried his face in the delta of her body while she wormed her way out of the stretchy tube. Before she had even gotten the dress over her head completely, he began squeezing her breasts, sucking and biting and twisting her nipples.

Fancy writhed beneath him, exulting in his rowdy fore-play. She raked her nails down his back and dug them into his buttocks hard enough to draw blood. He cursed her, called her ugly gutter names. When she drew back her knees, the stiletto heel of her shoe cut a jagged, six-inch gash into the bedspread, but neither noticed or would have cared.

Eddy splayed her thighs wide and thrust into her with enough impetus to drive her into the headboard. His body was already slick with sweat when she wrapped her limbs around him and matched his frenzied bucking. Their bodies slammed together, again and again.

Eddy's face contorted with a grimace of ecstasy. Arching his back, he put all his strength behind his final lunge. Fancy climaxed simultaneously.

"God, that was great!" she sighed as they rolled apart moments later.

She recovered first, sat up, and frowned at the sticky moisture on her inner thighs. She left the bed in search of the small purse she had brought in with her. She took from it a package of condoms and tossed it at him. "Use one of these next time."

"Who says there'll be a next time?"

Fancy, who was unabashedly admiring her naked body in the dresser mirror, gave his reflection an arch smile. "I'm gonna be black and blue tomorrow." She proudly touched the teeth marks on her breasts like they were small trophies. "I can already feel the bruises."

"Don't let on like you're bothered by it. You get off on being punished."

"I didn't hear you complaining, Mr. Paschal."

Still in her heels and bracelets, she strutted to the table and inspected the remnants of the tray. There was nothing left of the sundae except a puddle of white foam muddied by chocolate syrup, with a cherry floating on top.

"Oh, piss," she muttered, "the ice cream's melted."

From the bed, Eddy began to laugh.

Avery woke up before Tate. The room was deeply shadowed. It was still very early, but she knew she wouldn't go back to sleep. She tiptoed into the bathroom and showered. He was still asleep when she came out.

She took the ice bucket and the room key with her and slipped out the door in her robe. Tate enjoyed jogging every morning, even when he was out of town. When he returned, he consumed quarts of ice water. It wasn't always easy to come by in a hotel. She had started having it waiting there for him when he returned from his jog, hot and dehydrated.

She filled the bucket from the ice machine down the hall and was on her way back to their room when another door opened. Fancy stepped out and quietly closed the door behind her. She turned toward the elevators, but drew up short when she saw Avery.

Avery was shocked by the girl's appearance. Her hair was hopelessly tangled. What was left of her makeup was smudged and streaked. Her lips were bruised and swollen. There were scratches on her neck and across her chest, none of which she had made an attempt to hide. In fact, after recovering from her initial shock of seeing Avery, she defiantly tossed back her hair and threw out her chest to better display her wounds. "Good morning, Aunt Carole." Her sweet smile was in vile contrast to her debauched appearance.

Avery flattened herself against the corridor wall, at a loss for words. Fancy swept past her. She smelled unwashed and used. Avery shuddered with disgust.

The elevator arrived almost immediately after Fancy summoned it. Before stepping into it, she shot Avery a gloating smile over her bare, bruised shoulder.

For several seconds Avery stared at the elevator's closed doors, then looked toward the room Fancy had come out of, although she already knew who it belonged to.

Tate was wrong about his best friend. Eddy wasn't as scrupulous as Tate believed. Nor was he as bright.

TWENTY-SEVEN.

From Houston the campaign went to Waco, and from Waco to El Paso, where Tate was the undisputed champion of the Hispanic voters. The Rutledges were received like visiting royalty. At the airport, Avery was handed a huge bouquet of fresh flowers." SehoraRutledge, como estd '?"one of their greeters asked.

" MuyMen, gracias. Y usted ? Como se llama?"

Her smile over the cordial welcome faltered when the man turned away and she happened to lock gazes with Tate.

"When did you learn to speak Spanish?"

For several heartbeats, Avery couldn't think of a credible lie in any language. She had minored in Spanish in college and was still comfortable with it. Tate spoke it fluently. It had never occurred to her to wonder if Carole had spoken it or not.

"I. . .I wanted to surprise you." "I'm surprised."

"The Hispanic vote is so important," she continued, limping through her explanation. "I thought it would help if I could at least swap pleasantries, so I've been studying it on the sly."

For once, Avery was glad they were surrounded by people. Otherwise, Tate might have pressed her for detailson where and when she had acquired her knowledge of Spanish. Thankfully, no one else had overheard their conversation. Tate was the only one she could trust completely.

Being with Jack, Eddy, and a few of the campaign volunteers as they traveled from city to city had provided her with no more clues as to who Carole's coconspirator was.

Carefully placed questions had revealed little. Innocently, she had asked Jack how he had managed to get into the ICU the night she regained consciousness. He had looked at her blankly. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Never mind. Sometimes the sequence of events still confuses me."

He was either innocent or an adroit liar.

She had tried the same ploy with Eddy. He had answered by saying, "I'm not family. What would I be doing in the ICU?"

Making threats on Tate'slife,she had wanted to say.

She couldn't say that, so she had mumbled something about her confusion and let it go at that, turning up nothing in the way of opportunity for either of them.

She hadn't been luckier in discerning a motive. Even when Tate disagreed with his confidants and advisers, as he often did, they all seemed devoted to him and his success at the polls.

In lieu of a campaign contribution, a private business-man had loaned the entourage his private jet. As they flew from El Paso to Odessa, where Tate was scheduled to speak to independent oil men, the key personnel aired some of their differences.

"At least talk to them, Tate." Eddy was being his most persuasive. "It won't hurt to listen to their ideas."

"I won't like them."

The argument over whether or not to hire professional campaign strategists was becoming a frequent one. Weeks earlier, Eddy had suggested retaining a public relations firm that specialized in getting candidates elected to public office. Tate had been vehemently opposed to the idea and remained so.

"How do you know you won't like their ideas until you've heard what they are?" Jack asked.

"If the voters can't elect me for what I ama"

"The voters, the voters," Eddy repeated scoffingly . "The voters don't know shit from Shinola . What's more, they don't want to. They're lazy and apathetic. They want somebody to tell them who to vote for. They want it drummed into their feeble little minds so they won't have to make a decision on their own."

"Great confidence you're showing in the American public, Eddy."

"I'm not the idealist, Tate. You are."

"Thank God I am. Rather that than a cynic. I believe that people do care," he shouted. "They do listen to the issues. They respond to straight talk. I want to get the issues across to fee voters without having to filter the language and phraseology through some bullshitting P.R. jargon."

"Okay, okay." Eddy patted the air between them. "Since that subject is a sore spot, let's table it for now and talk about the Hispanics."

"What about them?"

"Next time you're addressing an audience of them, don't lean so hard on their integrating into our society."

"Oursociety?"

""I'm thinking like an Anglo voter now."

"It's important that they integrate into American society," Tate argued, not for the first time. "That's the only way we can keep society from being distinguished as yours, ours, or theirs. Haven't you been listening to my speeches?"

"Stress that they maintain their own customs."

"I did. I said that. Didn'tIsay that?" he asked everyone within hearing distance.

"He said that." It was Avery who spoke up. Eddy ignored her.

"I just think it's important that you don't broadcast the message that they should give up their culture in favor of Anglo America's."

"If they live here, Eddyaif they become citizens of this countryathey've got to assume some of the customs, primarily the English language."

Eddy was undeterred. "See, the Anglos don't like hearing that their society is going to be invaded by the Hispanics, any better than the Hispanics like having Anglo customs crammed down their throat, including a new language. Get elected first and then make a point of that integration bit, okay? And try to avoid addressing the drug trafficking problem that exists between Texas and Mexico."

"I agree," Jack said. "When you're a senator you can do something about it. Why wave die drug problem like a red flag now? It gives everybody room to criticize that you're either too harsh or too soft."

Tate laughed with disbelief and spread his hands wide. "I'm running for the U.S. Senate, and I'm not supposed to have an opinion on how to handle the illegal flow of drugs into my own state?"

"Of course you're supposed to have an opinion," Jack said, as though he were humoring a child.

"Just don't bring up your plans to remedy the problem unless specifically asked to. Now, as for this Odessa crowd," Eddy said, consulting his notes.

Eddy was never without notes. Watching him organize them, Avery studied his hands. Had those hands inflicted the scratches and bruises on Fancy, or had she come to him for refuge after another cowboy had worked her over?

"For God's sake, try to be on time to every engagement."

"I explained why we were late to that breakfast speech this morning. Carole had been trying to reach Mom and Dad, and finally caught them at home. They wanted to know everything that was going on, then we each had to talk to Mandy."

Eddy and Jack looked at her. As always, she felt their unspoken criticism, although she had done her best not to cause them any inconvenience on the trip. Out of spite, she said to Jack, "Dorothy Rae and Fancy sent you their love."

"Oh, well, thanks."

She slid a glance at Eddy when she mentioned Fancy's name. His eyes focused on her sharply, but he returned his attention to Tate. "Before we land, get rid of that tie."

"What's the matter with it?"

"It looks like shit, that's what's the matter with it."

For once, Avery sided with Eddy. Tate's necktie wasn't the most attractive one she'd ever seen, but she resented Eddy being so tactless about pointing it out.