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  "I'll see if I can find him," Silvio said, pushing his red, chapped lips into Mickey's ear, half shouting over the drill.

  "I don't have much time. This is very sensitive. I know what it costs and I got the up-front on me," Mickey yelled back into Silvio's ear.

  "Not necessary. You got unlimited credit at the House of Hits. You call back tonight. Ask me if I wanna go to the opera. . If I've got a yes, I'll say. 'We should go to the opera.' Gimme a number of a clean phone where I can have him call you."

  Mickey wrote down the number of his scrambled line and gave it to the old man. Moments later, they walked out of the lube garage and back up the street to Mickey's car.

  Mickey did some business in New York. At six P. M., he called the old man from a social club in Little Italy where his father was once a member. "How ya doin', Silvio? I got some tickets to the opera, wanna go?"

  "That's great," Silvio said, never mentioning Mickey's name. "We should go to the opera." It was the message Mickey wanted to hear. When Mickey hung up, he looked up at the TV over the bar. It was Super Tuesday and the six o'clock news was on.

  Haze Richards was on camera at his hotel room in Memphis. He had just finished his trip through ten states. The polls had closed in the Southeast and network exit poll data was starting to come in.

  "It looks like you're ahead in every state," the network field correspondent said, holding the microphone under Haze's smiling face.

  "I'm very encouraged. . and happy. But let's wait and see what happens when the votes are tabulated."

  Mickey smiled from his booth in the back and ordered a glass of grappa. The waiter set it down and followed Mickey's gaze to the TV.

  "Whatta you think of this guy, Don Alo?" the waiter asked, respectfully.

  Mickey smiled. "I think one day soon, he's gonna be my President."

  While Mickey was watching the six o'clock news in the social club in Little Italy, Lucinda and Ryan were three time zones to the west on the aft deck of the Linda.

  It was three o'clock Pacific standard time, and they had the little portable TV placed on the companionway steps to shield the screen from the slanting light. Ryan was feeling dull from an afternoon of lying outside in the sun. He was watching without expression as the network big feet called state after state for Haze Richards.

  "Let's switch now to Leslie Wing at Haze Richards's hotel in Memphis," Dale Hellinger said. Dale was a tall, distinguished black commentator with a voice like James Earl Jones's, who had taken over for Brenton Spencer at UBC. The shot switched to an attractive Asian correspondent standing in a roomful of festive campaigners.

  "Thank you, Dale. It's a party here at Richards's Election Central and a foregone conclusion that Haze Richards is going to sweep all of the Super Tuesday states by large margins." She glanced off-camera for a second. "I see Haze's campaign chairman. . Let me see if I can get him over." She moved with her cameraman in pursuit; then A. J.'s bushy head came into the frame of the small TV.

  "Mr. Teagarden, Mr. Teagarden. . Leslie Wing, UBC. This is quite a night," she said as the wonk turned and grinned into the camera. People whooped it up and danced behind them.

  "We seem to be doing something right, Leslie."

  "Haze was a political unknown only a month ago, and now it looks as if he's all but sewn up the Democratic nomination."

  "The American people are looking for something. There's a feeling of anger out there, Leslie. . a feeling that, in the current system of government, there is something desperately wrong. Haze stands for what can be right. He'sgonna redefine the process of government. Grab the institutions of power back from the Washington lobbyists. He'sgonna get it running the way the people want it t o r un. It's why I'm with him, and I think it's why America is with him tonight."

  "Thank you." And Leslie Wing turned back to the camera. "It's a madhouse here, Dale. People are really enjoying themselves."

  "Tell me, Leslie," Dale said from Brenton's old anchor desk. "Is there any word from Governor Richards on when he'll come down and give his victory speech?"

  "Let me try and find out, Dale." She tried to follow A. J., but he was dancing a polka with a fat campaign contributor. . arms and feet flying, off across the floor like two dancing hippos. "I'm sorry, Dale, it's just unbelievable here."

  Ryan and Lucinda watched without saying a word as the fifty-foot ketch swayed slowly in the wind at the end of its anchor chain.

  "What's for dinner?" Ryan finally asked.

  "I was thinking I'd go into town and get us a nice two-inch steak. How about barbecued beef, a green salad, and garlic bread, and the best red wine I can find?"

  "I'd like that."

  Lucinda went below and changed out of Linda's bathing suit, into a pair of Linda's shorts and a cropped top that she'd found in a drawer under the forward bunk. She jumped into the rubber Avon boat, started the five-horse outboard engine, and went to buy dinner. On the way into Avalon, she wondered if the nightmare was over for them, or just beginning. .

  Chapter 44

  PUDGE

  Vice President James "Pudge" Anderson watched the returns from the vice presidential residence at the naval observatory on Massachusetts Avenue. He had just finished his own southern swing through the Super Tuesda y s tates, but had decided to go back to Washington an d w atch the returns from there. The Republican primary wa s n ot much of a contest. He had no real opposition. He ha d t he party backing and the influence of the sitting President, Charles "King" Cotton. What annoyed him was the networks' profuse enthusiasm for Haze Richards, especiall y f rom this new black anchor, Dale Hellinger, at UBC.

  Pudge had called his own campaign manager, Carl "Henny" Henderson.

  "You watching this, Henny?" Pudge asked.

  "Y' mean the Haze Richards runaway railroad?"

  "Yeah. This guy was cooking lobsters last month and now he's gonna make America work again for all of us."

  "Don't let it get to ya, Pudge. This is their night. We're not a story 'cause you're running more or less unopposed. The good news is Skatina is gonna drop out I just got off the phone with his guys. They were told by their backers they hadda win tonight or the money was gonna dry up.

  So he's out. I'd rather run against Haze than Skatina any day, 'specially since Skatina is from your state, New York, and he could split us there. Let these guys soak in the glory tonight and tomorrow we're gonna start the bimborama."

  "I don't like doing that, Henny. We oughta be able to win on our record, on our ideas." Pudge was a rare breed of politician who always kept his sense of honor elevated a notch or two above his need to win. The big problem was that James Anderson was colorless. His own staff joked that Pudge was so nondescript he could lose a tail in an elevator. But, even so, his life had been a steady climb to power.

  He had been fascinated by politics since he was a child. His father had been a three-term United States senator. Pudge had gone to Ivy League colleges and had fought in the Korean War, starting in Seoul as a green lieutenant and ending up as a battle-hardened company commander. He won two Purple Hearts and a Silver Star, but after being wounded, he refused to let them send him home, choosing to recover in Seoul and remain with his unit until his hitch was up. That story defined him. Pudge had been his nickname since grade school. He was no longer a plump sixth-grader, but the name still somehow stuck.

  Pudge had risen slowly in the party, but eventually people became dependent on him, finally realizing what a steady force the dedicated young man was, and he was elected to Congress.

  Four years ago, Charles "King" Cotton asked him to join the Republican ticket. King didn't need a colorful vice president; he had enough color for a Florida sunset. What he needed was regional balance, and the New York congressman got the nod. Then halfway through his first term, King Cotton had developed prostate cancer. Pudge knew that the charismatic, white-haired President was dying. That was how the fattest kid in the sixth grade came to be running, unopposed, on the Republican ballot for the presidency of the
United States.

  "I don't want to start a bimbo attack," Pudge repeated to Henny Henderson.

  "You say that now, but we gotta throw some dynamite, Pudge. I don't think Haze is much to worry about, but we gotta unwind some of this precious bullshit. 'Make America work again,' and then he rides into town like Clark Kent and gets lucky with the Teamsters in your home state. That sets him up for voters. They think he can perform in a crisis, but this guy has a pretty damn good performance record in a bedroom, too."

  "Let's get him on his voting record."

  "There's nothing to look at. You gotta let me do my thing, Pudge."

  "We'll talk in the morning," Pudge said, hanging up and switching around to the various networks, ending on UBC.

  "We're going to call the Republican primaries for Vice President Anderson in all twenty states, as expected," Dale Hellinger announced. "But the big news, the roller-coaster ride here at campaign central, is the overwhelming night that Haze Richards has had for the Democrats. We might even call it a history-making event, a landslide Democratic primary victory for Haze Richards in all twenty states with margins that are absolutely stunning."

  Pudge wanted to keep from toting out the bimbos that Henny had found. But by ten o'clock, as state after state set record Democratic wins for Governor Richards, he wondered if bimbos might end up being his last line of defense.

  Anita Richards felt deserted and lied to. AJ. had told her Haze couldn't win. She took a long gulp of vodka out of the cut crystal glass. She had stopped putting in ice two hours ago, and now, as she swallowed it, she sloshed some of the clear liquid on her pink robe. She looked down at her painted toenails. The last delicate appendages on Anita Richards, they were attached to plump feet and stocky ankles. Suddenly her toes went in and out of focus.

  "Shit," she said out loud, "I'm drunk." Then she closed her eyes and got a bad case of bed spin. She opened her eyes and the room swung like a chandelier in a windstorm.

  "Anita is elated," Haze was saying happily on TV. "She and I have worked long and hard for this day. It's her victory as much as mine."

  Anita held on to the bed and her sanity with tearful desperation.

  Chapter 45

  DISCOVERY

  It was just before sunset when Lucinda ran the rubber Avon up to the dinghy dock in Avalon Harbor. The harbor reminded her of an Old World painting. The ba y w as a huge horseshoe with red-and-white mooring can s s trung in the water in semicircular rows like party decorations. A brightly painted green pier and a turn-of-the — century dance hall stood guard on opposite sides of th e b ay. It was the off-season and the boat traffic was light.

  She tied up the dinghy and walked on bare feet into the tourist section of town and asked an island policeman to direct her to a good meat market.

  "Tannyhill's, on the corner of Descanso and Third, is my favorite. They're open till ten," he answered.

  "Thank you," she said. "And is there a hospital on the island?"

  "Right up Falls Canyon Road." He pointed at a narrow street that wound up the hill.

  She decided to go to the hospital first. She needed to find a doctor soon to look at Ryan's leg.

  The Avalon Municipal Hospital was a Mexican-style one-story structure with an arched front door and a red file roof. Lucinda opened the screen door and looked into a bare but clean reception area.

  "Anybody here?" She heard a door slam, and then a young woman wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt came in from the back and stuck her hand out.

  "I'm Dr. Andrea Lewis."

  "I'm Lauren," Lucinda said, suddenly deciding it would be a mistake to give her real name.

  "How can we help you, Lauren?"

  "My boyfriend has a bad leg and it was sewn up by a doctor back east, but it may need to have the dressing changed, and I was wondering if I could bring him in here and you could look, at it."

  "I'm not a specialist, but I'll be happy to have a look," Dr. Andrea Lewis said, smiling. "What kind of 'bad leg'?"

  "He was in an accident a few days ago. It got ripped open and they had to do a lot of reconstruction."

  "Sounds like he should be in a hospital. Where you staying?"

  "The motel in town," Lucinda lied, beginning to realize these questions could be dangerous if somebody came looking for them.

  "Which motel?"

  "The. . uh. . the little one. . "

  "The little one," Andrea repeated flatly, the smile fading.

  "Okay, look, we're not married and his parents are real strict, and he's afraid they're going to make him come home if they find him," she said, realizing how stupid it sounded the minute she said it.

  "If you want, I'll look at him. What's his name?"

  "Bill. Bill Williams." She was fucking this up terribly. She felt her face reddening. "Maybe we could come in the morning. . "

  "I'll be here," Dr. Lewis said. Lucinda smiled, then turned and got the hell out of the hospital. She could feel the doctor's eyes on her back as she moved down the road.

  She bought the steaks at Tannyhill's Market, and some frozen vegetables she could zap in the microwave, lettuce, and the ingredients for salad dressing. She got California Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon and watched as the clerk bagged it all and took fifty dollars of Elizabeth's money. As she left the market, she saw a pay phone across the street. Suddenly, she felt she had to talk to her mother. She crossed to the phone, took some change out of her pocket, and dialed her home in New Jersey. She could feel her heart pounding. If Mickey answered, she would just hang up, she reasoned. Her hands were shaking, but she needed to hear her mother's voice. The phone rang five times and she was about to hang up when Penny came on the line.

  "Mom, it's me. I wanted to tell you I'm okay and I'm sorry if I've made you worry."

  "Lucinda, where are you? I want you to come home."

  "I can't, Mom. I just can't. You have to trust me. But I miss you and I love you. And I'll call again, soon." "Come home, Lucinda," Penny said, her voice cracking w ith emotion. "I miss you, honey."

  "I can't, Mom. Please understand. I gotta go now, but don't worry about me. I just called to say I love you." She hung up quickly, unable to endure her mother's plead-. ing.

  She headed the small Avon into the light swells, and after a mile could see the ketch, lit by mastlight and moonlight. She pushed away her worries as she hurried back to fix Ryan's dinner.

  Mickey scrolled the Pin Tel until he found the number that had just called. He'd removed the phone speaker from the headset in his office two days ago, so his breathing would not betray him as he listened in on random calls. He had just overheard the conversation between his sister and mother. Lucinda had not given away her location, but the Pin Tel did.

  He picked up the phone and dialed the number on the printout screen. Mickey let it ring almost twenty times before a young man's voice came on the line.

  "What's happenin'?" the unfamiliar voice said. "Where is this phone?"

  "Pay phone, man. I was walking by, I picked it up." "Where is it?"

  "Catalina Island, across from Tannyhill's Market."

  By ten o'clock that night, the Ghost was on his way to California to finish the job Thirteen Weeks and New York Tony had both bungled.

  Chapter 46

  CRISIS

  Haze Richards and A. J. Teagarden left the Memphis Hilton at four-forty-five A. M., before anybody was awake. They rode in silence in the back of the hotel limousine in a dense fog, traveling down mist-wet streets toward the Memphis International Airport. They had a bi g p roblem to solve.

  They arrived at the private jet terminal a few minutes before five and were let out onto the field. The limo parked under the wing of their rented 737 and Haze and A. J. climbed the steps into the back of the empty plane.

  "This is fucked," Haze finally said when they were alone.

  A. J. was not sure how much to tell him. "How badly do you want to be President?"

  "Cut the shit." Haze slumped down in his window seat. "If she drags you throu
gh a divorce, it's over."

  Haze said nothing.

  "She doesn't think you're fit to govern. . Her words, not mine. This is a public relations nightmare. The press will feed on it. She'll get forced onto TV. She'll be angry, she'll accuse you of stuff, your female demographics will drop lower than a midget's balls."

  "Get off it." Haze glowered.

  "I'm not kidding. Your divorce is gonna make Burt and Lonnie's seem like a pillow fight. She's gonna rip you open. The gender gap it creates will be impossible to close."

  "Get to the point."

  "How bad do you want this? How far are you willing to go?" A. J. could feel his heart beating in his chest. He was powered by high-octane ambition. A. J. knew they were going to win the Democratic nomination, it was as good as secured. They had twenty-three states and two caucuses in Haze's pocket. With nobody left in the race, the nomination was theirs, unless Anita gave hope to the vanquished. If she filed divorce papers, A. J. knew that the four defeated candidates would be tempted to wait him out, to see how the polls reacted. Anita could kill his nomination. They had to stop her.

  "You gotta talk her out of it, like you did before," Haze said.

  "I'll try, but I lied to her and now she knows it. I probably used up my one ticket."

  "So, whatta we do?"

  "Delay her."

  They sat in silence as the steward stuck his head in the back. "Are you gentlemen buckled up?"

  "Yeah, let's go," A. J. said while the engines started and the plane taxied onto the runway.

  In minutes, they were thundering past the tower and climbing up, out of the low morning fog and breaking into the sunlight, heading east with the orange ball riding low off the starboard wing.

  "We delay her. . Why? What good does that do?" "I called Mickey," A. J. said, flatly.

  Haze looked at him, not sure what the ramifications of that call might be.

  "He said if we couldn't take care of it, he would." Haze was looking at the man he'd grown up with, wondering if it was possible they were talking about the same thing.