Beauty Queen

life is," said Maiy Ellen. "You don't approve of the things people do to us, do you?"
    "No, of course not," said Liv.
    "You don't like the way people talk at the post office where you work?"
    "No . . ."
    "We're going to have to do a little political stuff to get things changed," said Mary Ellen.
    She did not like lying to Liv. She did not like having a secret from Liv. She wondered if the satisfaction of getting rid of Colter was worth having to lie. Risking the loss of Liv was definitely not worth it.
    "Let's face it," she told herself. "I am not your typical assassin or hit man, am I?"
    Liv moved her shoulders suddenly as if she were cold, and clasped her arms around herself. "I do not like the way I feel," she said, tossing back her hair.
    Mary Ellen knew then that Liv wasn't able to truly read her thoughts. If she were, she would go straight to the closet and find the gun. At that moment, she knew that Liv's ESP was pretty good, but not as accurate as the crosshairs in a gunsight.
    Neither of them felt like making love, so they turned out the hght.
    Laying awake in the dark, Mary Ellen thought of her father, and Danny, and Sam, and Jewel, and Armando crying, and she realized all over again how angry she was.

Chapter 12
    Rumors drifted out through New York political circles that Jeannie Colter planned to seek the governorship. All the while, she was busy building the organization that would carry out her campaign.
    After many phone calls and breakfast meetings, she put together a twenty-one-person statewide Citizens for Jeannie Colter for Governor committee. These people were active Republicans around the state whose abilities and loyalties she knew—around them, twenty-one field offices would be built. The office in Manhattan was now her campaign headquarters. Actually, she would have liked to transfer her headquarters out of that evil city, and up to Pawling. But for image purposes, and out of a desire not to offend the many voters in Greater New York, she left it there.
    As a result of diligent fund-raising, the money was coming in. She had $500,000 in the campaign account. Of course, she was spending it rapidly, so money would continue to be a crisis.
    Volunteers were starting to come to the Manhattan office, hoping to work for the Colter organization. It was heartening to see how many of them were staunch young Republicans. During the 1960s people had formed an image of young people as liberal or leftist, irresponsible and immoral. Not so. She felt flattered to have attracted such solid young people.
    For instance, just yesterday, an unusual young woman had come in to the Park Avenue headquarters, and wanted to work for Jeannie as a personal bodyguard.
    She told Gertrude her name was Mary Ellen Frampton. She was one of the police officers just laid off by the New York City Police Department. As a recommendation, she gave the name of Captain Mark Bader, in the police department.
    Gertrude had been somewhat amazed and taken aback at the idea of meeting a female police officer in the flesh.
    But Mary Ellen seemed like such a soft-spoken efficient person, dressed so modestly, and she quoted so glowingly from the Bible that Gertrude had picked up the phone and called Captain Bader. The police captain had described her as a hard worker, a no-nonsense type, and added, "Incidentally, she is a crack shot, and a black belt in kung fu. I'd think she'd be most valuable to Mrs. Colter."
    So Gertrude had spoken to Jeannie about it, the next time Jeannie was back in New York, fresh from speeches upstate.
    Jeannie, too, had been intrigued, and asked Gertrude to telephone the young woman for an interview.
    Part of her felt that it wasn't proper for a woman to work in a police force, or carry a gun. But part of her—that part that Reverend Irving called "bossy," that refused to submit to men, that broke fellowship with the true-blue all-out fundamentalist Baptist types—that part of her that, in her more lucid moments she recognized as unsaved and infidel, that part of her found Mary Ellen intriguing.
    Mary Ellen walked softly into Jeannie's office and sat down with the easy grace of someone who was very fit.
    She was wearing a white short-sleeved blouse, a denim skirt that came below the knee, white golf socks with little pompoms on the back, and faded blue sneakers. Her hair was neither short nor long, and looked like it was naturally curly. It framed a lovely fine-cut face with a strong jaw and wide gray eyes. She had a