Mirror Image

inordinately happy.
    “Where the hell have you been?” Eddy was almost too livid to form the words.
    Tate answered with admirable composure. “I went to pick up Carole.”
    “That’s what Zee told us when we called the hotel,” Ralph said. He was no longer rattling change. “What possessed you to pull such a damn fool stunt? She said you’d left half an hour ago. What took so long?”
    “No place to park,” Tate said tersely, disliking this cross-examination. “Where are Jack and the others?”
    “Out front trying to keep the hounds at bay. Hear that?” Eddy pointed toward the auditorium, where the crowd could be heard stamping in beat to a patriotic march and chanting, “We want Tate! We want Tate!”
    “They’ll be all the more glad to see me,” Tate said calmly.
    “Here’s your speech.” Eddy tried to thrust several sheets of paper at him, but he refused to take them.
    He tapped the side of his head instead and said, “Here’s my speech.”
    “Don’t pull that disappearing act again,” Ralph warned him bossily. “It’s stupid not to let at least one of us know where you are at all times.”
    Dirk hadn’t said a word. His dark face was even darker with fury. It wasn’t aimed at Tate, but at Avery. He hadn’t taken his beady eyes off her since their breathless arrival. She had withstood his baleful glare with aplomb. When he finally spoke, his voice vibrated with rage. “From now on, Mrs. Rutledge, when you want to be screwed, do it on your time, not ours.”
    Tate, making a savage, snarling sound, launched himself against the other man. He would have knocked him off his feet if he hadn’t flattened him against the nearest wall. His forearm formed a bar as hard as steel against Dirk’s throat and his knee plowed high into his crotch. Dirk grunted with surprise and pain.
    “Tate, have you gone completely crazy?” Eddy shouted.
    He tried to remove Tate’s arm from Dirk’s throat, but it wouldn’t be budged. Tate’s nose wasn’t even an inch from Dirk’s. His face was smooth and blank with the singlemindedness of a man bent on murder. Dirk’s face, by contrast, was growing progressively bluer.
    “Tate, please,” Avery said desperately, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Never mind him. What he says doesn’t matter to me.”
    “For God’s sake, Tate.” Frantically, Eddy tried to wedge himself between the two men. “Let him go. Now’s not the time. Jesus, think!”
    “If you ever,” Tate said in a slow, throbbing voice, “
ever
insult my wife like that again, you’ll die choking on it. You got that, you son of a bitch?” He dug into Dirk’s testicles with his knee. The man, whose small eyes were bugging with fear, bobbed his head as much as Tate’s arm beneath his chin would permit.
    Gradually, Tate’s arm relaxed. Dirk bent from the waist, clutching his balls, coughing and sputtering. Ralph rushed to assist his cohort. Tate smoothed back his hair, turned to Eddy, and said coolly, “Let’s go.” He reached for Avery.
    She took his extended hand and followed him on stage.

Thirty-Eight
    Mandy insisted on substituting her nightgown for the T-shirt Tate gave her, even though it was long after midnight and closer to breakfast than bedtime.
    “Now you’re an honorary Dallas Cowboys cheerleader,” he said as he slipped it over her head.
    She admired the gaudy silver lettering on the front of her new shirt, then smiled up at him beguilingly. “Thank you, Daddy.” Yawning hugely, she retrieved Pooh Bear and dropped back onto her pillow.
    “She’s learning to be a woman, all right.”
    “Exactly what does that comment imply?” Avery asked him as they went into their bedroom on the other side of the parlor.
    “She took the goods, but didn’t come across with a hug or a kiss.”
    Avery propped her hands on her hips. “Should I warn the female voters that behind your public feminist stand on issues, you’re nothing but a rotten chauvinist at heart?”
    “Please don’t. I need all the votes I can get.”
    “I thought it went very well tonight.”
    “Once I got there, you mean.”
    “And before, too.” Her confidential inflection brought his head up. “Thank you for defending my honor, Tate.”
    “You don’t have to thank me for that.”
    They exchanged a long gaze before Avery turned away and began removing her clothes. She slipped into the bathroom, took a quick shower, put on a negligee, then relinquished the bathroom to Tate.
    Lying in bed, Avery