Mirror Image

dinner at a local restaurant. You’ll retire.”
    “Do I get to tee-tee and brush my teeth first? I mean, between dinner and retiring?”
    Everyone laughed. Eddy didn’t think Tate’s wisecrack was funny. “Tuesday morning, we’ll travel en masse to your precinct box in Kerrville, vote, then return here to sweat it out.”
    Tate wrestled the banana peel away from Mandy, who was sliding her index finger down its squishy lining and collecting the gunk beneath her fingernail. “I’m going to win.”
    “Don’t get overconfident. The polls still show you two points behind Dekker.”
    “Think where we started, though,” Tate reminded him, his gray eyes twinkling. “I’m going to win.”
    On that optimistic note, the meeting concluded. Nelson and Zee went to their room to lie down and rest. Tate had to work on a speech he was delivering at a Spanish-speaking church later in the evening. Dorothy Rae had talked Jack into going with her for a stroll along the Riverwalk.
    Fancy waited until everyone dispersed, then followed Eddy to his room, which was a few doors down from the command post, as she called Tate’s suite. After her soft knock, he called out, “Who is it?”
    “Me.”
    He opened the door but didn’t even hold it for her. He turned his back and headed for the closet, where he took out a fresh shirt. She closed the door and flipped the dead bolt.
    “Why don’t you just leave your shirt off?” She leaned into him suggestively and teased one of his nipples with the tip of her tongue.
    “I don’t think it would be too suave to show up at campaign headquarters without a shirt on.” He crammed his arms through the starched sleeves and began buttoning up.
    “You’re going there now?”
    “That’s right.”
    “But it’s Sunday.”
    He cocked his eyebrow. “Don’t tell me you’ve started observing the Lord’s day.”
    “I was in church this morning, same as you.”
    “And for the same reason,” he said. “Because I told everybody they had to go. Didn’t you see the television cameras recording Tate’s piety for their viewing voters?”
    “I was praying.”
    “Oh, sure.”
    “Praying that your dick would rot and drop off,” she said with fierce passion. He merely laughed. When he began stuffing his shirttail into his trousers, Fancy tried to stop him. “Eddy,” she whined contritely, “I didn’t come here to fight with you. I’m sorry for what I just said. I want to be with you.”
    “Then come to the headquarters with me. I’m sure there’s plenty of work to do.”
    “It wasn’t work I had in mind.”
    “Sorry, that’s what’s on the agenda from now till election day.”
    Her pride could only take so much abuse. “You’ve been brushing me off for weeks now,” she said, her fists finding props on her hips. “What gives with you?”
    “You have to ask?” He ran a brush through his pale hair. “I’m trying to get your Uncle Tate elected to the U.S. Congress.”
    “Screw the U.S. Congress!”
    “I’m sure you would,” he said wryly. “If you had a chance, you’d give every member of the legislature blue balls. Now, Fancy, you’ll have to excuse me.”
    He reached for the door. She blocked his path, pleading again, “Don’t go, Eddy. Not just yet, anyway. Stay a while. We could order up some beers, have a few laughs.” Wiggling against him, nudging his pelvis with hers, she purred, “Let’s make love.”
    “Love?” he scoffed.
    She grabbed his hand and drew it beneath her skirt toward her crotch. “I’m already wet.”
    He pulled his hand away, bodily lifted her out of his path, and set her down behind him. “You’re always wet, Fancy. Peddle it somewhere else. Right now, I’ve got better things to do.”
    Fancy gaped at the closed door, then hurled the first available thing her hand landed on, which happened to be a glass ashtray. She threw it with all her might, but it only bounced against the door without breaking and landed dully on the carpeted floor. That enraged her even more.
    She’d never been so summarily rejected. Nobody, but nobody, turned down Fancy Rutledge when she was hot. She stormed out of Eddy’s room, stayed in hers only long enough to change into a tight sweater and even tighter jeans, then went to the hotel garage and retrieved her Mustang.
    She was damned if she was going to stop living for the sake of this confounded Senate race.
    * * *
    “It’s me. Anything happening?”
    “Hello, Irish.” Van rubbed his bloodshot