"You're a fucking Nazi!"
She replaced the ear bud, pivoted, and jogged away. Bode watched her tight buns bob down the trail.
After a long moment, Ranger Hank said, "You want I should arrest her?"
"For what?"
"Being a Democrat."
Bode exhaled and felt all the hormones and endorphins drain from his forty-seven-year-old body.
"If only it were a crime, Hank. If only it were a crime."
Ranger Hank drew the Taser from his holster.
"Can I at least Tase her? Fifty thousand volts, she won't speak in complete sentences for a week."
Eleven blocks north, Jim Bob Burnet sat in the Governor's Mansion watching Fox News, which ran 24/7 on the television in his office. He pointed at the screen.
"You want to go national in the Republican Party, that's the ticket."
Eddie Jones slouched on the couch.
"You can't get the boss on?"
"Another governor from Texas is the last thing the party wants at the top of the ballot."
Consequently, Jim Bob did not encourage Bode Bonner in that direction. What was the point? Just as he had wondered when his father had encouraged chubby little Jimmy Bob Burnet to play football at Comfort High.
"So this is it for him?" Eddie said. "Governor of the great State of Mexico?"
"If he were governor of Montana or Colorado or even Okla-fuckin'-homa, he'd be the leading presidential candidate. He's a regular Roy Hobbs."
"Who?"
"From that baseball movie, The Natural. Bode Bonner's a natural. He's got it all. The looks, the style, the voice-the man was born for the White House. But he was also born in Texas. And after George W., that disqualifies a candidate."
"That don't seem fair."
"This is politics, not preschool."
But it wasn't fair. Jim Bob Burnet had long ago accepted the fact that he would live and die in Bode Bonner's considerable shadow. But he could not abide the fact that he would also live and die in Karl Rove's shadow. Rove took his man to the White House; Jim Bob would not. When people spoke of politics and the making of presidents, Rove would always be the man from Texas. It seemed so unjust. Jim Bob had a Ph. D. in politics; Rove had never even graduated college. But Rove had George W. Bush-a candidate with a pedigree-and in politics that was a hell of a lot more important than a college diploma. A political strategist was just a jockey-he was only as good as the horse he was riding. Rove rode George W. from the Governor's Mansion all the way to the White House where they proceeded to make LBJ look good when it came to presidents from Texas, and that was full-time work. When media types asked Jim Bob about Rove's political genius, he always wanted to say, "Well, Rove proved his genius advising one American president-how'd that work out for America?" But Rove still cast a dark shadow over Texas, so Jim Bob kept his mouth shut. And his dreams shuttered.
There would be no White House for Jim Bob Burnet.
So, even though his candidate regularly repeated his desire to jump into the national political waters, Jim Bob talked him down from the ledge every time. Because the only thing worse than not taking your candidate national was taking him national and watching him fail spectacularly. Consequently, Jim Bob had resigned himself to a career of getting the Republican governor of Texas reelected every four years for the rest of his life-not exactly the work of genius-and teaching a class on politics at the LBJ School of Public Affairs. State politics. Not federal politics. Texas, not Washington. Minor leagues, not the majors. He often felt like a baseball pitcher with a ninety-eight-mile-an-hour fastball stuck in the minors his entire career. Sure, he was playing baseball, but…
"So, Professor, what exactly is my job description?" Eddie said.
"Odd jobs."
"Odd jobs?"
Jim Bob nodded. "Your skill set uniquely qualifies you to handle certain tasks for me during the governor's campaign for reelection."
Eddie Jones was not educated or refined or possessed of a particularly pleasing personality, but he was handy to have around when it was dark out.
"Like what?"
"I don't know yet. But things always come up during the course of a campaign that require special attention. Unforeseen things. Unexpected things. Unpleasant things that require an unpleasant man."
Jim Bob Burnet would never get his candidate into the White House, but he sure as hell wouldn't have his candidate kicked out of the Governor's Mansion. So he had hired Eddie Jones as an insurance policy of sorts. The sort of insurance seldom needed but which could prove career-saving if needed. A stop-loss policy. The business of politics was often unpleasant and often required an unpleasant man. He turned to the TV. The news returned from commercial break to a female Yale law professor arguing in favor of ObamaCare. They listened for a minute, then Jim Bob pointed the remote and muted her voice.
"Damn," Eddie said, "that bitch's voice sounds like the brakes on an old Ford pickup I had back in high school. And she's ugly as sin to boot. Hope to hell for her sake she can suck a tennis ball through a garden hose, otherwise she's gonna have to pay a man to screw her. Cash money."
Yes, Jim Bob thought, Eddie Jones was the right man for the job.
"The governor, he is a very lucky man," Congressman Delgado said, "to have such a wife as you. And that I am not thirty years younger, for I would take you away from him."
"You're very sweet, Congressman. And thank you for the late lunch."
Lindsay Bonner was still high on adrenaline when she and Ranger Roy followed Congressman Delgado into his downtown Laredo office situated on the north bank of the Rio Grande. The receptionist took one look at the blood on her suit and jumped up.
"Mrs. Bonner-are you okay?"
"I'm fine."
She was more than fine. She was a nurse again. At least for a day.
"She saved a boy's life," the congressman said.
"The doctor saved his life. I helped."
"You were amazing. Awesome, as the young people say. It was very exciting-would the boy live or die?"
"What boy?" the receptionist asked.
"Mexican boy," the congressman said. "He works for a cartel, probably Los Muertos. The federales shot him. They could not take him to a hospital, so they brought him to the clinic. Jesse and Mrs. Bonner, they opened the boy's chest right there in the clinic-oh, Claudia, you should have seen all the blood. Yes, it was quite a day."
Ranger Roy's eyes had lit up at the sight of the congressman's pretty receptionist. So, like a good mother, Lindsay left her son to his awkward attempts at romance. She followed the congressman into his office. They had come back to retrieve their overnight bags. The state jet would be at the airport in an hour, and she would be back in the Governor's Mansion in two. Back in her prison, as if she had been given a twenty-four-hour furlough. She had escaped for a day and remembered how much she missed her old life. She had helped save a boy's life.
"Why would he work for a drug cartel?"
The congressman gestured her to the floor-to-ceiling window facing Mexico.
"Because on that side of the river, there is no one else to work for. The two main sources of income for Mexicans are money sent home by relatives working in the U.S. and drug money. The sad truth is, Mrs. Bonner, the Mexican economy would collapse without drug money. Even here in Laredo and other border towns on our side, the economy is driven by drug money. The cartel lieutenants, they pay cash to buy big homes over here because the neighborhoods are safer and the schools are better. They raise their families and coach their kids' soccer teams in Laredo and commute each day to work in Nuevo Laredo."