“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 eyes while cradling the telephone receiver against his ear. “I just got in a while ago. Rutledge spoke at a greaser church tonight.”
“I know. How’d it go?”
“They loved him better’n hot tamales.”
“Was Avery there?”
“Everybody was except the girl, Fancy, all looking as pure as Ivory soap.”
“Did Avery get to talk to you?”
“No. There was a throng of jabbering Mex’cans around them.”
“What about Gray Hair? Any sign of him?”
Van weighed the advisability of telling Irish the truth and decided in favor of it. “He was there.”
Irish muttered a string of curses. “Didn’t he stick out like a sore thumb in a Hispanic crowd?”
“He was outside, jockeying for position like the rest of us.”
“He posed as media?”
“That’s right.”
“Did you get close to him?”
“Tall dude. Mean face.”
“Mean?”
“Stern. No nonsense.”
“A hit man’s face.”
“We’re only guessing.”