The Governor's wife

He lowered his voice.

'I like the red hair on a woman, too.'

He snapped his fingers again, and he and his men headed to the door; but the man turned back.

' Hasta la vista. '

Until we meet again. He disappeared through the door. Lindsay stood and carried the child over to the doctor.

'Who was that?'

The doctor hesitated a moment before he said, 'That was El Diablo.'

'You devil.'

Mandy was in a naughty mood. Two girlie drinks and that gal turned randy. She performed a little striptease, dropping her thong and flinging it across the room with her foot, then stepped down into the hot tub holding her pina colada aloft. The warm water made her skin flush pink, which rendered her even more attractive. She slid over to Bode and sat on his lap then kissed him. She tasted of coconut and rum and smelled of his teenage years. She sipped her drink with one hand and reached down with her other hand and stroked him. It was too late to shoot anything that day, so he had swallowed a Viagra pill with his third Dos Equis. Now, between Mandy's skilled hands and the little blue pill, Bode Bonner had a pretty fair erection working when someone knocked on the door.

' Senor gobernador? '

Pedro.

'Yes?'

Pedro cracked the door and spoke without entering the room.

'A phone call has come for you. Ranger Roy? He is on line five.'

Bode searched the room and found the phone on a small table between a chair and a towel shelf.

' Gracias. '

Pedro shut the door. Bode climbed out of the hot tub and walked the few paces to the phone. The lodge was too isolated for cell phone service, so it was either land lines or satellite phones. Bode grabbed a towel and wiped sweat from his face then put the receiver to his ear and punched the blinking light.

'Yeah, Roy?'

'Uh, Governor, we, uh… we can't find your wife.'

'The hell you mean, you can't find my wife?'

'She took off in your Suburban soon as you took off in the Gulfstream. We haven't seen her since. It's almost dark. We can't get her on her cell phone.'

'Aw, hell, she's probably down at the homeless shelter.'

'We checked.'

'Food bank?'

'Nope.'

'AIDS clinic?'

' Nada.'

'Oh, I know-she's probably at that elementary school in East Austin.'

'It's closed.'

'Goddamnit, Roy, you're supposed to be her fucking bodyguard!'

'Yes, sir.'

'Which requires that you know her whereabouts at all times, in order to guard her body.'

'Governor, you know I'd never let nothing bad happen to Mrs. Bonner. They'd have to kill me first.'

His voice cracked. Bode sighed.

'I know, Roy.'

'But don't worry, Governor, we're pretty sure she wasn't kidnapped.'

' Kidnapped? Why the hell would you think she's been kidnapped?'

'We don't.'

'Then why'd you bring it up?'

'Uh, in case you were thinking it.'

'I wasn't. But I am now.'

'Oh.'

'Find her, Roy.'

Bode hung up and looked down. He wasn't really worried about his wife being kidnapped, but he had lost his erection just the same.

Lindsay Bonner felt terrible. No doubt Ranger Roy was frantic by now, the governor's wife disappearing without a trace. He had probably already called the governor. That would have been a difficult call for Roy. She'd call him later that night when she returned to Laredo. There was no phone service in the colonias.

'We would celebrate with a caramel macchiato,' the doctor said, 'but there is no Starbucks here in the colonias. Can you believe that?'

The doctor smiled at his own joke. He poured her a cup of the coffee he had brewed at home and brought to the clinic in a tall thermos.

'When the helicopter took the boy away that day, I knew he was special. But El Diablo's son? I would never have dreamed that.'

'Would you have saved him if you had known?'

'Of course.'

'Will you keep all the medicine and supplies?'

'Of course. I did not make a deal with the devil, Mrs. Bonner. The devil simply made a gift-and not to me. To the people in the colonias.'

'The congressman said he gives away a billion dollars every year.'

'Yes, that is what they say.'

'So you didn't know him before today?'

'Everyone on the border knows of El Diablo. But I had never met him or even seen him. The Justice Department put a bounty on his head, so he does not often venture to this side of the river.'

He sat back and studied her. She knew the question he wanted to ask.

'Well, Mrs. Bonner, if you have come back for the census forms, Inez has helped over one thousand residents fill out the forms, but I have already mailed them in.'

'I didn't come back for the census forms.'

'Then for what?'

Now she studied him.

'Did you always want to be a doctor?'

He sipped his coffee.

'Yes. My uncle raised me in Nuevo Laredo. When I turned sixteen, he secured my admission to the Jesuit School in Houston. He told them I would make a good priest. But I wanted to be a doctor.'

'I wanted to be a nurse.'

'You are a fine nurse.'

'No. I'm the governor's wife.'

'Yes. You are indeed.'

'But I want to be a nurse again. Your nurse.'

' My nurse? Here, in the colonias? '

'Yes.'

'Why not in Austin?'

'Because in Austin, I'm the governor's wife. Everywhere in Texas, I'm the governor's wife. Everywhere except here.'

'You want to work here in the colonia? The governor's wife?'

'No one knows me here, and no one will know me.'

'I will know.'

'But only you. No one else will know. Not even your assistant.'

'Inez seems never to be here anyway. But your red hair-Mrs. Bonner, everyone in Texas knows the beautiful