lean thighs a tad less lean, her round bottom a bit rounder. But then, what did she expect? You can't eat a triple chocolate ice cream cone with the kids every night and keep your girlish figure.
Lindsay did not know how long she had lain there, how long she had cried or how many prayers she had said, but the rain had stopped and the sun had appeared when she raised her head. She wiped her eyes clear of the rain and her tears and looked to the east. Downriver.
She saw a man, a boy, and a dog.
They walked on the bluff toward her. She pushed herself up and ran to them. She stumbled and fell twice, but she did not stop until she threw herself into Jesse Rincon's arms.
TWENTY-SIX
Jesse stopped the truck at the gate in the border wall. Two Border Patrol agents stood guard. The one named Rusty walked over to Jesse's window. Lindsay averted her face.
'Mornin', Doc. They're waiting on you.'
'Who?'
'More TV folks. You're getting pretty famous these days.'
It had been a week since the storm. They river had quickly returned to normal and the land to drought, as if the storm had never happened. They cleared the gate and drove down the dirt road and into the colonia. They found a TV truck parked outside the clinic with the satellite boom extended high into the sky-'More of Mayor Gutierrez's Mexican Mafia,' Jesse said-and Inez waiting out front. She was wearing her faded blue dress and way too much make-up.
'She hopes to be discovered,' Lindsay said.
'In this colonia? '
Inez hurried over to the truck with a frantic expression on her face.
'Doctor, you must hurry! They have been waiting!'
'That morning show interview?'
'Yes! Live on national TV!'
'But, Inez, you do not have a television.'
'I can dream.'
They got out of the truck. Lindsay threw the satchel over her shoulder and walked down the dirt road. Jesse watched her, a moment too long for Inez's liking.
'Doctor! Hurry!'
She grabbed his arm and pulled him inside.
Jim Bob Burnet's office smelled like McDonald's. Eddie Jones had brought breakfast that morning. They now ate Egg McMuffins. Eddie had come to Austin to lay low after those incidents involving civilians in Iraq, which was fortunate for Jim Bob; he would soon collect on his insurance policy.
Spread across his desk were magazines and newspapers from around the country with Bode Bonner's image on the front cover and front page. And each story cited James Robert Burnet, Ph. D., as the genius behind the Republican machine in Texas, the man with his finger on the pulse of politics in Texas. 'The next Karl Rove.'
Bode Bonner had transcended politics. He now occupied that rarified airspace of an American icon. He had survived an assassination attempt by Mexican hit men in broad daylight, and he had shot and killed his three assailants. It was a scene straight out of a Hollywood action-thriller. Bode Bonner was a real-life American action- hero.
Which worried Jim Bob Burnet.
Because while the American people loved their heroes, the American press loved to bring their heroes down. Especially a conservative Republican hero. The liberal media would not allow a Republican hero to succeed in politics today. They would attack him-or her, in Sarah Palin's case-relentlessly. She's stupid, she's inexperienced, she's racist, she's dangerous. The press knew that if they repeated a lie a hundred times every day for a hundred days, it became the truth. Then that flock of sheep known as the American people would believe it. Know it. Vote it.
It was a short journey from man of the people to scorned by the people.
They were a fickle crowd, the middle class. The rich and the poor shared the same motivation when it came to politics: money. The poor voted to get more money from the government; the rich voted to keep more money from the government. It was that simple for them. But the middle class, their motivations were more complex, more fluid, more fickle. They didn't vote on money alone. Sometimes it seemed as if they voted on everything but money: abortion, gun control, gay marriage. Family values. Social values. Christian values. American values. The rich and the poor worked overtime to destroy any social values still standing in America, so the middle class voted to restore those values. Which had proved an exercise in utter futility, but that had not stopped the middle class from trying.
Every election.
Consequently, pollsters across America constantly tried to find the pulse of the middle-class voter, which usually proved impossible. Their views changed daily, hourly, apparently in response to the latest story on the evening news or Entertainment Tonight. But one response to the polls that came through loud and clear: the middle class demanded a presidential candidate who portrayed family-social-Christian-American values, whatever that might be at the moment.
Not someone who betrayed those values.
So Jim Bob had examined Bode Bonner's middle-class values index and found it lacking in three distinct areas: (a) his daughter was a lesbian; (b) his wife had left him; and (c) he had a twenty-seven-year-old mistress. He could explain away (a) and (b), but Mandy Morgan was simply too gorgeous to explain away. Middle-class men might envy Bode Bonner, but their middle-class wives would hate him. And they would not vote for him. He would lose the election because of her. If Mandy Morgan were exposed as Bode Bonner's mistress.
Or should he say, when.
Jim Bob knew it was only a matter of time. He had no doubt-none at all-that at that very moment, somewhere out there, those sneaky liberal media bastards were readying an all-out attack on Bode Bonner, American hero. That's what they do.
And they would do it to him.
He knew the press had people poking into every nook and cranny of Bode Bonner's life. And everyone in his life. They would eventually happen upon Mandy Morgan. They would learn the truth. They always did. And when they did-when the images and stories were splashed across the televisions of America, the middle class would feel betrayed yet again. Bode Bonner, American hero, would be revealed as just another Republican hypocrite, preaching family values while screwing a girl young enough to be his daughter. And they would not vote for him. He wouldn't make it out of Iowa. So Jim Bob Burnet, chief political strategist for the leading Republican presidential candidate, had come to a tough decision.
Bode Bonner must end his affair with Mandy Morgan.
Jim Bob glanced over at the TV in the corner; it was on, but the volume muted. He wanted to catch the morning news headlines. But the screen showed a female reporter standing in a desolate scene of shanties and shacks with a river behind her. The byline read: 'Colonia on the Rio Grande outside Laredo, Texas.' Jim Bob pointed the remote at the TV and increased the volume. The reporter-a pretty Latina-spoke into a handheld microphone.
'They all fly into the Laredo International Airport, rent a car, and drive west on Mines Road to an unmarked dirt road that leads south to the eighteen-foot-tall border wall.'
A video played on the screen.
'They drive through the gates and another mile to Colonia Angeles. It is as if they are believers journeying to a holy shrine. But they are television and print journalists coming to interview Jesse Rincon. He remains bewildered by the attention, but the colonias need the money the attention brings, so he grants the interviews. I too have come to meet Jesse Rincon this day.'
The screen now switched to a live shot of the reporter and a Latino in a white lab coat.
