stable and the weathered smokehouse leaning into the depression where we put the oak logs, and then the white house itself with the latticework verandah and the rosebushes and poplar trees along the front lane. We dipped suddenly over the post oaks by Cappie’s cabin and hit the pasture in a spray of mud and grass across the front windows. The wheels went deep into the wet ground, the tail lifted momentarily into the air, and the pilot gunned the engines to keep us in a straight line across the pasture, although he couldn’t see anything in front of him. Water and mud streaked across the side windows, then one wheel sunk in a soft spot and we spun in a sliding half circle, with one engine feathered, against the white fence that separated my side lawn and the pasture.
The pilot feathered the other engine and wiped his face on his sleeve. Bailey had spilled the bottle of sloe gin over his slacks.
“Do you have a hard drink inside?” the pilot said.
“If you drink Jack Daniel’s,” I said.
I opened the cabin door, and the rain blew into our faces. We climbed over the white fence and ran across the lawn through the oak trees to the front porch. The Senator’s limousine with the tinted windows was parked on the gravel lane. The poplar trees were arched in the wind, and magnolia leaves and rose petals were scattered across the grass. One of Verisa’s large earthen flowerpots had fallen from the upstairs verandah, and the soft dirt and cracked pottery lay in a pile on the front steps. It seemed a long time since I had been home; maybe the house looked strange to me because the Senator’s car was parked in front, but even the worn vertical line of bullet holes in the porch column seemed new, as though Was Hardin had drilled them there only yesterday.
I took the pilot through the front hall into my library and opened a bottle of whiskey for him and filled a silver bucket with ice cubes. He sat in my leather chair, his wet cigarette still in his mouth, and poured the glass half full without water.
“I usually stay on a formal basis with my passengers,” he said, his face fatigued over the raised glass, “but are you guys on a kamikaze mission or something?”
I closed the door behind me without answering, and walked into the living room. The Senator was sitting in the deer-hide chair by the bar, dressed in blue slacks and a gray golf shirt with a highball balanced on his crossed knee (the whiskey was just enough to color the water). His tan was darker than when I had seen him last, and his mowed white hair moved slightly in the soft current from the air conditioner. John Williams leaned against the bar with his sunglasses on, tall, the face pale and as unnatural-looking as smooth rubber, and his tan suit hung on him without a line or crease in it. Verisa sat on the couch in a sundress she had bought three weeks ago at Neiman Marcus, and if she had a hangover from the alcohol or the sedation she had done a wonderful job of burying it inside her. Her auburn hair was brushed back against her shoulders, the makeup on her face made her look fresh and cool, and she lay back comfortably against the cushions with the stem of her wineglass between her fingers as though she were at a D.A.R. cocktail party. But there was also a quick glint in her eyes when I walked into the room, and I knew she was looking forward to a painful retribution on my part.
The Senator rose from his chair and shook hands with me. His blue eyes wrinkled at the corners when he smiled, and his hand was as square and hard as a bricklayer’s.
“You’ve had an eventful weekend,” he said.
“It was probably exaggerated by the television boys,” I said.
“I don’t believe there was any camera distortion there. Do you?” The acetylene-blue eyes wrinkled again so that it was impossible to read them. “But, anyway, you know John Williams.”
“Mr. Holland,” Williams said, and raised his glass.
“Hi.”
“I’m enjoying your taste in whiskey.”
“Help yourself to a bucket of it,” I said.
“Thank you. I think I will,” he said, and smiled somewhere behind his sunglasses.
“In fact, take a case with you. I have a crate of limes on the back porch to go with it.”
The room was silent a moment. Bailey looked at the floor, his brown windbreaker dark with rain, then went behind the bar and raked a mint julep glass through the ice bin.
“You want water in it, Hack?” he said.
“Give it to Mr. Williams. I’m changing my taste in whiskey.”
“Maybe I had better wait on the porch,” Williams said.
“There’s no need for that,” the Senator said, and his blue eyes moved onto my face again.
“Hell, no,” I said. “That’s a real storm out there, Mr. Williams. Enough to short out all the electric circuits on an ICBM.”
I despised him and what he represented, and I let him have a good look at the anger I felt toward his presence in my home. He finished his drink and clicked his glass on the bar.
“I think it’s better, Allen,” he said.
“Fix John another drink,” the Senator said to Bailey.
“Get some limes, too, Bailey,” I said.
“For one afternoon would you talk without your histrionics?” Verisa said.
“I haven’t had much of a chance to talk today. Bailey has spent the last two hours giving me the south Texas sonofabitch award.”
“This doesn’t have to be unpleasant, Hack,” the Senator said.
“Talking reasonably is beyond him,” Verisa said. “It violates some confirmed principle he has about offending other people.”
“Give Mr. Williams a drink, Bailey,” I said. “See about the pilot, too. I think he’s getting plowed.”
“Well, we won’t drag it out then, Hack,” the Senator said. “The state committee called last night and asked me if we should drop you and run a boy from Gonzales. I told them that we would still carry the district no matter who runs, and I want you in the House in January.”
“That’s good of you, Senator, but I wonder why we all have this intense commitment to my career,” and I looked right through the wrinkled light in his eyes.
“Because I feel an obligation to your father, who was a good friend to me. I think what you’ve done is irresponsible, but with time you’ll probably make a fine congressman.”
“I’m afraid that I’m through with political fortunes.”
“That’s a lovely attitude at this point,” Verisa said.
“I believe Hack is still a little angry with Rio Grande policemen,” the Senator said. “Actually, we may have picked up more of the union vote, and your arrest won’t hurt you with the Negroes and the Mexicans. The important factor is that we make use of it before the Republican gentleman does.”
“Sorry. I think that boy from Gonzales would be a better bet.”
“You’re everything I expected today,” Verisa said.
“How about the car planted against the fence?”
“You’re lovely just as you are. It couldn’t have been more anticipated,” she said.
“I want to finish this, Hack,” the Senator said. “I plan to talk to the committee this afternoon and give them your assurance about the rest of the campaign.”
“I don’t think you should do that, Senator.”
“The assault charge can be taken care of,” he said. “It will probably involve a small appointment in Austin, but it’s a simple matter.”
He had still chosen not to hear me, and I felt the anger rising inside me.
“Don’t you realize what’s being done for you?” Bailey said from behind the bar. “Try to think about it a minute. You committed a felony yesterday that could get you disbarred or even sent to jail.”
“No, I don’t realize a damn thing, because I have an idea that all this investment in me isn’t out of goodwill and old friendships. What do you think, Mr. Williams?”
He sipped from his fresh drink with a sprig of mint leaves in it, rested his arm on the bar, and looked at me from behind his sunglasses. The texture of his skin was the most unnatural I had ever seen on a human being.
“I think it would save time if the case was explained to you a little more candidly,” he said.
The Senator looked at Williams, and momentarily I saw the same uncomfortable flicker in his eyes that I had seen on the trip to Washington when I had realized that predators came in various sizes. He paused a moment, then turned back to me before Williams could speak again, his fingers pressed on the highball glass.
“Possibly your alternatives aren’t as clear or easy as you might believe, Hack,” he said. “I’ve made some
