The sign on the closed door read: THE GOVERNOR'S OFFICE.
Inside, Bode Bonner sat behind his desk flanked by Texas and U.S. flags on tall standards while Lupe ran the boar bristle brush through his thick blond hair then shielded his eyes and sprayed shellac until his hair could stand tall against a Texas twister. Guadalupe Sendejo was a squat, middle-aged Mexican national who had been in the Bonner family service since she was five. She now served as Bode's personal valet, ensuring that his hair was sprayed, his shirts starched, his suits pressed, and his boots polished. He had brought her over to Austin from the ranch four years before when he had won reelection and the job had taken on a more permanent feel. She held the mirror so he could examine her work, but the mirror caught Jim Bob's amused expression from the other side of the desk. Bode nodded at Lupe.
" Muy bueno. Gracias. "
Lupe grabbed the brush and hair spray and shut the door behind her. Bode sipped coffee from a mug with an image of his smiling face and Bode Bonner for Governor stenciled on the side and stared out the second-story windows. The stark white, Greek Revival-style Governor's Mansion and grounds occupied an entire city block at the corner of Eleventh and Colorado in downtown Austin, as it had for one hundred and fifty-five years. Sam Houston himself had sat in this office and gazed out those windows, which now offered a prime view of the pink granite State Capitol sitting catty-cornered across Eleventh Street. The Capitol dome glowed in the morning sunlight just as Jim Bob's bald head glowed under the fluorescent office lights. Add in the pasty skin and pockmarked complexion-the man's got a face like a bowl of oatmeal-and James Robert Burnet looked more like a registered sex offender than the ace political strategist for the governor of the great State of Texas. Bode exhaled loudly enough to get his attention.
"What's wrong now?" Jim Bob said.
At first Bode wasn't sure Jim Bob was talking to him. His strategist had an earpiece that looked like a hearing aid on steroids wrapped around his ear, a newspaper in his lap, and an iPhone in his hands. His head was bent over, and his fingers fiddled with the phone like a squirrel with an acorn. Jim Bob texted on his cell phone more than Bode's eighteen-year-old daughter, and he carried on phone conversations while also conversing with Bode, which annoyed the hell out of him. Bode addressed the top of Jim Bob's bare head.
"You talking to me?"
"No one else in the room."
"Then stop texting and talk to me."
"I'm not texting. I'm tweeting."
"Tweeting?"
"On Twitter."
"Tweeting on Twitter-that's what I'm paying you to do, play on your goddamn phone?"
Still talking to the top of his head.
"You're paying me to win elections, and social networking is another way to connect with voters. Grass roots. So I tweet for you."
"What am I… what are you tweeting?"
" 'Nine A.M. and at my desk working hard for the people of Texas.'
"
"And they believe that?"
"Your three thousand followers do."
"I've got three thousand followers? Hey, that ain't bad."
"Obama's got ten million."
Bode sighed. "Figures."
Jim Bob punched a button on his phone as if firing off a nuclear bomb then raised his head and eyed Bode over his reading glasses.
"Okay… so what's wrong now?"
Like a mother to her child who had come home from school with hurt feelings.
"What makes you think something's wrong?"
"Because you're frowning. Which I find hard to believe, given that you just had sex with a gorgeous twenty-seven-year-old girl. If I had been so lucky this morning, you wouldn't be able to slap the smile off my face for a month."
Bode tried to block the image of Jim Bob and Mandy having sex from his mind.
"How'd you know we had sex?"
"Because that gal's just naturally horizontal."
Bode's thoughts drifted back to that morning in bed. He had tried to satisfy his need for excitement with his young aide, but after a year the initial thrill of sex with Mandy Morgan had waned. Sex was much like big-game hunting in that regard. Bode's gaze turned up to the stuffed animal heads that adorned the four walls of his office: axis and mule deer, elk, Catalina goat, red stag, Aoudad sheep, impala, pronghorn, Corsican ram, sable, and his favorite, the wildebeest.
"Remember when I bagged the wildebeest?"
"I do indeed," Jim Bob said.
Bode and Jim Bob had hunted together since middle school.
"A thousand feet out, one shot to the head." Bode held an imaginary rifle, sighted in the wildebeest head through an imaginary scope, and squeezed an imaginary trigger. "Boom."
"That was a good shot," Jim Bob said.
"That was a great shot."
The memory of which almost brought a smile to Bode's face. Almost. But after killing so many creatures, the thrill of the hunt had also waned. The hunts had all started to seem the same. Like sex. There were only so many positions and places to have sex, just as there were only so many creatures to kill. Hunting. Sex. Football. Politics. He had always found fulfillment in those manly pursuits. But now he found himself searching for something more. There had to be something more. He sighed.
"Why am I in this office?"
"It's the Governor's Office. And you're the governor."
"But why am I the governor?"
"You're a Republican in a red state."
"No-what is my purpose in being governor?"
"To get reelected."
Jim Bob choked back a laugh.
"Wait, I lost count-is this your third or fourth midlife crisis this term?"
Jim Bob shook his head then tossed the newspaper on the desk and gestured at the headline: BET ON BODE.
"You're a hard man to please, Bode Bonner. You just won the Republican primary with one hundred percent of the vote, and you're not happy?"
"No one ran against me. Where's the thrill of victory in that?"
The State of Texas had held the Republican and Democratic primaries the day before. But Republicans didn't fight each other in March, and Democrats didn't win in November. The Democrats hadn't won a statewide election in Texas in twenty years. They were that incompetent. That irrelevant. And outside of Austin and a few border counties, statistically insignificant, as the pollsters say. Texas glowed bright red from Amarillo to Brownsville, Texarkana to El Paso; Republicans controlled all three branches of state government. Consequently, the general election was a mere formality, Republican voters rubber-stamping the Republican primary winners. Bode Bonner was as good as reelected for another four-year term. He had been declared the Republican primary winner by eight the night before (the polls had closed at seven), given his victory speech by nine (the party was over by ten), had sex with Mandy by eleven (his wife had left for the airport after his speech), and fallen sound asleep by eleven-thirty. No contest. No agony of defeat for his opponent. No thrill of victory for Bode Bonner.
"You want thrills, go ride a roller coaster. You won. That's all that matters. Like that guy said about football, 'Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing.' "
"Lombardi."
"Same rule applies to politics. And yesterday goes in the books as a win. A win-win because we saved our campaign funds for the general election."
"Like that'll be much of a fight." Bode waved a hand at the newspaper. "Even the Austin paper figures me for a landslide. And who are the Democrats running against me? A Jewish ex-country-western singer who dresses like Johnny Cash and sings like Dolly Parton. A goddamn serial candidate. He's run for damn near every state office except dogcatcher. He's a political punch line." Bode threw his hands up. "Where do they get these people? For Christ's sake, Jim Bob, I'm up fourteen points in the polls."
"Eighteen."
Bode sat up.
"You got the new poll numbers?"
"Yep."
"Did I make the nationals?"
"Nope."
Jim Bob pulled a thin black notebook from his briefcase-a notebook he guarded with the same paranoia as the army officer guarding the president's case containing the nuclear launch codes-and flipped open the cover.
"But you're kicking ass in Texas. Fifty-nine percent favorable rating across all registered voters-that's your all-time high."
"What's the breakdown?"
Jim Bob turned the page. "Anglo males, seventy-one percent favorable. Anglo females, sixty-two percent. African-Americans, seven percent. Mexican-Americans, four percent." He looked up. "NASCAR dads and soccer moms, they love you. Not so much the blacks and Latinos." He chuckled. "Hell, just be glad the Democrats are running a Jew instead of a Latino. There's not but a dozen Jews in Texas, but there's ten million Latinos."
"You don't figure they'll vote for him, do you?"
He could hear the hint of worry in his own voice.
"Not a chance."
And that was the fear of every Republican politician in Texas: Would the Latinos vote? They never had before, but no Republican wanted to be the one who finally brought out the Latino vote-for his Democratic opponent.
"They're waiting for their savior… and they'll still be waiting come election day," Jim Bob said. "They won't vote."
"Thank God."
Every Texas politician understood a simple electoral fact: Anglos occupied the Governor's Mansion by the leave of Latinos.
"One day," Jim Bob said, his voice taking on that familiar professorial tone James Robert Burnet held a Ph. D. and taught a class on politics at the LBJ School; consequently, he was known in Texas political circles as "the Professor."
— "there'll be a Latino sitting in your chair, that's a fact. But not on my watch."
For the last decade, ever since Karl Rove had decamped to D.C. with George W., the Professor's opinion on all things political in the State of Texas had been considered gospel. So Bode Bonner breathed a sigh of relief: no need to fret about the Latino vote, at least not in this election. That settled in his mind, his thoughts quickly returned to his midlife crisis.
"My life peaked when I was twenty-two and playing strong safety for the Longhorns. Been downhill ever since."
He fingered the massive UT college football ring that rode his big right hand like a hood ornament; the memories of football flooded his mind. Sitting in the Governor's Office and recalling those glorious moments now, Bode couldn't believe how life had let him down. He leaned back and kicked his size 14-EE handmade elk skin cowboy boots up onto the desk. He had big feet because he stood six feet four inches tall and carried two hundred and ten pounds, his playing weight. He had blue eyes and good hair. He worked out at the YMCA and ran five miles around the lake every day. He had a working prostate and a valid Viagra prescription. Bode Bonner possessed the strength and stamina and sexual drive to keep up with men half his age. And women. He was still young enough and strong enough and willing enough to live life. He just needed something to do with his life.
"What am I gonna do the next four years?"
"Same thing you did the last four years… Nothing."
"I don't want to do nothing the rest of my life, Jim Bob."
"Bode, you're the governor of the second most populous state in America with twenty-five million people, a state that encompasses two hundred and sixty-eight thousand square miles, a state with a one-point-two-trillion-dollar gross domestic product that would rank it number fourteen in the world if Texas was still a republic, a state that's-"
"Bare-ass broke! I'm the governor of a goddamn bankrupt state, and I don't have any public money to spend or power to wield. I can't do a damn thing." He pointed out the window at the Capitol. "Hell, I gotta go over there and beg those bastards to pass a bill before I can take a goddamn piss."
The Professor nodded. "Sam Houston thought power should reside in the legislature, so the state constitution provides for a weak executive."
"Doesn't provide for much excitement." Bode shook his head. "I love the guy, but old Sam screwed the pooch on that one. I mean, what the hell is the governor supposed to do for four years? I can't play golf every day-some days it rains."
That amused the Professor. He was fixing his coffee in a china cup-cream and five sugar cubes. Which explained his pudgy physique and why he had been the star of the chess club in high school instead of an athlete.
"What do you hear, Jim Bob?"
The Professor cocked his head. "Nothing."
"Exactly. This ain't the Governor's Office-it's the goddamn morgue. You know why?"
"I bet you're gonna tell me."
Bode again pointed out the window at the Capitol.
"Because all the action's over there. You want to play the game of politics in Texas, you don't come to the Governor's Office, you go to the Capitol. Come January, that place is gonna sound like a cattle auction, lobbyists bidding for legislators' votes. Hell, they're already lining up outside the speaker's office, because he's got the power, not me. Because they don't need the governor. Because I'm irrelevant."
"Irrelevant?"
"Like tits on a boar hog."
Bode Bonner pulled his boots off the desk and stood then smoothed the coat to his dark suit. Armani suits and cowboy boots. And French cuffs. You could do that in Texas, if you were the governor. He was, so he did. He stepped over to the tall floor-length windows and stared out at Austin and Texas and the end of his life. He could see it all from the second story of the Governor's Mansion. He was the governor of Texas, but he was no different than every other forty-seven-year-old man in the state. The best years of his life were behind him. His glory days were gone. No one needed him anymore, not the State of Texas, not the UT football team, not his wife or his daughter or even the cattle on his ranch. He was just another unnecessary middle-aged white male waiting for a heart attack or a positive prostate exam to make the end of life official. And like most men when facing their own mortality or irrelevance, Bode Bonner longed for one more moment of glory, one final challenge in life, one more thrill of victory, one last great "Adventure."
Jim Bob had returned to fiddling with his phone. He didn't look up.
"What?"
"I need an adventure."
"An adventure?"
As if Bode had said "enema."
"I've gone as far as I can go in Texas, Jim Bob. Time to move up."
"Senator?"
"President."
He cut his eyes to the Professor, who was shaking his head.
"Don't even think about it."
Bode fully faced the ranking political genius in the State of Texas-or at least his bald head. He wanted to snatch that goddamn phone and stomp the shit out of it.
"Why not?"
"The Bush legacy-no more Texans in the White House."
"It could happen."
"Not to you."
"I'm a great campaigner."
"Here in Texas."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Jim Bob exhaled as if his teenage son had just announced at the dinner table that he had wrecked the family station wagon, then turned his head up.
"That means, Bode, you're a good ol' boy cattle rancher from Comfort, Texas. Which means your bullshit sells here in Texas, but take it to the East Coast and West Coast, nobody's buying." He leaned back. "Look, Bode, you've got the perfect resume for a Texas politician: Tall and handsome with good hair. Star football player at UT. Devout killer of animals and lifelong NRA member. Republican and rancher-hell, you're a real goddamn cowboy and you look the part, like John Wayne if he wore Armani. Which means you're immensely popular here in Texas. You see 'Bode' was the second most popular baby name in the state last year?"
"What was the first?"
"Osvaldo." Jim Bob chuckled. "But you blew away Britney." He thought that was even funnier. "You're beloved here in Texas, Bode-at least by fifty-nine percent of registered voters-but north of the Red River, no one's ever heard of you. You're not even within the margin of error for potential Republican presidential candidates."
"Doesn't matter. My message will resonate with the people."
"Your message? "
"It's okay to be white and pissed off."
"There's a bumper sticker."
Jim Bob was smiling; Bode wasn't.
"I've got the Ph. D. in politics. Let me decide what your message is, okay?"
"Jim Bob, middle-class folks are desperate for a hero, someone who'll stand up and fight for them. For their America."
"And you like being a hero."
The Professor let out an exasperated sigh, as if a student had asked a stupid question.
"Bode, we've been best friends since fifth grade. You were a great football player. You're a great governor. And you're the best goddamn campaigner I've ever seen. But the White House? It's just not going to happen for you, buddy."
"Who're we gonna run? Romney? A Mormon named Mitt? Sounds like the fucking family pet. Folks are sick of him-he's like a party guest who won't go home."
"There's Bachmann."
"She's half crazy."
"Santorum?"
"Creepy."
"Paul?"
"Kooky."
"Cain?"
"Black."
"Christie?"
"Fat."
"Daniels? He's not crazy, creepy, kooky, black, or fat. And he's smart."
"Sure, he's smart, but he's got the personality of a minivan, he's five-seven, and he's bald."
"So?"
"So voters want a tall president with good hair."
"Gingrich has good hair."
"And two ex-wives."
"What about Palin? She's happily married."
"She's a goddamn Saturday Night Live joke to most Americans. She gets elected and takes that litter to the White House, it'll be the Beverly Hillbillies Go to Washington. Besides, Americans don't want a broad in the White House. They want a man, someone who'll take charge and make things better, and not for those greedy bastards on Wall Street"-he pointed out the window-"but for Main Street. For middle-class folks."
"I hope you don't mean that."
"I do."
The Professor shook his head. "Don't go populist on me again, Bode. Remember, politicians talk populism, but big business funds their campaigns."
Bode paced the office; his adrenaline was pumping now.
"The tea party changed the game, Jim Bob. It tapped into the middle-class anger at government, same thing we've been doing. I'm the tea party's favorite son here in Texas-why couldn't I go national with them?"
"This ain't the Ice Capades, Bode. You want to go national, you do it with the Republican Party leadership, the Establishment boys in Washington, not the crazy cousins out in the country. Sure, they can energize the voters, but they're wild cards in the party-shit, they're not even sure they want to be Republicans. And they're sure as hell not interested in long-term careers in Congress, which is how the party keeps the members in line. You want to move up, you keep your head down, your mouth shut, and follow orders when a vote is called. You don't go on Fox News and buck the speaker. Tea partiers, they don't give a shit about moving up in Congress-they want to firebomb the fucking place."
"I thought you believed in the tea party?"
"No more than a surfer believes in the wave."
Bode stared at the Professor. He blinked hard.
"What the hell does that mean?"
"It means, just like that surfer respects the power of the wave, I respect the tea party's power to mobilize middle-class voters. We got two hundred tea party groups in Texas representing half of all registered voters. So we're going to ride that tea party wave right through the election. You're going to tell those voters exactly what they want to hear. But that doesn't mean you're supposed to believe it."
Bode pulled out his pocket-sized copy of the U.S. Constitution and held it in the air. The Professor groaned.
"Not with the Constitution again."
"Like Reagan said-"
Another groan. "Now it's Reagan quotes."
"Jim Bob, I've been preaching the same Tenth Amendment, anti-Washington, anti-taxes sermon since-"
"Bode-you're not the wave. You're just riding the wave. You used to be a Democrat when Democrats controlled Texas. Then you switched to Republican when Republicans took over Texas. Now you're a tea partier because they're sweeping across Texas. That's what politicians do, at least the ones who win elections: they ride the wave."
"I'm not the wave? I'm just riding the wave?"
"Bode, politics is like investing. Twenty years ago, I bought stock in Whole Foods. Not because I believed in organic-hell, I don't give a shit if my fried chicken was happy when it was alive-but because I saw the organic wave building and thought it might be a money-making opportunity. So I jumped on that wave, and I rode the stock price up and made a lot of money. Investing isn't about what I believe; it's about making money. Politics isn't about what you believe; it's about winning elections. The tea party is a political opportunity. It's the wave. Today. But that wave always dies out, and the tea party will, too. And all those middle-class folks will go back to work and church and the PTA and get on with their dull lives out in suburbia and leave politics to the professionals."
"Which means?"
"Which means the tea party can't put you or anyone else in the White House. Only the Establishment Republicans have the money for that. The Democrats are going to spend a billion dollars to keep Obama in the White House. Where's that money coming from? The unemployed middle class? No. It's coming from Wall Street. Same place Republicans get their campaign money."
"Money's the only politics Wall Street knows."
"Exactly-and they're sure as hell not going to bet a billion dollars on another Texas governor." He blew out a breath. "Look, Bode, you've got a good thing going here-governor-for-life. Don't fuck it up."
"Why aren't the Republican bundlers in play yet? Why haven't the fundraisers committed to a candidate? Because they're all losers. We need a winner."
"You?"
Bode stopped pacing and pointed a finger at the ceiling. Jim Bob looked up.
"What?"
"Not what," Bode said. "One. All I need is one big play."
"One big play?"
"Every game I ever played in-won or lost-turned on one big play. A long run, a pass, a fumble, an interception… a game changer. One big play, Jim Bob, that's all I need to be president."
"Bode, to put another Texan in the White House, it'd have to be the biggest Hail Mary in the history of politics."
"It could happen. I could win. I've got the game to play in the big leagues, Jim Bob. I just need one big play to get in the game."
Jim Bob shook his head and sighed.
"Higher office and younger women-the ambitions of a politician."
Before Bode could defend himself, there was a loud knock on the door, and Jim Bob jumped.
"Might want to try decaf," Bode said.
Jim Bob was always a little jumpy, as if worried someone might sneak up behind him and put him in a headlock like the cowboys in Comfort used to do to him in the middle-school restroom, until Bode took him under his wing. From that day, Jim Bob Burnet had pledged his undying loyalty to Bode Bonner. Another knock, and the door swung open on Jim Bob's new young assistant. He waved her in. She walked over and handed a stack of papers to Jim Bob. But she smiled at Bode.
"Mornin', Governor," she said in a syrupy Southern drawl.
Her perfume drifted over and incited Bode's male hormones the same as waving a red flag at a bull. Bode's eyes involuntarily dropped from her face to her body and then slowly worked their way down to her feet and back up to her face. When their eyes again met, she winked. Damn, she was a frisky gal-whose name he couldn't recall.
"Morning, uh…"
"Jolene… Jo."
"Jolene. Sounds like a country song."
She gave him a coy smile.
" 'Cause I'm a country girl."
"Are you now?"
Bode caught Jim Bob rolling his eyes.
"That'll be all, Jo," he said.
Jolene sashayed out in her tight pants and high heels. Jim Bob shook his head.
"You're a goddamn rooster in a hen house."
He put the stack of papers on the desk then slid the top document across to Bode. He sat behind the desk and grabbed his signing pen.
"What's this?"
"You're appointing Joe Jack Munger to the UT Board of Regents."
"Munger?"
"Oilman out in Midland, went to UT."
"He know anything about education?"
"He knows how to write a big check to your reelection campaign. Two hundred grand."
Bode signed the appointment, one of the few powers of the office. The University of Texas had always been run by the governor's cronies and contributors, more like a real-estate venture than a university. Jim Bob pushed another document across the desk.
"Proclamation."
"Proclaiming what?"
"A day of prayer for rain."
"Damn drought. How are we doing on those wildfires out west?"
"Out of control."
"Half of Texas is burning, and Obama won't declare those counties disaster areas so those folks can get federal funds to rebuild. Blue state fucking hiccups, he sends in billions. Red state, he lets us die in a drought."
"It's called politics."
He signed the proclamation.
"Next document."
Bode read the title: "Deed?"
"The land deal. With Hoot Pickens."
"You run this by the lawyers?"
Jim Bob nodded. "It's legal. And profitable. Half a million bucks. We put it in your blind trust, gives us deniability."
Bode signed the deed. Jim Bob gathered the papers then checked his watch and stood.
"Come on, we're late."
"For what?"
"Elementary school."
Bode groaned. "Aw, damn, Jim Bob-not reading to kindergartners again? I hate that shit."
Jim Bob offered a lame shrug.
"You made education a major part of your platform-faith, family, and schools."
"Just because Lindsay wanted something to do. Why can't she read to them?"
"She was supposed to, but I had to send her down to the border-Delgado's in from Washington. They're trying to get the Mexicans in the colonias counted for the census."
"Why?"
"So Texas can get more seats in Congress. We've got thirty-two seats now. If we can get all those Mexicans counted, we can pick up three or four more seats. And once I'm through redistricting the state, every one of those seats will be Republican."
"No-why'd you send Lindsay down to the border? Why couldn't I go?"
"Because you don't speak Spanish. She does."