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JACK: So what you doin' tonight?

CASH: Prayin' that you'll pay me a call, darlin'.

JACK: . . . Stay at home and crack open a bottle of Chablis? CASH: That's not all we'll crack open.

JACK: You think it's at all possible to get [crackle, crackle] laid tonight? CASH: I'd say it's entirely likely.

JACK: I'm . . . too horny to think straight.

CASH: I can take care of that. What about your wife, sugar? JACK: We're doin' okay, dontchathink?

"JESUS H . . ." Libby said. "How could he be so completely fucking fucked-up stupid?"

"He was calling from a cellular on that one," Sailor said, "which immediately makes it more suspicious. There were a couple of abrupt cutoffs. Let me replay it."

The lawyer was taking questions, but neither he nor Cashmere was answering them. Sailor had turned off the sound on screen. Then Cashmere was walking off. I was beeped. Richard. I called him. "Whatchathink?"

Something was ... I was thinking-something was just past the edge of my consciousness. It was torture, worse than an itch, something red and inflamed and inaccessible, like a rash in my mind. "Hey, Sailor, could you play that again?" I asked.

"Sailor?"

"Yeah-listen, Richard, gotta go."

"Whaddaya mean, gotta go. We're in deep shit, and you gotta go? What the fuck is the matter?"

"I'll tell you in a minute. I'll call back. Gotta go."

"Henri, she's a slut, dontchathink?"

"No question."

"But those tapes are gonna be trouble. We may be dead."

"Listen, Richard, something's . . . Hey, Sailor, the second one. Richard, where are you?"

"With him, in Mississippi. You wouldn't believe it: big crowds, like they don't get CNN down here. It's like it used to be."

"I'll call you right back. But let me go now."

Okay.

JACK: So what you doin' tonight?

CASH: Prayin' that you'll pay me a call, darlin'.

JACK: . . . Stay at home and crack open a bottle of Chablis?

CASH: That's not all we'll crack open

JACK: You think it's at all possible to get [crackle, crackle] laid tonight? CASH: I'd say it's entirely likely.

JACK: I'm . . . too horny to think straight.

CASH: I can take care of that. How about your wife, sugar? JACK: We're doin' okay, dontchathink?

"Again," I said.

"What?" Libby asked.

"Again," I said. He played it again. It was torture. It was deja vu. "Let's take it line by line," I said. "Sailor, can you guess where it's been spliced?"

"Guess, yeah. Say for sure? Who knows. Okay, first line."

So what you doin' tonight?

"That's a pretty abrupt cutout."

. . . Stay at home and crack open a bottle of Chablis?

"Picked up in midsentence, I think. At least, it's possible." You think it's at all possible to getkracIde,crackle] laid tonight?

"The breakup in the middle might be cellular static, or they might have used it to cover."

"Wait a second," I said. It was coming. "Wait a goddamn fucking second. Play that again."

You think it's at all possible to get (crackle, crackle] laid tonight? "Again."

"What?" Libby asked.

"AGAIN, dammit."

You think it's at all possible to get [crackle, crackle] laid tonight? "Yourself. Yourself." I said. "Un-fucking-believable. You think it's at all possible to get YOURSELF laid tonight! Me! He was talking to me! It was New Year's Eve. Again, again-from the top."

So what you doin' tonight .. .

"Abrupt cutout, right?" I asked. "It was 'What you doin' tonight, Henri.' I remember he called me Henri."

. . . Stay at home and crack open a bottle of Chablis?

"He was asking me if I was going out to party that night. Jesus Christ, we got her!"

"You got her," Libby said. "WE don't."

She was right. There was no way to prove it.

"At least not yet," Libby said. "BUT WE WILL. Henry, you call the boss and tell him never, ever, on pain of his fucking life, talk on a cellular phone again. Me and Sailor are going to cook something up." I beeped Laurene. "This is just amazing, Henry," she said. "It's a zoo. We got a full plane with us-and you know what they're seeing? A full ballroom, one hundred dollars a head, in Baton Rouge. That was breakfast. We're in Jackson now We've got a full ballroom for lunch. A standing 0. Congressman Mobley introduces him, 'These attacks on Jack Stanton are attacks on our integrity, our regional integrity. We know who Jack Stanton is and what kind of governor he's been-and we don't cut and run when our boy's in trouble.' Henry, who'da thought it'd be a lucky thing for us these white boys down here still fighting the damnyankees?"

Laurene! We were all getting goofy. "Before you take off for Birmingham, you've got to get him for me," I said. "How long you think?"

"Ten minutes. So how was she?"

"Ridiculous, but devastating in a way. But I think we got her." "How?"

"Can't say. Listen: you have to make sure that his very first call is to me. No other calls. This is absolutely urgent."

We were driving back toward Mammoth Falls when he beeped me. "Henry?" he said, his voice hoarse. He sounded awful. He coughed. "It was bad?"

"It wasn't good," I said. "When you called me from Marco Island on New Year's Eve, it was cellular?"

"Let me think. Why?"

"Because they've been listening in and taping. Remember, you told me to, uh, enjoy myself that night? Well, they took it and used it. Now you're having a conversation with Cashmere about getting laid and being horny."

"They played this?"

"I'm afraid so."

"That's outrageous. She can't get away with-"

"Well, sir, there's no way we can prove it didn't happen. Although Libby does have an idea. But you've got to be more careful-on th
e p
hone. You've got to assume that they're listening to every last cellular conversation you have."

"Lemme talk to him," Libby said, ripping the phone from my hand.

"You ASSHOLE," she said. "Don't pull that outraged puppy shit with me. Sailor thinks some of the other shit she played was real. God, I wish we'd castrated you when we had the chance."

"Libby!" I said, "You're talking on a cellular phone."

"OH SHIT," she said and calmed down. ". Uh-huh, uh-huh. I've done a lot of that already. Got affidavits from her first husband, her sister-but it doesn't do us all that much good to prove that she's a lying slut who lucked around. That is . . . like manifest. That is not an ELUSIVE CONCEPT, you undisciplined shit. Ooops! I'll get it done. Okay. 'Bye."

We drove along. It was clouding up. Around a bend, near the airport, I could see the modest spires of Mammoth Falls. "Of course, Henry," she said, softly, dangerously, "there is one thing we could do that would-it might-ice this case. Some risk would be involved." She pulled off the highway at the Cranford Exit, just south of downtown. It was a formerly fancy area, large old houses-rooming houses, now-and vacant lots. We stopped in front of a faux plantation-style house, white paint peeling. "The law offices of Randolph Martin Culligan," she said. "I am about to do something crazy. If it backfires, I can plead non compos whatsis. And you can say you had no idea, since I'm not going to tell you." She turned toward me. Her blue eyes were soft-not crazy-now She was as reasonable as I'd ever seen her. "But still, you might find yourself in an awkward position. You can leave me to go in there alone-I will understand, I won't hold it against you-or you can come with me. There will be absolutely no advantage for you in coming with me. There may be disadvantages. But you can come if you like."

"But what-"

"No QUESTIONS, Henry," she said. "Faith or nothing."

Faith. She dialed a number. The phone was answered. She hung up. "It's a go," she said. She grabbed her satchel, put on her bush hat. We went.

Up an outside staircase, around the back. The sign on the door: THE
LAW OFFICES OF RANDOLPH, MARTIN AND CULLIGAN. She laughed:

"Can you believe this shit? Randy's made himself into three partners." She rapped on the door. No answer. She raised a sneaker and kicked it in.

"What the-" Randy Culligan was up, behind his desk, holding the phone. He had scraggly brown hair, horn-rimmed glasses, a brown, long-sleeved knit shirt with a yellow argyle pattern across the chest, gray pants. A thoroughly undistinguished human being; an overachieving clerk.

"A triumphant day!" Libby said. "Perhaps your best ever! Is that Cashmere on the line? Oh, let me say hi."

"No, it's not. It's . . . not."

"Say good-bye to Sherman, then. We've got business." She sat down in one of the folding chairs in front of Culligan's desk; I took the other. This was a small outer room-normally, a reception area (for a doctor's office, at one time, I would have guessed). There were rooms behind. Randy probably lived there. The office was a catastrophe. The desk was a mess, there was plywood paneling, fluorescent lighting. There were diplomas on the wall, and pictures of Randy Culligan shaking hands with various local politicians, including Jack Stanton. The look on Governor Stanton's face as he gave Randy Culligan a meaningful handshake-two hands on his one-was distressfully warm and friendly. There was not a hint of reserve in it.

"It's not Sherman, either," Culligan said as he hung up. He had a deep, juicy voice. But he was a lousy liar: clearly, it had been Sherman Presley.

"Well now, Randy," Libby said expansively, "you've branched out. Electronics, now?"

"I don't know what you-"

"You've been recording your friend the governor's private conversations, haven't you?"

"Now, Olivia," he said, "why would I want to do a thing like that? I'm a big Stanton supporter. Always have been. He's putting this state right on the map."

"Well, Randy, I've only been here but a minute and you've already exhausted my patience," Libby said, reaching into her satchel and pulling out a very long, iron-black, ridiculously menacing gun. She didn't point it at him; she just sort of put it in her lap. I am not an expert about such things, but if it wasn't a .357 magnum, it was something equally dreadful. It was almost a parody of a gun-it was so foolish, so extreme. I could not take this seriously. This was not happening.

"Randy, I'm going to want a signed confession," Libby said. "Libby, put that thing away before you do something stupid and get yourself into trouble," Randy said.

Now she pointed it at him. She stood up, put her arms straight out and together, and pointed the gun right at his face. "Randy, you wet fart of a human turd, you ambushed Jack Stanton and you're gonna admit it, or you're gonna die."

"Libby, you're crazy!"

"CERTI-FUCKIN'-FIABLY!" She said. "And I'll go right back there. Happily. And you will be in heaven."

Randy suddenly noticed me. "You'll go to jail too."

"I don't know anything about this," I said, surprising myself. I was able to say this, to inner my mouth and all the rest, because I could not believe what I was seeing.

"He's shocked," Libby explained to Culligan. "He had no idea. Now, Randy, you gonna write this out in longhand?"

"I . . . I don't know what you're talking about."

"OH YES YOU DO, SHITBIRD," Libby said and she moved very quickly-just astonishingly fast-around the desk, behind him, putting a choke hold on Randy Culligan with her left arm and pointing the gun straight down at his crotch. "And I've got a better idea: I'm gonna shoot your NUTS off."

His head, quickly red, was crushed between her two giant breasts, which were like earmuffs on him. "I'm a gay lesbian woman," she said. "I do not mythologize the male sexual organ," she went on, jamming the pistol into his crotch. He started up; he yelped. "Now, now, now," she said. Her face was red, her eyes were wild, her hat rolled off her head onto the desk. "You TINY SCUMBAG, I know you did it. You're on retainer to the Flash, I KNOW that-an
d y
ou, stupid little shit, you couldn't just make do with the calls you had. You had Jack Stanton, but you figured the world is as stupid as you are-you had to EMBELLISH. Well, mister: YOU ARE FUCKED."

I must say that I found her very convincing. But if this had gone on much longer, I would probably have had to make some sort of move to stop her. I couldn't even begin to imagine what I would do if she actually pulled the trigger.

"You have a choice to make, and very quickly," Libby said, yanking his neck. "But you know me, Randy. I would have ovarian cancer for Jack and Susan, especially Susan-and you are embarrassing them. You are ruining the pang. And I would just be SICK TO DEATH if you fucked up the campaign. I would want to DIE. So, you're going to have to decide: just lieu' desperately crazy is she? And you're going to have to do it now. One . . . two . . ."

"Okay. Okay, okayokay," he said.

"Very good, verrry wise," she said, loosening her grip and moving the gun from his crotch to his head. "Now I want you to be eloquent about this letter you're about to write, and penitent. I want you to be guilt-ridden about your jealousy and greed. You could not live with yourself if you deprived America of this man."