The Governor's Wife (24 page)

A car horn interrupted them, and a black Hummer came crashing through the brush and over the creek and skidded to a stop. John Ed Johnson jumped out of the driver's seat and marched over, his head covered by a Stetson and his trouser legs tucked into tall boots, looking like LBJ himself pissed off at a congressman who had voted against him; Mandy followed behind, tiptoeing through the clearing in a dress and heels. John Ed arrived in a huff, glanced at the marijuana field, then addressed Agent Gonzales.

"These Mexicans growing dope on my land?"

"It was an inside job, Mr. Johnson. Your man Manuel."

"
Manuel?
"

"He rode off," Bode said. "Heading south. Making a run for the border."

John Ed seemed stunned. "Manuel did this? To
me?
"

"We'll catch him," Agent Gonzales said.

"Why the hell don't you people do your job and secure the goddamn border?"

Agent Gonzales held his ground.

"You want me to do my job, Mr. Johnson? Maybe I should check the immigration status of all the Mexicans working for you."

"You do, and I'll have your job."

"You don't want my job, Mr. Johnson."

John Ed stomped off in search of another federal employee who might show more respect for a billionaire. Agent Gonzales shook his head.

"That says it all about our immigration policies."

A WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP sound came from beyond the tree line and then over the trees came a half dozen helicopters, like a scene out of
Apocalypse Now.

"Who the hell are they?" Agent Gonzales said.

"Network and cable TV," Jim Bob said.

"Who called them?"

"I did."

The DEA agent stared at Jim Bob as if he were nuts then walked off just as Mandy arrived and said, "Shit."

"What's wrong?"

She grabbed Bode's shoulder to steady herself then lifted her foot.

"I stepped in shit."

Bode turned to his political strategist but pointed up at the helicopters.

"Why'd you call the media?"

"Because this is it."

"This is what?"

"Your one big play. Your game changer. You wanted it—you got it."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

The Professor aimed a finger in the direction of the three men Bode had killed.

"Those dead Mexicans … they're your ticket to the White House."

Jesse held the dead rattlesnake high as they entered the small café.

"Luis! Look what I have brought for you."

Luis Escalera, the proprietor, came around from behind the bar.

"Jesse!
Mi amigo
. What have you there?"

Jesse gave the snake to Luis. He would fry the rattlesnake meat and make a fine belt from the skin. Jesse had brought his nurse into town on her first day for lunch at his favorite café, a small colorful place with good food and a large television on the wall above the bar showing the Houston Astros baseball game on cable. They sat at a table near the bar. Pancho lay at their feet.

"This afternoon," Jesse said, "I will take you around the
colonia
and introduce you to the residents. And perhaps this evening you would like to go to a restaurant, a place with music?" He lowered his voice. "We will leave Pancho at home."

She smiled, and it was a nice smile.

"I would like that very much."

The governor's wife gazed at him from across the table, but Jesse saw the governor's face. On the TV behind her.

"Look."

She turned in her chair to see the screen. "Breaking News" ran below the image of the governor standing in front of a clump of microphones and surrounded by Latino children. Lindsay stood and walked over to the bar. Jesse followed.

"Luis, please turn up the volume."

Luis did, and they heard the governor speaking.

"I was sighting in a feral hog from up on that ridge when a young girl ran from this tree line, chased by three men on dirt bikes. I could see through the scope that she was just a kid. They ran her down, slapped her, pointed guns at her. I figured they were gonna kill her, so I shot them before they could shoot her."

"He shot someone?" the governor's wife said.

The camera caught three other people standing off to one side of the governor: a bald pudgy man, a big Texas Ranger, and a young blonde woman. She was very pretty. The governor's wife pointed at the woman's image on the screen.

"That's Mandy. He's having an affair with her."

Mandy Morgan gazed upon the governor of Texas. She had loved Bode Bonner from the first moment she had met him, in his office the day she hired on. He was tall, he was handsome, and he was twenty years older than her. All of her affairs had been with older men.

Was she seeking a father-figure, as her therapist had suggested?

Her father had died when she was only seven. He was not there when she was crowned homecoming queen or prom queen. He was not there when she graduated high school or college. He would not be there to give her away at her wedding. She could not remember a father's love or his arms around her.

She felt safe in Bode Bonner's arms.

She loved him, and he loved her. He hadn't said it, but she knew it. She wanted to be his wife, but he had a wife. But his wife had moved out of their bedroom, so Mandy had moved in—at least when his wife was out of town or they were. The governor's wife refused him sex, so she had stepped in to give the governor what he needed. She thought of it as her civic duty.

The satellite phone she was holding rang. She answered.

"This is the governor's wife. Put Bode on."

"Mrs. Bonner, he's giving a press conference. I'll have him call you back."

"I'll hold."

"Yes, ma'am."

Lindsay covered the phone with her hand.

"
Ma'am
. She calls me ma'am, like I'm old enough to be her mother." Lindsay sighed. "Maybe I am."

She turned back to the television. "DEA Agent Gonzales" now spoke into the microphones.

"These dead Mexicans, they were just teenagers, throwaways south of the border. The cartels recruit them off the streets because they've got nowhere else to go, train them as smugglers and assassins. No one's gonna miss these boys."

The camera captured close-up images of three bodies spread out on the ground like dead gunslingers in those old Western photos. They were young with tattoos on their arms. The camera panned slowly over their vacant faces. The last face seemed vaguely familiar, as did the
LM
tattoo in fancy script on his left arm. Lindsay pointed at the screen.

"Oh, my God! Jesse, is that—"

Jesús.

Enrique de la Garza reached up to the big television screen on the wall of his Nuevo Laredo office and gently touched his dead son's image. He had sent his first-born son to
Tejas
to become a man—but not a dead man. Not a man shot down like an animal in a big-game hunt by the governor of Texas. To be stuffed and displayed on a wall. No, that was not what he had intended when he sent his son across the
Río Bravo del Norte.
Yet … there his son lay. Dead. Shot in the back. Twice. Like an animal. By the governor of Texas. Whose Anglo image now filled the screen. Who smiled broadly and held the rifle that he had used to murder Enrique's son. Who stood over the dead body of Jesús de la Garza for the cameras like a proud hunter showing off his trophy kill.

"I would very much like him dead," Enrique said.

Hector Garcia rose from the sofa and came over to Enrique.

"You want to kill the governor of Texas?"

"Yes. Very much."

"But,
jefe
, we have never before killed an American politician."

"We have killed Mexican politicians. We have dispensed justice to corrupt mayors, governors, police chiefs,
federales
… Why can we not kill an American governor? Why can we not dispense justice north of the river?"

"Oh, we can kill him. That will be easy. But the
gringos
, they will send troops to the border. They will seek
venganza
. They will demand justice."

"It is I who seek revenge. It is I who demand justice. They killed my wife, Hector, but I did not seek revenge then because it was a mistake. I did not kill the
gringos
then because that would not have been justice. But this … this was no mistake. He murdered my son."

Enrique de la Garza now addressed the governor of Texas on the television.

"You murder my son, but I am not to seek revenge? The Muslims, they murdered your sons and daughters on nine/eleven, and you sought revenge. You invaded their countries and killed tens of thousands of their sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, spilling innocent blood to quench your thirst for revenge. Oh, but you are the Americans
.
You are the righteous avengers. The holy Anglos. They were only the unholy Muslims, and I am only the stupid
Mexicano
who feels not the sun on my back or the pain in my heart. Who is a manual laborer but not a man. Whose son's life is not worthy of revenge. Who does not deserve justice.

"Is that what you think, Governor?"

He stepped over to the wall rack and removed his prized machete. He returned and raised the blade to the governor's image on the screen.

"Am I not a father? Do I not love my son? Are your sons worthier of revenge and justice than mine? Because I am Mexican and not American? Because my skin is brown and not white? Because I speak Spanish and not English? Because I live south of the river and not north?

"Is that what you think, Governor?"

Enrique de la Garza, Mexican, father, dispenser of justice in Nuevo Laredo, and now seeker of
venganza
—the man known to the world as El Diablo, head of the notorious
Los Muertos
drug cartel—said only two more words to Hector Garcia.

"Kill him."

"Mandy! These kids are running around the Mansion like they're at a goddamned McDonald's."

"Bo-
de
," Mandy said, her face contorted in that familiar pretend frown. "Don't talk like that in front of the kids."

The Mexican children had brought out the mother in Mandy. She was prepping them for the cameras, smoothing the boys' hair and fixing their clothes, wiping syrup from their pancake breakfast off their faces, and generally having one hell of time corralling the kids into their positions on the floor around Bode. She bribed them with donuts.

It was just after seven the following Monday morning, and Bode Bonner sat on a stool in the living room of the family quarters in the Governor's Mansion surrounded by the thirteen kids. The last forty-eight hours had been a whirlwind. They had remained in West Texas Saturday night. Bode gave statements at the scene that ran on the network evening news and cable outlets. With the majestic Davis Mountains as the backdrop and the governor of Texas holding a high-powered rifle and standing over three dead Mexicans—political candidates always established their manly
bona fides
by taking reporters on hunting trips, but they only shot ducks—his first national media exposure had garnered the Professor's approval.

"Hell of an introduction to America," Jim Bob had said.

They wrapped up their post-shooting interviews at the scene with the FBI and the DEA and the Texas Rangers and even the Jeff Davis County Sheriff, a good ol' boy named Roscoe Lee whose county morgue now held the three Mexican
hombres
on ice. The on-the-ground ruling was "defense of a third person"; the killings had been justified in order to save another person's life, being little Josefina. No criminal charges would be filed against the governor of Texas. Point a gun at another human being and pull the trigger, and you're either a murderer or a hero. It's a fine line.

Bode Bonner was on the hero side of the line.

After the interviews, they transported the children back to John Ed's lodge in the Hummer like school kids on a class outing. Mandy the
madre
sat them around the big dining room table, and Rosita fed them beef tacos, refried beans, and guacamole. They ate as if they hadn't eaten in months—until federal agents with "ICE" in bold white letters on black jackets and big guns on their hips arrived to take them into custody pending deportation. The kids—like every Mexican—knew ICE meant
Inmigración,
so the appearance of the agents threw them into a frenzy. They screamed—

"
¡Corren!
"

—then tossed their tacos at the agents and bolted from the dining room table and scattered about the lodge looking for hiding places; Bode later found little Josefina curled up in a small cabinet beneath a bathroom sink. He had tried to get the ICE agents to calm down, but refried beans and guacamole splattered across their black jackets didn't sit well with the Feds.

"We're taking these Mexicans into custody!"

Bode got in the head ICE-hole's face.