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Mac’s “Don’t Stop” playing over the PA, and how she’d confided in him that she wanted “Here Comes the Sun,” the Richie Havens version, for her magic moment. He’d changed his ring tone that very night.
    â€œHere, let me up,” he said, pulling his arm free from under her.
    He went over to his pants and fished out his phone.
    â€œJesus, Paul,” Sutton said, not even waiting for him to say hello. “What are you doing?”
    Paul looked back at Monica. She had rolled over onto her stomach, slender legs in the air, crossing and recrossing as she watched him. She put her lower lip between her teeth. A come on over here and fuck me smile was on her face.
    â€œI . . . uh, I . . . well . . .”
    â€œDamn it, Paul. I need you here. I’m at the Colson. Finally got Wayne to bed, the drunken bastard. But now I’ve got CNN calling me. They want a press conference. Where are you?”
    â€œOkay, okay,” he said, trying to marshal his thoughts. “Hold on a sec.”
    He held the phone in front of him and scanned through the missed calls. Shit, he thought. A ton of them. He’d silenced everything but Senator Sutton’s ring tone right before he got in the elevator with Monica, but he could see now that he’d missed calls from all the major news outlets. Christ, even Fox wanted to talk to him.
    What in the hell was wrong with him? Any idiot should have seen this coming.
    â€œPaul?” Sutton said.
    â€œI’m here,” he said, putting the phone back to his ear. He went into scramble mode, and suddenly, his mind cleared. This was where he lived, where he was in his element.
    Okay, he thought, Sutton’s at her apartment in the Colson. She wouldn’t want to move. And besides, bringing the press to her would put things on her terms. She would be the one calling on them, not them ambushing her. And with a dozen or so of them together, none of them would be able to dig too deeply. It would be perfect for the kind of sound bites the press, and the American public for that matter, had come to love Senator Rachel Sutton for.
    â€œYou should stay there,” he said. “Let’s use your office for the press conference.”
    â€œWell, of course, we’re going to use my office,” she said. “I’m not going back to that hotel, not through those crowds.”
    â€œOf course not,” he said. He was nodding to himself. This was already coming together. “Listen, just stay there. I’m going to get NBC, CNN, Fox—”
    â€œFox?” she said, sounding disgusted. “Those bastards will turn this into a right-wing feeding frenzy.”
    â€œYou’re a moderate now, remember?” he said. “And besides, with NBC and CNN there, they’ll balance each other out. And, don’t forget, this will give you a chance to reach out to the Hispanic vote.”
    â€œWhat? How? You heard, right? Evangeline Ramos died tonight.”
    The Mexican television star, he thought. He remembered her going down when the shooting started. A pity.
    â€œWe’ll use that as our lead-in,” he said. “Her husband is Juan Cavalos, president of Grupo Financiero Banamex. First thing out of your mouth, you express condolences for her many fans, then transition into her support for her husband. Put it in those terms and he can’t help but come out on our side. Anything less would dishonor his wife, and he can’t afford that.”
    â€œYeah,” Sutton said slowly, and he could picture her nodding into the phone, seeing the brutal logic of the move. “Yeah, okay.”
    A pause.
    â€œPaul?”
    â€œYes, ma’am?”
    â€œThat was pretty scary tonight. A lot scarier than San Antonio.”
    He nodded to himself. She was right. In San Antonio, they’d been watching from the fourth floor of the Mexican Embassy as her motorcade drove into the ambush. They’d watched Agent