MIRROR IMAGE

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

The spontaneous trip to Houston to address disgruntled policemen had gone extraordinarily well for Tate and boosted him three points in the polls. Daily, he closed the gap between Senator Dekker and himself.

Dekker, feeling the pressure, began to get nasty in his speeches, painting Tate as a dangerous liberal who threatened ''the traditional ideals that we as Americans and Texans hold dear."

It would have been a perfect time for him to use Carole Rutledge's abortion as ammunition. That would have blown Tate's campaign out of the water and probably cinched the race for Dekker. But whatever tactics Eddy had used on the extortionist had apparently been effective. When it became obvious that Dekker knew nothing of the incident, everyone in the Rutledge inner circle breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Dekker, however, had the endorsement of an incumbent president, who made a swing through the state in pursuit of his own reelection. Rutledge supporters feared that the president's appearance might nullify the gut-busting progress they had made.

Actually, the president was fighting for his life in Texas.

The rallies where he shared the podium with Dekker had a subliminal edge of eleventh-hour desperation that was conveyed to the uncommitted voters. Tate benefitted rather than suffered from the president's vigorous campaigning. The groundswell gained even greater momentum when the opposing presidential candidate came to Texas and campaigned alongside him.

After an exhausting but exhilarating trip to seven cities in two days, everyone at Rutledge headquarters was reeling with pre-election giddiness. Even though Dekker still maintained a slight margin over Tate in the official polls, the momentum seemed to have swung the other way. Word on the street was that Tate Rutledge was looking better all the time. Optimism was at its highest peak since Tate had won the primary. Everyone was buoyant.

Except Fancy.

She sauntered through the various rooms of campaign headquarters, slouching in chairs as they became available, scorning the party atmosphere, stalking Eddy's movements with sulky, resentful eyes.

They hadn't been alone together for more than a week.

Every time he glanced her way, he looked straight through her. Whenever she swallowed her pride and approached him, he did nothing more than assign her some menial task. She was even put on a telephone and told to call registered voters to urge them to go to the polls and vote on Election Day. The only reason she consented to do the demoralizing work was because it kept Eddy in her sights. The alternative was staying at the house and not seeing Eddy at all.

He was constantly in motion, barking orders like a drill sergeant and losing his temper when they weren't carried out quickly enough to suit him. He seemed to subsist on coffee, canned sodas, and vending machine food. He was the first to arrive at headquarters in the morning and the last to leave at night, if he left at all.

On the Sunday before the election, the Rutledges moved into the Palacio Del Rio, a twenty-two-story hotel on the Riverwalk in downtown San Antonio. From there they would monitor election returns two days later.

Tate's immediate family took the Imperial Suite on the twenty-first floor. The others were assigned rooms nearby. VCRs were installed on all the television sets so newscasts and commentaries could be recorded for subsequent review and analysis. Additional telephone lines were provided. Security guards were posted at the elevators, more to safeguard the candidate's privacy than the candidate himself.

On the mezzanine level, twenty stories below, workers were draping the wall of the Corte Real Ballroom with red, white, and blue bunting. The back wall was covered with larger-than-life-size pictures of Tate. The dais was being decorated with bunting and flags, and bordered with pots of white chrysanthemums nestling in red and blue cellophane. A huge net, containing thousands of balloons, was suspended from the ceiling, to be released on cue.