Standing in the Rainbow

THE SIXTIES

The Chickens Coming Home to Roost

AFTER BOBBY GRADUATED, he immediately got a teaching job at Franklin Pierce, a small college in Rindge, New Hampshire, and he and Lois were provided with a nice house on a lake. Although he made very little money, life was good for a while. They loved the college and the town but both of them, because they were from southern Missouri, were not used to the cold winters and the first year they nearly froze to death. Also, after his time in Korea, months of snow depressed him, and so Bobby started looking around for a warmer place. He had applied for jobs in Arizona and California but so far nothing had come through and in the meantime he and Lois were expecting their first child. As soon as they could, they came back to Missouri to visit. They spent a week with her parents and a week with Doc and Dorothy.

While they were in Elmwood Springs their old friend Mr. Charlie Fowler, the poultry inspector, called and said he wanted to stop by for dinner while they were there. It had been a few years and Bobby was glad to see him again. He had been at their wedding and had sent them a lovely gift. That night Dorothy made him his favorite, smothered pork chops and mashed potatoes, and after the first bite Fowler said the same thing he always did. “Dorothy, I’m not sure but I think these may be the best pork chops you ever made.” After dinner, when the men headed out for a smoke, Fowler asked Bobby if he would take a little walk with him.

“Sure,” said Bobby. They walked out in the backyard and sat down in the lawn chairs by the Sweetheart Swing and enjoyed the view. The sun was still pretty high in the sky. It had been an early spring that year and the apple tree was already full of pink-and-white flowers and the morning glories were already blooming and hanging off the old wooden fence and the garage. Ruby Robinson n uck her head out the window next door and said, “Tell your mother we have plenty of extra tomatoes over here if she needs any.”

“Yes, ma’am, I sure will,” he said.

Bobby sat there with Mr. Fowler and wondered why but figured he would find out sooner or later. After a while Fowler said, “That’s a mighty fine little wife you have in there.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I’ve been knowing you and your family for a long time now. Watched you and your sister grow up.”

“Yes, sir.”

Fowler cleared his throat. “You know, if I had married and had a son such as yourself just starting out in life, this is what I would say to him—but since I don’t have one I’m going to tell it to you instead.

“Young Robert,” he said, “we . . . you and I . . . have to stop pecking around in the barnyard of mediocrity and dare to fly with the eagles out into the world of big business. That’s why a few years back I started buying up an interest in as many chicken farms as I could. I looked up and saw the handwriting on the wall, so to speak, and this is what it said. It said, Charlie . . . the poultry business is changing. It’s no longer just an egg world out there. It’s a fried-chicken-in-a-bucket-to-go world and you better jump in while the jumping’s good.” He leaned closer. “Now, son, this is strictly between you and me, but I just signed an exclusive contract with this fellow over in Kentucky for me to supply him with all his chickens. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not making money yet, but I’ve got my eye on this fellow and the way business is booming I wouldn’t be surprised if he doesn’t open up another place real soon.”

“Really?” said Bobby.

“Yep . . . and it all pans out with my theory about the future.”

“What’s your theory?”

“Quantity,” he said emphatically. “Not quality. Fast, not friendly. That’s the secret of making money nowadays, boy. This is the jet age. People want to eat on the move. How fast, how cheap, and how much do we get for our dollar, that’s what folks are interested in today.”

Bobby nodded and thought about it.

“Anyhow, young Robert, what I’m saying is this. I’m looking for a good man to work for me, somebody with personality, good P.R. skills such as my own, and I think that you fit that bill to a tee. Say the word and the job is yours.”

Bobby was flattered by the offer but he did not know a thing about the poultry business. “I sure appreciate you considering me for the job, Mr. Fowler, but—”

Fowler did not let him finish his sentence. “Now, before you talk it over with your wife,” he said as he pulled a small notebook out of his pocket, “I’m going to write down a figure as to what you can expect to earn the first year. And this is just to start, mind you.” He jotted down a number and handed it to Bobby. “Of course, you would have to relocate but I think it is a chance worth taking and I give you my word, son, if I do well, you do well.”

The number Fowler showed him was twice the salary he was making now.

The next morning when Monroe stopped by the house for coffee and Bobby showed him the figure, Monroe, true to form, said, “Whoa . . . that’s some serious bucks.” Bobby was torn. He hated to give up teaching but with a baby on the way and no new teaching offers, he and Lois talked. They decided to get out of the cold of New Hampshire and take a chance with Mr. Fowler.

The Missing Plate

TOT WHOOTEN had never met Charlie Fowler but when Mother Smith was down at Tot’s beauty shop having her hair dyed purple again she mentioned Bobby’s new job. Tot said, “Well, for his sake I hope it works out. But no matter what you do in life there’s a fifty-fifty chance that something will go wrong.” She threw a teacup full of creme rinse on Mother Smith’s head and added, “Of course, with me it’s always been a ninety-nine percent chance that if something can go wrong, it will.”

Tot must have had a premonition.

The following Monday Norma Warren had just returned from driving her eleven-year-old daughter, Linda, over to Poplar Bluff to spend the week with her grandmother, Ida Jenkins. Much to Norma’s irritation, after her father had died her mother had picked up and moved there so she could be nearer to the Presbyterian church. “Now that I’m a widow,” she said, “I need to be closer to my own kind.” It hurt Norma to think her mother preferred the Presbyterians to her own family but she still had Aunt Elner, even though she was a handful. Today was Norma’s at-home beauty day and she was right in the middle of giving herself her weekly Merle Norman facial when the phone rang again for the third time in an hour. She did not answer it but it would not stop ringing so she finally had to pick up.

“Hello, Aunt Elner,” she said, as pleasantly as she could, trying not to ruin her facial, but this time it was not Aunt Elner again. It was Elner’s neighbor Verbena calling from the cleaners.

“Norma, it’s me. Have you heard what happened to poor Tot?”

“Oh God, what now?”

“You know Rochelle, his assistant, that heavyset gal who likes to have a snort or two with Dr. Orr?”

“Yes, what about her?”

“Well, I guess they lost poor Tot’s upper plate over the weekend. Too much fooling around in the office.”

“What do you mean they lost it?” she said, destroying her facial.

“Friday Dr. Orr pulled her teeth out and took an impression of her gums for a set of false teeth and told her to come back Monday and he would have her plate ready . . . and this morning she sneaks up there by the back alley—she said she would just die if anybody saw her without her teeth—so she goes in and sits down. She said she couldn’t wait to get her new teeth. And then Dr. Orr walks in and she said she should have known something was wrong, she could smell the liquor on his breath, so anyhow he says, ‘Open up,’ and then he tries to put this upper plate in her mouth and it no more fits her than the man in the moon and he calls out, ‘Dammit, Rochelle, this is not Tot’s upper plate!’ He says to her, ‘Wait right here,’ and then she hears all this yelling and cussing, so anyhow, about fifteen minutes later he comes back and says, ‘Tot, I’m sorry, your teeth must have been thrown out by mistake. I’m going to have to take another impression and start over.’ ”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh yes. So as you can imagine, Poor Tot was fit to be tied. She said it was no telling whose teeth he had put in her mouth. And not only that, this was the very week she was going to the new catfish place. You sure can’t eat catfish without teeth, much less corn on the cob.”

“No.”

“And you know what the worst part is?”

“How could it possibly get worse?”

“I think James is slipping around on Tot with that Rochelle. That’s what Merle said. He saw them out on the highway at that old Casa Loma Supper Club, and they were all over each other, kissing and carrying on.”

“Oh no, Poor Tot.”

“I think it was sabotage, just plain sabotage. I think that girl just threw her teeth out for meanness so she could run around with James while Poor Tot has to stay home. But mind you, I didn’t tell Tot that.”

“Poor Tot.”

“Isn’t it the truth? If it’s not one thing, it’s another. And right after her mother set the house on fire and now this. It’s a wonder she can even get up in the morning.”

Norma went and cleaned her face and started again. She thought she better take care of her looks. She did not want Macky going out to the Casa Loma or someplace with some other woman.

The Pageant

UNFORTUNATELY, things had not turned out well for Betty Raye either. Hamm did not keep his word to her and in 1960 decided to run for another four years as governor. There went her dream of having her own home again. She had been heartbroken, but even she could see that his political career was like a train that could not be stopped. He was at the height of his popularity and he said not to run when he had all this momentum going would be such a terrible waste of all the time and energy he had put in. He pleaded with her, promised her that if he could have this one more term it would definitely be the end. “Anyway, honey,” he said, “the state law says a governor can’t serve three consecutive terms. So even if I wanted to I couldn’t run again. What better guarantee can you have than that?”

As heartbroken as she was about having to stay on for another four years, she could see how much the people depended on him. He seemed to thrive on pressure and enjoy his every waking hour. And like it or not, she had to admit Hamm had turned out to be a wonderful governor and although she still longed to spend more time with him and live in a home of her own, there was a part of her that was very proud of him. As much as she missed him, she was pleased he was so happy.

Also the good news about Hamm’s popularity was that in this election year his numbers were so high she and the two boys did not have to go on the campaign trail with him. There was almost no campaign, and as furious as it made him, Earl Finley had to sit and wait another four years until he could take back control of the state.

When Hamm won the election in a landslide, Cecil Figgs was of course delighted to have another four years and decided that it was time to put on a grand outdoor pageant celebrating the history of Missouri. It was to be a spectacular affair with a cast of hundreds, including an Indian pony to depict the first ride of the Pony Express in 1860 from St. Joseph to Sacramento. The pageant would re-create all the major events, starting from June 1812, when Missouri was first organized as a territory, and continuing up to modern-day Missouri.

They were rehearsing down at the big Shrine Auditorium and all day long Cecil had been losing his patience with State Trooper Ralph Childress, who, at six-four, could hardly be pushed around without something happening. Cecil was directing the governor’s Honor Guard to march onto the stage in a straight line and to continue marching through a huge reproduction of the St. Louis Arch with a GATEWAY TO THE WEST banner at the very top. When they reached the front of the stage they were to turn, face the audience, salute and, in unison, put their hands behind their backs, and hold an at-ease stance—all on the count of ten that Cecil was snapping away with his fingers. “One more time,” Cecil said, stomping his foot and clapping his hands at Trooper Childress. “Faster, faster, pick up your feet, you’re too slow.”

Finally the trooper, red-faced and ready to explode, stopped and said, “Listen, you little fairy, you snap your fingers at me one more time, I’m gonna rip them off and shove them up your fat ass.”

Cecil stood and blinked at him, “What did you say?”

“You heard me.”

Cecil frowned. “Don’t you make me waste my valuable rehearsal time fooling with you. I am the director of this show and you are going to do it and you are going to do it right.”

“Over my dead body,” said Trooper Childress.

Cecil glanced at his watch. “Take a fifteen-minute break, people. I want you all back here onstage at exactly one-forty, ready to take it from the top.” He then pointed at Trooper Childress and said, “And I want to see you downstairs right now, mister, let’s go.”

When they got downstairs to the large rehearsal hall, Cecil closed the door and said, “Take off that shirt. I’m not having you rip up a new shirt when we don’t have time to order another one.”

The trooper did so with glee, just itching to wipe up the floor with Cecil. The last thing Ralph Childress heard before Cecil hauled off and beat the living hell out of him was “I will not have a cast member setting a bad example.”

Fifteen minutes later Cecil came back into the auditorium clapping his hands. “Let’s go, people . . . right from the top.” Behind him came Childress, limping slightly. A few minutes ago, he had been lying on the floor too exhausted to get back up, while Cecil had stood over him with his hands on his hips and asked, “Now, are you ready to get back to work or not?”

The trooper had been so surprised that he’d laughed and said, “Yeah, I guess so.”

Cecil may have looked pudgy but he was as solid as a rock and as strong as a bull. He had been lifting dead bodies and caskets all his life. Although most of his military service had been spent arranging teas and bridge parties for the officers and their wives, he had been trained to defend himself. Nothing more was made of the incident but when the others asked Ralph what had happened he replied, “Aw, he’s all right . . . just trying to do his job.” In trooper language that must have meant a lot, because Cecil never had any more trouble with any of them and eventually they even came to like him. As a matter of fact, some came to him when they were having trouble with their wives or girlfriends and asked his advice. He seemed to understand women much better than they did.

And it was true in one important case. He had noticed Hamm and Betty Raye drifting further apart. After the pageant, he went into Hamm’s office and closed the door. “You know I don’t care what you do in your personal life but you need to start paying a little more attention to your wife.”

Hamm, distracted, said, “What?”

“Betty Raye. She hasn’t been anywhere with you in the last six months and that’s not right.”

“Oh yeah . . . yeah, I guess you’re right. Maybe I should take her to dinner or something.”

“It had better be something,” Cecil said, “and soon.”

Hamm said, “Yeah, I will as soon as I get a free night.” But the free night never came. Betty Raye never said anything but she was lonesome. She really did not have any close friends in Jefferson City. Since it was the capital of the state, most people there were either in politics or married to someone who was. Betty Raye did not know a thing about politics except that it had taken her husband away, and she had nothing in common with the other wives, who seemed to love it. Alberta Peets, the ice-pick murderess, was her closest friend. She kept Betty Raye amused with stories of her many boyfriends, but when Alberta went home on a weekend furlough and the boys were off at camp, Betty Raye rattled around all by herself in the upstairs portion of the huge mansion.

One day in the middle of the afternoon, the phone rang at Neighbor Dorothy’s house in Elmwood Springs. It was Betty Raye.

“Well, hello, honey, what a nice surprise.”

“I didn’t want anything,” Betty Raye said. “I was just thinking about you and thought I’d call and say hello.”

They chatted for quite a while. Betty Raye asked about everyone and wanted to know how Jimmy was doing and said to tell him hello. When Dorothy asked how she was enjoying being the first lady of the state, Betty Raye said, “Oh fine.” She did not tell Dorothy but she often thought about them and her time in Elmwood Springs. And lately, there were times when she wished she had never left, but then one of her boys would run in looking for her and she’d be happy again.

The Dancing Storks

LUCKILY FOR Bobby and Lois, Charlie Fowler was a man of his word and as the company began to grow, so did Bobby’s salary. Within a year after their son was born they were able to buy themselves a nice house and a new car. They found that they loved living in Kentucky and even brought Doc and Dorothy and Mother Smith and Jimmy over for the Kentucky Derby. Dorothy had just lost Princess Mary Margaret to old age and the trip did his mother good. It was especially wonderful when she met her new blond, blue-eyed grandson, Michael.

That year Poor Tot had lost her mother as well. Literally. While she was at work her mother had wandered off from the house and apparently had gotten into a car with strangers, who drove her all the way to Salt Lake City, where she wound up living in a Mormon home for the aged. By the time they found her she said she did not want to come home, but Tot still had to pay for her room and board each month.

On July 6, 1962, Macky and Norma Warren were celebrating a special day and early the next morning Norma called Aunt Elner, even before Elner had called, which was a first.

Aunt Elner wiped the flour off her hands on her apron and picked up. “Hello.”

“Aunt Elner, it’s Norma. Do you have your hearing aid on?”

“Yes.”

“You are not going to believe what Macky got me for our anniversary. It is the cutest thing I have ever—”

“What did he get you?”

“Well, remember how mad I got at him last year when he gave me that stupid Rainbird sprinkler for the lawn?”

Aunt Elner laughed. “I remember. Poor little Macky.”

Norma said, “Poor little Macky? Of course, I was upset. Can you blame me? Our thirteenth wedding anniversary and he buys me something for the lawn. He takes me outside, turns on the water, and says, ‘Happy Anniversary.’ I said, ‘Macky Warren, after thirteen years of marriage I get a sprinkler?’ And not only that, he got it out of his own hardware store. He didn’t even shop for it. After I had driven all the way to Poplar Bluff and bought him all those cute boxer shorts, remember, with the little hearts on them, and baked him a cake. I could have killed him on the spot. Well, anyhow, this year he made up for it. Wait till you see what that crazy fool bought me. I’m looking at it right now.”

“What is it?”

“It is the cutest thing you have ever seen. It is these two storks, at least I think they’re storks—aren’t they the birds with the long beaks? Anyway these two storks are all dressed up and are dancing. The male stork has on a tuxedo and the female is all dressed up in a green evening gown with a red headdress and they are dancing on this pedestal, and you turn it over and it’s a music box. When you wind it up, it turns around in a circle and plays ‘The Sheik of Araby’ while they dance. I said to Macky, ‘This is the cutest thing I have ever seen.’ Listen, I’m going to wind it up for you.”

Norma put it close to the phone while it played. Aunt Elner sat and listened. After about a minute Norma came back on the phone. “Can you hear that? Is that not the cutest thing you ever heard?”

Aunt Elner agreed. “Yes it is. I always loved that tune.”

“Me too, I’m just tickled to death with it, and I said to Macky, ‘This is more like it, this is much more romantic than a sprinkler.’ Men, aren’t they silly sometimes? He won’t tell me where he got it, but it says on the bottom it was made in Czechoslovakia, so it must have cost him a fortune. He said he bought it for me to put on my knickknack shelf and I said, ‘Macky, this is not an ordinary knickknack.’ I’ve been thinking about where to put it and think I’m going to keep it in the living room on my end table. I mean, it certainly is a conversation piece. After all, how many homes could you go into and find storks dancing to ‘The Sheik of Araby’?”

Aunt Elner said, “I’ve never seen it.”

“No, as a matter of fact, I was surprised Macky had the good taste to pick it out all by himself. You know the kind of junk he usually gets. So I said to him, ‘Macky, you can still surprise me. That must mean we have a good marriage.’ He said, ‘We must have, because you surprise me with something every day.’ I said, ‘Well good, I don’t want you to get bored.’ And he said he was anything but bored, wasn’t that sweet?”

“Yes, it was. How did he like your present?”

“He loved it, but you know Macky—anything with a fish on it and he’s happy.”

Not every marriage was as happy as Macky and Norma’s. Over the past few years things had started to change even more between Hamm and Betty Raye. It was not so much that they had stopped caring for each other; they had just slowly started drifting apart, until gradually, even before they were aware of it, he was living one life and she another.

Hers was a quiet life, trying to stay out of the spotlight, while it seemed he was always running toward it. His hours were so erratic—he only slept three or four hours a night—that they finally stopped sleeping together. He started to use the small room off the master bedroom so as not to disturb her and never came back. She had her two boys, whom she adored, and spent most of her time with them but still, being so in love with Hamm and not really having him was hard.

It was sometimes difficult to keep up a happy face all the time, particularly when her mother came to visit.

Minnie had just come from one such visit to the governor’s mansion to see her daughter and her grandsons. Being that they had another few days off, she and Beatrice Woods had decided to have Floyd drive them down to Elmwood Springs for the day. Everyone was glad to see Beatrice again. She seemed very happy and still laughed at everything Chester the dummy said.

Why? No one knew. Ruby Robinson said if she could see him she wouldn’t think he was so funny.

Like all mothers when they get together, the conversation usually revolves around the happiness and success of their children, and Minnie and Dorothy were no different. At this point Minnie could discuss success with authority. Her daughter was married to the governor and the Oatman Family Gospel Singers were doing so well they had just purchased another brand-new Silver Eagle custom-made Trailways bus and had a new hit album.

Minnie said, “With it all I’m so blessed and thankful to have the relationship with the Lord that I do. I look around me and people don’t seem happy with all the money they’ve got. It’s never enough. They always think they need more. And all you really need is the Lord. Money just don’t do it, does it?”

Dorothy said, “Not in a lot of cases, I guess.”

“I told Emmett Crimpler just the other day . . . I said, Emmett, just how many new suits do you need? You can only wear them one at a time. But every time we stop near a Sears, he’s got to run in and buy him another one. He says it’s ’cause he used to be so poor but I don’t believe it.”

“No?”

“No. He thinks all them new suits is gonna bring him happiness. But they ain’t. You know, Dorothy, up to now I’ve had to scrimp for pennies every day of my life, trying to make ends meet. I’ve been poor as long as I’ve been alive and, you know, when you is poor, most won’t give you the second time of day. Why, I can remember when I was nothing but a li’l ole barefoot child living in a little ole shack my daddy built us, setting on the top of a slump slab out in the country. Daddy worked from first light to last, picking out a few lumps of coal for us and the neighbors, but we was happy. Now that we’ve got money, I look at my boys and see they ain’t happy. Bervin is chomping at the bit to run off and be the next Elvis and Vernon is on his third wife and is gone cold on the Lord.” She sighed. “And Betty Raye . . . I just don’t know what’s the matter there. Here she has a cute little husband and two sweet boys but . . . Oh, she tried to put on a good face for me but a mother can tell when something’s wrong.

“Something’s wrong. I can’t put my finger on it but the whole time we was there Hamm goes one way and she goes another. It don’t seem right to me. Ferris and me was never apart a day or night from the first day we was married in 1931, by the Reverend W. W. Nails. He said, ‘Who God is joined together let no man put asunder,’ and I never forgot it . . . and I’ve got me a feeling that there’s something asunder going on.”

Vita Green

HARRY S. TRUMAN ONCE said there were three things that could ruin a man: power, money, and women. Hamm already had power and the promise of money. And a woman was getting ready to walk in any day now.

Hamm was determined to be the best governor he could and he worked hard at it. He made sure he was informed about how people felt on every issue. Along with talking to as many people as he could, he also read every paper in the state before starting work each morning. Although he never paid much attention to the society pages, he did begin to notice something in the Kansas City papers. He kept seeing pictures of this one woman, always photographed at some party or function. He usually did not have much use for the rich or any interest in their silly activities but as the weeks went by he found himself starting to look for pictures of her in the paper and being disappointed when she was not there.

One morning he called Cecil into his office. “When you were in the funeral business in Kansas City, did you ever know a Mrs. Vita Green?”

“Know her?” Cecil said. “She was one of my best customers and still is. We do the flowers for all her parties.”

“Is that so?”

“One year she gave a party for my theater group and we did her entire terrace in white roses. She has the whole top floor of the Highland Plaza apartment building, with a view from every room.”

“Huh,” said Hamm.

“You should see that place sometime. It is spectacular.”

“I’d like to sometime. What does the husband do?”

“Just made a lot of money is all I know. She was divorced before I met her. Why?”

“No reason. I was just reading where this Mrs. Green was named head of some arts council and I was thinking that it might be a pretty good thing for the governor to get involved in.”

Cecil looked surprised. “Really?”

“You’re always bugging me about all that artsy stuff, aren’t you? So I figure maybe I’ll give it a try.”

Cecil left the office, pleased that all his attempts to get Hamm interested in culture had finally paid off. Vita Green was one of the well-known cultural leaders in Kansas City and was admired by everyone, especially the men. She was a tall, striking woman of forty-three with shining black hair that she wore parted in the middle and pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck. She was always dressed exquisitely but simply, usually in bright red, or emerald green to match her eyes, with one spectacular pin on her right shoulder. At first glance she could have been mistaken for Spanish or Greek aristocracy. Few who met her would have guessed that she was 100 percent black Irish. But in addition to being a pure pleasure to look at, she was smart, witty, and a man’s woman in every way. She could converse on any subject and hold her own in any crowd. But when Mrs. Vita Green received the note from the governor asking if they could set up a meeting to discuss the state of the arts in Missouri, her first reaction was to laugh. Vita, along with the rest of her crowd, had always assumed Sparks was some country bumpkin straight from the agriculture department who would certainly never be interested in anything like the arts. She called her good friend Peter and said, “You are not going to believe who wants to have a meeting with me.”

Peter Wheeler, whom Hamm had defeated six years ago and who had turned down Hamm’s offer to join his administration, was a gentleman and as gracious as ever. “I think you should, Vita, and at least hear him out. You never know, and he may be trying to branch out a little.”

She thought about what he had said and after a moment replied, “I suppose you’re right, Peter—anything for art, as they say.”

A few days later, a member of Hamm’s staff called and informed her the governor was going to be in Kansas City for the day and asked if she would be available Wednesday morning between 8:30 and 9:00, before he did his speech at the Elks Club. Although it was an ungodly hour for her, she agreed to meet with him at the arts council building downtown. When she arrived that morning he was already in the president’s office making phone calls. A nervous secretary said, “He says you are to go right in.” His back was to the door and he was on the phone with his feet propped up on the windowsill. She stopped at the door but her perfume did not. It traveled on before her and wafted across the desk and caused him to turn around and hang up instantly. In that perfume were the possibilities of every kind of exotic evening, whether on the roof of her penthouse or on a moonlit beach in the tropics. All this before she said, “Hello, I’m Vita Green.”

When he saw the woman he had only seen in the black-and-white newspaper photographs standing there in living color, Hamm suddenly forgot every other pretty girl he had ever seen in his life—and as governor he saw quite a few, mostly blond beauty queens that had just won some contest or another. In his entire married life he had never thought of another woman in that way, but when Vita walked in, all thinking went out the door and slammed it shut. What stood before him now was the Rolls-Royce of womanhood. She was not a girl. She was a grown woman who, he could tell just by looking, was smarter and more powerful than he was by a mile and it excited him. He felt as if someone had just smacked him in the face with a million dollars. And as usual, it did not take him long to make up his mind.

What Vita Green now saw, jumping up and coming around the desk to shake her hand, was a stocky man about her height in low heels, not handsome in the way she was used to, certainly not sophisticated or well dressed. But when he grabbed her hand and held on to it as if he was afraid she would escape, she was somewhat taken by surprise by the energy and vitality and just the sheer heat of the man when he touched her. She was used to being admired by men but this one was different. On first meeting her, most men were overwhelmed and usually fumbled and stepped back away from her, trying to think of a clever thing to say. But, clearly, Hamm Sparks was not trying to think of clever things—or stepping back. There was nothing thought out or calculated about his approach. He said exactly what was on his mind at the moment, he looked at her with the unguarded genuine appreciation of a male for a female, and said, “Mrs. Green, what is it going to take for me to get you? Because I’m telling you right now, I’m gonna move heaven and hell to get it. You want me to jump through hoops for you? Just tell me how high and how many.”

Now she was taken aback and, to her astonishment, she found this total candor to be refreshing and completely irresistible. She had to smile. At that moment someone started knocking on the door.

She said, “Why don’t we start with dinner?”

Not letting go of her hand and looking right into her eyes, he said, “Mrs. Green, I can’t wait that long. How about lunch?”

“It’s Vita. Where would you like to go?”

“I don’t care. You tell me where and when. . . .”

“How about the Downtown Club. Shall we say one o’clock?”

He nodded.

“Will we be discussing the arts, Governor Sparks?”

“It’s Hamm, and I sincerely doubt it,” he said.

She walked to the door and when she got there paused a moment and then turned around and looked back at him. “And by the way,” she said, “I intend to be early.”

“And I’ll be there waiting.”

All the way back to her apartment she had to laugh but the joke was on her. Of all the things she had expected to happen in her rather well-planned life, a rube politician named Hamm Sparks was certainly the last person she would have guessed.

That night after dinner he told her he had decided to stay in town for a few more days.

“Really?” she said. “Don’t you have a state to run?”

He looked at her. “Honey, I can do two things at once.”

I’ll just bet you can, she thought.

And this is how the relationship of Vita and Hamm began. There was no courting, no games, just raw physical attraction. They both had met their match and both felt as if they had unexpectedly stumbled upon something they had been searching for for years. There was no struggle for power, only the start of a powerful merger.

A Lot in Common

NO ONE HAD BEEN surprised when Mrs. Vita Green was named governor’s adviser on the arts. People were not in the least bit suspicious when Hamm spent more and more time in Kansas City and left his wife at home. She rarely went anywhere with him anyway, so no one noticed. The fact that Vita and the governor were seen at some of the same events and parties did not cause eyebrows to raise; it seemed only natural. But then few knew that when the governor checked into his suite at the Muehlebach Hotel he walked in and walked right back out again, through the basement door, where Trooper Ralph Childress was waiting in the alley to take him over to Vita’s apartment and would wait to take him back in the early morning.

Not only was Vita more wildly attracted to him than she had ever been to any man in her life, but she liked him. Hamm Sparks was exactly who he was, with no ego, no pretensions. He was an eager student. He wanted to learn, to improve himself. She had a lot to teach. Vita also recognized so much of herself in Hamm. They had a lot more in common than met the eye. Most people would not have guessed that Vita had ever worked a day in her life or that she had not been to the manor born. She had only heard about all of her rich cousins living in fine homes, going to the best schools, shopping in the finest stores. Her father, a likable man, had come from a nice, upper-middle-class family, attended a good college, but had been afflicted with an addiction to both gambling and drink. One by one, he’d lost every job he had been handed, until they wound up having to live off the small check that his embarrassed brothers sent them once a month, more to keep him away from them than from any real obligation. Growing up being thought of as the poor relations in a family takes its toll. Vita had seen her mother’s eyes, which had once been blue and sparkling, turn dull and lifeless and her hair go white from the stress and strain of lace-curtain poverty. This, she decided, was not going to happen to her. She made a vow she would never depend on anyone. But on the bright side, for all their bad qualities, shame and humiliation had fueled the ambition that led her to where she was today.

Vita was a completely self-made woman. After finishing high school she had left Kansas City for Chicago and immediately got a job at Illinois By-Products, a company with about seven hundred employees. Over a period of three years she had worked her way up from the secretarial pool to one of five secretaries to private secretary to executive secretary. Two years later she was made personal assistant to the president of the company, with two secretaries of her own. The president and owner of the company, Robert Porter and his wife, Elsie, had no children of their own and they took an interest in the intelligent and ambitious young woman. They often invited her to join them at their home for dinner or at one of their clubs. Vita was a fast study. She quickly learned how to dress, how to use the right knife and fork. At night she studied art, music, and history. When she met the people the Porters introduced her to, she soon became a frequent guest in the beautiful residences along Lake Shore Drive. Vita felt that she was finally mingling with the kinds of people she should have been around all her life. The “by-products” of the company were a delightful little mixture of iron ore, copper, and steel, and with Mr. Porter’s help, by the time she was twenty-eight she had already made a small fortune buying and selling World War II surplus scrap iron. Not a romantic product but when Mr. Porter died and left her even more stocks than she’d bought, scrap and iron became her two favorite words.

She had never married. There was no Mr. Green. When she had moved back to Kansas City, the creation of Mr. Green had been her own little private joke. She’d even named him after the color of money. There had been men, rich powerful men, but none she was willing to marry. She was already rich and very happy. She liked the life she led. She enjoyed coming into that spacious beige apartment, filled with her lovely things, sitting on top of the city where she had once been poor and unhappy. When she looked back on her life, she was grateful, in a way, and wondered if she would have enjoyed it quite as much if the money had been handed to her on a silver platter. She had worked for every dime she had. Granted, it had not been easy for a woman in business in a man’s world but from where she sat now it had been worth it. She now had everything she wanted—including Hamm Sparks. There was something so wonderfully freeing about completely surrendering herself to him without reservation. It was those moments when she let go and allowed herself to flow and meld into him, that moment when she could no longer tell where she stopped and he began, that made her happier than she had been for a long time. This little fireplug lover of hers ate fast, walked fast, talked fast, and made love fast. She loved the way he was always ready, always full of energy and speed, like a car that could go from five miles an hour to seventy in less than five seconds. She could depend on him, count on never having to have a second thought wondering if he wanted her. Being with Hamm was like watching a starving man devour a huge meal and still manage to love every bite, no more, no less than the last time. And for a woman of a certain age, it was the kind of thing that kept a secret smile on her face and a hum in her body. But most of all she loved the way he was coming to trust her and depend on her.

Hamm had also found a person he could talk to, a woman who would not laugh at him or look down on where he had come from or think any of his ambitions were too much to try for. On the contrary, Vita had almost more ambition for him than he could have ever dreamed for himself. To his great surprise, he had discovered that Vita knew more about the working of politics inside and out than he did. For a while before her father fell apart completely, he had been involved in local politics and was one of old Boss Pendergast’s men during the twenties and thirties, when Kansas City politics had been a hotbed of greed, graft, and good times. Until Pendergast went to jail. But during that time, although she was only twelve or thirteen years old, she had also learned where a lot of the bodies were buried, so to speak, due to her father’s inability to keep his mouth shut when he had a snootful, which was often.

After she had been with Hamm a year, she decided to pay a visit to one of her father’s old friends, Earl Finley. He had known Vita when she was a little girl and had always been very fond of her. He knew she had been a large donor to Peter Wheeler’s campaign and he was very happy to see her after all these years, and catch up on old times. After a while, Vita steered the conversation around to Hamm. At the mention of his name, Earl practically bit the white plastic tip off his White Owl cigar. “Don’t blame us for that, Vita, we tried our best to stop him. But the little redneck son of a bitch slipped right past us and now this stupid hayseed is thumbing his nose at us and won’t listen to a word we say.”

Vita said, “Earl, I think you may be wrong about Hamm. He might be stubborn but he’s not stupid. I think he understands he can’t fight you and the senate at the same time. Call off the dogs and quit blocking every move he makes and I’ll give you my word he’ll push a few things through you want.”

He chewed on his cigar for a moment and blinked his eyes a few times, wondering what she meant. “Aw now, Vita, how can you be sure what that little maverick son of a bitch will do? He’s never done anything we wanted him to yet.”

She answered him with a smile that said everything.

He looked at her and said, “You don’t mean it.”

“Oh yes,” she said. “You better believe I do.”

Then, after a moment, he started to laugh from the bottom of his big gut until it came out and filled the room and shook the table where they were sitting. When he’d calmed down long enough to speak, he wiped his eyes with his pocket handkerchief with the E.F. embroidered on it and said, “Hell, Vita, let me see what I can do.”

Suddenly Hamm’s $150 million road-improvement bond, stalemated for almost three years, passed both houses, and Earl got a few little things he wanted. But not many; Vita made sure of that. As she wisely told Hamm, “Darling, there are some people in this world that are either at your throat or at your feet. Best to keep him at your feet.”

Hamm Moves Up

AT FIRST Hamm had not wanted to meet many of Vita’s friends or go to parties for the arts. He had resisted but Vita knew it would be good for him personally and politically.

“Look, Vita,” he said, “I just wouldn’t feel right around them.”

“Why not? My friends are very nice. They give a lot of money. Why wouldn’t you go?”

“Because I don’t want to be around people always looking down their noses at me, thinking I’m dumb.”

“Hamm, you are the governor of the state. Nobody is going to think you are dumb.”

“It doesn’t matter what I’m the governor of, I know what they think. I used to see that same bunch when I was in college, driving around campus in their fancy cars, joining their fancy fraternities. The only way I got in the doors of a fraternity house was as a waiter. I hated every one of those pompous, egg-sucking bastards. I wanted an education and a degree as bad as the next man, only I didn’t have a rich daddy to pay my bills and I had to drop out. I never got a degree in anything except how to sell tractors. How could I talk to that crowd you run with?”

“Is that what’s bothering you? You know just because someone has a degree does not make them smarter or more interesting. Hamm, look where you are, how smart you are about knowing what people want. Most of those boys you knew in college would change places with you in a second.”

“Do you think so?”

“Hamm, you don’t need a degree to prove how smart you are.”

He admitted something to her. “It’s not just the degree, Vita. It’s everything else. Those rich kids learned how to socialize with each other, how to act at parties. They had four years to do nothing but make friends and find out who they were. I envy them that; I’ve been working since I was thirteen years old. We never had any social life. . . . Oh hell, Vita, the truth is I’m scared. I’ll say the wrong thing or use the wrong fork. I feel more comfortable being around Rodney and them. I know they’re not gonna laugh at me. They don’t know any better themselves.”

She shook her head. “Honey, you are the hardest person to kick upstairs I ever met. But I am determined to do it.”

Hamm continued to resist but Vita was persistent. He said he’d make a rare appearance now and then.

A month later Vita was at her apartment waiting for him. He came in looking very pleased. He sat down and loosened his tie and put his feet up on her coffee table. “Well, how did I do?”

“You were wonderful and everybody there adored you. People came up to me all night and told me how charming they thought the governor was and how handsome he was in person.”

“Is that so?” he said, taking the drink she handed him.

“Yes. I was very proud of you.”

“You didn’t think I was too loud or anything?”

“No.”

“I didn’t look stupid in this monkey suit? People weren’t laughing at me, were they?”

“Not a one.”

“You know, Vita, I have to say I was a little surprised. Once you get to know him, that Pete Wheeler is a pretty regular guy, isn’t he? I’m kinda sorry now I said all those things about him.”

“I’m glad you liked him. He really is a fine person. So is his wife.”

“Do you know what he said to me, Vita?”

“No, what?”

“He said that he envied me my ability to connect with people. He said he wished he had not been handed everything, could have been a workingman like me, and been given the chance to make good on his own, like I had.” He looked at her in wonderment. “Can you imagine that—here I’ve been jealous of him and all the time he envied me.”

She could have said I told you so but she enjoyed too much watching him discover things on his own.

Sometime later, Rodney, who rarely had anything to do except be on hand whenever Hamm wanted company, came strolling into the attorney general’s office. Wendell Hewitt glanced up from the work on his desk and said, “Come in and close the door, I need to talk to you.”

Rodney sat down. “What’s up?”

“You know, we’re the only two he’ll listen to and he depends on us to tell him the truth and, frankly, I’m a little worried about him and I think we both should sit him down and talk to him.”

“About what?”

“All this running back and forth to all those parties. I think he is beginning to enjoy this high life a little too much, all this getting written up in the society pages. If he’s not careful, he’s gonna get the people who voted for him riled up.”

Rodney waved his hand and dismissed the idea. “Oh, don’t worry about that. No matter how many new suits he gets or who he rubs shoulders with, they know underneath it all he’s one of them.”

“Do you think so?”

“Hell yes. Listen, those country people have some secret way of recognizing one another that you and I don’t know anything about. And you can’t fool them. They can smell a phony a mile away.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah—don’t forget, I’ve known him for a long time. I’ve seen him with those people and first of all, he is one of them, and second, he likes them, he understands how they think, and what they want, and believe me, if he didn’t like them, hell, love them even, they would know it. Right now they believe he’ll stand up for them but, most importantly, he believes he will fight for them, even against us.”

“Do you think he would?”

“You bet. He means all that stuff about how there are no little men. It’s not just a come-on with him and it’s just what they want to hear. He knows where they itch and how to scratch it. Now, you or I couldn’t get away with it but they’ll stick with him through thick and thin—and he knows not to go too far.”

“You sure? I think he’s mighty close myself.”

“Naw . . . all those people have some invisible line. If you cross it, brother, watch out. They are done with you forever. But Hamm knows just where that line is. It’s like a dog whistle that only other dogs can hear.”

But despite Rodney’s lack of concern, there were a few rumblings about Hamm and some people did start to notice he was changing. Several editorials and column mentions popped up here and there. Some said he was spending too much time with the elite and not looking after the ones who voted him into office. But as Rodney had said, Hamm knew just when to say what and just how to say it. In his last big television address to the state before he was to go to New York for the National Governors Convention he ended his remarks with a slight little chuckle.

“You know, folks, it seems you just can’t please everybody. Some people complain that I’ve been hobnobbing with the rich too much lately and I agree, but let me ask you this. How am I supposed to keep my eye on them and make sure they’re not stealing from you if I don’t hobnob a little? Some say that I’m beginning to look like Lady Astor’s pet goat with my new fluffed-up haircut and button-down collars. I don’t like it any more than you do but now, I can’t help what’s in fashion; all I can do is make sure that nobody up there in New York is ever going to say that the governor of the great state of Missouri is a hick and he doesn’t know how to dress. Not while I’m in office. Why, I’ll wear a necklace with pearls if that’s what it takes. And the way things are going, next year I just might be doing that.”

The cameramen in the studio cracked up and so did most everybody listening and all was smooth again.

Electricity

HAMM SPARKS WAS not the only one headed for New York that year. When she was four years old Norma Warren’s cousin Dena Nordstrom had left town with her mother, Marion Nordstrom, and the Warrens had not seen her since. Dena was working in television in New York and was now a very successful TV journalist and Norma decided that it was time that she and Macky went up to New York and paid her a visit. After Dena’s grandmother Gerta died, Norma felt she needed to make sure that some family kept in touch with Dena. The morning they were to leave, Aunt Elner was in her kitchen frying some bacon when the phone rang. She picked up the phone, wondering who was calling this early.

“Hello.”

“Aunt Elner, it’s me, Norma.”

Elner was surprised to hear her voice. “Are you there already? That was fast—”

“No, we’re still at the airport—”

“Oh.”

“Aunt Elner . . . do me a favor and go look out your bedroom window and see if you see any smoke.”

“Wait a minute.” Elner clanked the phone down on the telephone table. She came back in a moment. “No. No smoke.”

“Are you sure? Did you look toward our house?”

“Yes.”

“And there was no smoke?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? Did you smell any smoke? Go take another look, will you?”

“Hold on.”

After a silence, “Nope, the sky is as clear as a bell.”

“You haven’t heard any fire engines, have you?”

“Why?”

“Because I think I may have walked out and left the coffeepot on. I could just kill Macky. He rushed me, so now I can’t remember whether I turned it off or not. I don’t know why he thinks we have to get to the airport two and a half hours before the flight—we left in such a hurry, God knows if I remembered to do anything, much less turn off the coffeepot. I am a nervous wreck.”

“I’m sure you did, honey. If I know you, you probably washed it before you left.”

“All right, Macky! Aunt Elner, do me a favor. Call Verbena at work. She has a key to the back door. Ask her if she will come over there and see if I unplugged it and if I didn’t, to unplug it.”

“All right.”

“I tried to call her at home but she had already left and I have to get on this plane in one minute; that’s all I need is to have my house burn to the ground. . . . ALL RIGHT, MACKY. . . . He’s yelling for me, so I have to go.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it. You run on and don’t worry about a thing. Just put your mind at ease. I’ve left my coffeepot on all day and night and I’m not burned up yet.”

“Thanks, Aunt Elner. . . . All right, Macky. I’ve gotta run, I’ll call you when I get there. ’Bye.”

Aunt Elner put the phone down and went back in the kitchen. After she had finished her breakfast, she went into the living room and sat down at her telephone table and used the magnifying glass she kept by the phone book and looked in the Yellow Pages for the number to Blue Ribbon Cleaners. Then she dialed.

“Verbena, it’s Elner. Norma just called from the airport about her coffeepot. . . . Yes, again. I tell you if it’s not the coffeepot, it’s the iron. Anyway, she said for me to call you, so I’m calling you. I’ve never seen a person so nervous about electricity in my life. Whenever there’s a thunderstorm, she runs through the house like a chicken with her head cut off and unplugs everything, puts on her rubber shoes, and sits in the dark. Can you imagine? I guess she thinks lightning won’t hit her if she’s in rubber shoes. Somebody told her about that boy over in Poplar Bluff that got hit by lightning. You remember, Claire Hightower’s nephew. He was that little sissy boy who was the tap dancer. Anyway, he was running home to his momma one day after his lesson and forgot to change his shoes and got hit by lightning, bang, right in the taps. Knocked him twenty feet in the air. It was in all the papers, but you know, Claire says he had curly hair after that. It used to be straight as a stick until he got hit. She says he never was the same afterward. He never did marry, so we just don’t know what kind of damage it caused. Anyhow, when you get home tonight, go over there so I can tell her that her house hasn’t burned down to the ground. We can say we checked. Well, you take care now.”

At 5:28 Aunt Elner’s phone rang.

“Hello.”

“Elner, it wasn’t on, it was washed out and in the dishwasher.”

“What I figured.”

“But it’s a good thing I went over, because she had left the back door wide open and two of those old dogs that Macky feeds were flopped up on the sofa in the living room.”

“Ohhh, well . . . I’m not gonna tell her that. She’ll have a running fit.”

“Oh, don’t I know it.”

“Was it that old chow?”

“Yes, and the other one . . . that . . . whatever it is . . .”

“It’s a good thing you got them out.”

“I just hope they didn’t bring any fleas in, don’t you? If they did, I’m not saying where they came from, are you?”

“No. I am prepared to lie like a rug.”

After they got back from New York, Norma sat at the kitchen table and wrote out a list to give to Verbena and the fire department, instructing them what to do in case of fire. When Macky came home for lunch, she handed it to him.

“Would you take this down to the store and run off about twenty copies? Make sure they’re dark enough to read.”

“Sure. What is it?”

“It’s a list for us to give to Verbena to hand to the firemen so they will know what to look for.”

“What list?”

“In case we are out of town and there is a fire. I want to make sure they get everything that’s important out first, before it’s too late.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Norma, the house is not going to burn down.”

“Maybe not . . . but better safe than sorry. And you don’t know, what if lightning strikes it or something. I just think it’s better to be on the safe side and I need to go over this list with you, in case for some reason I’m not here and you are.”

Norma sat down at the table with Macky. “Okay. Now, the very first thing, number one: go and get everything out of the bottom right dresser drawer. I’ve got all the birth certificates, our photographs, our marriage license, wedding pictures, our yearbooks, things like that, all our paper goods that can’t be replaced.”

“Norma, I’m sure we could get a copy of our yearbook.”

“Maybe so, but how are you going to remember all the little cute things that everybody wrote? You won’t remember that . . . you can’t replace that. . . . And pictures of your family and mine, Linda’s baby pictures, you can’t replace those. Don’t forget what happened to Poor Tot when her mother set the house on fire. They lost everything, photos, birth certificates—she didn’t even have one picture of her family or anything. I don’t want that to happen to us. . . . That’s one thing I learned, you have to prioritize, be prepared for the worst.”

“Why don’t I just strap a fire extinguisher on your back so you can be ready at all times?”

“Oh, don’t be silly.”

“O.K., but Norma—on the off chance there is a fire—do you think the firemen are going to take time to read some list?”

Norma looked at Macky. “That’s a very good point. They should have a copy of this in advance, so they can be familiar with it and not have to waste time to refer to it.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” Macky said. “Why don’t we have them come over and practice while we’re at it.”

“Do they do things like that?”

“Norma, you are getting nuttier by the day. Let me see it.”

Norma handed him the list.

“What’s in the maroon hanging bag?”

“Your good coat, my good coat, my good hat, shoes . . . things like that. We don’t want to wind up in rags, having to wear whatever we have on. Oh, and I put all the home movies in the bottom, you can’t replace those. My jewelry, whatever I don’t have on, my dancing storks, your Kennedy half-dollar, Linda’s bronzed baby shoes, you don’t want to lose those, do you? Can you think of anything I’ve missed?”

Macky ran down the list again. “I notice you didn’t put down anything in my den.”

“Well, what’s in there that’s worth anything, except a bunch of old dead fish on the wall? What would you want out of there anyway?”

“I have a few pictures . . . and a couple of books . . . and my baseball.”

“Well, I don’t think they’ll have time to go in there, so whenever we leave, you just be sure and get what you want saved and put everything in the box under the bed. Here, as a matter of fact, I’m just not going to take a chance with Linda’s twirling trophies. I’m going to bring them downstairs and pack them . . . the firemen may not have time to go all the way upstairs. Now is there anything else you can think of? Speak now or forever hold your peace. Remember, all the paper goods go first . . . letters, cards, newspaper clippings, our Wayne Newton photo, all our pictures, they’re all gonna go in the first batch. So if you have anything like that, stick it in.”

“Why do you want that stupid cuckoo clock on the list? It’s a piece of junk.”

“Well, it’s old. And it was a wedding present. Put something down you want then.”

Macky got up and walked around the house, looking for things. A few minutes later he came back with the baseball Bobby had given him signed by Marty Marion.

“Well, put it in the box under the bed then. I’m not going to waste their time having them look for some old baseball when too many other important things are at stake.” She added it to the list and then said, “You know—I wonder how big a safety-deposit box is and are they fireproof?”

“Why?”

“Well . . . I think we’d be a lot better off when we left town if we just took everything we could down to the bank and put it in a safety-deposit box. Then I won’t have to worry about human error. That way we would know for sure.”

“What if the bank burned down?”

Norma looked at him. “Macky . . . why would you say something like that to me? Why would you want to put something like that in my head when you know how serious this is?”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Norma. I was just kidding—the bank is not going to burn down. Neither is our house.”

“All I’m trying to do is preserve our memories, protect our family history so that Linda and our grandchildren won’t wind up without anything to look at after we are gone, and you make a joke out of it.”

“Norma, I was kidding.”

“I don’t think you appreciate the things I try and do for this family. Children should have a sense of continuity, it’s very important.”

“Honey, first of all, we don’t have any grandchildren.”

“But we might someday.”

“Even if we do, we can always have new pictures made if anything happens.”

“I am aware of that, Macky—that’s not the point. The point is, they would only see pictures of us when we were older and not when we were young . . . that’s what I’m talking about. I want them to get to see a picture of me when I was young and still had a figure, not some old middle-aged woman.”

“Oh, Norma, you’re only thirty-five years old, just stop it. You are better-looking now than you ever were.” There was a pause. Macky saw his chance and he took it. “You look better today than the day I married you.”

“Oh, you’re just saying that.”

“No, I’m not. I was looking at you the other night, when you had on that pink thing . . . you know?”

“My nightgown?”

“Yeah. I said to myself just the other night, Norma gets better-looking every day.”

“Really?”

“Yes. You were a pretty girl but now you’re . . . a . . . sexy, mature woman. Just like a ripe juicy plum ready to pick off the tree . . . just right . . .”

“I’ve had that old pink thing for years.”

“Maybe so, but you look great in it.”

“It’s just an old nightgown I got over at Kmart.”

“Well, you don’t have a thing to worry about how you look now, that’s all I can say. You’re a good-looking old broad—and don’t you forget it.”

“It had a housecoat to match. I don’t know why I never wear it. I don’t even know if I still have it—I might have thrown it out or given it away by now.”

After Macky left the house, Norma went into the bedroom and took out her pink Kmart nightgown and held it up to her and looked at herself in the mirror. She turned to the left and then to the right and smiled.

Ten minutes later the phone at the store rang. Macky picked up. “Warren’s Hardware.”

“Macky, let me ask you something, and tell me the truth.”

“What?”

“You don’t discuss me with other men, do you?”

“What?”

“You don’t discuss what I look like in my nightgown with other men, do you?”

“Of course not.”

“Because I would be horrified if you did—”

“Honey, I promise I don’t discuss what you look like in anything with anybody, you know that.”

“I would just die if I thought while I was talking to some man he was trying to imagine what I looked like in my nightgown.”

“Norma, do you think I would take the chance of driving all the men in this town wild? I know better than that.”

“That’s not what I mean. I mean, oh, you know . . . I’d just feel funny if I thought somebody was looking at me funny.”

“No. Your secret’s safe with me.”

“Good. I feel better. Guess what? I found that housecoat. I had put it up on the top shelf in that red box with those extra pillowcases we don’t use, but guess what else?”

“What?”

“I can’t wear it.”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t match anymore. It’s a much darker pink than my nightgown, so it’s not a matched set. I’m thinking about running out there and seeing if they still carry the same thing and that way I could just buy the gown if they would let me, they might not, but if they won’t . . . I thought that maybe if I ran it through the washing machine every time I did a load, it would fade sooner or later. What do you think . . . should I do it?”

“Do what?”

“See if I can get a new nightgown. I thought since you like the way it looks on me, I should try and get a new one. If they still carry the same line; they keep changing things, I wish they wouldn’t . . . don’t you?”

“What?”

“Keep changing things. When you buy something you like, it’s terrible to go there and they don’t sell it anymore. That’s something you should remember in your business. Don’t discontinue things or change the make or brand.”

“Okay, honey, I’ll remember that.”

“Macky, you’re not going to be mad at me for going to Kmart, are you?”

“No.”

“I’m not buying hardware. I might not be buying anything. If they have it I’ll just get this one thing and then that’s it, O.K.?”

“All right . . .”

“I’ll take Aunt Elner with me . . . but we will just look, O.K.?”

“O.K.”

“You won’t think I’m a traitor, will you?”

“No, you go on and see about your nightgown.”

“Macky, do you really still find me attractive after all these years or are you just kidding?”

“Do you want me to close the store and come home right now and prove it?”

“Macky Warren! You better stop that nasty talk. What if a customer should hear you?”

Macky laughed heartily, and Norma hung up the phone and smiled.

Maybe while she was there, she would see if it came in any other colors.

Near Miss

IN ALL THE TIME Vita and Hamm had been together there had been only one conversation that came close to being an argument. Early on, when the affair first started, Hamm went through a period where he talked about getting a divorce but she had quickly nipped that idea in the bud. “Absolutely not. You are not going to ruin your political future over me. Besides, I don’t want to get married. I’m a grown woman and I want exactly what I’ve got. If this is some sort of guilt over me, forget it. You might as well know right now, I don’t want children. I have no interest whatsoever in being a mother or a stepmother.”

“But Vita,” he said, “I do feel bad.”

She took his face in her hands. “Darling, I know how you feel about me. You don’t need to wreck your life to prove it. What you do at home is your business but what we have together is just between us. We are not hurting anyone. It’s perfect the way it is.”

Of course, Vita did not know it as yet but her affair with Hamm was hurting someone in ways that at this point were subtle.

Outwardly, to Betty Raye, Hamm seemed the same as he always was. He had always been on the move and never at home and when he was she seldom got to see him alone. She did not know it, but being with Vita had changed him and the way he looked at the world and Betty Raye. He still loved her—but differently from before. No matter what he might say, Hamm was caught up in the whirl of Vita’s big-money and big-words crowd, still a little amazed and flattered to be suddenly socializing at black-tie affairs with people who would barely have spoken to him before. He seldom took Betty Raye along. First of all was her famous dislike of parties and social functions and second of all, she simply would not have fit in. The few places he did take her were for political purposes only and when they arrived he would immediately disappear into a circle of people dying to meet him. She usually wound up over in a corner, talking to one or two women who felt sorry for her or were curious about her, and then leave as soon as she could slip out and go home.

She tried to stay in touch with Hamm as much as she could, to be there when he needed her, but he never seemed to need her for anything. Over time Betty Raye felt herself slowly beginning to fade away, like a light starting to dim. She began to live in a world where she felt invisible.

Even the boys were slipping away. They were both getting to be much more like their father, aggressive and rowdy, and spent much of their time outside playing ball with the guards around the mansion. She did not know why but she began to feel like a stranger living in a house where everyone knew a secret but her.

Which was pretty much the truth. From the beginning, the inside circle knew about Hamm and Vita. Hamm had made it perfectly clear in a meeting with his staff right from the start.

“If Vita asks you for anything or needs anything, I want you to see that she has it, you understand? And if you want my opinion on an issue, ask Vita and she’ll let you know.”

Ralph and Lester, the two state troopers who usually picked her up, got the picture without having to be told. When they drove her somewhere to meet him they tipped their hats and called her Mrs. Green. There were no jokes, no sneers or attempts at familiarity. They knew who she was and what she was to the governor and it was not up to them to approve or disapprove. Vita did not complain or explain; she just was. The entire staff understood there were unspoken orders to make sure that Vita and the official first lady were never at the same function at the same time. And if, God forbid, for some reason they were to be at the same place, that they were never to be in the same room.

But accidents do happen. Peter Wheeler and his wife, Carole, were hosting a party at their home to celebrate the opening of the brand-new art museum in Kansas City. Many prominent artists from all over the world were flying in for the occasion and Cecil, ever vigilant about protocol, felt that if the first lady did not at least put in an appearance it would not look good. “Darling,” he said, “just come for thirty minutes. Say hello, have your picture made, and I promise you can slip out anytime after that and one of the troopers will drive you home.”

Betty Raye looked stricken. “Oh, Cecil, do I have to?”

“It would mean so much to the state if you would, and I know Hamm thinks you should be there with him to welcome everyone. This is no ordinary party. We don’t want to disappoint him, do we?”

“No, I guess not,” she said.

It was, in fact, a star-studded affair with over five hundred people mingling in every room of the magnificent Wheeler home. Betty Raye came in wearing the same beige cocktail dress she always wore, and as always, she felt like a piece of old vanilla fudge compared to the rest of the women in their vivid and colorful clothes and jewels. But true to her word, she posed for pictures and stood in the receiving line. She smiled and shook hands with each visitor and repeated what Cecil had told her to say, like a mynah bird. “Welcome to our state, we are so honored to have you.” Finally, after about forty-five minutes, she made eye contact with Cecil. After she said her good-byes to the host and hostess, Cecil walked her out to the car and she was on her way home, early as usual, relieved as usual.

About ten minutes into the trip home Betty Raye took her earrings off and reached for her purse. But it was not there. She realized she must have left it at the party, in the upstairs powder room.

She would not have returned to the Wheelers’ but her reading glasses were in the purse also and she needed them. The young state trooper who was filling in for Ralph Childress that night turned around and drove her back to the party. She slipped in and went upstairs and got her purse. As she was coming down the stairs, trying her best to be inconspicuous, she heard a woman’s laugh that was so infectious she had to look and see where it was coming from. The woman, who had just joined the party, standing in the middle of a large crowd of men, laughed again and was clearly enjoying a story that was being told. Betty Raye could not help but stop and stare for a moment until Martha Ross, a woman she had met earlier, walked up and said in a loud voice, “Why, Mrs. Sparks, we all thought you had left!”

Betty Raye whispered and tried to head for the door, hoping not to be noticed by anyone else. “I did but I had to come back; I forgot my purse.”

Martha followed her. “Oh, don’t you just hate when you do that, I do it all the time.” When Betty Raye reached the door, curiosity got the best of her and she said, “Mrs. Ross, who is that pretty lady over there?”

Mrs. Ross looked. “Why, that’s Vita Green. Don’t you know Vita?”

Betty Raye shook her head and Mrs. Ross looked at her in surprise. “She practically runs your husband’s arts program. I can’t believe you don’t know Vita.” She proceeded to grab Betty Raye by the arm and pull her across the foyer, calling out in an excited voice, “Vita! Look who I have here. . . . I can’t believe you haven’t met Mrs. Sparks yet.”

An entire room full of laughing and chatting people suddenly went as silent as if they had all been struck dumb. Even the ice in the glasses stopped rattling. The men in Vita’s group went visibly pale before her eyes.

Vita, who had her back turned to Betty Raye at the time, seemed to be the only person able to move and speak. She casually turned around, her expression unchanging, and with warmth and poise said, “Why no, Mrs. Sparks and I have somehow managed to miss one another until now.”

Vita smiled and extended her hand and in a pleasant voice added, “Hello. I’m so pleased to finally meet you at last.”

Betty Raye was dazzled by Vita’s large diamond spray pin and her beauty in general but did manage to offer a faint “How do you do.”

Vita smiled again. “It’s so lovely to meet you, Mrs. Sparks. I hope we’ll see each other again sometime.”

“Thank you,” said Betty Raye. As she made her way back out of the crowded room, Mrs. Ross, thinking she had just done a good deed, said, “That’s nice, I am glad I was able to introduce you two.”

As soon as Betty Raye got to the door and it closed behind her, an ice cube managed a weak little clink and gradually people began to move and within seconds, Vita, who had never blinked an eye, continued her conversation as if nothing momentous or so potentially dangerous as wife-meets-mistress had just happened.

On the drive back to the mansion Betty Raye thought about Mrs. Green. When they had met she had so gracefully and effortlessly moved her black cigarette holder from one hand to the other, with such elegance and style. She was like one of those movie stars that she and Anna Lee had seen at the Elmwood Theater. Betty Raye wondered if she should try to take up smoking. Vita, on the other hand, who had only seen Betty Raye in photographs, wondered how Hamm could have ever been attracted to this rather plain, nondescript person, a woman who, she was sure, was perfectly nice but had looked more like the help than a guest.

Hamm, who had been in another room at the time, had missed the entire event. Betty Raye had not said a word or seemed the least bit suspicious but Hamm was furious and promised Vita that it would not happen again. From that day forward, Betty Raye was never out of trooper Ralph Childress’s sight for a moment.

Power

AFTER BETTY RAYE and Vita had the near miss Cecil said to Hamm, “It’s your life, honey, but you are not being very considerate of your wife and that’s all I’m going to say.” But Wendell Hewitt, the attorney general of the state, was worried about Hamm getting hurt politically. Wendell knew how fast that could happen firsthand. He had been caught with a blonde and ruined his own chances at being governor. But most of all, Wendell and Rodney had been used to being his only advisers and they resented Vita’s influence over him. They tried to warn him how dangerous the situation was. But Vita never worried about what anybody said as far as Hamm was concerned. She knew she was the one he ran to when he was happy, sad, or scared or needed advice. She accepted who he was without question or judgment and he knew it. The night he gave his speech in front of seven thousand people at the state Democratic convention, he came back to her exhilarated, his eyes shining. He always ran a temperature about three degrees higher than most people but tonight he was burning up. “I tell you, Vita, that feeling, knowing all those people are listening to you and you can tell them anything, it scares the hell out of me how easily people are led.” He looked at her, his eyes still glowing. “You know, sometimes I get so tired of having to fight Earl Finley and the rest of them for every little thing, running myself in the ground trying to push stuff through. I started asking myself why. Why was I doing it? What for? But tonight when I got up there in front of all those people, I knew that was the thing I’d been chasing after.” He got up and paced the room. “I wish I could describe what it feels like to have thousands of people listening to your every word, how easy it is to please them, to get that applause and to hear them out there screaming for you. It’s like being in control of one big ocean and you can calm it down or make it roar. God, Vita, it’s not even people anymore, it’s one big thing you want to control and once you’ve had a taste of it, you’re hooked. It’s like if you don’t have it you will die, do you know what I mean? Somebody’s handed you the baton and you can lead this rich, powerful orchestra. Does that make sense to you? I mean after that, leading a five-piece band means nothing, not after you’ve led that orchestra, thousands of people all playing the song just like you want them to.”

Vita smiled at him and he stopped. “I’ve had too much to drink, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. You don’t ever have to hold back or be afraid to tell me anything, don’t you know that? The more you tell me, the more I understand you. I love you, I’m on your side—remember that.”

He sat down. “You must think I’m an idiot but I can’t talk to the boys; hell, they wouldn’t understand. You’re the only person I can trust. Betty Raye’s not interested in politics—the whole thing scares her. Oh, she tries but all she ever really wanted was a quiet, simple life and look what I drug her into. I try to leave her out of it as much as I can. She was put on display as a kid and she just hates it, me being governor.

“But God help me, Vita—I love it.”

On the other hand, Betty Raye was counting the days when they would be out of the governor’s mansion at last and into a real home they did not have to share with a hundred people. As per Hamm’s instructions, Rodney had driven her past a brand-new red-brick house in a nice subdivision outside of town. And later when she walked into the governor’s office Hamm did not look up but said, “Well, is that what you had in mind?”

“Oh, Hamm, it’s more than I could have ever hoped for.”

Having been a used-car salesman, Rodney was able to figure out how to make deals in different ways and made an under-the-table, verbal agreement with a real estate agent to hold the house until Hamm left office.

Betty Raye would not miss being first lady but she would miss a few of the staff. Cecil, of course, and over the years she had grown quite fond of Alberta Peets, the ice-pick murderess, who besides cooking had helped her with the boys and was a great baby-sitter. When she said for them to go to bed, they did. They minded her much better than they ever had their mother or father.

But other than that she could hardly wait to pack up and get out of the governor’s mansion for good.

Hamm tried to resign himself to the fact that he was going out of office but as the May primaries grew closer and closer, the more anxious and restless he became. While Betty Raye and Cecil shopped for furniture and dishes and silverware for the new house, Hamm complained and bellyached to anyone who would listen about the fact that a governor could not succeed himself for a third consecutive term. He even ranted and raved to a group of unsuspecting visiting Girl Scout leaders from Joplin.

“If I hadn’t had to fight Earl Finley and the damn Republicans I might have done it but two terms is not enough time to get anything nailed down. I need at least four more years to finish what I started and now Earl is gonna bring in that idiot Carnie Boofer and wreck it all. . . .”

Betty Raye and Cecil were busy looking for rugs and drapes to match, but as the days went by Hamm became more irritable and could not sleep. The guys tried to cheer him up. Nothing seemed to work. Finally, one day Rodney said, “You need to get out of here for a while.” So Wendell, Rodney, and Seymour drove him down to the secret boathouse and took The Betty Raye out for a cruise.

Usually the boat was where he loosened up and forgot about everything and enjoyed himself but not today. He did nothing but sit and stare at the water and try to think of what he could do. He turned to Wendell, who had his feet propped up on the side, drinking beer. “If we were to call the legislature into special session, what do you think our chances are of getting an amendment added to the constitution?”

Wendell knew what he was up to. “Hamm, there’s no way in hell they are going to let you succeed yourself; it’s a state law.”

“But laws have been changed, haven’t they?”

“Yeah, but you ain’t gonna change this one. The Republicans won’t vote for it and Earl is determined to bring in Carnie Boofer, so why don’t you just relax and take it easy for the next four years. Then all you have to do is come back in and clean up the mess old Boofer makes. In the meantime, just sit on your boat, take a few trips, and enjoy yourself, boy.”

Hamm had been offered jobs through Vita’s friends but nothing that excited him. The next time he was at her apartment they sat on the couch and he tried to tell her what he was feeling. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the offers, Vita, I do. I don’t know how I’ll be able to stand just being a nobody again. I’m gonna miss being out of that limelight now that I’m used to it.”

“But, darling, you can run again in sixty-eight . . . it’s only four years.”

He looked at her almost desperately. “Vita, I don’t think I can wait that long. I don’t know how to explain it but it seems like I’ve been freezing all my life and it’s the only place I feel warm, really warm. The thing is, once it gets ahold of you, you can’t let go even if you wanted to. It’s too late. Once you’ve been up there, there’s nowhere else to go but down. That’s where you live, the only place you feel alive, and you’ve got to fight to hold on. And what if I can’t get back in? What if Carnie Boofer messes up so bad that the next time they elect a Republican? People forget about you once you’re out of power. The truth is, Vita . . . I’m scared to let go.”

A Drowning Man Is a Dangerous Man

HAMM WAS BACK in Jefferson City, sitting in his office having a few drinks with the guys, when Hamm Jr. ran in and asked for more quarters to put in the pinball machine in the basement and ran back out. When he left Hamm asked Wendell, “What’s the age limit on running for governor?”

“Why?”

“If Hamm Junior was old enough, I’d run him.”

Wendell grinned. “Damn, boy, next you’ll be trying to run your wife.”

Seymour Gravel said, “Yeah, Hamm, or how about your dog. He’s pretty smart, a hell of a lot smarter than Carnie Boofer.”

“But then who ain’t?” Rodney added.

They all laughed except Hamm, who sat with a glazed expression, staring into space. Then he looked at Wendell. “Why not?”

“Why not what?”

“Run my wife.”

“Oh, hell, Hamm, I was just kidding.”

“Is there a law against it?”

“No, but you can’t do that.”

“Why not? Tell me one good reason. It would be almost the same as voting for me, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, but nobody is gonna vote for a woman even if she is your wife.”

“Why not?”

Now Seymour asked Wendell: “Yeah, why not?”

An hour later, after going back and forth in a heated debate over why not, Hamm said, “Excuse me a minute, will you, boys?” and went in the other room to make a call.

Vita had invited people over for dinner and they were still in the living room having after-dinner drinks but her maid Bridget came in and said, “Mrs. Green, the archbishop is on the phone and said he needs to speak to you right away.” Vita excused herself and took Hamm’s call in her bedroom. When she heard what he was thinking she threw her head back and laughed with delight at his crazy idea. But he was more excited and enthusiastic about this than he had been about anything lately and was talking a mile a minute.

“Listen, Vita, it would be the same thing as me buying a house and putting it in somebody else’s name. Wouldn’t it? It would still be mine. I’d still be the governor . . . it would just be in a different name, that’s all. . . . So what do you think?”

She was still laughing so hard she could not answer.

“I’m not joking, I’m serious.”

“I know you are, Hamm.”

“What do you think?”

“Well,” she said, “it’s a completely insane idea . . . but it would almost be worth it just to see the look on Earl’s face when you announced it.” She wiped the tears from her eyes. “Oh God, you’ve made me laugh so hard I’ve ruined my makeup.”

“So, Vita—should I do it?”

“Why not,” she said. “Go ahead and try. What do you have to lose? If nothing else, it will be fun to watch.”

He came back into the office, sat down, and said, “I think we should do it.”

After he got everyone to agree, Hamm pushed a button on the phone and said in a syrupy voice, “Betty Raye, could you come down here for a minute?”

They heard her answer over the speakerphone: “Hamm, I’m already in my nightgown.”

“That’s alright, honey, put your robe on and come on down the back stairs. I need to talk to you.”

Rodney looked grim. “She ain’t gonna go along with this, I can tell you that.”

Hamm said, “Yes, she will. But now, you boys have got to help me out here, make her see how it’s our only chance.”

Betty Raye could not imagine what Hamm wanted with her at this hour or what he wanted, period, but she put on her robe and, wearing the big fuzzy pink bunny slippers that Ferris, her youngest boy, had given her for Christmas, went down the back stairs. When she opened the door she was startled to see a room full of men. She clutched at the neck of her robe. “Oh, I didn’t know you had people here.”

“That’s all right, come on in, Betty Raye, and have a seat,” said the spider to the fly.

As she reluctantly walked in she became even more uncomfortable. All the men in the room turned and stared at her as if they had never seen her before, including her husband.

“Is anything wrong?” she asked.

“No, not a thing, sweetheart. The boys and I just want to talk to you about a little something.”

An hour later they were upstairs in the bedroom and Betty Raye was crying. “How could you do this? You gave me your word that this was the last time. Just four more years, you said.”

“I know I did, honey, but you heard what the boys said. I’ve got to finish what I started. If I don’t, Earl Finley will undo everything I did and those roads will never get built. I owe it to the folks that voted for me . . . and you running for me is our only chance, our only hope.”

“Oh, but Hamm, the whole thing is ridiculous. I don’t know anything about politics much less how to be a governor.”

“You don’t have to know anything. You wouldn’t really be the governor, you’d just be standing in for me.”

She went over to the dresser to get another Kleenex. “And that’s another thing. I’m the mother of two children. I don’t want to be involved in some scam, something that’s illegal.”

“But it is legal. Wendell told you it was.”

“Maybe so. But it’s totally dishonest. To pretend to be the governor when I’m not. What will people think?”

“Honey, it’s not dishonest. People will know they’re voting for me. And people will thank you. You know how high my ratings are. They would vote for me anyway if it were not for that stupid law. You’re doing everybody a favor. Wendell told you that.”

“Well then, why doesn’t Wendell run?”

“Because. Honey—”

“I’ll tell you why. Because everybody knows he’s got good sense and I’m just an idiot you can push around. That’s why.”

“Oh now, Betty—”

“And what about my house? I’ve waited eight years . . . and you promised me, just four more years, you said.”

He came over and sat down on the bed. “I know I did, sweetheart, and I’m just as sick about it as you are. But we have a duty to the people.”

“But what about us? We’re people. What about the boys? I wanted them to have a normal life for a change. They never see you. I never see you.”

“But, honey, this is about the boys. And their future. I don’t want them to have a daddy that failed. My name is all I have to leave them. I want to make sure for their sake the Hamm Sparks name is one they can be proud of. I owe it to them.”

He could see she was now at least listening. He pulled out his big guns. “Betty Raye, I’m ashamed to tell you this but I haven’t been completely honest with you. I was seriously thinking of running again in sixty-eight. But now I know it would be too late. If I don’t hang in there now, while I still have a foothold, and fight now for everything good I did, all the work and sweat and sacrifice will be for nothing. And honest to God, Betty Raye, I don’t think I could take it. You’re the only hope I have. . . . Do you think I’ve enjoyed being away from you and the children so much? No. But if you stick with me one more time—”

“Hamm, don’t. I’ve heard that before.”

“I know you have. But—and I mean this—if you will do this, I will swear on my life, on my children’s life, that I will never run for governor again. I’ll swear it on the Bible in front of the Missouri Supreme Court if you want me to.”

Another hour of Betty Raye crying, with Hamm pleading, went by and Betty Raye was beginning to weaken.

“Hamm, please don’t make me do this. If you do, then you might as well get a gun and shoot me right now, because I’ll just die if I have to get up there and make speeches.”

“You won’t have to do a thing—just stand up, introduce me, and sit down. That’s all you have to do. Other than that, everything will be exactly the same as it always was. The only difference is this time you and I will be together twenty-four hours a day. I’ll be right by your side all the time; all you have to do is just be my silent partner. Why, if I was to take a regular job I’d be gone every day and we’d never see each other. Don’t you see, honey, this way we can be close like we used to be. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, you know I would but—”

“It’s just four little years and then I can leave knowing I’ve done the best job I could and we’d be done with politics forever.”

She swallowed hard. “Are you sure it’s the only way?”

“You heard what Wendell said. If you don’t do it the whole state will suffer.”

She teared up again. “But what about my house? I bought so many nice things . . . it was going to be so pretty. . . .”

“I’ll tell you what. You can keep the house.”

“Really?” she said.

“Sure. It will wait, it ain’t gonna go anywhere. And you and Cecil can decorate to your heart’s content. Then when the term is over, we will walk out this door and move right in. In the meantime you and the kids and I can go over and spend the night or the weekend anytime you want. Or you and I can go over by ourselves and leave the kids with Alberta. It can be sort of like our love nest. What do you say? Will you do this one last thing for me?”

She looked at him. “No speeches?”

“None.”

“Do you swear?”

“I swear. On the Bible.”

She moaned. “Oh, God, Hamm, I can’t believe I’m letting you talk me into this. But if it’s really for the good of the state . . .”

And so, at 2:34 A.M., the woman in pink fuzzy bunny slippers agreed to run for governor.

He looked at her, genuinely grateful. “Oh, thank you, honey, you won’t regret it. I know I haven’t been the best of husbands but from now on things will be different, you’ll see. I promise.” He kissed her and quickly jumped up and ran off to the office.

As she sat on the bed and blew her nose with a fresh Kleenex she wondered what she was in for now.

She sat there for a while and tried to think about what Hamm had said. Maybe he was right, maybe this would bring them closer together. After all, it was the first time he had really needed her in eight years. Maybe it would not be so bad. She did get to keep the house and he had promised to swear on the Bible that this was the last time; he had never done that before. Maybe it could be like it used to be. She hoped so. Because for better or worse, she was still in love with her husband.

The Two-for-One Sale

Earl Finley called Vita, screaming at the top of his lungs. “That sorry son of a bitch promised me he would support Boofer. We had a deal and now he’s harpooned me in the back. You tell that son of a bitch that I’ll get him if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

“I’ll tell him, Earl,” Vita said.

“I could kill him with my bare hands.”

“I know how you must feel. Believe me, I was shocked. Just shocked when I heard.” Vita put the phone down, smiling. To hear a man who had done nothing all his life but pull one dirty deal after another so incensed and outraged that it had happened to him was highly amusing.

Minnie Oatman was in Pine Mountain, Georgia, at a Singing on the Mountain when she heard the news. She had just finished doing her new hit, “I Love to Tell the Story,” when someone came running out onstage and handed her a note. She then threw her hands up in the air and called out to the boys, “PRAISE JESUS, YOUR SISTER IS GONNA BE GOVERNOR!”

When it was announced to the public that Hamm was running his wife, the news was met with mixed reactions. The people who were for him laughed and winked at each other, tickled that their man had pulled one over the big shots. The rest were furious. They felt Hamm was making a fool of himself and them. But for him or against him, the announcement caused a loud stir. This was news. So far in the entire history of the United States, there had been only two women governors and they both had been elected back in 1924. In a special election, Nellie Ross of Wyoming had succeeded her husband after he had died in office, and Miriam Ferguson of Texas had stepped in after her husband was impeached for misappropriating funds. In 1964 women in politics were still considered a novelty, as well as something of a joke. The Fergusons of Texas were laughingly called Ma and Pa Ferguson and when it was joked that Missouri now had a new Ma and Pa team, Hamm loved it. The national magazines had a field day, coming down and taking pictures of him in an apron and with a feather duster in his hand. And they all wanted to interview Betty Raye but everyone on staff was instructed, “For God’s sake, whatever you do, keep her away from the press!”

Contrary to what Hamm had promised, Betty Raye was immediately picked and poked at by a slew of hairdressers and makeup artists and dress designers Cecil brought in to “improve her image,” as he put it. Not that she had an image, as he also said. After endless hours of Betty Raye trying on dress after dress, “look” after “look,” and standing there while Cecil and his friends argued back and forth, it was decided they would go with the Jackie Kennedy style, simple little knit suits and pillbox hats. But it turned out not to be a good look for someone with glasses. So the second thing Cecil did was to convince her that she simply must get contact lenses. “Darling, you have such beautiful eyes and you’ll take a much better picture, trust me.” What resulted was a disaster. At her first big press conference she stood beside Hamm, her hair in what was supposed to have been some hairdresser’s version of a Jackie Kennedy flip and looking extremely uncomfortable, squinting and blinking her eyes in pain. Then right in the middle of Hamm’s speech one lens popped out and Betty Raye panicked. “I’ve lost one!” she said and frantically started searching around the bustline of her dress to see if she could find it. A reporter turned to another and asked, “What did she lose?”

The second man said, “I don’t know, buddy, but I’m afraid to ask.”

What followed next were long days of running up and down every road in Missouri, packed in cars with trucks following behind carrying sound equipment, banners, folding chairs, a portable stage, and Le Roy Oatman and the Missouri Plowboys, who had been pulled back in for the occasion. Betty Raye would sit in the car and read until Seymour came to get her and escort her to the stage, where she would go to the microphone and say, “We are so pleased to be with you today and it is also my pleasure to introduce you to my number one adviser, my husband, your governor, Hamm Sparks,” at which point she would sit down and Hamm would talk for the next forty-five minutes while she sat behind him, waiting to be taken back to the car and head to the next stop.

Hamm was attacked from all quarters. Carnie Boofer banged his fists. “This hoax Sparks is trying to pull on the voters of Missouri is an insult and an embarrassment to every woman in America.” Editorials accused Hamm of using the state as a patsy and of trying to ride back in office by hanging on to his wife’s skirttail. Everybody in the state and out had an opinion about the matter. Back in Elmwood Springs, the morning Dorothy heard she was running, even though she had a strict rule and never endorsed a political candidate on her show, she did say this: “It looks like our Betty Raye is running for governor and we just could not be happier. I don’t know of a sweeter and nicer girl in the world.”

But Doc and Jimmy were of a different opinion. One night the two of them were out on the porch when Doc said, “That girl shouldn’t be dragged through all that mess. What is he thinking about?”

Jimmy said, “It’s a hell of a mean trick to pull on a nice lady, that’s for sure.”

“He ought to be horsewhipped.”

“Or something.”

Jimmy did not say what he really wanted to do. He had hated Hamm Sparks with a passion ever since that Christmas four years ago when he had been visiting his buddies at the veterans hospital in Kansas City, where the name of Hamm Sparks had come up quite by accident. His friends had handed him a present and when he’d unwrapped the box there were twelve cartons of cigarettes inside. One of his friends said, “Don’t thank us, thank the governor.” Another said, “Yeah, he’s over here all the time to see his lady friend. Since they took up, we get a lot of attention.”

“He’s a vet, so when he’s in town he comes over and throws a few cartons of cigarettes our way. She’s one of those society women, a looker, from her pictures in the paper—I guess he got tired of gospel singing. Yes, he’s been showing up over here quite a bit. Can’t say I blame him. I hear she’s put a lot of money behind him—she and those people she runs with. . . .”

Jimmy nodded and lit one of his own cigarettes. “Is that so?” He was thinking, Why that no-good, sorry little son of a bitch.

He did not mention that he knew Hamm or Betty Raye. A boy in a wheelchair said, “Hey, I wouldn’t kick a good-looking rich woman out of bed, would you? Hell, I wouldn’t kick any woman out of bed, I don’t care what she looks like.”

They laughed and then the conversation changed. Most of the men were paraplegic and would never sleep with a woman again.

When Jimmy left the hospital and got to the Greyhound station to catch his bus back home, he tossed the cartons of cigarettes to an old fellow sitting outside the building. “Here, buddy. Merry Christmas.” Jimmy loved to smoke but he’d be damned before he took anything from Hamm Sparks. It was all he could do to keep from going after him with a baseball bat.

Let’s Go On with the Show

OF COURSE, there were a few obstacles to overcome. A vote for Hamm Sparks was one thing but there were some men out there who would never vote for a woman even if she was just a surrogate candidate—stand-in or not, she was still a female. But the majority of the Democrats came through and Betty Raye won the primaries without a problem. Then came the Republicans to battle for the election in November. Their candidate was very careful not to attack Betty Raye and went after Hamm, but one of his top aides was overheard saying something snide about Betty Raye’s backwoods gospel-singing beginnings and the newspapers printed it. It was just the thing Hamm had been waiting for. He jumped all over it. “My wife and I, unlike our honorable Republican opponent, are not ashamed of being God-fearing Christians. My wife is a humble woman but she is proud that she comes from a family with the rich traditions of the Oatman Family Gospel Singers. And I’m proud to be the son-in-law of such a fine woman as Minnie Oatman.

“I say to attack folks because of their religion is downright un-American and, if I may say so, not very gentlemanly. Frankly, I’m ashamed of him and surprised he would stoop so low as to take a swipe at my wife and her family.” By the time Hamm got through dragging him over the coals, people had forgotten that it had not been the candidate who had said anything in the first place. During the campaign, although Hamm and Vita talked every day, Vita did not see as much of Hamm as she would have liked, but she was thoroughly enjoying the show and watching Hamm in action.

On the morning of November 5, almost everyone had their television sets on.

“Well, it’s ladies’ day in Missouri this morning,” said a smiling Barbara Walters on the NBC Today show. The male cohost snorted slightly, then caught himself and changed the subject, but not before adding his congratulations to the new Governor Sparks.

Bobby and Anna Lee both sent her telegrams of congratulations, as did Doc and Dorothy and Mother Smith. The first Sunday after Betty Raye had won the election Dorothy ran into Pauline Tuttle, Betty Raye’s old high school English teacher, at church. The very same Pauline Tuttle who, sixteen years ago at the A&P, had predicted that Betty Raye would never amount to anything. Dorothy did not want to rub it in but at the coffee-and-cake get-together in the parish hall afterward, she knew she shouldn’t but she could not help saying just a little something as she passed by. “So, Pauline,” she said, “what do you think about our girl up in Jefferson City?”

Pauline stood there holding her plate and looked at her with a helpless expression. “I just don’t know what to say, Dorothy, I’m speechless. How that shy little girl could grow up and become the governor of the state is simply incomprehensible; frankly, the whole thing baffles me.”

No more than it baffled Betty Raye. How she had let Hamm talk her into this charade was still a mystery to her but she had and now she was trapped. It was like being six months pregnant. She couldn’t go back if she wanted to. She had no choice but to go forward.

And so on Inauguration Day, as much as she dreaded it, she went through the necessary motions of being sworn in and posing for the pictures and although her hands and her knees were shaking, she read the short speech they had written out.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it is with the utmost humility that I accept this office today. And with your support and the help of my husband and number one adviser, I promise to carry out my duties as your new governor to the very best of my abilities, so help me God.”

Cecil then signaled the band to start up and she and Hamm walked down the avenue to the governor’s mansion on the coldest day of the year. But the streets were lined with well-wishers and Hamm strutted beside her, smiling and waving at the crowd. Some said if you did not know better, the way he was carrying on you would have thought that he was the new governor. As they walked, even though the streets were lined with the cheering people, Betty Raye felt lonely. Her mother was not there today because the Oatman family had an engagement they could not change. Dorothy and Doc were invited as well but Mother Smith was ill and they had to cancel at the last minute. When they arrived at the mansion, Betty Raye saw a familiar face at the top of the stairs waiting for her. “Welcome home, Governor Betty,” said Alberta Peets, the ice-pick murderess. “I’ve already taken care of Governor Hamm’s things and put them in his room and your things is all ironed and ready to go and so is the boys.”

Betty Raye was never so glad to see anyone in her life. “Oh, thank you, Alberta.”

“I’m glad to do it. You know it’s not good for me to be idle. What do they say? Idle hands is the devil’s workshop. Or something like that.”

After she gave the boys their baths and got them ready for bed she came back in Betty Raye’s room.

“I see that Figg man is here again.”

“Cecil? Oh yes. Everybody’s back, the same old people.”

“Well, all I can say is he better be careful this time. My feet is worse than ever and he comes down in my kitchen and makes me wear them shoes again, no telling what I’m liable to do.”

When Betty Raye was dressed and ready for the Governor’s Ball, she sat down on the bed. “Alberta,” she said, “I’d give a million dollars not to have to go tonight.”

“Well, now that you’re a governor too I’ll bet they gonna have you do a lot of things you don’t want to.”

“I hope not.”

Cecil Figgs knocked on the door. “Darling, I don’t want to rush you but we need pictures before we go, so come on down as soon as you can. Do you need me to help you with anything?”

Betty Raye sighed and stood up. “No, I’m ready.”

Cecil opened the door and said, “Oh you look wonderful.” Then he noticed Alberta standing behind the door and added gaily, “Hello, Alberta, isn’t it exciting. Here we are all back together again.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, looking at him out of the corner of her eyes. “Here we are again.”

From the moment that they walked into the governor’s mansion after Betty Raye’s inauguration it was clear that nothing much had changed. Hamm immediately went to his office with his staff and they started setting up meetings and going over bills and laws that had not been passed during the last four years, figuring out ways to change them and still get what they wanted. However, Alberta’s prediction was correct. From then on Betty Raye’s days consisted of hours of standing around having her picture made with every beauty queen, FHA winner, Girl Scout, Boy Scout, Eagle Scout, Teacher of the Year, Businessman and -woman of the Year, and anyone to whom Cecil promised a picture with the governor, while Hamm and the boys sat in the other room working on state government. At the end of each day she sat with pen in hand and signed everything that Wendell put in front of her and then went upstairs to bed, alone as usual.

But life was not all bad. She spent most of her free time over at the new house, simply wandering around happily or outside doing a little gardening. And several months after the election, Neighbor Dorothy and Mother Smith, who was over her terrible flu, came up and visited for the day. She laughed when Dorothy gave her the chili dog Jimmy had wrapped in tinfoil to send her and she caught up with all the news about Bobby’s new job and Anna Lee’s new baby. They were surprised to see how big her two boys had grown. All in all it was a wonderful day.

Old Friends

Neighbor Dorothy never liked to brag, so after they had returned from visiting her friend the new governor of the state, close to the end of the show she simply told her listeners this:

“Over the weekend Mother Smith and I were lucky enough to have had a lovely visit with an old friend of ours and it was so good to see her. And this morning, before we run out of time and get too busy, I just want to take a moment to tell you how grateful Mother Smith and I are having all of you in our lives. We just don’t know what we would have done all these years without all of our precious radio friends out there, who continue year after year to make our days so happy. And speaking of friends . . . one of our sweet listeners, Mrs. Hattie Smith of Bell Meade, Missouri, sent along this thought: ‘When you plant seeds of kindness, you are sure to grow a crop of good friends.’

“Thank you, Hattie, and we have a winner in the spelling bee. The champion, thirteen-year-old Miss Ronnie Claire Edwards, her word M-I-L-L-I-P-E-D-E. Congratulations—you must be a genius in the making. We will watch your career with interest. I tell you I could no more spell some of those words than I could empty the ocean with a bucket.

“Oh, thank you, Mother Smith, she’s looked it up in the dictionary. ‘Millipede, an arthropod having a cylindrical body composed of from twenty to over one hundred segments, each with two pairs of legs.’ Oh my. Now my question is, what’s an arthropod? What? Oh that’s right: Mother Smith says whatever it is, she doesn’t want it crawling on her. I’m with you down to the rattle on that one, Mother.

“Watermelons, sweet corn, and tomatoes will be among the topics discussed at a Vegetable Field Day this Friday. It will feature the latest results of vegetable research, so be sure and attend. We have all sorts of fun things coming up, but first here’s our big news of the day. I need a fanfare for this one, Mother Smith. Ada and Bess Goodnight have gone up to Kansas City and purchased themselves a brand-new Airstream trailer and now that they’re both widows and have retired they say they are going to take off into the wild blue yonder and become tin-can tourists. They say they don’t know where they are going to, or when they will be back, and they like it that way. Just think, they will have a different backyard every morning. Oh, I don’t know what I would do if I looked out and saw my yard was different, but those two are just full of spunk and raring to go. Their first stop will be the Nite-O-Rest Trailer Court outside of Mill Grove. . . . So all of you out there, if you see a tomato-red Dodge that looks like a big tomato aspic pulling a trailer go by, it will be them, headed for the open road. So good luck to our girls, traveling in tin.

“Also in the good-news department this morning, yesterday I got a nice letter from my daughter-in-law, Lois, who tells me that Bobby has just been promoted to the new position of vice president in charge of operations of Fowler Poultry Enterprises, and for a boy who flunked the sixth grade and could not spell monkey, much less millipede, believe me, that is quite a feat!”

The Governors Convention

IN 1966 BETTY RAYE was relieved to learn that there was another wife running for a governorship. Lurleen Wallace of Alabama had announced her candidacy. Betty Raye did not know anything about her but she prayed she would win so she would not have to be the lone woman governor in the United States anymore. It was not fun.

Early the next year, when Governor Betty Raye Sparks of Missouri received her invitation to the National Governors Convention in Washington, she said, “I’m not going to go up there with all those real governors, Hamm. I’d make a fool of myself.”

“No, you won’t honey, I’ll be right there with you all the time.” He patted her arm. “All you have to do is smile and be pleasant. I’ll tell you how to vote on things.” Cecil, who was looking forward to another week of shopping for the trip, said, batting his big eyes, “If you don’t go, darling, it will look bad for the state.”

Hamm arrived at the governors conference bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. This was his first trip to Washington as the husband of a governor and the press was particularly interested in him. Hamm played it up for all it was worth. Betty Raye, the only woman governor there, thought she would have physically mashed herself into a wall if she could. She was miserably unhappy but he showed up at all the governors’ wives’ events—teas, ladies’ luncheons, fashion shows—and charmed every woman there. He even won first prize at one of the many raffles, an original Mr. John picture hat, and delighted the women by wearing it for the rest of the luncheon. Hamm’s nature was naturally outgoing and spontaneous and if asked a question he would usually tell you exactly what he thought. To the reporters who had what they viewed as the dull job of covering all the governors’ wives, Hamm was a welcome and a refreshing change. Political spouses in general were notorious for not saying anything more than “You’ll have to ask my husband about that” or “I don’t know, I leave all that up to my husband.” Not Hamm.

And he didn’t see the danger ahead. In his home state, this candor had been an asset. Here on a national level, it was a potential disaster waiting to happen and reporters began to circle around him, hoping to get a quote for a good story.

Vietnam was on everyone’s mind and it was a dangerous and tricky issue for any politician. Hamm had been warned by Wendell to keep his mouth shut, but at a wives’ cocktail party, a nice-looking woman sidled up to him and, after complimenting him on his tie, asked, “What do you think about all these antiwar protesters that are popping up everywhere?”

Hamm did not have to stop and think. “They’re a bunch of idiots. What they ought to be protesting is the government who’s sitting on their butts and letting those little bastards get the best of us. . . . We have to either fish or cut bait. . . .”

“What do you mean?” she said.

“Stop playing patty-foot with those Vietcong and get it over with. There’s a damn elephant standing in the living room and everybody’s tippy-toeing around it.”

The woman played dumb, as if she had no idea what he meant. “I’m not sure I follow you. What elephant?”

Hamm said, “The bomb, honey. We’ve got it; they don’t. What’s the point of having it if we don’t use it? Truman had the right idea.” He pointed out the window of the hotel at a group of protesters across the street. “All those little tweety hearts and dove types ought to shut up and let us stop the damn thing before it gets any worse; then we can bring our boys home and sling all those little turncoats out of the country and get on with it.”

Afterward, he was sorry he had used curse words in front of the lady but that was how he felt and it was too late to take it back. Too late to realize that the lady was covering the event for the Washington Times. By the time they got back to Missouri the story had been carried all over the country and Newsweek had a drawing of him reaching in a bucket and throwing hippies like bait across the ocean. One editorial cartoon had his picture with a mushroom cloud rising from his head; another depicted him as a mad dog, foaming at the mouth, with Betty Raye trying to hold him back on a leash.

Even though Hamm had said what a lot of veterans thought, he took a lot of heat nationally and got into trouble in his own state for sounding like such a hothead. He lay low for a while.

A few weeks later, Rodney came in his office chuckling. “You made the big time, boy. I just got a call from Berkeley University out in California and they want you to come out and give them a speech.”

Hamm looked up. “Really? When?”

Rodney dismissed it. “Don’t worry, I told them you were unavailable.”

“Why?”

“Why? I’m not going to let you go out there in the middle of that hotbed of loonies.”

Wendell agreed. “Naw, you don’t want to go there. It’s too dangerous. Hell, there ain’t nobody more violent than those peaceniks. They’d tear you apart if they could get near you.”

Hamm said, “Now wait, let’s think about this for a minute. That’s a big famous university out there. It could mean more national press, couldn’t it? It might make me look good to go and talk to them. Like I’m willing to see the other side of this thing . . . and if they’re willing to listen to my side a little, I might even make a few points.”

“No, you won’t,” said Wendell. “All they want to do is drag you out in front and shout you down. They won’t listen to a damn thing you say.”

Hamm knew they might be right but even so he was secretly flattered that he had been asked. Anything to do with a university or college intrigued him. Everybody, including Vita, told him it was a bad idea. In the end, he could not resist the challenge.

They flew out to San Francisco the day before his appearance, with Rodney, Wendell, and Seymour grumbling all the way. They checked into a hotel and Hamm did not sleep much that night. He had worked long and hard on his speech and had made an effort to be especially careful about his grammar and his accent. He wanted to be up to the task of speaking in such a distinguished place of higher learning. This was the first time in years he had been nervous before a speech. He asked Rodney four times if his suit was all right and changed his tie twice. They were picked up at nine and driven over the bridge to the campus, and as expected a lot of the students were out and waiting for him. As they drove past the crowd toward the back entrance of the auditorium, the students and others started yelling and banging on the car. For some reason, this did not faze Hamm. He was now calm and collected. But the others suddenly started to get jumpy. Seymour, his bodyguard, had insisted that Hamm wear a safety vest that morning and when he got a look at the protesters he was glad he had. “Damn,” he said, “I fought Japs that weren’t as mad as this bunch.”

Seymour reached in his pocket and felt for his blackjack. “If we get out of here alive we’ll be lucky.”

The messages being waved in front of them varied from sign to sign. VIETNAM IS A RACIST WAR; HIROSHIMA HAMM; GO BACK TO THE BOONDOCKS, WARMONGER; WHITE TRASH, GO HOME; HEE-HAW HAMM; EAT DIRT, YOU STUPID REDNECK. But Hamm just smiled and waved at the crowd as if they were happy to see him, which infuriated them further. When they finally got inside the hall, the president of the university, a dry, colorless man with dandruff, greeted him coldly and when Hamm put out his hand, the man went out of his way not to shake it, afraid someone might take his picture. Once they got onstage, his charm-free introduction consisted of five words: “Ladies and gentlemen, Hamm Sparks.”

From the start things did not look good. The mere mention of his name caused the audience to roar with disapproval. The president went down and sat in the front row with the other professors as Hamm walked to the podium with his speech in hand. “Thank you for that gracious introduction, Mr. President,” he said, smiling, trying to make the best of a bad situation. “I am honored and privileged to have been invited to speak at your university today. I want you to know that nobody supports and admires education more than myself. I also bring all of you greetings from the people of the great state of Missouri.” Suddenly, amid a growing chorus of catcalls and boos, six or seven tomatoes were thrown and one splattered by his foot.

Hamm glanced down at the front row, fully expecting the president to stand up and put a halt to this, but he did nothing; nor did any of the other professors who sat there, many with a slight smirk on their faces. It was at that moment he realized he was up there on his own. Hamm stood motionless for a moment while the melee continued and watched as the group of protesters from outside came into the hall and marched around chanting and waving their signs in what was obviously a well-planned demonstration against him.

They’d never had any intention of hearing his speech. He felt like a fool. Vita and the boys had been right. Rodney was in the wings and motioned him to come off the stage. He could have turned around and walked out but he did not. Instead, he got mad and he dug in his heels. Even though he knew no one could hear him above the chanting and foot stomping, he said:

“You may insult me but, by God, you are not going to insult the ex-governor of Missouri and I’ll be damned if you’re going to shout me down. You people asked me here for a speech and you’re going to get one. I read all your little signs and you can call me a country bumpkin, a redneck hillbilly all you want. But at least at home we have manners enough not to invite somebody somewhere and then treat them like a dog. Right now I’m proud to be a redneck but I’m no bigot. When I say I’m for everybody in this country, I mean everybody, even all you hippies out there. I feel sorry for you because you don’t know better.” He looked down at the front row. “I’m for everybody except for these pea-headed, lily-livered college professors you got sitting down there who have been brainwashing you against your own country. Filling you full of subversive ideas . . . egging you on to burn your draft cards and letting you wear the American flag on your behinds.” He pointed at the faculty. “No wonder you teach kids; if you tried to push all that anti-American propaganda on grown men you’d get the living tar kicked out of you. I have a message for you. If you don’t like it here, I’ve got me a whole bunch of boys down at the VFW and over at the American Legion just itching to help you move to Russia. Those Russkies won’t put up with your whining and bellyaching for one second. I believe in freedom and individual rights as well as the next man but nobody has the right to live here and do nothing but run us down.”

Then he addressed the protesters, who were still marching and chanting at the top of their voices, “Hell no, we won’t go,” and “Hey hey, how many boys did you kill today?”

“All you people are just delighting the Communists, and when you spit on one soldier or one policeman, you spit on this nation. You’re nothing but a bunch of scared little momma’s boys who let the others do the fighting for them. A lot of them poor black boys you are so worried about—their mommas and daddies don’t have the money to send them off dodging the draft. You’re the bigots. And if the Communists ever do get over here, these same little pantywaist professors are going to look around for somebody to protect them and there ain’t gonna be nobody here; you’ll all be up in Canada.

“So chant all your little chants and wave all your little signs and have all your sit-ins but one day when you grow up you’re going to be ashamed of yourselves. If you really want to help this country I suggest all you deadhead beatniks get a haircut, take a bath, and go over and pay a visit at the veterans hospital to those who fought so you could wave your little signs.” He stopped for breath. The din was continuous. “When I got here today your president informed me I was not going to be presented the usual plaque of appreciation for coming because your so-called college board doesn’t approve of me. Well, that’s fine, because I don’t approve of them. My staff did a little research and I found out that in the past few years you’ve had Fidel Castro, Nikita Khrushchev, and a member of the Black Panther Party up here and you couldn’t wait to give a plaque to all three of these guys, avowed enemies of our government who would destroy your country if they got half a chance. So if that’s who’s getting the plaques of appreciation around here, then I appreciate not getting one.”

He walked off to boos and jeers and catcalls and was rushed out to the car to find its tires slashed and orange paint poured all over it. When they finally made it off campus, riding on the hubcaps, Rodney turned around and gave the protesters the finger and laughed his head off. When Wendell asked him, “What’s so damned funny?” he said, “They’re so pig ignorant they don’t even know this car belongs to them.”

Hamm didn’t laugh. He had given a speech that no one had heard. The audience had screamed and stomped their feet and booed the whole time. But later Hamm said that was all right; he had heard what he had said, and it made him feel better.

When they got back home, the verdict was unanimous. Even he had to admit that the Hamm Sparks appeal had not worked. Still, they thought that was to be the end of it. But a student reporter, anticipating that the speaker might be shouted down, had placed a small tape recorder on the podium that Hamm did not notice. It had recorded every word he said. Later, the student played the tape and typed it up, word for inflammatory word, and printed it in the university newspaper.

Somehow, having people read what he said in black and white was not something Hamm had counted on. Hamm had assumed that no one was listening. The reporter with the love beads had assumed that printing the speech would damage Hamm even further. However, in Akron, Ohio, the reporter’s father, a World War II vet like Hamm, picked up the paper his son had wrapped his dirty clothes in when sending them home for his mother to wash. After he read the speech, the man said to himself, “Yeah, buddy.” And sent mimeographed copies to all his friends, who sent them to their friends. Instead of the article doing damage to Hamm Sparks, as the reporter had hoped, his father stopped paying his college tuition, making him suddenly eligible for the draft. Love Beads had to hitchhike all the way to Canada.

Soon, copies of Hamm’s speech were slowly but surely making the rounds of every VFW and American Legion hall. Police stations, firehouses, and union halls across the country stuck it up on their billboards and Hamm started to receive hundreds of letters of support and contributions from every state. A month later the headline in one major magazine read: HAMM VS. EGGHEADS: HAMM 10, EGGHEADS 0.

This set off a number of other articles. Soon, a spokesman from the NRA called and asked if they could name a gun after him, and when the sale of LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT bumper stickers almost doubled in a week, the printing company sent him a thank-you note with a nice donation.

People thought this sudden groundswell of support was what gave Hamm the misguided notion that he should run for president.

The day Hamm made his surprise announcement, Cecil Figgs was delighted, and went weak in the knees just thinking about all the wonderful parties and entertainments he could plan at the White House. Vita was more ambivalent. She would never stand in the way of anything he wanted, of course, but she was deeply uneasy about this decision. Politics was no longer just a bunch of men in a back room making deals. It was lethal business. People were getting killed. And Hamm already had a lot of political enemies. But for Hamm not to run would almost be the same thing as killing him.

Later that night she glanced down and beheld the sight of the de facto governor of the state and perhaps even the next president of the United States asleep at her breast and thought to herself, “God help us all.”

Hamm’s unexpected and rash decision to run for president had caught everyone off guard, but no one more so than Betty Raye. He had not discussed anything with her. As usual, she had no idea he was going to do it until he did it. And almost overnight, it seemed, Hamm was off and running, starting to campaign all over the country, and she was really left in the lurch. Her number one “assistant” was no longer there. Before he left he promised a panicked Betty Raye she had nothing to worry about, that nothing would really change, they could handle everything over the phone. This worked for a while but as the days went by Hamm was becoming less interested in the state and more interested in lining up his campaign; in fact, he was becoming harder and harder to get in touch with.

When Hamm was out of the state, Wendell helped her as much as possible but more and more Hamm was dragging Wendell and the rest of the staff off with him, leaving her alone for days at a time. Consequently, Betty Raye wound up trying to run the state by herself, a job she’d never wanted, did not know how to do, and had not been trained for.

For the first time since she had been elected governor, Betty Raye was forced to start reading what she was to sign and even to make decisions by herself. Terrified that she would make a mistake, she stayed up until three and four o’clock in the morning, poring through books, trying desperately to learn as fast as possible how state government worked, while trying to deal with her two children as well. Hamm would call her from time to time and give her a pep talk, tell her he knew it was hard but that he had a duty and an obligation to the people of America to speak out on their behalf. This might be all well and good for America, she thought, but in the meantime she was left holding the bag, having to make decisions without any help. But she did the best she could. And a few people may have been surprised when their bond issue passed and was signed with the advice and recommendation she had received from Alberta Peets, who had been there and knew what she was talking about. She told Betty Raye she thought an appropriation of $15 million for the restoration of the Mabel Dodge Prison for Women was a fine idea.

Suddenly Betty Raye had to take a good hard look at what was really going on in the state. Paving roads and promoting business and building bridges was fine but she began to see a lot of little things that were wrong that Hamm had been too busy to be bothered with. She began to read all the letters addressed to the governor from women all across the state, letters that previously had always been answered by someone in Wendell’s office. Betty Raye found herself being touched and deeply moved by the real problems she read about. Women whose husbands had either died or left them, with no way of making a living. Some had even had to give up their children. Old women who had worked all their lives and had wound up penniless and without a place to go. Hundreds of letters came pouring in, their writers hoping that because she was a woman she would understand, letters they would never have written to another politician.

Betty Raye had always signed papers and done everything from upstairs. But now there were so many to sign it was getting harder to do. One morning she walked into the governor’s office, and for the first time sat down behind Hamm’s desk and pushed a button she hoped was the right one.

Someone she did not know answered and said loudly, “Yes?”

Betty Raye jumped back.

“Yes,” he said again.

She then leaned forward and asked in a small, apologetic voice, “Could you please bring me a list of all the state trade schools, if it’s not too much trouble?”

“Who is this?” the voice said.

“It’s the governor,” she said, surprised to hear it herself.

There was a long pause and then the sound of sudden realization. “Oh. Oh . . . yes, ma’am, right away.”

Betty Raye looked around the big room and waited. After a moment she picked up the nameplate on the desk that read GOVERNOR HAMM SPARKS, looked at it, then quietly opened a drawer and put it in and closed it.

Hamm was proud of all the trade schools he had opened but Betty Raye, who had never bothered to ask, discovered to her dismay that trade schools tended to be for males only. She also found out that the majority of the state scholarships offered were for boys. There were boys’ clubs, mentor programs, sports scholarships, all for boys, and nothing for the girls. Young boys who got into trouble were sent to boys’ farms and received help. Girls had few places to go.

That’s not fair, she thought. Betty Raye knew she had no real political power but the day she walked into a decaying and crumbling rat-infested building that served as the state school for the deaf and blind was a turning point. These were the children of the poor whose parents had been unable to care for them at home. She saw for herself how badly those children needed a clean place to live and study and how terribly understaffed and underpaid the teachers were. The worst moment was when a blind girl came feeling her way through the crowd, thinking Betty Raye might be her mother, and, once beside her, kept pulling at her skirt, repeating, “Momma, Momma,” over and over. Betty Raye was so shaken she could hardly make it to the car. She went home and sobbed. The little girl looked just like Beatrice Woods might have when she had been that age.

She did not know how she was going to do it but when Hamm came back for any length of time she was going to insist that if she was going to remain as the governor he was going to have to do something about these things.

For the first time in her life she was going to speak up.

The Gold Mine

HAMM CALLED Vita from Detroit as excited as she had ever heard him. He had just come back to his hotel from speaking to over five thousand members of the teamsters union. “I can win this thing, Vita. For the first time, I really see I have to run. Walter told me he could deliver all of the union vote. He said I was just what the country needed, that people were tired of being pushed around.”

“How did the speech go?”

“Great!”

Hamm had been campaigning nationally for just a few months but not only was he popular in the rural areas, as was expected, but to everyone’s surprise he was already starting to draw huge crowds in Chicago, Newark, and Pittsburgh, and was gaining momentum every day. Hamm had hit a nerve or, as one columnist put it, he had tapped into a gold mine of unrest in the country and he was the only candidate who was “telling it like it is,” saying publicly what they were thinking privately. Many people were upset at the way they thought the country was headed. They were angry at the way the federal government seemed to be forcing things on them they did not want. They worried that if someone did not stop it there was no telling where it would end. There was a growing concern in middle America that all the wealthy liberal eastern politicians, with their endless giveaway programs, were leading the nation down the road to socialism and bogging it down with needless bureaucracy.

Almost everyone was frustrated with the way the war was going and what they perceived to be a weakness on the part of the government to do anything to stop it. They were shocked at the lack of respect the protesters had for the American soldiers fighting in Vietnam, particularly those who had served in the Second World War and Korea. Ada Goodnight, who had been a pilot in the Second World War, said she would be happy to go to Vietnam right now if she could. To them war was war and a draft dodger was a traitor. There was racial unrest everywhere and uneasiness about the rise of crime, drugs, and gangs in the cities and how it was being handled. It seemed to numerous voters that, thanks to the growing power of the ACLU, criminals were beginning to have more rights than the victims. Preachers across the country were becoming alarmed about the young people’s apathy and lack of morals. Some blamed television. Or as Reverend W. W. Nails put it, “The devil has three initials: ABC, NBC, and CBS. They love Lucy more than they do the Lord and they would rather leave it to Beaver than to Jesus.” The average middle-class Americans who worked hard every day, who were not criminals, not on welfare, and had seldom complained, suddenly and collectively started showing signs of growing disillusionment, worried that with all the new social programs they were now going to have to carry the rich and the poor on their backs. They were tired of having to pay so much income and other taxes to support half the world while they struggled to make ends meet. They began to feel that no matter how hard they worked or how much they paid, it was never appreciated and it was never enough.

But most of all they were scared. They looked around and saw the bright and shining true-blue America they had known growing up beginning to tarnish, tear, and fall apart at the seams. Hamm Sparks knew exactly how to verbalize their fears and frustration for them. Unlike the rest of the potential candidates, he seemed to understand their point of view.

As Rodney said, Hamm knew where the public itched and just how to scratch it. And scratch it he did. He took full advantage of all the upset and unrest, told his audiences exactly what they wanted to hear. He got more people mad and upset, more frightened, and was gaining more support by the day. Soon Hamm came down with a full-blown case of Washington fever and started doing anything he thought could get him in the White House. He made deals with people he should not have, said things that were more and more outrageous. Vita told him to be careful. Betty Raye begged him to come home. But it was like trying to stop a moving train. He was not a bad man, just a recklessly ambitious man. Soon even the people around him began to worry and Wendell put it best. When a woman at the John Birch Society luncheon gushed that she thought Hamm was the only man who could save America, Wendell said, “That’s fine if she believes it. But when Hamm starts believing it, we are in big trouble.”

Genetic Flaw

NORMA WAS OVER at the beauty shop for her weekly hair appointment and Macky was eating his lunch at the Trolley Car Diner, as he did every Friday. Sitting at the counter, a few of the other men were discussing politics and Hamm Sparks, as usual. Macky said, “The guy is dangerous. He’s getting crazier by the minute. Right now he’s got every lunatic-fringe group and hate group coming out of the woodwork. If somebody doesn’t shut him up, he’s going to drag us right back into McCarthyism and the next thing we know we’re going to be dragged into a war with Russia.”

“I read the other day that the Klan was backing him now,” Ed said.

Merle, who was just a step away from being a part of the radical right wing, said, “He can’t help who backs him. He came out in the newspaper and said he wasn’t one of them.”

Macky said, “He says that, I can guarantee it, but he’s taking money from them right now and God knows who else.”

“What do you think, Jimmy?” asked Ed. Jimmy, who had not said anything, said quietly, “I agree with Macky. He needs to shut up and quit putting his wife through all this mess.”

Ed said, “Yeah, but how are you going to stop him? Like he says, it’s a free country.”

Monroe Newberry, who had come in from the tire store, added, “I was talking to Bobby on the phone the other day and he says all the big insurance companies up there are getting behind Hamm, but I don’t know what his real chances are.”

Merle said, “I don’t care what the papers say, I think he has a good chance to win.”

Jimmy took a swipe at the counter with his rag but said nothing else.

Two blocks away, at Tot Whooten’s beauty shop, the conversation was definitely not about politics. Betsy Dockrill, who had just come out from under the dryer and was getting ready to be combed out, remarked, “They are having a sale on caper coats out at Montgomery Ward. I got two, they were so cheap.”

Tot pulled Betsy’s hair net off. “Well, I wish I had time to sit around the house in a caper coat. I don’t even have time to shop for one, with my schedule. By the time I close this place up at night, all I want to do is go home and get off my feet.”

“You need to take a day off once in a while.”

“I would if I could.” Tot cut her eyes in the direction of Darlene, her twenty-five-year-old daughter, who worked in the shop with her. Betsy got the implication. Darlene was not overly intelligent and could not be left alone in the shop without someone watching to make sure she wouldn’t put the wrong thing on a customer’s hair again. Tot’s insurance was already sky-high.

Norma was sitting in the next chair, with her hair half rolled up, flipping through a magazine. She asked Tot, who was taking a drag off her cigarette, “Do you think Elizabeth Taylor is happy?”

Tot blew the smoke out. “She’s sporting a diamond the size of a doorknob, why wouldn’t she be?”

“I just wonder if all that fame and money and all those husbands have made her really happy.”

“Well,” Tot said, “if she’s not, I’d like to switch places with her. I’d be downright delirious. She can keep the men; I just want the money and the ring. Between having to put up with Daddy and James, not to mention Dwayne Junior, I’ve done my time in hell, thank you.”

“Oh, Tot, you make it sound so terrible. I can’t believe your life has been all bad. Weren’t you ever happy?”

Tot took another drag on her Pall Mall and put it back in the black plastic ashtray. It was an interesting question, one she had never been asked before. She thought about it for a moment. “Well, let’s see, there was the wedding. Other than Daddy getting drunk and passing out in the vestibule and me having to walk down the aisle by myself, that went fine, right up until we went outside the church and James got that piece of rice stuck in his ear. The honeymoon was ruined from the minute we got in the car because all he did was complain about the ringing in his ear. That ear drove him crazy for over two months. He was so dizzy all he did was lie down. It was so bad they had to operate on it three times looking for it, and we went into debt paying hospital bills.”

Norma said, “I had forgotten about that.”

Tot continued, “So I spent the first three months of my marriage being a nurse and then after he got drafted and went off to the army he came back home five years later a full-blown alcoholic, just like Daddy, who I’d married James to get away from. So I was happy from the time I said I do until we got outside the church and somebody threw rice in his ear. How long does it take to go from the altar down the aisle to outside the church, a minute? So you can say I was happy for a minute.”

Norma felt terrible that she had even asked the question. “Poor Tot,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Well, don’t be, because it’s my own fault. I did it to myself. I should have known when I had to give my own self away, it was a bad omen. I should have just turned around and gone home but everybody wants a wedding, I guess. Women are fools; they will marry anything that has a heartbeat just to have a man.” She glanced over at Darlene again. “I’m still paying for her last fiasco, number three. And it’s not just the women—Dwayne Junior has already got two girls pregnant that I’m having to pay child support to. Sometimes I wish both my kids had turned queer and saved the world a lot of trouble.”

“Mother, I don’t think that’s funny.”

“I know you don’t but it’s true.” Tot looked at Betsy in the mirror. “From fifteen to twenty-five she managed to marry every half-wit in town and is dating number four.”

Her daughter defended her latest fiasco: “He has a job, Mother.”

Tot rolled her eyes. “Well, if collecting beer cans in the back of a truck is considered a profession, then I stand corrected.” She changed the subject: “Darlene, run down the street and get me a tuna fish salad on whole wheat and a bag of chips. Do you want anything, Norma?”

“No thanks, I just had lunch. I’ve been up since five-thirty.”

After Darlene left the shop, Tot shook her head. “Norma, just be glad you have a daughter with good sense. Darlene is about to drive me crazy. I tell you, from the day she flunked out of tap school it’s been downhill ever since. I went in her house the other morning and she’s sitting there at the table with a brick. I said, What are you doing and she said, I’m filing my nails. I spent a fortune sending her to beauty school and she’s filing her nails with a brick. After the tenth grade she was flunking everything but fooling with her hair night and day so I shipped her off to beauty school. I figured she’d be good at it. But I was wrong. And I don’t know where she got that thin fuzzy hair. She didn’t get it from my side of the family. She got it from the Whootens. No telling what’s in that gene pool, but it’s the worst possible advertisement for the hair business. I swear, between her and James and Dwayne Junior I’m so worn out I can hardly get up in the morning.”

Although she did not want people to know it, Tot had a heart of gold and would give you the shirt off her back if you needed it. That was the main reason she was so tired all the time. After working in the shop all day and on weekends she would pack up her kit and go over to all the older ladies’ homes and fix their hair for them. Most were either sick or bedridden and could not pay but Tot did not care. She said as long as her fingers could move no lady she knew was going to do without her weekly shampoo and set.

And as much as she complained about Darlene and Dwayne Jr., she let them have just about anything they wanted and baby-sat her grandchildren anytime they asked, which, unfortunately, was often.

The Hunting Trip

HAMM HAD BEEN campaigning for president for only a few months but already Hamm (“Tell It Like It Is”) Sparks had become a big thorn in the side of a lot of people. Once more he was making powerful enemies in his own party, only this time on a national level. What had started out as a fly-by-night, grassroots campaign was suddenly not so funny and could no longer be dismissed. Besides, his poor English and backwoods manner were an embarrassment to the elite East Coast Harvard and Yale, pipe-and-tweed Democrats in Washington and elsewhere. They also believed that his radical, black-and-white, take-no-prisoners brand of politics was dangerous for them and for the country. The powers that be called him in and tried to reason with him, get him to step down for the good of the party, but Hamm was like a dog with a bone. He would not withdraw and if they threw him out they knew he might run on an independent ticket and take the votes with him anyway.

On December 31 Dorothy’s first New Year’s resolution was the same as last year:

1. Lose ten pounds.

On December 31 Minnie Oatman sat down at the small table on the big silver bus that was headed for a New Year’s Day gospel sing in Bloomington, Illinois, and wrote out her same old resolution:

1. Lose fifty pounds.

Tot Whooten wrote out her yearly resolution, as she had for the past seven years, only this time she stuck it on the refrigerator:

1. Do not loan Darlene or Dwayne Jr. another dime.

But across the country a new resolution appeared on the top of a lot of people’s lists that year:

1. Get rid of Hamm Sparks.

They did not write it down but they thought it.

He gained momentum every day. They knew Hamm could never have the numbers to win the election—he was too much of a wild card—but now even the Republicans were beginning to worry. To their utmost irritation, Hamm was quietly receiving thousands of dollars from a lot of big-money supporters that should have been going to their man. Both parties were afraid of his growing popularity. Despite the fact that all the newspapers, magazines, and national television network news shows were either ignoring him or ridiculing him, he gained on them every day. Something had to be done; if he continued on with this momentum he was going to upset the election for everyone.

Some of the people who supported Hamm financially did not want it known. And there were some people he was willing to take money from that he did not want known.

Rodney was contacted by Mr. Anthony Leo, the man who had given Hamm The Betty Raye eight years before, and was told there was a friend of his in New Orleans who might be willing to contribute a lot of money under the table. But he wanted to talk to Hamm about who he was considering running as vice president before he committed.

Hamm agreed to a meeting. Both he and the man felt that for privacy reasons it would be best for them to meet on the man’s yacht in New Orleans. When the time was right, Hamm blocked out a weekend. Unfortunately, it was the same weekend he had promised Betty Raye he was going to come back to Jefferson City and spend with her. She had been so looking forward to it, not only because she missed him but also because she had so many questions to ask. That Friday morning, he called from Jackson, Mississippi, and informed her he would not be coming home because he and the boys had decided to go on a hunting trip instead. He said they would have to fly out of Jackson on Monday to another speech and he was not sure when he could get back. When Betty Raye hung up she was almost in tears.

Alberta Peets, who had been in the room, saw how upset Betty Raye was and went over and put her arm around her. “Them mens better stop treating you so mean while I’m around ’cause they liable to get me all riled up again. . . . They need to remember what happened to the last one who did that.”

Wendell Hewitt and Seymour Gravel had called and told their wives the same thing. As far as Hamm and the boys were concerned, it was not too much of a lie. They were hunting for money. Since the press was dogging his every move and it was a tricky situation, the trip to New Orleans had to be very carefully coordinated. After much plotting and map studying, Rodney Tillman had come up with the plan. Since Hamm was already in Jackson for a speech, Rodney would go back to Missouri a few days before and pick up The Betty Raye and meet them near the Mississippi-Louisiana state line, at the boathouse of a relative of Mr. Leo’s, and then take them on to New Orleans via the Mississippi River. In order for them to get to the boat without anyone seeing them, Cecil Figgs was to pick them up at the motel at four A.M. in an old hearse he would borrow from the back lot of one of his Kansas City mortuaries and drive them down to meet Rodney at the boat. Although it was uncomfortable, no one followed them or saw Hamm and Wendell crouched in the back with the curtains drawn. They stashed the hearse in the bushes about a half mile from the spot on the river where they were to meet The Betty Raye and walked the rest of the way. When they were all aboard they laughed all the way down the Mississippi, thinking how clever they had been.

Cecil had no idea what the meeting was about, nor did he care. He was just along for the ride. When they pulled into the dock in New Orleans and tied up beside the seventy-five-foot yacht where the meeting with Mr. Leo’s friend was to take place, Cecil made plans of his own in the French Quarter. Besides, who cared about politics when there were so many pretty boys in the world and Mother was miles away and nobody at home knew where he was? What fun. He almost skipped off the boat. Oh joy!

HAMM SPARKS, FOUR OTHERS MISSING—FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED

BY TUESDAY MORNING every headline and radio and television in America screamed the same thing.

By Tuesday afternoon there were dozens of newsmen and television cameras on the front lawn of the governor’s mansion, with hundreds more on the way. David Brinkley’s lead on the NBC nightly news was one sentence: “Controversial presidential candidate Hamm Sparks, along with four other men, including the Missouri attorney general, seems to have literally disappeared over the weekend. The question is, Where did they go?”

It was a genuine mystery. The state police, the district attorney’s office, the FBI had been called in and soon were all stumped. All they had been able to find out so far was that the last time any of the men had been seen was Friday night, and Monday morning none of them had showed up where they were supposed to be.

Hamm had been scheduled to address an auditorium full of six thousand AFL-CIO members in Grand Rapids and Cecil was to have taken his mother to the eye doctor that morning. Something was seriously wrong. The FBI questioned everyone for days. Seymour and Wendell’s wives had been told the exact same story—their husbands were going on a hunting trip. Rodney’s ex-wife knew nothing because they were not living together but she did mention to the press that Rodney owed her back alimony. The only odd thing was that Cecil had left his mother, Mrs. Ursa Figgs, a note saying he was on a business trip but would be back to take her to the eye doctor. He was the only one of the missing men who did not mention hunting. Being that he was not the hunting type, they could not be positive if he was with the other men or not, but because they’d all disappeared at the same time it could only be assumed. In the meantime, Betty Raye was walking around in a daze, trying her best to keep the two boys calm and keep them away from the press.

When Minnie first heard the news she left the Oatmans in Charlotte, North Carolina, and flew to her daughter’s side. She was escorted through a herd of newsmen and when she got inside, a tearful Minnie rushed at Betty Raye, grabbed her, and said, “Oh, honey, it’s just like when Chester was stole all over again. Now somebody’s gone and snatched little Hamm away!”

Minnie immediately started to form prayer circles inside the mansion and out. The reporters, most of whom were from New York, suddenly found themselves kneeling on the lawn, holding hands with a fat woman, praying for Hamm’s return. The Missouri National Guard was called in for an all-out search of the woods where Hamm and his staff usually went hunting or even could have gone. Day after day, an upset and increasingly terrified Betty Raye waited for news of her husband. Dorothy called and asked Betty Raye if there was anything she could do but there was nothing that anyone could do except find her husband.

Everyone, including Betty Raye, was at a loss as to what to do. It seemed inconceivable that five grown men could just disappear into thin air without leaving a trace. Jake Spurling, the FBI’s number one missing-persons expert, was brought in from Washington and put on the case. All of Hamm’s known enemies, of which there were many, were immediately questioned but as of yet none could be connected to the disappearance. The government offered a $500,000 reward for any information. In the meantime hundreds of people called radio and television stations, claiming to have spotted a flying saucer the weekend of their disappearance. One woman in Holt’s Summit said she saw the men looking out the window of one as it took off from her cow pasture. Psychics from everywhere called in. One from London claimed that the men had stolen money and were now living in New Guinea with a Pygmy tribe. Another claimed they had been lost in the Bermuda Triangle. The entire country was in a state of pure shock, concerned and alarmed that a presidential candidate could just vanish from the face of the earth without leaving a trace or a clue.

Alberta Peets, who claimed to have premonitions, had gone home on a weekend furlough to see her mother the weekend the men disappeared and had told Betty Raye that Sunday night that she had had a cold chill to hit her. She said, “They need to look for them in Alaska.”

A few days after the headlines hit, an extremely nervous Mr. Anthony Leo made a call from a phone booth to his friend in New Orleans. The friend claimed not to know what had happened to the men after the meeting and in turn asked Mr. Leo if he knew anything. Mr. Leo said no. After they hung up they both wondered if the other one was lying but did not say so. In those circles it was best not to.

People in Missouri were at a particular loss as to what to do or how to behave in a case like this. There had never been a case like this. They had no idea if they should fly the flag at half-staff or just lower it a little, since nobody really knew if the men were dead or not. Cecil Figgs was the only one who would have known what to do, but he was missing as well.

The only two people who had not seemed totally surprised Hamm and the others were missing were Earl Finley and Jimmy Head. Minutes after Earl had made the obligatory phone call to Betty Raye on behalf of the Democratic Party of Missouri to say how sorry he was to hear about the bad news, he was locked in a back room of a cheap hotel with several friends, trying his best to keep from smiling as he plotted his next move. Jimmy Head had been in Kansas City for a friend’s funeral when the news hit but when he came back to Elmwood Springs all he said was, “I’m just surprised it didn’t happen sooner. I feel bad for Betty Raye but she’s a hell of a lot better off without him.”

In time, it became painfully clear that they were not coming back. Betty Raye thanked her mother for coming but told her that she was fine and Alberta would look after her and Minnie should go back on the road. She was not fine but when she was not with her boys she just wanted to be alone and think, to try to come to terms with what was happening. No one ever dreams that the last moment, that last glance of someone, might really be the last. She could not sleep, or eat. Not knowing if he was dead or alive was torture, but in addition to grieving for her husband she had two children and an entire state to worry about.

A month later, after attending a rather strange and ambiguous memorial service for Hamm and the four men, it hit her that most likely Hamm was not coming back. And she wanted to die. Had it not been for her two boys, she might have. Hamm Jr., who had adored his father, was taking his loss particularly hard and he needed her.

As the widow of such a powerful man, Betty Raye had at least received the nation’s sympathy and support but Vita Green had suffered through the entire thing alone and silent, waiting, like Betty Raye, for some word. But unlike Betty Raye, having a sense of how dangerous politics could be and how reckless Hamm had become, she had been halfway expecting something like this to happen. Expected or not, it was devastating for her.

Out of respect for his family, she did not attend the memorial service but stayed home and held her own very private wake. The people who knew about her relationship with Hamm tried to be helpful, but as Betty Raye had learned, nothing could help except, maybe, time.

Time and patience were two things that Jake Spurling had plenty of. An unattractive man with red pockmarked skin, Jake was as dedicated to solving missing-persons cases as most men were to their families.

Even though there had been a memorial service, none of the bodies had been found; as far as he was concerned, this case was far from over. Jake Spurling was one of the best criminal investigators in the country and he vowed he would never give up on the Hamm Sparks disappearance until he got to the bottom of it. And who had been behind it. Jake was known far and wide as a man who, once he had a case, was like a dog with a bone. He would root and dig for information no matter how long it took, or where he had to go to find it. To Jake this was the case of a lifetime.

Aunt Elner Goes Postal

LUTHER GRIGGS, the bully who used to beat up Bobby Smith, lived in a trailer park behind the post office and had a son as mean as his daddy had been at that age. Over the years Aunt Elner had had a series of orange cats that she always named Sonny. That morning Luther Griggs Jr. had thrown a rock at Aunt Elner’s present cat named Sonny and had hit him in the head.

At a quarter to twelve that night Aunt Elner called her niece with the news.

“Norma, I’ve killed the Griggs boy.”

“What?”

“I’ve killed the Griggs boy, murdered him in cold blood. I didn’t mean to but there you have it. Tell Macky to go on and call the police.”

“Aunt Elner, what are you talking about?”

“I’ve killed him, poisoned him, he’s probably lying over there dead and they’re gonna trace the fudge back to me sooner or later, so I might as well give up and get it over with. I’ve tried to live a good life all these years and here I’ve wound up a cold-blooded killer.”

“Aunt Elner, listen to me. You stay right where you are and don’t do a thing, do you hear me?”

Norma went into the bedroom and shook him. “Macky, wake up!” He stirred a little. . . . “Macky, wake up. We have to go over to Aunt Elner’s.”

“What’s the matter? Is she sick?”

“Get your clothes on . . . she says she killed the Griggs boy.”

“What?”

“I don’t know, Macky. She’s hysterical. She said she poisoned him. Just get dressed before she calls the police.”

Macky put his pants on over his pajamas, Norma grabbed her coat, and by the time they got there, Elner was out on the porch waiting for them, wringing her hands.

“I know I’ve disgraced the family,” she said. “I don’t know what caused me to do such a thing.”

Macky led her back into the house. “Aunt Elner, just sit down and tell us what’s going on.”

Elner was distraught. “It’s gonna be in all the papers; do you think they will handcuff me? Poor old Sonny has a hole in his head and now his owner is going to jail or maybe to the electric chair.”

Macky said, “Aunt Elner, now, just calm down. What happened?”

“I must have gone insane. Maybe I can plead insanity—do you think so?”

“What did you do?”

“Well, I wanted to get back at him for hitting Sonny. I knew I couldn’t catch him, so I tried to figure out a way to get him up on the porch and take a good whack at him. I made up some fudge to get him over here.” She looked stricken. “Oh, I just should have stopped there. But I had a whole bunch of old chocolate Ex-Lax, so I just melted it up and threw it in.”

“Is that all?”

“A little dab of Mennen’s underarm deodorant.”

“Just that?”

“No.”

“What else?”

“A half cup of oven cleaner. Polident tooth powder . . . I sprinkled a little on the top . . . it looked kinda like sugar.”

Norma couldn’t contain herself. “Oh my God.”

“Hold on, Norma,” Macky said. He asked in a calm voice, “Is that all, Aunt Elner?”

Norma looked at him like he was crazy. “Is that all? . . . That’s enough to kill an entire family right there!”

Aunt Elner said, “I never thought of that. Do you reckon he may have taken that candy home? I may have killed them all. They may all be laying up in the trailer park dead.” She threw her hands up in the air. “Now I’m a mass murderer.”

Macky said, “Aunt Elner, now slow down. Start from the beginning. Tell me everything that happened.”

“I made the candy . . . and waited till I saw him skulking around in the backyard. Then I called him over and said, ‘Come here, little boy, I’ve got some nice candy for you.’ I just meant for him to have one bite and then I was gonna try and grab for him but before I had a chance to do anything he snatched most all of the candy off the plate and took off before I could get at him.”

“When did this happen?”

“This morning.”

Norma said, “Why did you wait so long to tell us?”

Aunt Elner shook her head. “I guess when you do a thing like that the criminal mind just takes over. I thought I might get away with it. I should have come clean from the start. And now I’ve killed the whole Griggs family.”

“Oh my God,” Norma said. “Shouldn’t we call a good lawyer, Macky? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do at a time like this?”

“We are not going to call anybody. I am sure he is fine.”

“Macky, we can’t guess about something like this. We’re looking at a murder charge. You go over there right now and look at that boy. We may all have to go on the lam.”

“For God’s sake, all right, but this is stupid.”

“Macky—promise me you won’t come back until you have seen that boy walking and talking.”

“All right, all right.”

The door opened and Luther Griggs peered out first, and then opened the door wider, shotgun in hand. “What the hell do you want this time of night?”

“Are you all right?”

“Hell, yes. . . . Are you?”

“Can I come in? I need to talk to you.”

As Macky stepped into the trailer, which stank of beer and cigarettes, he looked closely at Luther to see if he looked sick but Luther Griggs had never been a picture of health, so it was hard to tell.

“I’m sorry to come over this late but we might have a little problem. Is your boy home?”

“What’s he supposed to have done now?”

“Nothing. It’s just that he may have been given some bad candy and he might need to have a doctor look at him.”

By this time Mrs. Griggs, in a ratty pink chenille robe with maroon flowers, had come into the room frowning. “What’s he done now?”

“Nothing, Mrs. Griggs, I just need to see him for a moment. If you don’t mind.”

“What for?”

“It’s a long story. But my aunt might have given him some bad fudge this morning and we just need to make sure he’s all right.”

She did not move but yelled, “Get in here this minute, you hear me . . . right now!” After a moment, Mrs. Griggs whipped around and flew into the bedroom. “I said get up! Now!”

Soon Mrs. Griggs reappeared, dragging the boy by the ears, with him kicking at her the whole time.

Macky said, “My aunt says you took a couple of handfuls of some candy she offered to you. . . . Is that right?”

“She’s a damn liar . . . I never took no damn fudge,” the boy said.

“She’s not accusing you of stealing. She—”

“Well, she’s a crazy damn old fool. I never took no candy.”

Luther Griggs got all puffed up. “You heard my boy, he never took no damn candy. You calling my boy a liar?”

“No. I’m not. I just wanted to make sure he wasn’t sick. The candy might not have been . . . uh, not made with the right ingredients.” Macky looked closely at the little boy. “Are you sure you feel all right, son? That candy didn’t make you sick?”

“I never took no candy.”

“Well, all right then, as long as you are all right. But if you do feel sick, call me. . . . Here’s my number.” He wrote it down for them.

In truth, Luther Jr. had grabbed the candy but when he took one bite it was so bad he spit it out and threw the rest over the Whatleys’ fence.

Macky walked in the door at Aunt Elner’s and winked at Norma.

“Well, Aunt Elner, I’ve got bad news for you. They’re still alive. Too bad. You might have gotten a medal from the town if you had wiped them all out.”

Norma said, “I’m glad you can joke about it. We came very close to having Aunt Elner wind up in the state penitentiary. Wouldn’t that have been nice for Linda, having her great-aunt sitting up on Death Row.”

Macky laughed.

Norma looked at him. “Laugh if you want, Macky, but she would never have gotten into a decent sorority!”

The Meeting

IT WAS SOME TIME after the memorial before Betty Raye could get up the nerve to do something she had wanted to do for a long time. She asked State Trooper Ralph Childress to let her out a half block away and when she reached the front of the building in Kansas City a uniformed doorman tipped his hat saying, “May I help you, ma’am?”

She fumbled around in her purse. “Uh, I’m here to see Mrs. Vita Green?”

“Yes, ma’am. Who shall I say is calling?”

Betty Raye, who was wearing a scarf and sunglasses, panicked. She had not realized she would be announced. She almost turned around and left but she figured she had come this far, she might as well come out with it. She said almost inaudibly, “Tell her it’s Mrs. Sparks.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He pushed a button. “Mrs. Green, I have a Mrs. Sparks here to see you.”

There was a pause.

He repeated the name “Mrs. Sparks” and there was another long interval. Betty Raye’s heart was pounding so hard she wanted to run. After a moment, he hung up and said, “Go right in. Take the elevator up to fourteen, get off, and take a left up the stairs. Turn right and you will see 15A.”

“Thank you,” she said and got in the elevator and almost threw up.

Vita was caught a little off guard by this unexpected visit. Her first thought was to say that she was not home. But she might as well get this over with, so why not today? She had no idea why the woman was here but she guessed that whatever the reason, it was not going to be a pleasant one. She called out to her maid, who was in the kitchen. “Bridget, answer the door and tell the lady I’ll be right out.” She went to her bedroom to get some clothes on. After all this time it was still hard to even get up and get dressed.

When Betty Raye got off the elevator, she walked up the stairs. When she reached the door she pushed the buzzer to the apartment and the noise made her jump. After a moment the door opened and Bridget was prepared to say, as she had a hundred times, “Please come right in and have a seat. Mrs. Green will be with you shortly,” but when she recognized Betty Raye from the pictures she had seen of her in the papers all she could do was to drop her mouth open and stare. Betty Raye was surprised as well; she had steeled herself, expecting Vita Green to be standing on the other side of the door. Finally she asked, “Is this Mrs. Green’s apartment?”

Bridget managed a “Yes, ma’am.”

“Is she in?”

“I’ll go see.”

She ran and threw open the bedroom door white as a ghost, her eyes wide with fright. “The archbishop’s wife is here. She’s at the door right now. What do you want me to do? Are you here?”

Vita was sitting at her dressing table, calmly putting on her lipstick. “It’s all right, I’ll handle it.”

“I can tell her you just left town.”

“No, but if you hear a gunshot call the police.”

“Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Bridget said.

Vita smiled and patted her hand. “Just kidding,” she said but thought to herself, I hope, and walked out to greet Betty Raye, who was still standing at the door.

Vita was as smooth as silk and acted as if she were saying hello to just another acquaintance and not the wife of the man who had been the love of her life. “Governor Sparks, I’m sorry you had to wait but I was not dressed. Won’t you come in?”

Betty Raye’s knees were weak as she stepped into the living room. The entire apartment had a faint scent of Shalimar perfume, a familiar smell. Hamm always had the aroma on him.

“Have a seat, Governor. May I offer you coffee, tea?”

“Oh no, thank you. Just a glass of water, if you don’t mind.”

“Certainly. Bridget, would you please bring Governor Sparks a glass of water.”

After they sat, Vita said, “I’m sure you know how sorry I am and all of us on the arts council are for your loss.”

Betty Raye nodded. “Oh yes, and I appreciated your note and flowers.”

There was an uncomfortable silence.

Betty looked around. “You have a beautiful apartment.”

“Thank you.” This was the first time the two women had seen each other since their brief meeting a few years ago, and Betty Raye found that she still felt like an awkward schoolgirl around Vita. Vita, now sitting across from her, wearing earrings made of two huge chunks of lime green crystal stones the same color as her eyes, was still one of the most glamorous women she had ever seen.

Vita was doing some observing of her own. She had seen plenty of pictures of Betty Raye, of course, and there were those few hurried seconds when they had met at the Wheeler party, but now that she had a chance to study her up close, it was a different thing. She saw a woman with nice enough features, nothing outstanding, but there was something about her eyes she had not noticed before. And she sat there wondering what it was. Her hands were long and graceful, her mouth generous in a way that saved a too thin face, but it was still her eyes that had caught Vita off guard again. She had not expected that.

When Bridget brought her a glass of water, Betty Raye took it and smiled and said, “Thank you.”

Vita suddenly figured out what it was she saw in her eyes and where she had seen it before. Betty Raye’s eyes had the same guileless look in them as a little female dog she had once had. There was a sweetness about them, mixed with sadness and something else, and all at once Vita realized that this woman was not going to shoot anybody. She was the one who was frightened. She told Bridget she could go and that she would call her if she needed her for anything else. The maid shot her an “Are you sure?” look and Vita nodded to reassure her.

They sat looking at each other. Finally Betty Raye spoke. “Mrs. Green, I thought I had a reason to come here but right now I can’t remember what it was. I feel like a fool—all I’ve done, I’m afraid, is to embarrass myself. I thought you might need someone to talk to, someone who, well, I guess the thing I wondered about was if you were all right or if you needed anything. I know how fond you were of my husband and how fond he was of you . . . how much he depended on you . . . for advice and things. You were not at the memorial service and I think I know why.” At that point Betty Raye hiccuped. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought how hard that must have been on you not to have—” She hiccuped again. “Well, that’s great. I’ve got the hiccups.”

Vita stood up and took her glass. “Here, let me get you some more water,” she said and went in the kitchen while Betty Raye sat on her couch, hiccuping. When Vita handed her the water, Betty Raye said apologetically, “Thank you,” took a big sip, and spilled water down the front of her dress. “Oh dear, this is not how I planned this to be. I wanted—” She hiccuped again. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to do what Hamm might have wanted someone to do.”

Vita sat there and watched this woman fall totally apart right before her very eyes but there was nothing she could say. She still was not sure exactly how much she really knew. Betty Raye tried to continue. “I thought that I was being noble or something but now that I’m here I realize I came because I needed you to tell me some things.” Then she burst into tears. “I think I need a friend and I don’t know where to turn. Well, I better leave.” She stood up. “I certainly did not mean to do this.” When she reached the door she hiccuped again, said, “I’m so sorry,” and went out and closed the door.

Vita sat there for a moment listening to Betty Raye hiccup down the hall, then got up and thought to herself, I’m probably going to regret this. She got to the elevator doors just as they opened and took Betty Raye by the arm. “Come back.”

Betty Raye said, “No . . . I should just go and let you alone.”

“I don’t want you to go.” Vita turned to the puzzled elevator operator standing there waiting and said, “She’s not leaving.”

Betty Raye said, “I’m not?”

“No, you’re not, come on with me.”

As Vita led her back up the stairs to the apartment, Betty Raye said, “I promise, I’m not really as dumb as I seem,” and hiccuped again. When she got Betty Raye back inside Vita sat her down and handed her a glass of brandy. “Drink this.”

Betty Raye took a drink and looked at Vita in horror. “What is that?”

“Brandy.”

“Oh well, I thought I’d come here today because I wanted you to know if there was anything I could do for you and to tell you that you are welcome to see the boys anytime you want; I realize you must miss him terribly.” She paused a moment, then said, “But I did have a question. Mrs. Green, I hate to ask you this, but I wondered: Do you have any idea what happened to him?”

“No, I don’t, Mrs. Sparks. I wish I did. Believe me.”

“Oh. I thought if anyone knew it would be you . . . ”

Vita looked at her very carefully. “Did you know about your husband and me?”

“Oh yes.”

“For how long?”

“From the beginning, I guess. Hamm was not the subtlest of men.”

“And you never said anything?”

“No. But please don’t think I’m a saint, I’m not. It nearly killed me. I cried over it, I prayed about it, but you can’t make a person stop loving another person just by telling them to stop. If I had, he would have resented me the rest of his life. It was a problem with no solution or at least none I could think of. Oh, there was a time I thought about leaving him, and I should have, I guess. But I knew a divorce would have ruined his career, so I made the decision not to leave and I adjusted to it.” She looked at the brandy glass. “I think this stuff has cured my hiccups. And of course I kidded myself that if I ran for governor for him he might have to depend on me. And I hoped that maybe one day he would get over you. But I think the real truth is I just didn’t have the courage to leave. I’m not a very brave person, Mrs. Green, and the thought of having to go out on my own and raise the children alone . . .”

Betty Raye took another drink of the brandy and made another face. “But there were times when I did wonder what you thought of me or if you ever thought of me or if you were trying to get him to leave me. Of course, when I met you and saw how beautiful and smart you were, I could understand why he fell in love with you. I couldn’t blame him, really. I mean, you were everything I wasn’t. I even wondered if you hated me for not leaving him. . . . Did you?”

Vita got up and walked across the room to the bar and fixed herself a strong drink and after a moment said, “No, I didn’t hate you. The truth is that I never thought about you.”

“I see,” said Betty Raye.

“Now that I think back, it wasn’t so much that I didn’t care, it was just that I couldn’t afford to think about you. I suppose if any woman having an affair with a married man ever really stopped to think about the man’s wife and what it was doing to her, she would not be able to keep doing it. I didn’t even have the excuse that most have that the wife is terrible. I knew you weren’t terrible but what I didn’t know was just how well you did understand him.”

She came back over and sat down. “I think there are some things I do need to tell you. First of all, I never wanted to marry him. I am not the wife type and, believe me, I never wanted children. It’s you that should hate me. I’m the thief. I stole what should have been yours. I had the best of him and just gave you what was left over.”

Betty Raye smiled a little. “Well, in a way I feel I got the best of him. I have the boys. But the truth is, as much as he loved you and loved me . . . the children even . . . none of us ever really had him. Politics was his real love. We all came second to that.”

Vita acquiesced. “Maybe you’re right.”

Betty Raye knew she should leave. There was really nothing more to say. But for some reason she just sat there, unable to move. She kept looking at Vita as if she did have something more to say but she did not know what it was.

Vita wondered what was the matter with her, just sitting there looking so troubled. And then a thought occurred. She leaned over, took Betty Raye’s hand, and looked her in the eyes. “Mrs. Sparks, do you need help?”

A relieved Betty Raye grabbed her hand and blurted out, “Oh God, yes, yes, I do. . . . I don’t know what I am doing half the time or who to ask and without Hamm I’m scared to death. I know how smart you are and how much he depended on you. Oh, Mrs. Green, would you consider being my adviser?”

“First of all, it’s Vita and I will be happy to help you in any way I can, Mrs. Sparks.”

“Oh thank you, Vita—and it’s Betty Raye, please.”

They stood up and Vita walked her to the door. “So when would you like to get together again? Lunch tomorrow, say around one?”

“To tell you the truth, Vita, I don’t think I can wait that long,” Betty Raye said. “How about breakfast, say around eight?”

Vita laughed. “I’ll be there.” Vita did not usually like women but this one she liked. This little brown wren had more guts and heart than anyone had suspected. As they walked down the hall, Vita put her arm in Betty Raye’s and said, “You know, Betty Raye, I think this might be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.”

How Did You Meet Your Best Friend?

Neighbor Dorothy rushed down the hall calling out to Mother Smith, “I found it,” and ran in and sat down at her desk just as the red light went on. “Good morning, everybody, I have so many things for you today. We have a winner in our How Did You Meet Your Best Friend Contest . . . but first let me tell you what I forgot to mention yesterday. Give me a little Indian music, please, Mother Smith. We got a letter from the Goodnight sisters all the way from Oklahoma . . . and they sent us a photograph. I wish you could see it, they both have on feather bonnets and are standing beside a real Indian. They write, ‘Hello from the land of the red man. . . . We have just been adopted by Chief . . .’ well, I can’t make out the name . . . ‘and we are now members of the Miami Indian tribe. . . . We are on our way to a powwow. Wish you were here. Ada and Bess Goodnight . . . now known as . . . Princess Laughing Bird and Little Thunder.’ I tell you, those gals are fearless . . . no telling what they will be up to next. . . . But I can tell you what we are up to.

“Miss Virginia Mae Schmitt, our special guest all the way from Dale, Indiana, is here to sing a cute little novelty song for all you singles out there entitled ‘I’m Living Alone, and I Like It.’ But, before we get to our song, I want all you men listening to leave the room because I have a special announcement just for the ladies. Girls, make sure they are not listening . . . and Doc, I know you have the radio on down at the drugstore, so just turn it off for two minutes . . . and I mean it. Bertha Ann, go back behind the counter and make sure he does.” At the Rexall, Bertha Ann looked to see where Doc was and reached behind her and turned the radio down. “Well . . . Father’s Day is here again . . . and if you are anything like me, every year I wrack my brain trying to figure out just what to get Doc. Men . . . aren’t they just the hardest creatures in the world to buy for? But this year I think I have come up with a good one that you might want to think about yourself. You know how Doc loves his tools, so this year we are giving him a gift certificate to Warren’s Hardware store—so he can go pick out exactly what he wants. Just call Macky and he said he would be happy to make you out one for any amount.”

After her guest had sung, Dorothy came back on. “Thank you, Virginia Mae. I’m sure all you single gals out there enjoyed that one. And now without further ado, on to our winning letter. Mrs. Joni Hartman of Bible Grove, Missouri, writes:

“Dear Neighbor Dorothy,

“We have a lot of squirrels here in Bible Grove and they are always dropping acorns out of the trees. One day I was watching as a stranger walked past my house when a squirrel dropped a large acorn out of the tree and hit her on the head. She fell down thinking somebody shot her. I went out and told her she had been hit in the head by an acorn. I invited her in and gave her an aspirin and found out she worked for the Internal Revenue Service—that was the reason she thought somebody had shot her. She quit her job right after that and now has a good job working in the dead-letter department in Washington, D.C., and we correspond regularly.

“Congratulations, Mrs. Hartman. When you hear about things like that . . . it just does your heart good. One day a squirrel drops an acorn and the next thing you know you have a new friend, not to mention a free five-pound bag of Golden Flake Flour.

“We just never know what to expect next in life, do we?”

The Unexpected

Betty Raye did not know it, but she had not become friends with Vita Green a moment too soon. She would need a good friend and all the strength and courage she had for what was about to happen next.

Earl Finley had quietly done his dirty work behind closed doors, made the right deals and promises to the right people of both parties. He waited, coiled like a snake, until what he deemed a respectable amount of time had passed and then struck swiftly. Almost overnight, it seemed, a motion for a recall was put before the Missouri house and senate, stating that since Betty Raye had been elected with the expectation and understanding that her husband would run the state, that expectation was no longer valid. Within twenty-four hours, the motion was passed declaring that Betty Raye’s governorship was null and void and a new election was to take place to determine who would serve out her last two years in office.

And Carnie Boofer, who had been sitting in the wings waiting, was poised and ready to go. It was all done with the best of intentions, so everyone—or almost everyone—said. The motion had been passed to relieve a nice lady from an impossible situation so she could leave office and step down gracefully and with dignity. Betty Raye received a lovely letter from the Speaker of the House, thanking her for her valiant service for the past two years and stating that although she was no longer the legal governor, as a courtesy she and the boys would be allowed to remain living at the mansion until the election was over. They had even voted to allot her a lifetime pension of $10,000 a year.

Vita thought it was a lousy trick they had pulled but agreed that in the long run it was probably for the best. She did not tell Betty Raye this, but knowing Earl Finley as well as she did and how dangerous he could be, she understood his methods all too well. If he wanted someone out of office he would stop at nothing to see that it happened. Vita still had her suspicions about his involvement in Hamm’s disappearance but so far all Jake Spurling and his men had come up with was that Finley and all his cohorts had an airtight alibi that weekend—but then, they always did.

It never occurred to anyone, not even Betty Raye, that she would not step down.

At first, after the surprise of the thing, there was a part of her that was actually relieved. Now she could leave before she might make some terrible mistake and disgrace herself and undo all of Hamm’s good work. Now, finally, she could move into her own house. It was all furnished. She was almost beginning to feel grateful to them.

But a few days after she and Alberta Peets started packing up and getting ready to move, something slowly began to dawn on her. In essence, despite all the niceties, what had really taken place was that the state politicians, led by Earl Finley, had said, “Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry, and don’t let the door hit you on your way out.” She called Vita in Kansas City.

“Vita, I’ve been thinking. We don’t know for sure who was responsible for getting rid of Hamm but if it was any of the same people who are trying to get rid of me, I don’t think they should be able to get away with it. Do you? Not without a fight, at least for Hamm’s sake, if nothing else.”

Vita sat up and paid attention. “What can you do?”

“Well, if they say the last election was null and void, I’ll run again, on my own.”

“Do you know what you are up against?” Vita said.

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, I do. I know these people and they play rough.”

“Vita, what more can they do other than kill me? I know I probably won’t win. But I think I owe it to Hamm to at least try, don’t you?”

Vita smiled. “It would be fun. To see Earl’s face.”

“Can you come back up here tomorrow, Vita, so we can talk some more about it?”

“I guess so. But just to talk. I’ll be there for lunch.”

There was a pause on the other end.

“Oh, all right . . . make it breakfast.”

They say people two blocks away heard Earl Finley yelling when he heard the news.

Vita Green had called her good friend Peter Wheeler, whose wife had just died, and talked him into moving to Jefferson City to help her run Betty Raye’s campaign. It was an interesting choice, considering Peter Wheeler had run against Hamm in his first governor’s election and it was at a party at his home where Betty Raye and Vita first met.

Earl Finley vowed he was not going to take this sitting down. He had tried to get rid of Betty Raye in a nice, devious way but now he was taking off the gloves in an all-out assault. As head of the Missouri Democratic Party, he declared her candidacy invalid and refused to support her. This forced her to run as an independent.

Le Roy Oatman and the Missouri Plowboys geared up one more time. From the first, her polling numbers were so low they set a state record. As hard as she tried, she was still so shy that when she got up to speak everyone could see her knees shaking. And even when they hid her behind a larger podium, she frequently dropped her speeches to the floor. If there were men who would not vote for a woman even when she had Hamm behind her, almost none would vote for a woman without any man behind her. One editorial said, “It seems Mrs. Sparks, unlike the rest of the state, has forgotten that she was never considered anything more than a paper governor. One cannot help but suspect she is being used once more as a pawn and to what end is unknown. However, to prevent further embarrassment to herself, her children, and the memory of her late husband, Mrs. Sparks needs to step aside and go on about her real business, that of housewife and mother.”