The Flamingo Suite was small and neat. He looked around the living room, which was decorated with flamingo-pink wicker furniture, then moved into the bedroom and looked at the king-size bed, covered by a red and white floral bedspread.

Mickey began a thorough search of the room.

He found some Polaroid pictures in Paul's shaving kit in the bottom dresser drawer. Six shots of Warren and Paul and a young girl who couldn't have been older than sixteen. They were disgustingly pornographic but didn't surprise him. They confirmed what he already suspected… Paul Arquette was a big mistake.

When Paul entered the Flamingo Suite twenty minutes later, he found Mickey stretched out on the pink sofa, his stockinged feet up on the armrest. Paul was in white tennis shorts and a Sporting Club T-shirt. At sixty-seven, he was still handsome and fit. The tropical sun had turned him a rich, deep shade of brown. Paul smiled at the little fat man. At five-four, his head and toes barely reached both ends of the couch.

"You got down here fast."

"You call, I come, Senator." Mickey sat up and slipped his feet back into tasseled loafers.

Paul thought Mickey hadn't gotten any better looking over the two decades he'd known him. He was still round and oily… a medicine ball in pants.

Mickey got to his feet as Paul moved to the minibar. "Something cold?"

"Why don't you tell me what's on your mind, then I'll be outta here before somebody else sees me."

"Else?" Paul sounded alarmed.

"Yeah, you sent some guy to pick me up. Nobody is supposed to know you have connections with our family. You're only six weeks from the Iowa presidential primary?"

"Oh, you mean Warren…" he said, the frown evaporating. "Warren knows everything. We can trust Warren?'

"We can?" Mickey asked, his voice rough as hemp. "Yes, we can. And don't use that tone with me, Mickey, 'cause I'm not gonna take it from you or your father." Paul had grown accustomed to having things his own way. He'd had limited contact with the Alos over the years. He wasn't used to being challenged. He had forgotten the duck hunt twenty years before and Mickey's strange smile when Rex was murdered.