"I'm not going to forget it. I'm gonna take it."

"Uncle Pauly." Mickey used his boyhood form of address sarcastically. "Lemme get this straight… My dad and Meyer buy a TV network and use it to get you a national profile; use it to get you a U. S. Senate seat; get you on the Ways and Means Committee and make you a political front-runner, and then, when these fucks at DNC decide to poach on our deal, you think you can invite me down here, keep me waiting in this pink wet dream, and then kick a board up my ass?"

"That isn't what I'm doing."

"I'm gonna do you a huge favor, Paul… I'm gonna tell my father that you felt lonely and missed me and that's why you asked me down here. Then you're gonna tell these assholes at the DNC to get the fuck outta our way, and if anything like this ever comes up again, I'm gonna personally empty a dustpan full a' glass into your head."

Paul and Mickey were a few feet apart, but Paul could feel an almost ungodly warmth coming off the little man, as if he were standing in front of an electric heater.

Paul took a step back, then held his ground. "You're threatening me?"

"Fucking-A. Glad you recognize it."

"I will not be threatened. I'm a U. S. senator. You can't possibly think I'll put up with a threat from you or anybody else. The DNC picks one candidate every four years. It virtually guarantees me the Democratic nomination. And I've already said yes."

"Do you really know what you're doing, Paul?" Mickey asked, his voice even and cold.

`That's why I called you down. I don't want to have any further involvement with your family or your money. It's too dangerous. Now I have to get back to a political strategy-planning session."

Mickey picked up his sport jacket, with the Polaroid photos in the pocket, and folded it over his arm. "You're making a mistake."

"I don't think so, Mickey. Everybody agrees, taking this offer is the right thing to do."