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man gets sent to Congress. I hate to think of what’s going to be left of us when Webb Breckenyear and Woody Guest get done dribbling the Senator’s head on the table like a basketball.”
    The Senator came in grinning. “No way to talk about me behind my back, Les.”
    Suffield turned a dismal glance on him. “I’m glad you think it’s funny.”
    â€œNothing cheers me up like enthusiastic optimism.” The Senator’s tough gold-flecked eyes pivoted to Spode. “How’re they hanging, Top?”
    â€œLoose and shriveled,” Spode replied. The Senator had called him Top for twenty years. It was a habit Spode had stopped trying to break him of.
    Senator Alan Forrester walked into his private office and peeled off his topcoat. Went around behind the big desk and pawed through the litter of papers to see if anything had been added to it in his absence. Spode strolled into the office behind Suffield and sank into a chair. The Senator pulled his chair out and said, “God, what a grim day.”
    The Senator had a deep tan, made ruddy by the chill wind outside, and all his bones were big. His patrician good looks masked a hide as tough as a dollar steak. He had the Forrester grin that, on the face of his eminent father, had appeared eleven times on the covers of Newsweek and Time when the old man had owned this Senate seat. There was a lot of the old man in the young Senator—and of the grandfather who had come to Arizona in the 1880’s with a Yorkshireman’s canny acquisitiveness and in twenty years had built an empire of mines and ranches and railroads. But Alan Forrester was his own man and nobody had known that better than the late Senator Hayden Forrester.
    The Senator sat with one arm hooked over the back of his chair. He had enormous hands—but Spode had seen how gently they held newborn calves and voters’ babies. The creases that bracketed his mouth had grown deeper since Angie had died.
    The Senator said, “Report, Top.”
    â€œI ain’t got much.” Spode admitted it apologetically, spreading his palms.
    â€œSuch as it is, let’s have it.”
    â€œI spent two hours over at the Rayburn, standing in line in Webb Breckenyear’s waiting room. The old bastard ought to sell tickets—he’d make a fortune. For a senile politician with a two-horse constituency he’s got a fan club can’t be beat.”
    â€œLobbyists or down-home folks?”
    â€œLobbyists. Panting around for scraps from the pork barrel.”
    â€œDid you talk to him?”
    â€œLet’s say he talked to me.”
    â€œGet anything?”
    â€œAfter he asked after you with plenty of affectionate chuckles, he made it clear the Honorable Webb Breckenyear is still Chairman of House Military Appropriations, and until the pit-viper liberals and the pinko-pacifist disarmamenters pass a Constitutional Amendment putting military affairs in the hands of Junior Senator Alan Forrester—and I emphasize ‘Junior’—until that time, the Constitution provides that military appropriations are the bailiwick of the House in general, the Committee in particular, and Webb Breckenyear in person. I think I’m quoting him more or less verbatim.”
    â€œIn other words, no dollar figures.”
    â€œFor a wild-eyed revolutionary radical redskin like me it would’ve been easier to get General Custer to pin a patriotism medal on Sitting Bull.”
    The Senator’s face hardened. “Is that the way he treated you, Top?” He sat up straight.
    Spode waved his hands. “Forget it. I don’t want to start a civil-rights sit-in on the old curmudgeon’s doorstep. Forget I said it.”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œI wish you would. Maybe I’m just using it as an excuse because I didn’t get anything out of him.”
    The Senator settled back slowly in his chair. “I’m sorry you had to waste your