"But you were there for a while."

The assault on what had transpired in the White House was close at hand. Gabe knew it was time for a preemptive strike.

"Sir-"

"LeMar."

"LeMar, you know that I would never violate the trust any of my patients place in me. My belief in patient/physician confidentiality is second only to my belief in my horse."

"I'm worried about my son. That's all."

"I understand."

"Gabe, even though Drew has had asthma for a number of years and has mentioned migraine headaches to me in the past, I couldn't help feeling that there was more to the story than what the public was being fed. I didn't accumulate all of this"-he gestured to Aphrodite-"without a built-in bullshit detector, and when I saw a tape of that press conference last night, every light on my detector panel lit up."

"I don't know what to say," Gabe replied, unwilling to lend even the slightest credence to Stoddard's belief that there was something medically wrong with his son beyond what the public was being told. "There's nothing I can or would tell you other than what you already know."

To Gabe's utter surprise, the billionaire forged ahead.

"Gabe, is there something the matter with Drew?" he asked. "I mean seriously the matter."

Gabe hesitated, then pushed back from the table.

"LeMar, don't force me to leave," he said. "And please, don't play the card of all that you did for me way back when. I've already told you, many times, how grateful I am for that."

"Easy, easy," Stoddard said, hands raised. "I'm a very worried parent. That's all. My son starts getting migraine headaches he never had before; then all of a sudden his personal physician vanishes, along with the man's daughter. Do you blame me for being concerned?"

"No, sir-LeMar. I don't blame you a bit." He chose his next words carefully. "If Drew ever tells me there's something about his health he wants me to share with you, I'll contact you in a heartbeat. But until that happens, you'll just have to get used to some frustration."

Stoddard sighed and motioned to the waiter that he had no further interest in his salmon. Anxious for the inquisition to end, Gabe did the same. For the next ten minutes, through coffee and a chocolate soufflé that Gabe suspected was close to perfect, the conversation lightened considerably-an amusing tale out of school about the president's childhood, some questions about Gabe's medical practice and Lariat, and an anecdote about Magnus Lattimore containing a veiled suggestion of the man's sexual preference for men, a possibility that Gabe had wondered about in passing but didn't particularly care about one way or the other.

"So," Stoddard said, with no more transition than that, "have you had much contact with Thomas Cooper the Third?"

"Very little, actually."

"He insists on using 'the Third' whenever possible-doesn't want to be just another Tom Cooper. You don't have a physician/patient relationship with him, do you?"

"Not unless he comes to see me for medical help, and so far that hasn't happened. He has his own doctor-a Navy man."

Gabe felt uncomfortable speaking about anyone else to Stoddard, but it was quite clear that the president's father, like most of those people he had met since arriving in D.C., traded in gossip, speculation, and information the way folks in Tyler traded in horses. It wasn't necessarily anything sinister or immoral; it was just the nature of the Washington beast. Gossip, speculation, and information-the coin of the realm.

Gabe knew that even the most casual, offhand remark, such as the one he had just made about Tom Cooper not having come to him as a patient, could have useful implications to the right person. Once again, Gabe cautioned himself to be careful. He was no better equipped to be playing in this game than he would have been in Olympic ice dancing. He flexed his neck and became aware of the all too familiar discomfort of tightly knotted muscles.

"I know you're being very careful with what you share with me," Stoddard was saying, "possibly with anyone. But I want you to know that if you hear or encounter anything about the vice president, anything at all, you will be doing a great service to your friend and my son by reporting it to me."

"I don't understand," Gabe replied. "I thought the vice president and Drew were linked emotionally and politically."

"Nonsense," Stoddard shot. "Simply put, and contrary to the pap his PR men have fed to the public, Thomas Cooper the Third is no friend of Drew's. He would like nothing more than to set his butt down behind that desk in the Oval Office, and it kills him every day that he's going to have to wait another four years to get there, if in fact he gets there at all."

Gabe was shocked at the virulence of Stoddard's attack.

"Well, nothing I've heard supports that view," was the best he could manage.

"During the primaries four years ago, Cooper started every manner of rumor about Drew. When confronted, of course, he denied everything, and my son actually believed him. But I know better. I warned Drew against choosing him for a running mate, but he wouldn't listen. Tom Cooper is a Brutus, and as things stand, he's just waiting until after the election to begin to assert himself and to take credit for Drew's achievements."

Gabe shook his head in dismay. One of the many things credited to the president was adding a public importance and credibility to the office of second in command that hadn't existed in prior administrations. The explanation in the press, of course, was that Drew was grooming Cooper for eight more years of Democratic control of the office. Was there something behind LeMar's vitriolic attack on the man? Gabe wondered now. Did LeMar have suspicion or information that something might be wrong-that his son's presidency might be in trouble? Was that what was behind the invitation to lunch? Did he know more than he was letting on about Drew's illness?

"Well," Gabe said, "I'll be certain to keep my eyes and ears open."

Without warning, the billionaire's countenance softened dramatically. He reached across the elegant table and took Gabe's hand in both of his, suddenly looking vulnerable and very much like a man in his seventies.

"Gabe, please," he said, his earnestness unquestionable. "Please don't let anything happen to my boy."

Gabe, please. Please don't let anything happen to my boy."

With LeMar Stoddard's oddly compelling display of vulnerability still reverberating in his mind, Gabe entered the White House through the West Wing checkpoint and headed directly to the clinic. The president and First Lady had promised him they would spend the day at home, leaving the residence only for a luncheon meeting with his campaign advisors in the small White House dining room, and after that a carefully orchestrated press conference in the press-briefing room, which Gabe was to attend.

By and large, the polls were holding between an eight- and eleven-point lead for Drew and Tom Cooper over Bradford Dunleavy and Charlie Christman, a four-term representative from Texas, whose politics were clearly and purposefully further to the right than those of Dunleavy, a self-proclaimed moderate conservative.

Eight to eleven points-certainly not a landslide, but an encouraging margin at this stage of the campaign. Still, Lattimore had reminded Gabe just a few hours ago, even an eleven-point lead was unlikely to survive any credible evidence that the chief executive was undergoing diagnostic evaluation or, even more damaging, treatment for mental illness of any sort. Rumors of treatment for depression had been enough to start the Dukakis campaign spinning out of orbit. There had been other errors by the Democratic strategists in that election, Lattimore admitted, but a Dukakis twelve-point lead after the convention had turned into a ten-point deficit with jackrabbit quickness.