Nothing Lost by John Gregory Dunne

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    Poppy’s cell phone rang again. “Congressman McClure.” She listened. The caller seemed to irritate her. Or more probably I had, J.J. thought. Poppy carefully enunciated every word, as if in disbelief. “The Rhino boosters want an advance copy of my remarks. Since when.” The impertinence of the request turned her voice edgy. “It’s the red-meat speech. ‘You elect Poppy McClure, you elect a flat-out, unashamed, unabashed sworn foe of the federal government. You send a message to the welfare bureaucrats. To the fascist in-your-face environmentalists. To all the do-gooder something-for-nothing boys who don’t know an honest dollar when they pick it from your pocket’ . . . blah, blah, blah. And no, you don’t get a copy.”
    Poppy tossed the phone away in disgust.
    â€œYou know what I like best about the red-meat speech?” J.J. said after a moment.
    Poppy eyed him carefully. “What?”
    â€œThe blah, blah, blah.”
    She reached for the mirror she kept on the bedside table, the mirror he often said would fall and break in the middle of the night and bring her seven years of bad luck, but she did not pick it up. “Do you vote for me?”
    â€œWe get our picture taken at the polling booth on Election Day. Then I pull the curtain shut behind me and exercise the franchise.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œI have never voted against you.”
    Poppy chose not to pursue the point. “You don’t like politics.”
    J.J. stretched and put his hands behind his head. “Every time I think I might weaken, I run into Willie Erskine. He pulls me back to reality.”
    She did not come to Willie’s defense. He worked for her. Performed the necessary unpleasant services with relish and always with her benediction. When the zeal for the unseemly diminished and he had outlived his usefulness, as it would most certainly would, he would be dismissed without a thought. “I do like it. In fact I love it. It’s like I grew up and got to join the circus.” Poppy stood up and smoothed her slip. It clung to her angular figure. Small breasts, small waist, small hips, prominent hipbones. My Dolores Del Rio look, she called it. “I’m good at it. It’s the only thing in my life I did get really good at. All by myself.”
    â€œAll by yourself?” He let the statement sink in. He knew it was difficult to get under her skin, but he saw no reason to stop trying. It was like cross-examination. It sharpened his skills. This was payback time. The appreciation of the depreciable item. “That’s one way to put it.”
    Poppy wet a forefinger and checked a possible flaw in her panty hose. Good legs. Trim ankles. “How would you put it?”
    â€œI might say that the last will and testament of Jim Ford might have helped get the ball rolling.”
    Her answer was equable. “You’re a real pain in the ass this morning.”
    â€œIt’s not every morning I’ve seen two people die the night before. One I didn’t get all that choked up about. The other was a bit of a surprise.”
    â€œAnd you’re feeling sorry for yourself?”
    J.J. closed his eyes. “Just tired.” After a moment, he heard water splashing in the bathroom sink. “By the way, Poppy. You ever hear of the Loomis Cattle Company?”
    A piece of information that the bizarre events of the evening had not jarred from his memory drum. Precipitating a second call to Allie from Warden Pugh’s office as the sun rose over Durango Avenue. Check the property taxes of all the major landholders in Loomis County, he had told her. Why? she had said. Just do it, he had said.
    Poppy came to the bathroom door, a face towel in her hand. “It’s a contributor.”
    â€œBelieves in what you stand for?”
    She disappeared back into the bathroom. “Get some sleep, J.J.” Then she was in the doorway again. She had