Free The Governor's Wife by Mark Gimenez

long fall."
    "You're a hero to lobbyists."
    Jim Bob chuckled; Bode didn't. He felt his spirit spiraling down into that dark place called middle age again. Jim Bob slapped him on the shoulder.
    "Maybe killing something would improve your spirits."
    Bode responded with a weak shrug. "Might."
    "Sure it would. Let's fly out to John Ed's ranch, take the horses out for a free-range hunt … smoke cigars, drink whiskey, sleep under the stars. Last time I talked to John Ed, said he was stocking the place with exotics from Africa. Hell, Bode, you could kill a water buffalo."
    "A water buffalo? That'd be like shooting a fucking elephant."
    "How about a blackbuck?"
    "Been there."
    "Impala?"
    "Done that."
    "Bison?"
    "Boring."
    "Zebra?"
    "Please. It's a pony with stripes."
    "Yak?"
    Bode faked a yawn.
    "Lion?"
    "Mountain?"
    "African."
    "An African lion? John Ed's got African lions on his ranch?"
    "One."
    "How the hell did he get an African lion into Texas?"
    "Don't ask, don't tell."
    "Damn. I always wanted to go on safari."
    "Well, now you can. Without leaving Texas."
    "Is that legal? Shooting an African lion if you're not in Africa?"
    Jim Bob shrugged. "You're the governor. And John Ed's ranch is twenty-five square miles in the middle of nowhere. It's like Vegas: what happens out there stays out there."
    The action came their way, a swing pass to the running back. The strong safety launched his body at the receiver and knocked him to the turf right in front of Bode.
    "Good hit, number twenty-two!" Bode shouted.
    He grabbed the safety by the shoulder pads and yanked him up then slapped his butt—not something one man should do to another man anywhere except on a football field. Still, the player gave Bode a funny look before retaking the field.
    "Damn," Bode said, "his butt's hard as a rock. My butt used to be that hard."
    "Thanks for sharing."
    "You know, a lion's head up on the wall of my office, that'd look pretty damn nice."
    "Real nice."
    "But if it's illegal, I can't put it up in the office."
    "Sure you can. We'll just say you killed it in Africa a few years back, just now got it mounted and shipped over."
    "Will the press buy that?"
    "They bought that lame-ass story about you killing a wolf while jogging the greenbelt—who carries a gun while jogging … even in Texas?" He snorted. "Local press ain't exactly 60 Minutes ."
    Jogging with a high-powered handgun had earned Governor Bode Bonner an A-plus rating from the NRA, the only A-plus he had ever gotten in his life. He turned to his strategist.
    "Let's kill that lion."
    "I'll call John Ed, set something up, early next month. April in the Davis Mountains, that'd be nice."
    Professor James Robert Burnet, Ph.D., stepped away from the football field and pulled out his iPhone to call John Ed Johnson, billionaire and generous Republican donor, but he shook his head. Excitement. Challenge. Adventure. The thrill of victory. The agony of defeat. He often felt more like the activities director at a fucking summer camp for kids than the chief political advisor to the governor of the great State of Texas.
    He hit the speed dial and waited for the call to ring through. He turned back to his political benefactor whooping and hollering at the play on the field. They were like brothers and had been since fifth grade. Jim Bob was the smart brother; Bode was the handsome, popular, athletic brother who always got the girl. Girls. Voted most likely to succeed, homecoming king, and class president (Jim Bob ran his campaign), he was the big brother who saved his little brother from bullies. Without Bode Bonner, Jim Bob wouldn't have survived middle school; he couldn't have afforded college at UT without Bode getting him a job tutoring football players; he wouldn't now be the resident political genius in Texas, he wouldn't be making $500,000 a year, he wouldn't be getting calls from millionaires and billionaires and lobbyists and legislators seeking favors from the governor, he wouldn't be working in