Kipper coughed out a short, humourless laugh. ‘I think all those things will happen whether I get re-elected or not, Jed. Some things aren’t political. They just have to happen.’
‘Really? Seriously? You actually live inside that gingerbread house?’ Culver asked in a gentle voice. ‘You think Sandra Harvey would let the French build that shiny new pebble bed reactor you’re so keen on? You think Blackstone would run your settlement program completely blind to race, colour or creed? You happy with the way he’s virtually outlawed labour unions down there in Texas?’
He had him, of course, which didn’t improve Kip’s mood. He hated being pushed into a corner. But at least when you got him there, he had the good grace to stay put.
‘I suppose so,’ he sighed. ‘Well, are we going to get this done?’
They exited the large closet and rejoined their wives, who had moved on from complementing each other’s outfits to discussing the children. Marilyn had never had any of her own, but she had been stepmother to Melanie and Roger for long enough to have earned her spurs. Jed pursed his lips at the incongruity of it all, the banality of everyday life within the insanely pressurised environment of supreme executive power. Even if that power was a dim shadow of its former greatness.
A soft knock at the door, and the protocol chief, Allan Horbach, admitted himself after a greeting from Barbara.
‘Time for cocktails,’ he announced.
‘Well, at least there’s that,’ said Kipper in a funereal tone. But in fact, there wasn’t, not for him.
The four of them walked the short distance to the reception room, where the buzz of conversation grew noticeably louder with their arrival. Jed nodded in satisfaction. All of the big chequebooks were here: Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon, Costco, Cesky Enterprises, T-Mobile, the biotechs. All manoeuvring for access to the President, who would need to keep his head straight while he talked to them. After being announced to the room by Horbach, both Jed and Kip were handed champagne flutes by the White House head of protocol. On Culver’s instructions, both contained sparkling apple juice.
‘But I don’t even like champagne,’ Kipper muttered out of the side of his mouth.
‘Then you’ll be fine,’ replied his Chief of Staff, without sympathy. ‘Because you’re not getting any.’ He could’ve murdered a whiskey sour himself, but he had learned as a baby lawyer that drinking was best done after work, not during, and this was definitely work.
‘Mr President!’
Really. Hard. Work.
Henry Cesky, all bulk and bravado, had elbowed his way through the crowd to claim pole position in the race for Kipper’s attention. His shoulders moved around under the expensive fabric of his dinner jacket like barrels loose on the deck of a schooner.
‘Hey, Henry,’ said Kip, pleasantly enough, while Culver went into a full-throttle, double-grip handshake, with shoulder punching and a bit of locker-room rough-housing thrown in. He could pull it off, having been a college wrestler. Kip couldn’t. And Cesky was one of those guys who didn’t just like to cultivate a rough-handed, working-stiff-made-good image. He was the real thing. Even if he hadn’t always done good to make good, and even if that roughness of character sometimes made him a risky choice at events like this. He was entirely capable of getting liquored up and throwing a punch at someone, perhaps a business rival or somebody who looked askance at his wife. Even the Secretary of the Treasury, if he was in a bad mood after filing his taxes. Rough, unkempt black hair and a twice-broken nose added to the impression that Henry had spent decades in a boxing ring, never knowing when to give up.
It was a wonder Kipper and he didn’t get along better. After all, it was Cesky putting a couple of hundred of his workmen onto the street, armed with sledgehammers and crowbars, that had added enough muscle to the popular uprising against Blackstone to see the fascist little prick tipped off his throne back in April ’03. But Kip, like Marilyn, just didn’t like the man. He hid it well enough, though. And that’s all Jed could ask. Henry Cesky was a fucking cash cow.
The reception room at Dearborn House wasn’t so crowded that people were being jostled – unless they’d been in Cesky’s way when he moved across the room to see Kipper. But it was crowded enough that people were beginning to raise their voices to be heard over each other. A string quartet borrowed from the city’s Symphony Orchestra kept it light with a bit of Vivaldi, while waiters circulated with more food than drinks. For now.
‘How’s business, Henry?’ the President asked. ‘I was in KC a couple of weeks ago with Barney. He said the power grid over there was working almost perfectly now, thanks to your guys and the work they did at the plant.’
Brooklyn-based before the Wave, and Polish-born long before that, Cesky was a short but powerfully built man. You could see him levitating an inch or two with the compliment.
‘That’s good to hear, Mr President,’ he roared back, altogether too loudly.
Kip’s Secret Service detail momentarily switched their attention from scanning the room to focus in on the loudmouth. As soon as they saw it was Cesky, however, their interest evaporated.
‘Anything my guys can do to help, we’re there,’ the construction tsar added, raising his glass in salute.
‘And I’m sure anything the government can do to help one of our biggest employers and taxpayers,’ said Jed, ‘well, I’m sure we’ll be there, too.’
Cesky snagged a beer from a passing waiter, causing the President’s face to crumple in naked envy. He sipped at his sparkling apple juice with no pleasure at all.
‘Well, on that, I gotta tell you, Mr President – Kip – I’m looking forward to this tax review you got going on. And I’m hoping your people are going to listen to my idea about one simple flat rate that everyone pays. No deductions. No paperwork. No fucking around with any of that stuff. We just hand over, say, twenty per cent. And the government gets off our backs. What do you say?’
‘I’d say it sounds like the sort of idea I would’ve come up with when I had an honest job,’ replied Kipper, giving Cesky cause to float another inch off the carpet. ‘But like all my best ideas, Henry, I bet yours would hit the brick wall of the bureaucracy and splatter like an egg.’
Culver had to hand it to Kip. He really knew how to tell a guy what he wanted to hear while he let him down at the same time. Of course, it was always possible that he agreed with Cesky’s crazy flat-tax idea – in which case, it was probably a good thing he assumed it would splatter when tossed against the proverbial wall. Oh, if only funding a crippled government at the end of the world was as simple as passing the hat round, thought Jed. Intending to move his boss through the room, he was already scanning the crowd looking for the next donor when Cesky surprised him.
‘You know, Kip,’ the big man said, feeling perfectly comfortable addressing the President as though he was speaking to some beer buddy, ‘if you’d just make that bastard down in Texas pay his way, you could probably afford a decent tax package. Okay, maybe not my idea. I know people are always gonna be suspicious of a guy with too much money saying he should pay less tax, but as long as that asshole is holding out on the rest of the country, you can’t get nothing done. That’s why I don’t push back too hard when my invoices don’t get paid right away by the Treasury. Because I know that rat fuck is holding out on you!’
The Secret Service were watching again, but Kip had switched from polite interest to genuine engagement with the construction magnate. Cesky had found one of the President’s hot-button issues. He took a gulp from the champagne flute full of apple juice as if he’d forgotten it wasn’t a real drink.
‘I fucking tell you, Henry, I wish I had a few more guys like you working for me,’ said Kipper. ‘This is exactly what I’ve been saying for over a year. Do you know how many of my problems would go away if that guy would just pay his bills?’
And just like that, the energy between them shifted and they suddenly looked like old beer buddies after all, intent on saving the world with a couple of six-p
acks and a bunch of f-bombs. But Jed Culver didn’t like the way this was going. He could almost see Kip agreeing to road-trip down to Texas in Cesky’s pick-up, with a keg on the seat between them and an ass-kicking for Governor Blackstone in the offing. Not that the idea didn’t appeal, on a deeply undergraduate level, but a large part of his job involved protecting Kip from his often naïve enthusiasm.
Jed was just about to step in and break up the bromance when the First Lady appeared with Marilyn and insisted that the President come over and meet a real-live Hollywood star, Sigourney Weaver. Ms Weaver had been spared the fate of so many of her colleagues by happening to be overseas promoting some long-forgotten kid’s film with Jon Voight and Shia LaBeouf when Brad and Clint and Arnie and Angelina were all reduced to pink mud.
‘Really?’ Cesky said, instantly losing interest in tax policy and federal–state relations. ‘I loved those Alien films. And I heard she was going to be in the new one, with those predators they had in that old Schwarzenegger movie. How cool would that be? Although, you know, it’s the Brits making it. So it’ll probably be shit.’
‘You liked those films? I loved those fucking films, man!’ enthused Kipper, forgetting himself in his surprise that he’d found more common ground with the construction magnate. ‘Especially the second one, with the Marines. It was the only one where you felt like the good guys actually had a chance. You know, right up until they got eaten.’
Here was a conversation James Kipper could really get lost in. But the ladies did Jed’s job for him, Marilyn in particular. The third Mrs Culver let the businessman have a couple of thousand watts of eyes, tits and teeth, before skilfully prising the President away and hurrying him off through the crowd, to safety, in a fashion that would’ve done his Secret Service detail proud.
‘I’ll tell Sigourney you’re a big fan, Henry,’ said Marilyn. ‘Come and meet her later. But I have to introduce Kip first, or that dreadful protocol Nazi will have kittens. Come on, Mr President.’
Culver and Cesky were left on their own.
‘Jeez, women eh?’ sighed Cesky, still a little dazed from Marilyn’s performance.
‘Henry, I don’t know how we’ve managed to keep them in their place for six thousand years.’
Cesky rewarded that crack with a raucous laugh. He threw down the rest of his beer just in time to swap it for another, which came floating past on a tray.
‘Yeah, women – can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em, unless you wanna go gay or something! But all joking aside, Jed,’ he said, ‘I’m fucking serious about this Blackstone. The day is coming when you’re gonna have to crack him upside the head. Knock him down so hard he doesn’t get back up again. Did you know that bastard has me blacklisted down there? All of that construction and salvage and clearance work he’s got going on, and I can’t get a taste of it. He’s a vengeful cocksucker, I tell you.’
Seeing his chance, the Chief of Staff closed in, putting his arm around the other man’s shoulder, creating a small conspiratorial air between them in the midst of the roaring reception.
‘Oh, I hear you, Henry. I hear you . . . Which brings me to the happy topic of what you can do to help us give the worthless cocksucker a kick in the ass. Because if he ever moves his operation from Texas up here to Seattle, my friend, you can kiss goodbye to any government work anywhere in this country.’
Cesky’s expression was grim enough that Culver knew he’d hit home.
‘Yeah. You’re fucking right about that. I’ll write you a cheque before I go tonight.’
16
NORTH KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI
She could not return home. They would look for her there. The decision pained her, not being able to go back to the loft to collect any personal items, but she realised it was a small sacrifice to pay. In spite of all that had taken place in her life, and all she herself had done, since that black spring day in east Texas, Sofia Pieraro was still considered a child. The police officers hadn’t come around to the apartment simply to tell her that Papa was dead; they had also meant to take her into protective custody. Without any relatives or friends to stay with in Kansas City, she knew the authorities would move quickly to place her in foster care. Or even worse, if she tried to leave and failed, they’d probably put her into some sort of juvenile detention program. Like a common criminal. So no, she could not return home. She had to get out of this city and back down to Texas before anybody thought to look for her.
The federales would do nothing about that tyrant Blackstone. Sofia had watched her father’s resolve wither away over the last few months as he’d come to understand his own powerlessness. But he hadn’t been lying when he vowed to lay the family’s vengeance upon the man he blamed for their deaths, she knew that. Miguel Pieraro had proven himself to be utterly without mercy when dealing with the Governor’s agents, both at the homestead and later during their escape from Texas. But here, in the altogether more civilised surroundings of Kansas City, he had found himself drained of that resolve by the demands of the same authorities who promised to protect him – or rather, his daughter, she thought with some shame – and levy a harsh punishment on anyone they could prove was responsible for the slaughter of the Pieraro clan.
But what have they done? Sofia asked herself again, as she pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up over her head and jammed her hands deep into the pockets against the cold of the night. She worried about how much colder it would be outside and wondered whether she might be wise to find a heavy jacket from somewhere. Perhaps steal one from a room. But momentum pushed her forward, and caution. It wouldn’t do to be caught stealing when all she wanted was to get away.
Midnight had come and gone some twenty minutes ago and she knew from her work here that a new shift would just be settling in. She kept her head down as she made her way down the dimly lit corridor, hoping nobody would recognise her. She knew a few people working the graveyard shift this week, but apart from a television running a news channel feed from Seattle, and the rattle of a cleaner’s metal bucket somewhere nearby, this part of the hospital was quiet. Papa’s death and her own arrival as a patient had no doubt been noted by the staff and passed around as an item of gossip or concern. It didn’t matter which to Sofia. What mattered was getting away without being seen.
The main reception desk was not staffed right now. A few desolate individuals, scattered here and there on the rows of cheap plastic chairs that occupied about half of the foyer, gave her no more than a passing glance as she hurried through. It would be busier around in emergency, she knew. There were always doctors on duty in ER, at the far north end of the building, and always plenty of patients for them to see. Drunken militia men, busted up in a bar fight. Farm and construction labourers injured at work. Auto accident victims – a lot of them in this weather. At the southern entrance, however, near the remains of a never-completed parking garage, she was able to pass through unobserved.
Sofia patted the back pocket of her jeans, checking for her wallet. She had thirteen ‘newbies’ in there, the only money she had in the world now. It would be enough for her immediate requirements; she’d just have to scavenge what she needed along the way. She hurried down the steps towards the taxi rank, where a couple of cabs sat idling to power their heaters, generating thick white clouds of exhaust. Sofia swore and shivered in the cold as she increased her pace to a light jog. It felt as though frozen fingers were clenching inside her body.
She scrabbled at the handle of the door to the nearest taxi. The grip was so cold it frost-burnt her shaking hand. As she quickly climbed in and closed the door behind her, the contrasting warm air was almost unbearable at first. Her eyes watered, and the exposed skin on her face and hands felt like it had been scalded. She was going to need warmer clothing, and fast.
The cab driver was Indian. Most of them were. She’d learned from the Indian kids at school that many of the refugees working in the railway yards took second jobs at night, driving cabs mainly, or cleaning or doing whatever they
could to scratch together a few newbies.
‘Good evening, Miss,’ said the driver.
‘I need to get out to the truck stop, the Flying J on Corrington,’ she said through chattering teeth. ‘Out by the power plant.’
The driver, a middle-aged man in a pale blue turban, looked like he was about to ask why a girl of her age would be heading out to Hawthorne at this time of night.
‘Can we get going?’ Sofia asked as she tried to rub some warmth back into her arms. ‘I’m late for my shift in the kitchen. They’ll dock me half a night’s pay if I’m even five minutes late.’ A complete lie, but explanation enough for a man most likely working his second job, a man who’d probably also had more than his fair share of unreasonable bosses.
He put the battered yellow cab into gear and they pulled away from the curb.
‘Were you visiting somebody in the hospital, Miss?’
A conversation was the last thing she wanted. But she had enough of her wits about her to know she shouldn’t draw attention to herself by snapping back unreasonably at his question.
‘Yes, I was sitting with a friend. She broke her arm and they’re putting a metal plate in it tomorrow.’
Again, she was surprised at how easily the lie came. Sofia closed her eyes and folded her arms, leaning her head back as though she wanted to sleep. She was still shivering. The driver took the hint and bothered her no more.
They moved onto Clay Edwards Drive, anticlockwise around the loop that would take them in front of the ER. She pulled the hoodie down over her head as they passed. No one ran out to stop the taxi. Surrendering to inertia as the car completed the long, slow turn, Sofia let her head roll over and loll on one shoulder, allowing her to peer out of the window, into the dark, bleak winter landscape. Snow was no longer falling, but it lay heavily on the ground, creating an eerie atmosphere similar to some accursed realm from a children’s fairytale, in which evil spirits had eaten all the light and warmth of the world.
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