"So the military's protecting me now." The governor seemed pleased, recognizing dimly that the person before him was a tall male in uniform, and therefore was either Army or National Guard. "I like that."
The three oldest Crimm daughters fastened their attention to Andy like leeches at a blood-letting, while the fourth daughter, whose arrested adolescence was annoyingly apparent, smacked gum. Governor Crimm smiled, patting for his magnifying glass, which he had attached to his pocket-watch chain to insure that his beloved optical aid did not find its way into the compote again. A huge eye peered through thick glass, scanning to see who might be watching his generous overtures toward the young soldier.
"The more protection the better, I always say," the governor commented. "What's your name, soldier?"
"Andy Brazil. I'd like to be one of your pilots, Governor. If that would be all right with you. Maybe I could have a moment of your time to discuss it."
"Bet you want to be executive protection, too."
The governor had heard this before. Every state trooper he had ever met wanted to be EPU, just as most federal agents wanted to be Secret Service. It was all about power. It was all about being close to the throne. He also vaguely made out that Andy was a handsome fellow, well built but not a big wall of muscle like the other men and women who protected the First Family. Andy's was a useful body that could dance around trouble instead of barreling right through it, and the governor fancied that Andy might make a decent son-in-law for at least one of the Crimm daughters. Then it dimly penetrated his overburdened, inebriated mind that he wasn't so sure he was inclined to trust his wife around such an attractive and charming young fellow.
Despite her swearing to tell the truth and even placing her left hand on the Crimm family Bible, the First Lady had not convinced her husband that she hadn't been hiding adulterous men in the mansion's linen closets. Yesterday, Crimm came home for lunch unannounced and discovered Pony on his hands and knees wiping a linen closet floor with a rag.
"What are you doing?" the governor demanded as he fumbled for his watch chain and the magnifying glass dangling from it.
"Just putting a little furniture polish on the hardwood," Pony said, nervously rubbing oil into the scratches the trivets had left on the heart-of-pine flooring. "I've been meaning to get around to it, sir. Just now did. There's some nice split pea soup cooking in the kitchen, if you want some."
"Does it have ham in it?" The governor peered through the magnifying glass at the scratched old wood. "How did the floor get gouged like that? It looks like someone wearing hobnail boots was hiding in the closet or maybe someone wearing tap shoes."
"I think it's maybe from the vacuum cleaner," Pony suggested as he covered the scratches as quickly as possible. "I keep telling the housekeepers not to put the vacuum cleaner in the linen closets. I'm afraid the pea soup does have ham in it. I didn't know you'd be coming home for lunch or I would have made sure they didn't put ham or even a ham bone in it, sir."
Just as Pony was explaining all this, the governor detected a clanking sound as someone hurried downstairs. Crimm hurried, too, but wasn't fast enough to catch the source of the odd noise that he now suspected was a man wearing either spurs or armor, and his fears about his wife began to scream inside his psyche. Was she playing strange dress-up games with unknown men she
picked up on the Internet? He imagined her in erotic poses with virile young suitors dressed in nothing but spurs or a helmet with a plume or perhaps both. Maude and her lascivious lovers would have loud, metallic sex and maybe use magnets to enhance their perverted pleasure before she suddenly noticed the crown molding and cobwebs and began withholding favors from these cybermen the same way she had been denying the governor for long years. For all he knew, Andy Brazil was part of the plot. How did the governor know that Andy hadn't already met Maude on the Internet and wanted to fly the First Family because he really wanted to fly Maude?
"You'd have to be a state trooper before you can be EPU," the governor told Andy in an autocratic, unfriendly tone.
"I am a state trooper, Governor. And we're short of pilots," Andy added to the First Lady, because by nature he was inclusive and did not treat the wives of others as appendages.
"Seems like it's always the same pilot these days," she said, irritated by the reminder as she frowned at Macovich.
Where had all her pilots gone? As she recalled, there had been plenty of them earlier in the year, and she supposed that the problem must be that ball-breaking woman who was the new superintendent of the state police. Trader had horrible things to say about her. What was her name? A tool of some type. How appropriate. A sledgehammer? No, not quite. Mrs. Crimm strained to remember. Sledge. That was it. Superintendent Sledge. Maybe it was time for the First Lady to send a pointed note to her and demand more pilots, and Mrs. Crimm fondly thought of her favorite saying, Variety is the spice of life, and recited it out loud.
"Pardon?" Andy was baffled.
"I'm just wondering if you agree," the First Lady said to him.
Andy sensed he was being tested and replied, "In most cases. But not always. For example, I don't wear a variety of clothes to work. Always a uniform. And I very much like the state police uniform and am happy to wear it every day, so variety is not an issue with me."
"What?" The governor picked up on his wife's secret code and was shocked she would be so blatant, and he imagined her having sex with this Andy fellow, who probably would have nothing on but a duty belt. "Variety most assuredly is not the spice of life or anything else," Crimm thundered. "Life is all about faithfulness and serving your master. And what do you mean by spice?" He glared through his magnifying glass at his unfaithful wife.
"Dear, calm down," said the First Lady, who suddenly recalled that she had hidden her stash of trivets in the spice cabinet, and perhaps it was best not to allude to spices again. "I told you not to eat all that sour cream and butter. You know what it does to your submarine." She was confident this would divert his attention. "Why, all that animal fat and all those dairy products are just fuel oil for your submarine, and spices aren't the problem because there were no spices on your dinner, other than all that salt you poured over everything. We avoid spices for good reason, now don't we? And we won't mention them ever again for fear you'll make associations that will excite your submarine and send it plunging into turbulence that could end terribly with blown gaskets and leaking seals and silt billowing up from the bottom of your constitution. Now, Trooper Brazil-what an exotic name, are you South American? Have you met Constance, Grace, and Faith?"
The First Lady stopped short of the fourth daughter, the youngest, and the least attractive woman in the parking lot.
"And what about you?" Andy asked the ignored daughter, halfway expecting her name to be Sloth or Gluttony, based on her appearance and demeanor.
"What's it to you?" She violently chewed a massive wad of bubblegum, and Andy was struck by her blunt-ness and lack of charm. "And I saw you get out of your unmarked car." She scowled at him. "What good does it do to drive an unmarked car and then wear a uniform? How retarded is that?"
"You don't sound like you're from around here." Andy overlooked her poor manners as he tried to place her loud drawl. He also didn't intend to reveal that Hammer insisted Andy drive an unmarked car since he was an undercover journalist and she preferred that he draw as little attention to himself as possible.
"I was born in Grundy, in the coal mines," the rude daughter replied.
"You most certainly were not." The First Lady was appalled. "I was carrying her during a whistle-stop campaign up there on the western Virginia border where we toured several coal mines," she informed Andy as the governor continued to scan through his magnifying glass, in search of the helicopter, while the EPU huddled around him and his family in the dark, waiting for orders. "But she was born in a hospital just like all of my daughters," Mrs. Crimm added indignantly, giving the so-far nameless girl a warning glance.
"Can always use another
pilot, I suppose," Governor Crimm despondently said, wishing he hadn't eaten so much and humiliated that the First Lady had mentioned his submarine in public.
There were times when Bedford Crimm regretted his life. In Virginia, governors can't succeed themselves, so he always had to wait four years before running again. For twenty years, he had been recycled through his arcane, antiquated, ridiculous state system-commander in chief for a term, then back to the private sector for another term, then back in the mansion again. The White House was smaller and more distant by now. Governor Crimm was over seventy, vodka went straight to his head, and his poorly wired submarine was almost never on course anymore.
The EPU troopers were getting restless. A crowd was gathering. Andy was no fool. He knew that an added bonus to flying the governor would be that the closer he could get to him, the more information he could gather for his Trooper Truth essays.
"Governor," Andy said, "Let me just say again that I'd be honored to fly you and your family around in a new helicopter, and although I don't need to be EPU, I will protect you at the same time. I don't suppose I could have a moment to talk to you privately?"
Macovich was seething, but nobody could tell, because troopers were taught never to register what was going on inside them. His only consolation as he watched
Andy eclipse him on this crisp September night was that Macovich knew that horrid youngest Crimm daughter's name very well. Wooo, he sure did. He had never spoken to her, not even when he had beaten her in pool, but he always kept his eye on her behind the dark mask of his sunglasses.
Her name was Regina, pronounced the British way, and this was part of what was wrong with her, if you didn't include her unfortunate obesity and broad, homely face. It was well known among the troopers that Regina had inclinations that did not coincide with the First Lady's relentless attempts to matchmake her undesirable daughters.
"Trooper Brazil's not a great pilot," Macovich whispered to the First Lady, deciding the best way to protect his turf was to set Andy up. "But he's single and been pretty down lately. I think he's lonely."
"How sad!" the First Lady whispered back. "Why, I'll just invite him to the mansion!"
"Oh, now that would be mighty nice, ma'am," Macovich replied as if it were the most magnanimous thing he'd ever heard.
Andy Brazil had no idea what he was getting himself into, Macovich thought with a thrill of vindication. The pretty white boy was going to have the stuffing ripped out of him just like the straw man the flying monkeys carried off, following the orders of their supervisor, the wicked witch of the west, or wherever she was from.
"Well, I guess we should go," the governor decided as his submarine plunged into murky bile spewed out by his gallbladder. "I'm not feeling well and should never have eaten that Belgian fudge cake that Trader had couriered to the restaurant and sent to the table," he added as Andy's antenna went up. "It's true, Maude, I need to cut back."
Macovich and his fellow troopers led the First Family away to the helicopter under a cloak of protective darkness as Andy got out his cell phone. He would call the steak house immediately and insist that any leftover fudge cake be sealed in a plastic bag right away. Suddenly he remembered he had promised Hammer to tell the governor about the situation on Tangier Island. The helicopter's engines ignited and the four blades began to turn as Andy ran toward the chopper.
"But Governor!" Andy shouted, "Superintendent Hammer has urgent news and must talk to you!" His words were scattered by rotor wash.
"I smell cigarettes!" the First Lady went off like a smoke alarm as she held on to her stiffly sprayed hair, protecting it from the sudden wind.
"Not me," all of the troopers said at once.
Smoke and his road dogs were watching all this from behind the tinted glass of the black Toyota Land Cruiser that had been stolen in New York and through a series of transactions had ended up in Smoke's possession with new plates and the vehicle identification number filed off. The pirates had been cruising when they happened upon Bellgrade Shopping Center, where Ruth's Chris Steak House was tucked back behind old trees, and they couldn't help but notice the huge helicopter sitting in the grass.
None of the highway pirates had ever seen such a thing, and when the throttle was turned up to full power, Smoke and his crew gawked at beating blades and landing lights blazing as trees whipped in hurricane-force gusts.
"Shit," Smoke exclaimed. It was rare he showed emotion other than anger and hate. "Would you fucking look at that!"
Cuda, Possum, and Cat sat in awed silence, the chopping of the blades thudding their eardrums and exciting their blood like lust.
"I wonder how hard it'd be to fly one of those things," Smoke said. "You imagine what we could do with something like that? Fuck trucks! Shit, no one could ever catch us and we could deliver the goods ourselves in half the time from here to Canada, get the middle man out of the way."
The helicopter lifted, flooding wildly swirling grass with dazzling light, and through an expansive passenger's window, Smoke could just make out one of the Crimm daughters ripping open a bag of junk food, maybe chips. Then he noticed someone else. Andy Brazil was trotting back to his unmarked car. It turned Smoke to molten lava to see that son of a bitch again. When Andy had been a city cop, he and Hammer had been responsible for catching Smoke and putting him in prison. Not a day had passed in Smoke's cell when he hadn't entertained sadistic fantasies about what was in store for those two cops.
"Well, well, well," Smoke said, as the helicopter rose above trees and thundered into the sky. "Look who's here. Maybe I ought to blow his motherfucking brains out right now."
"Whose brains?" Cat tore his eyes away from the bright light churning up the night. He followed Smoke's vindictive stare to a blond trooper climbing into an unmarked car.
"Why you want to blow his brains out now, man?" Possum protested as Smoke put the SUV in gear. "Don't go be doing something like that with all these police around! You crazy or what? You wanna do that, I'm getting outta the car."
Possum was riding up front, and when he grabbed the door handle, Smoke backhanded him across the face. Cuda and Cat shrank into their seats, getting smaller and falling silent. They despised Smoke but had nowhere else to go, and were in too much trouble by now to do anything but stay in their present employment. Both Cuda and Cat had started out in street gangs, which were a dime a dozen these days. Being a pirate was like being the Mafia, Cat reassured himself as he didn't move or blink in his seat in the Land Cruiser. Nobody messed with Smoke and his road dogs, and they went after bigger prizes than just ripping off people and ATM machines and doing drive-by shootings for fun. The other day, Smoke had taken his crew to Cloverleaf Mall and bought all of them brand-new Nikes and all the pizza and french fries they could eat in the food court.
So he wasn't all bad. Possum was trying to make himself feel better, too. But he was tired of being smacked around by Smoke and worrying about him hurting or killing poor little Popeye. When Possum was growing up, his daddy used to smack him around, too, and do awful things at the dinner table, stabbing steak knives into the wood and throwing food across the room. His daddy
liked to shoot rabbits and send the dogs after them so he could have the pleasure of watching the small, shrieking creatures torn to bits. Possum began to stay in the basement, dropping out of school to watch TV in the dark. Over the years, he stopped growing and crept up from the basement only late at night to raid the refrigerator and the liquor bottles after his parents had quit fighting and gone to sleep.
Possum had never caused any kind of trouble until he was able to see in the dark and sunlight hurt his eyes. Then he began to venture out of the basement after midnight and walk around Northside's Chamberlayne Avenue, looking dreamily at cars gliding past and normal people out-people who could come and go as they pleased and didn't have to spend their days in the basement listening to their daddy tear up the house and beat on their mama and torture animals.
One morning at about 2:00 A.M., P
ossum was malingering in the parking lot of Azalea Mall, eyeing the ATM and hoping someone had forgotten to get their cash out of the little slot he was shoving a Slim Jim down, and a Land Cruiser pulled up. Possum started running, but Smoke was too fast for him. Next thing, Possum was tackled to the pavement and a white boy with dreadlocks was sticking a gun to Possum's head and ordering him into the Land Cruiser. Possum had been a road dog ever since, and sometimes he missed the basement and thought about his mama. Once-and only once-he had called her from a pay phone.
"I got me a good job working at night," he told his mama. "But I can't say where, Mama, 'cause Daddy would come get me, you know. You doing all right?"
"Oh, honey, sometimes it ain't so bad," she said in that defeated, depressed tone Possum knew so well. "Please come home, Jerry," she added, because Possum's real name was Jeremiah Little. "I miss you, baby."
"Don't you be worrying none." Possum got a big lump in his chest as he talked inside the graffiti-scarred phone booth. "1 gonna get enough money to get you out of there and we go live in some nice motel where he ain't never gonna find us!"
The problem with his plan, Possum had since learned, was that Smoke kept the prize money to himself. He gave cash to his dogs as needed and wouldn't allow them to accumulate any on their own. Possum got plenty to eat and all the alcohol and pot he wanted. He wore nice basketball shoes and huge jeans that were always falling off. He was equipped with a pager, a cell phone, a handheld Global Positioning System, a gun, and his own room in the RV. But he had no savings and it was likely he never would. He thought about this as his face stung and the inside of his lip bled. Possum missed his mama and realized that Smoke was even worse than Possum's daddy.
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