They Eat Puppies, Don't They?

by Christopher Buckley

  Fancock considered. “Is she . . . defecting?”

  “No, no, Rog. Defection is not in the plan. Au contraire, as you would say. If she were to defect, what use to us would she be then? No, I’m looking forward to a long and fruitful friendship with Ms. Chang. I think she will prove to be a splendid asset. She is quite open to the prospect of receiving two paychecks in the future.” Barney chuckled. “It would appear that her years here in our nation’s capital rubbing elbows with capitalists were not entirely wasted.”

  CHAPTER 37

  A FINGER IN MANY PIES

  President Fa perused the translation of the American newspaper article before him. He had already committed it to memory, but he wanted to give the Standing Committee members enough time to absorb it. Copies had been placed before each of them.

  When the last of them finished reading and looked up, Fa said wryly, “Well, Comrades, between last week’s newspaper story about their muon weapon and now this, it seems we are getting better intelligence from the American media than from our own agents.”

  No one laughed. Standing Committee members tended to refrain from any criticism, even playful, of the minister of state security. Taunting a man who might know more about you than your own wife does is never advisable.

  And yet Minister Lo smiled. Just the way that Fa, who had deliberately opened the meeting as he did, had anticipated he would.

  “May I point out, Comrade President, that it was my agent in Washington who gave this story to the newspaper. Without her there would have been no story. And this is a very good story for China.”

  “You may point that out.” Fa smiled. “And indeed it is a very good story. We stand vindicated of the vile lies. Comrades, let us warmly congratulate our Minister Lo.”

  There was a round of “Well done”s and a thumping of hands on the table. Lo smiled, nodded.

  “And yet, Comrade,” Fa said, “I confess that I am confused.”

  “What is confusing you, Comrade President?”

  “Did you not inform us—with certainty—that this was the work of the American CIA? But from this it would seem that it was the work of these two hooligans, the woman Templeton and McIntyre.”

  Lo was ready for that one. “Don’t be deceived, Comrade. Do you think these two are not CIA? Of course they’re CIA. This institute of hers is CIA. It’s cover.”

  “Oh? But then why did not the newspaper say that?”

  “To protect CIA.”

  Fa stared. “My impression of the American media is that they are independent of the government.”

  “Oh, don’t be fooled. The American media protect their government all the time.”

  “Well, perhaps you know far more about such things than I. But they often make great trouble for their government. Look what they did to poor Nixon.”

  “That was ages ago,” Lo said dismissively. “And it was their own government that decided Nixon had to go, not their newspapers. Why? Because he had made the opening with China. And that was intolerable to the ruling class. No, Comrade, we know for certain that these two are CIA. The whole thing was an American operation from start to finish.”

  Fa considered. “Well, your Comrade Chang is to be congratulated. She is very capable, I must say.”

  Lo grinned. “She had a good teacher, from what I hear.”

  Laughter.

  Fa added, “I hope that is one story in the American media that will somehow penetrate our great firewall.”

  More laughter.

  “Oh,” Lo said, “this is one that might slip through. We cannot stop all the stories, can we?”

  More laughter. Gang thought, What a very jolly meeting.

  Lo said, “I’m going to bring Comrade Chang back to Beijing.”

  “Oh?” Fa said. “Is she not more valuable to us in Washington?”

  “We don’t want her to get too used to the good life there. That always leads to problems. I have plans for her advancement. And there are still one or two things she has to learn if she is going to the top. This talk we’re hearing more and more from the women, about how there are not enough of them in the higher echelons of the party? Well, Comrades, let no one say that the Ministry of State Security is not in the vanguard of gender egalitarianism.”

  Hearty laughter.

  “This is quite accurate, Comrade,” Fa said. “Your ministry’s promotion rate for females increased by three point seven percent last year.”

  “Comrade President is a master of statistics,” Lo said. “Sometimes I think he missed his true calling.”

  Laughter. Gang thought, Somewhat inappropriate.

  “Oh, there’s no doubt,” Fa said. “I should have been an accountant. But the party had other plans for me. I am impressed by your Comrade Chang, however. She seems to have a finger in many pies.”

  “Yes.” Lo grinned. He turned to the others. “I wouldn’t mind having a finger in her pie.”

  Watching Lo smirk, Fa thought of the incident that Admiral Zhang had related to him years ago. Dear Admiral Zhang, now serving China in his capacity as Agent Mankind Is Red, from a hospital bed in San Diego, where he was continually dosing himself with some herbal potion that simulated renal dysfunction.

  It was Zhang who had first noticed the talent of Comrade Trainee Chang at MSS. He had taken an interest in her—kindly and chaste, for Zhang was a devoted husband to his wife. One day, he told Fa, Chang had come to Zhang in great distress and tears to tell him that her superior, Deputy Minister Lo, had made unwanted advances. Zhang summoned Lo and excoriated him most severely. The episode had almost certainly played a part in sharpening Lo’s hatred and envy of Admiral Zhang. Now, years later, Chang was happily ensconced in the heart of the American capital, leading a very pleasant life. To leave all that and return to Beijing, to be hostage to Lo’s lecherous whims? Such a prospect could hold little appeal.

  “Comrade Minister Lo,” Fa said, “it seems to me that if Comrade Chang is doing such an excellent job in Washington, why recall her to Beijing?”

  He caught the brief flicker of rage in Lo’s eyes.

  “With respect, Comrade President,” Lo replied, “I think I am in a better position than you to judge matters of security personnel.”

  “No doubt,” Fa said mildly, looking down at his papers. “Nevertheless, let’s leave her in place for the time being. Well then, shall we move on to the next item? The regime in Taiwan has presented us a bill. One shrimp boat. This is a considerable sum, I must say. Is this truly what a shrimp boat costs today?”

  CHAPTER 38

  BUT TELL ME ABOUT YOUR WEEK

  Let me do that for you, big brother. Here you go. Suck. You suckin’?”

  “Umph.”

  It was late afternoon. Bird and Bewks were on the front porch at Upkeep. Bird was in a rocking chair but not rocking, owing to the neck brace and his bandaged left elbow. The scene had a certain Norman Rockwell quality to it: a young man tending to his wounded brother.

  “It’s blocked,” Bird said grumpily.

  “Let’s have a look-see.” Bewks removed the straw, examined it, blew through the mouth end, propelling a recalcitrant gob of orange pulp.

  “There we go,” he said. He went to reinsert the straw in Bird’s mouth. Bird recoiled.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Do you have any . . .?”

  “No, I do not have a sexually transmitted disease.”

  “Wasn’t implying you did. Just if you have gingivitis or some other gum thing. My body’s in bad enough shape as it is without adding gum disease.”

  “Well, I don’t have gingivitis neither,” Bewks said, jamming the straw back in. “Hush. I swear you’re worse than Mother. I feel like a male nurse. In an asylum.”

  The old-fashioned tasted good. Very good. Yes, an infusion of bourbon was very welcome. Might help with the pain in the neck, and the even more insistent pain in the elbow. Myndi had taken his bottle of Percocets when she left—a punitive valedictory gesture. She’d probably flu
ng it into the frog pond on her way out, in a swirl of furious dust.

  Bewks sat beside his brother, rocking, sipping from his own strawless old-fashioned.

  “I expect she’ll be back,” Bewks said. “Soon as she cools off. But she was some kind of hot on her way out of here.”

  “Do you see that sun over there?” Bird said. “Big shiny thing in the sky over the mountains? I’ll make you a prediction. That sun will be extinct before Myndi, as you put it, ‘cools off.’ ”

  “Well”—Bewks gave a philosophical shrug—“I guess what’s done is done.”

  “Bewks, could you stop with the bromides?”

  “Only trying to cheer you up.”

  “Well you can do better than ‘What’s done is done,’ ” Bird muttered. “For God’s sake.”

  “No need to get snooty.”

  “I’m not. Just don’t want to be told ‘What’s done is done.’ And don’t tell me ‘Maybe it’s all for the best’ or anything on that general theme.”

  “You know, if you’re going to be like this, you can make your own supper. And I’d like to see you try, too, with that arm and that Watusi neck brace.”

  “I apologize.” Bird sighed.

  “I accept your apology.”

  “Could I have more booze, please?”

  Bewks held up the glass.

  “Thank you,” Bird said. “Was that polite enough for you?”

  “You got stuff on your chin. Want me to wipe it for you?”

  “No. Drooling fits with my frame of mind just now.”

  Bird glanced over at the Post story folded open on Bewks’s lap.

  “What are you, memorizing that thing? It’s three days now.”

  “Just want to familiarize myself with the various details. In case it comes up.”

  “Oh, it will.”

  “I want to be able to discuss it intelligently. Got to hand it to you—she is one fine-looking filly.”

  The story included a large photograph of Angel, probably an out-take from one of her sexed-up book jackets: hybrid foreign-policy intellectual and lap dancer. Myndi had especially admired the photo, declaring as she stormed up the stairs to pack that Angel looked like a “complete whore.”

  “Bewks.” Bird sighed. “Did you intend that as a compliment?”

  “She is kinda scrum-diddly-umptious.”

  “Could we please not talk about her right now? Show a little mercy, Bewks.”

  “We are tetchy this evening, aren’t we?”

  “Tetchy? Why would I be tetchy? My career is in the dumpster. Chinese agents may be on their way here to assassinate me. The FBI may be on its way. I’m sure by now they’ve found some law we broke. My elbow feels like a Doberman is using it as a chewy toy. And there was something else, what was it? Oh, right—my wife left me. And took my pain pills. Why would I be feeling tetchy?”

  “I can get you pills, big brother. One of the boys in the regiment, Delmer Fitts, he’s . . .” Bewks chuckled. “He’s got more OxyContin than God. Don’t know where he gets it and don’t want to know. It does make the boys a trifle nervous, seeing how he’s corporal gunner of one of our six-pounders.”

  “Six-pounder?”

  “Cannon. Model 1841. Splendid piece of artillery, but optimally speaking, you want someone with a clear head operating a piece like that. Not someone with a head full of Oxy. But it’s his cannon, so we’re kind of stuck with the arrangement. Anyway, if you need some pills, hey, say the word.”

  Bird was strangely touched. “Thank you, brother, but maybe this isn’t the ideal time to become addicted to hillbilly heroin. I do appreciate the offer, though. Just keep the old-fashioned pipeline flowing.”

  “So were you and her—”

  “ ‘You and she.’ ”

  “Were you and she making the beast with two backs?”

  “Bewks.”

  “You sort of get the impression from this article that you were.”

  “Yes, that was Myn’s takeaway, too,” Bird said. “Can’t imagine why she’d have drawn such an inference.”

  According to an eyewitness who insisted on anonymity, Templeton and McIntyre recently spent the night together at McIntyre’s condo in Rosslyn, which he calls his “Military-Industrial Duplex.” According to this witness, Templeton was seen leaving the condo dressed in evening clothes as the sun was coming up.

  Bird wondered who the eyewitness could be. That cranky retiree woman in 14F, the one Bird had—ever so politely—asked if she might ask her yappy Pomeranian not to start barking at five in the morning?

  “If it’s the Chinese you’re worried about,” Bewks said, “don’t. They want a piece of you, they’re going to have to come through the Fifty-sixth Virginia Volunteers. And the Fifty-sixth is ready to engage.” He smiled. “The boys are right eager to help out there. It’s not every day you get to go up against the People’s Liberation Army.”

  Bizarre as Bird found the idea of being protected from Chinese hit teams by people dressed as Confederate soldiers, there was a certain poignancy to it. As they sat on the porch sipping bourbon, six of the boys from the Fifty-sixth had established a picket line at the end of the driveway, where they stood, bayonets fixed, squirting chewing tobacco at the feet of the assembled reporters and cameramen, daring them to take just one step onto McIntyre land.

  “I appreciate that, Bewks,” Bird said. “It’s a comfort to me.”

  “The boys would relish the opportunity.”

  “It would make for unusual living history,” Bird conceded. “But I expect if and when the enemy comes, it won’t take the form of a frontal infantry assault. More likely some little-bitty guy in black shimmying down the chimney and tippy-toeing up and poking me in the back with a poison-tipped needle. Poison.” Bird laughed. “Wouldn’t there be some symmetry to that?”

  “Any Chinese comes wigglin’ out of that chimney is going to find himself staring down both barrels of my twelve-gauge. And it ain’t loaded with birdshot.”

  “Could I have some more booze, please, Bewks?”

  “Course, big brother. Here you go.”

  Bird snorkeled another pipette of old-fashioned and let his mind stroll through the field out front. The sun was low now, at a slant, turning everything blue and gold. Dragonflies hovered and buzzed like tiny helicopters. Bird had always thought dragonflies the most orderly and businesslike of the insect species. Bumblebees never seemed to be able to make up their minds which flower to imbibe from. But dragonflies went right to it. And their hovering was so precise. Well, God bless bourbon.

  Bird wondered, and not with idle curiosity, how Beijing was reacting to the lurid revelations. They must be pleased at being vindicated of poisoning. Were Bird’s and Angel’s names coming up in various offices? Would there be retaliation of some kind? Legal action? Or might the response be more subtle? Bribe Peckfuss to put anthrax in Upkeep’s well water? Snip the brake cables on Bird’s car? But no worries there—he didn’t have a car anymore!

  Maybe the deer was working for the Chinese? Assassin deer. Why not? Hadn’t the U.S. Navy trained dolphins to plant mines?

  Deer. Might use that in the novel. Yes, he must get back to the novel now that he had all this free time.

  Angel. He wondered, what paranoid fantasies were running through that pretty blond head? Had she “gone to the mattresses” in the Sicilian Mafia fashion? Was she bunkered in the “panic room” at the ICC, Burka and his clinking myrmidons standing guard? Or had she fled with young Barry? What fun for young Barry—his first hands-on experience of “extremism in the pursuit of liberty.” Had they taken refuge at some proverbial “undisclosed location”?

  Thus was Bird mentally perambulating with his bourbon-numbed brain when from inside the house came the ringing of the phone, for the—what—hundredth time today?

  “Bewks, if you insist on answering that thing, just say ‘No comment’ and hang up. There is no one, including Elvis Presley risen from the dead, that I desire to speak with right now.”


  “Big brother,” Bewks said, getting out of his rocker, “I’ve said ‘No comment’ so many times this week that I’m starting to say it in my sleep. I just need to see if it’s one of the boys calling in to report.”

  He returned a moment later with the phone and a querulous frown. “It’s her,” he whispered.

  “Myndi?”

  “No, your other significant other.”

  Bird sighed. Honestly. What was Angel thinking, calling here? Not that it mattered at this point.

  “Hello, Angel.”

  “Where the hell have you been?”

  Bird marveled at the tone of annoyance, as if she were mad because he’d taken too long for lunch.

  “I wasn’t going to call you at your house,” Angel said, “but your cell’s voice mail is full. Why haven’t you called me? What have you been doing all this time? It’s been almost a week.”

  “I went deer hunting.”

  “Deer? It’s summer. Deer aren’t in season.”

  “Well, that depends what you’re using. Gun or bow, then yes, they’re not in season. But a car? Then you can hunt year-round. Would you care for a haunch of venison? Take two. My freezer runneth over.”

  “Oh. Are you okay?”

  “Define ‘okay.’ Metaphysically? So-so. Physically, my elbow appears to be shattered and I’m wearing a neck brace on account of the displaced disk.”

  “Oh, baby. Ouchy.”

  “Ouchy? No, more like Ahhhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhhh! AHHHHH-HHHH! But here I am going on about me. How are you? Isn’t it wonderful that the entire world knows our secret now and can share in our joy?”

  “Darling, the entire world was going to find out about us sooner or later.”

  Stunning. Insouciance of this order you didn’t encounter every day. She was skipping—hopscotching, like a carefree schoolgirl—over the fact that their machinations and his extramarital affair had been proclaimed throughout the land—the world!—in a leading newspaper.

  “If it’s any consolation,” Angel said, “a friend of mine who lives out there in horse world called me. I gather Muffy’s shacked up with Mr. Flying Stables. I assume you knew. That’s why I figured it was safe to call you at home.”