“Niki!” cried Alberta. “Niki, help!” Stolkov sat there amused in a frightened way and submitted to a search. She threw his handkerchief aside.
“Mrs. Rawlins!”
“Up y’all’s!” said Recky. She stood and they struggled for her purse.
People were crowding around. Secret Servicemen edged through, uncertain who to restrain. The German Ambassador threw down his napkin. “Could ve haff some order!”
“Randolph, do something.”
“Everybody, please! It’s no good having a dirty great brew-ha!”
Alberta and Recky swung each other by the purse strap. “You motherfuckin’ slime!”
Gora beaned me with a pickled beet and recalled me to my own sense of moral purpose. I mean it was all we had. The police, charges, people held.
I went and stood over her. “I can no longer be oppressed by the spectacle of your poverty,” I told her and kicked her shopping back into an explosion of party pythons. People screamed and abandoned their tables, assailed by smuggled foodstuffs and unsavory laundry.
“Oh, Lord,” said Battersby.
She grabbed her other bag and ran but I dove over a table and caught a handle. She dragged me yards before it gave and more wardrobe fell out, yellow newspapers, beer cans and a radio and headset. Didn’t look AM/FM. But no tape.
She stopped dead and stuffed the earphones into what was left of the bag. Alberta backed away, Recky’s ripped-open purse in her hand. The crowd advanced on us, scenting blood. Belton and W.T. didn’t seem to want to join but the Servicemen had made up their minds and Tiffany, animated by the vitality of motherhood, set her jaw and held her place in the advancing line. Gora too moved in, crouched for a spring.
We backed away from them, Alberta brandishing the purse like a rumble chain. Celebrado came up on the left and she threw a chair in his path, tipped a table. The German’s table. He stepped away fastidiously and his napkin fell with a clunk.
The tape.
She crouched, back straight, and picked it up. We all looked at each other. We all looked at the tape.
Then as calmly as if she were borrowing a book from the library she took it towards the door. Tiffany stepped in to block her and Alberta whirled the purse.
“Don’t you dare hit a pregnant woman.”
“Well your head isn’t pregnant,” she said, whacking her on the side thereof so hard she staggered cross-eyed and Alberta rushed past.
It was a nice fake. Third down and a yard to go and she threw herself at the line and as the mob grabbed at her pitched out to me and I was around the crowd and out the door and gone.
The house was the only way out within running distance and I headed hard for it, no one in my way but some dancers and die-hard drinkers. The Service guys would be sticking with their charges, I didn’t have to worry about them but “Fenton!” Battersby yelled behind me, “Fenton!” and out to the patio came two security types in tuxes.
They fanned as they trotted onto the lawn, defensive halves covering me easily. Slowed me right down. Behind me, puffing and galloping.
“Fenton!”
He approached me a little to one side and the other one came in wide to the left. He was big, Fenton. I looked up into his eyes and reconsidered Catholicism.
“Wordy!” She had run up and as she sprinted past on the right I lateraled and she scooped it in and made the house before the goons could decide what to do, Celebrado close after her.
They stood over me. I showed them my empty hands.
“Help them with the girl,” wheezed Battersby, leaning on his knees for breath.
They went inside and the stragglers stood around and watched me. A light went on upstairs.
I took out my phone and did a tune.
“Shoop talkin’”
“Could I have a car, please?”
“I’m there.”
Alberta screamed.
I ran inside and followed open doors to the stairs. They’d have blocked the front way but that didn’t matter. On the second floor several men were pounding at a door and twisting a knob. I ducked into the next room and opened the window. “Hey!” I shouted.
A stool came through the glass and she leaned out and tossed me the tape. I caught it, that was something. As nonchalantly as I could I walked out into the hall and downstairs. “She’s locked herself in the lav,” said Battersby. “All right, break it down.”
This was going to be easy but, “No, there he is!” cried Battersby and I bolted down, but two heavies were coming up the stairs so I pivoted and sprang for the third floor, leading a parade by now, chose a room and slammed the door behind me, ran to the window and raised it. “Alberta!” I hollered.
The door opened, some guys came in and I picked a hairdryer up from the dresser. “I’ll use this,” I said. It was a fat black thing, had a dangerous gleam in the dusk.
“Outside. Hands on the wall.” I really said that!
I locked them out of my life and sprinted back to the window. “Alberta!” She leaned out below me and I dropped it to her. She caught it. Right? Great.
The bad guys were up here now, she had a clear path. There was only me to worry about. Boom, the boys burst in crouched with the guns in both hands but I was out on the ledge reaching for the drainpipe. Took a handful of vine to get me there but the tendrils snapped and I slipped, clawed and scratched my way down three storeys of stone wall like I was holding a tearing curtain, gathering overgrowth as I went. It scraped my nails to the quick and scuffed my shoes up but I landed otherwise unbroken.
An embassy Lincoln with little flagpoles on the fenders came fishtailing across the lawn at me and slid sideways to a stop plowing black gouges in the green. Shoop hung his head out. “Let’s not take all night.”
The crowd stood by appalled. The guard from the service entrance had been drawn to the spectacle and Shoop had driven right in.
Halfway up the now denuded wall Alberta stood on a ledge holding the tape away from men who hung out through the window trying to grapple her back. Fenton got carefully out there with her and, hooking an arm inside, tried to reach across her for the object she stretched Statue-of-Liberty-wise just out of his reach. She was right at the end of the ledge, barefoot from her end run. He hung on shakily and pressed her to the wall.
“Oh!” she protested. “My tits!”
“Alberta,” I said, “throw it!”
The guards were all up there. They couldn’t stop us now unless they opened fire. But we had to go.
I cupped my hands around my mouth. “Alberta. Can you hear me. Throw. The. Tape.”
Fenton was reaching, gaining, holding the window with his fingertips.
“My tits!” She was obsessed by her tits.
He was spread to the limit. His fingers stretched for it. When he could almost touch it she launched them forward.
Backward, I guess, as far as he was concerned.
They fell in the lovers’ embrace. Floated, sort of, only faster. It was one of those instants that opens up into timelessness, and then they hit the hood of the Lincoln. Him first, of course.
The impact stove it, made it stick up at the fittings. The crowd, the men in the windows, all of us just watched.
Shaken, Alberta got to her knees and made sure she still had the tape. The big guy lay there choking vocally, trying to remember how to breathe.
“I think I’m paralyzed,” he got out.
She leaned back on the windshield, braced her feet against him and shoved him off the car. “Well be paralyzed on the ground,” she said.
Shoop and I exchanged a nervous glance. I helped her down and we got in the car. Shoop hit reverse and tore sod backwards, then put it in forward and spun wheels until we drifted clear of the casualty and sprayed loam for the service entrance, guests leaping from our path.
Quite by accident we ran over a guy line that wrapped around the axle or something and as we dirt-tracked away it yanked out straight and cleft the tent down like a pair of buns.
&nbs
p; Always conscious of decorum Alberta leaned across my lap and stuck her head out. “Thank you SO much,” she called. “It was SUCH a nice party.”
25.
We screeched out onto Massachusetts and veered around a few corners. In a remote sidestreet Shoop stopped and got out, got in another car.
“Well come on,” he said.
We got in with him and slipped out into traffic, moving discreetly through the streets. I hated to leave the limo. With the diplomatic plates they can’t stop you for speeding, but of course they’d be watching for the car.
“I hope you didn’t do anything bad to the chauffeur.”
“Chaffeur’s playin’ cards.”
“Oh, Wordy, we did it!” Her eyes shone. It got her off, this kind of thing.
Soon we were flying along the Beltway. Six lanes and anonymity. When we took the off-ramp for Norfolk I fed in The Number.
“White House,” said Norman.
“Let me speak to him.”
“It’s Word, sir.”
“Imvazoboom?” He held the phone away and spat. “I was just brushing my teeth.”
“We got it, sir.”
“Well that’s good work, Word. And you say this can—You say we can win on this?”
“This’ll do it, sir.”
His voice went low. “Word, this isn’t going to be a problem, is it?”
“An adventure, sir!”
“Heh heh. Okay, Word, I’ll let them know you’re coming. See you in an hour.”
I folded and sat back. “That was the President.”
We were to meet on Keesh’s boat. Didn’t know who we could trust any more at the White House.
But the coup was foiled, we could feel that. We had kept the world from falling into evil hands. As I raced through the night with Narda and Lothar a feeling of accomplishment stole over me.
It had been risky, I’m not saying it hadn’t been risky. But then life is a game at which can be won or lost life itself, am I right?
Nor had our methods been strictly legal. Stolen cars were the least of our worries. But all we had to do now was keep that rendezvous and we’d be in sanctuary. The presidential pardon and so forth.
“I’m cheering up,” I said.
“Were you cheered down?”
“Yeah. I don’t know. Us.”
“Oh, there’s an us? I thought we were a working relationship.”
“Yeah. That’s why I don’t like starting these things. I hate myself when they’re over.”
“How thoughtful of you.”
“The truth is, you’re beginning to interest me.”
“Shall I just break down and admit that I belong to you utterly?”
“You don’t have to say it.”
“No, Wordy, it won’t work. You’re too suspicious.”
“Look, it just happens that I prefer the life of a respectable citizen, is that so bad?”
“I suppose you got him in there to watch me with Wayne.”
“Hey, I’m not in this.”
“No, but you’ll expect to be paid for it.”
“Huh. I don’t get my money I’m gone mug you like I shoulda.”
“Come on,” I said, “the money’s not a problem! We’re talking liberated funds, here!” I put my arm around her and sniffed her ear. “Some women are just hard to leave,” I whispered.
“You’ve got a face, I don’t deny that. And you’ve got a nice behind. But you’re too suspicious.”
“You’re right. I feel stupid now.”
“You look stupid.”
“Are we fighting?”
She didn’t answer.
“Once you’ve had black you never look back,” Shoop mentioned.
I leaned forward and looked at him. “Just drive the fuckin’ car.”
After a minute I settled down again. The darkness, the sleeping country, the soft double thunk of the seams in the road.
I mean when it’s passion you don’t make deals. There’s no deal possible, at bottom.
I leaned in close. “I’m really sorry I said what I said,” I said.
Her spine stayed straight but she leaned in the crook of my arm. Unbending but, I don’t know, consenting. Silent but soft.
When we got to the base the sentry at the gate made a call and somebody jumped in a jeep and led us through to the waterfront. We left the car on a wide pier and helped Alberta aboard a gray cruiser about the size of a semi. It rode up and down on the waves but once we got moving it steadied out.
We stood on the bridge or whatever. There was nothing to see but the sea in the headlights but Alberta dug the wind and the spray. The further out we went the rougher it got.
When the lights on The Arc finally came in view it was as if it were over a rise. The waves were like hills.
It took some getting to. The Bay is bouncy at the best of times but tonight it was on spin cycle. Four guys with two ropes held us close enough to struggle onto the landing platform, which the waves washed up over anyway, and the cruiser was already moving off as we were climbing to the deck. Up high it felt like an office tower in an earthquake.
Keesh, cat-draped, met us at the top. “Isn’t this awesome? Hang onto the railing or you’re gonna be talkin’ bubbles.”
“Is the President here?” I said.
“No but the landing lights are on and we’re standing by. Well! Who’s this?”
Alberta introduced Shoop.
“Keesh,” I said, “you do have a VCR.”
“Tell us you have one, Keesh.”
“Sweetheart, how do you think I survive out here? Sometimes it’s just me and my Conan movies. I love it when he breaks the chains with his chest,” he told Shoop. “Let’s go aft and get comfortable.”
He led us along a heaving passageway into a sort of leatherette lounge with cats all over it, and buzzed for the steward, and while we ordered drinks I put the tape in the TV and ran some of it.
He flipped through his collection. “I’ve got Swingin’ Sam, I’ve got Pink Cheeks and Paddywacks, that’ll get us goin’. Oh, you brought your own.”
It looked good. Nice and clear, mostly, though there were annoying blackouts when the angle changed. W.T. showed in perfect profile, it was him no question.
Keesh clung to Shoop as he rectified the duster. “What is he, a subway station?”
I rewound and got the tape cued up and was just raising my well-earned drink to my lips when we heard the blades beating and went out to greet the President. As we climbed to the heliport wind hit us from all sides and came down from the chopper. It lowered in delicately onto the rocking target and Keesh had a crewman up there to loop down the ski things and open the door.
First Fes got out, then two more SS guys, then the President, then two aides with neutral expressions and then Norman. We hunched in and stood around under the still spinning blades while Keesh introduced Alberta and Shoop.
“Mr. President, I just want to welcome you on your first visit to my ship and I just want to present you with this captain’s hat. You’ll always be MY President, Mr. President, and while you’re on The Arc YOU’RE the captain and nobody else!” he shouted.
“Well, thank you very much I—” He put the hat on, smiled. Keesh saluted him. “We ARE moving Mr. President, it’s too rough for the anchors. You can command the bridge on this. Just press here to talk.”
The President accepted the apparatus. “HARD ASTERN AND COME ABOUT ABAFT,” he said into it. “Heh heh. Wonder what that means. OVER AND OUT,” he added.
When we got downstairs the Servicemen made us wait outside while they checked the room and then Keesh, in an ecstasy of hospitality, shoved cats off couches so everyone could sit. The staff people ordered drinks.
“This is what we want to show you, Mr. President.” I turned the tape on.
We sat watching it, though Keesh seemed uneasy. He didn’t think this was any way to entertain.
“That’s Wayne Tupper!” said the President. “I told you he was a dumb cluck,”
he said. He laughed.
The aides laughed.
Norman laughed.
But a love-scene hush fell over them as W.T. worked with the duster.
“What’s he doing?” said the President. He turned to his aides. “What’s he doing?”
They watched uncomfortably.
“Why’s he doing that?”
No one wanted to say.
“Is that you, Mrs. Haines?”
“I’m afraid so, Mr. President.” She blushed.
He blushed.
“Well, Word, this is—” He laughed. “I mean how does—This is terrible, Word!”
“I know, sir.”
W.T. barnyard scratched, made chicken noises.
“I mean, it’s not—It’s in terrible taste, Word!”
“Sir, you see, with this tape you can control Tupper and Haines. Both of them, sir. You can recapture the presidency.”
He seemed appalled.
“But you shouldn’t go public too soon, sir.”
“Word!” he said, lowering his voice. “You mean you want me to blackmail them?”
“Well, sir, not blackmail them exactly—” I looked at Alberta.
“He means eliminate them, Mr. President. Force them out and replace them with good men.”
“Or at least threaten to,” I put in. “They won’t dare say anything against you while you have this.”
“Gee,” he said. He looked at the aides. “I don’t know if I could do that!” He laughed. “That’s a serious step, Word!”
“Sir?” said Keesh.
He hovered with his black-and-yellow-swirl-pattern pot and held it out to the President, and the President, gratified perhaps by a respite from the decision-making process, smiled and took it from him as he might have dandled a baby.
“It’s a vahz,” Keesh explained.
The President looked it over, tossed it in his fingertips, whirled it, almost dropped it. “Whoops! Heh heh.”
Keesh checked himself trying to catch it. “It’s very valuable, sir. It’s South American.”
“Well!” he said. He blew into it, put his ear to it. “Hear the ocean? Heh heh.” He held it on his head with one hand and tried to balance it. “How do they do this?”
The President's Palm Reader: A Washington Comedy Page 30
