“You’re in the theater?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“Well, I’m in the theater myself, so to speak. I know about stage names. My name as it appears in the credits is Red Ravisher. Agrafina Bogdanovich is my real, off-camera name.”
“A beautiful name for a beautiful lady,” Murov said. “It sounds Russian.”
“I am of Russian heritage.”
“So here we are, two Russians far from the motherland—”
“Actually, I’m from Cleveland, Ohio.”
“How about ‘two Russians in a strange land’?”
“It’s a strange land, all right, but I just told you, Grigori, that I’m an American.”
“The sound of my name coming from your lips is like heavenly music.”
“Thank you. I did study elocution, of course.”
“That’s obvious.”
“And you’re in the theater, too, I gather, Grigori?”
“There it is again! You don’t perhaps hear softly playing violins, my dear Agrafina?”
“What I hear actually sounds like a mariachi band. I asked if you, too, are a thespian.”
“Well, let’s say I’m playing a role.”
“All the world’s a stage, as they say.”
“Indeed it is. May I make a somewhat intimate suggestion, my dear Agrafina?”
“I sort of like the way Agrafina rolls off your lips, too, Grigori. Yes, you may, with the understanding that if I were to take offense at your somewhat intimate suggestion, I will break your legs.”
“What I was going to suggest is since you have that absolutely marvelous borscht, the kind my mother, may she rest in peace, used to make, and I have two liters of Stolichnaya and a pound of caviar, we merge our assets.”
Agrafina turned to the general manager of the Royal Aztec and the bellmen.
“After you put my roses in water,” she said, “our caviar on the table on the balcony, and hand me our Stolichnaya, you may leave me alone with this silver-tongued devil.”
PART XI
[ONE]
The Old Ebbitt Grill
675 Fifteenth Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
1245 21 June 2007
When he had time, later, to reconstruct the disaster at the Old Ebbitt, Edgar Delchamps was forced to conclude that he was at least partially responsible for it.
There had been no question in his mind when he met Roscoe J. Danton at Dulles International that the journalist needed a little — more than a little — liquid courage before going to the White House to explain what he was doing in Las Vegas when he was supposed to be in Budapest.
Especially since the story Charley Castillo had come up with to explain Danton’s presence there seemed to stretch credibility. When Castillo had called to tell him that he wanted Delchamps and Two-Gun to meet Danton and see (a) that he got to the White House, and (b) that he had his story for the President right, he had both explained his concern that Roscoe might be considering desertion from the Merry Outlaws and related the story he had given Roscoe to explain his presence in Las Vegas.
Danton was to tell the President that when he had heard from various sources, whose identity he was honor-bound as a journalist to not make public, the rumors about the formation of the committee to build the President Joshua Ezekiel and Mrs. Belinda-Sue Clendennen Presidential Library and Last Resting Place, he had prevailed upon Castillo to make a quick stop in Las Vegas en route to Cozumel so that he could check out the rumors.
As a manifestation of his great admiration for the President and the First Lady, Danton was to tell the President, he wanted to be the one to break the story to his millions of readers in his syndicated column and to the millions more who couldn’t or wouldn’t read but who watched him on Wolf News.
Roscoe was to tell the President that no sooner had he gotten off Castillo’s Gulfstream than another identical Gulfstream had appeared. A large crowd of journalists was on hand to meet the second airplane and, his journalist’s curiosity naturally aroused, he had stood with them to see which famous person was arriving.
What had happened next, Roscoe was to tell the President, was that a porn star named Red Ravisher, whom Roscoe recognized even though he had never met her in his life, got off the airplane, apparently in her cups, picked a fight with a French cameraman, and then threw him at the crowd of journalists in which he was innocently standing. A riot had then ensued.
Aware that the President’s political foes might attempt to somehow connect this shameful event to the President Joshua Ezekiel and Mrs. Belinda-Sue Clendennen Presidential Library and Last Resting Place, and determined that that should not be permitted to happen, Roscoe had immediately gotten back on Castillo’s Gulfstream and they had instantly taken off and flown on to Cozumel, where Castillo was going to train SEALs and members of the Delta Force to take back pirated ships from their Somalian captors.
Delchamps thought the story smelled worse than a twenty-five-pound catfish left to rot in the Mississippi sun for ten days. But on the other hand, he thought that if President Clendennen believed that public-spirited citizens had donated ten million dollars to his library because of their admiration for him, he was likely to believe anything, up to and including this cockamamy yarn Roscoe was going to try to feed him.
The other mistake he had made, Delchamps was forced to admit later, was taking Roscoe to the Old Ebbitt, instead of, for example, to the Round Robin Bar in the Willard Hotel, which was right around the corner.
He had taken Roscoe to the Old Ebbitt because he knew Roscoe was an habitué of the establishment, and also because he and Two-Gun Yung, too, were fond of the Old Ebbitt’s version of the Bloody Mary.
He completely forgot that others knew that Roscoe was an habitué of the establishment — especially before and at lunchtime — and that one or more of these people might go there looking for Roscoe, which might complicate things.
As it turned out, three such people were there when they led Roscoe in and ordered double Bloody Marys for the three of them.
He didn’t see any of them at first. This was because two of them — C. Harry Whelan and Matthew “Hockey Puck” Christian — had immediately hidden behind their copies of the enormous Old Ebbitt’s menu cards so as not to be seen by Delchamps, Yung, and Danton when they saw them come in.
Delchamps, who was, after all, as a result of his long service with the Clandestine Service of the CIA, skilled in deducing things, had deduced that both journalists had come — independently — to the Old Ebbitt hoping to see Roscoe. If he showed up, Mr. Whelan intended to corner Roscoe to demand to know what “out of the box” story vis-à-vis President Clendennen he was chasing.
Mr. Christian intended to corner Roscoe to learn the identity of the woman whom he had seen throwing the French paparazzo at Danton. Christian knew that it wasn’t Miss Red Ravisher, as her attorneys were suing him and Continental Broadcasting for mis-identifying her as the thrower. He didn’t think they would be seeking fifty million dollars in slander damages if there was any chance at all she had indeed been the thrower.
The third person to have come to the Old Ebbitt in the hope of encountering Mr. Danton was Miss Eleanor Dillworth, who at one time — before she had been, in her judgment, unfairly terminated by the CIA — had been the CIA station chief in Vienna, Austria.
Miss Dillworth planned to share with Mr. Danton — and through him with his millions of readers and viewers — some little jewels of CIA mistakes and blunders that, when Mr. Danton made them public, would make those miserable bastards in Langley really rue the day when they had messed with Miss Eleanor Dillworth.
Everything at first had gone smoothly. As they appreciatively imbibed their first two double Bloody Marys, Edgar and Two-Gun had rehearsed Roscoe over and over until they were satisfied he had his cockamamy story for President Clendennen down pat.
That accomplished, a celebratory third double Bloody Mary was certainly called for. Edgar had just taken his first sip wh
en he was assaulted by Miss Dillworth.
One moment he was patting Roscoe on the shoulder, telling him not to worry, and the next he was on his back on the floor with a more than Rubenesque fiftyish blonde lady — Miss Dillworth — sitting on his chest, and choking him.
“At first I couldn’t believe my eyes,” she screamed. “But then I knew it was you, you sonofabitch!”
“And which sonofabitch, madam, is it that you mistakenly believe I am?” Edgar courteously inquired in sort of a whisper. Miss Dillworth’s hands on his throat were surprisingly strong for someone of her years.
“The sonofabitch who garroted the Russian rezident in Vienna and left his pop-eyed corpse with my calling card on his chest in a taxicab outside the embassy, thus ruining my CIA career,” she replied.
Edgar’s own CIA training and experience produced a Pavlovian reaction to his predicament.
“Get Roscoe over to the White House, Two-Gun! Forget about me!” he cried nobly.
Before the lights went out, so to speak, Edgar saw Two-Gun hustling Roscoe out of the Old Ebbitt. And then he saw C. Harry Whelan following them. And then he saw Matthew “Hockey Puck” Christian following C. Harry.
And finally he saw the polished brass spittoon Miss Dillworth was directing toward his head with both her hands.
The next thing Edgar Delchamps saw was the ruddy face of a policeman looking down at him.
“You’ll be all right, pal,” the policeman said. “The ambulance is on the way. It took two bartenders and three cocktail waitresses to do it, but they finally pulled her off of you.”
“Blessed are the lifesavers, for they shall inherit the earth,” Edgar said.
“What did you say to the lady that so pissed her off?”
“I said nothing to her. I’ve never seen her before in my life.”
“She says you’re a CIA assassin who’s left bodies all over the world, including one in a taxicab outside the U.S. embassy in Vienna.”
“Poor thing,” Edgar said. “She’s obviously bereft of her senses. In my work as a shepherd of souls I have learned that often happens to ugly old women who have finally given up all hope of finding a mate with whom to walk down life’s path.”
“If you’re not a CIA assassin, who are you? Got any identification?”
“My card, sir,” Edgar said, taking one from his wallet. “As you can see, I am the Reverend Edgar Delchamps, religious director of the American Association of Motorized Wheelchair Manufacturers.”
“Well, Reverend,” the cop said, handing the card back, “just as soon as the ambulance gets here, we’ll get you to the hospital. You can sign the charges there.”
“You mean the Old Ebbitt is giving me a bill after I have been criminally assaulted by a crazy woman on their premises?”
“No. I mean you sign the charges against the crazy woman who thinks you’re an assassin and did this to you.”
“Heavens, no! To err is human, to forgive divine,” Edgar said. “That poor crazy woman has enough problems without my adding to them. Just make sure she’s given a thorough psychological examination before she’s released.”
“You’re a kind man, Reverend.”
“So I have been told. God bless you, my son.”
[TWO]
The Presidential Apartments
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C.
1320 21 June 2007
“I’m very sorry to interrupt you, the First Lady, and the First Mother-in-Law at lunch, Mr. President,” Robin Hoboken said.
“What is it, Hoboken?”
“Mr. Danton is here.”
“About damned time.”
“He was just dropped off at the gate, Mr. President. Drunk.”
“What do you mean, dropped off drunk?”
“Someone the Secret Service described as an individual with Asian characteristics dropped him — actually pushed him out of a Yukon — at the gate and then drove rapidly away. Drunk means intoxicated with alcoholic spirits to the point of impairment of physical and mental faculties.”
“Plastered or not, I want to see him,” the First Mother-in-Law said. “Bring him up, Hackensack.”
“Mommy dearest, why do you want to see him if he’s in his cups?” the First Lady asked.
“Because I want to hear what happened in Las Vegas.”
“Mother Krauthammer,” the President said, “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“You wouldn’t know a good idea if I hit you over the head with one,” the First Mother-in-Law said. “Go get him, Hackensack.”
“I personally hope Red Ravisher takes that miserable pervert to the cleaners,” the First Mother-in-Law said, when Roscoe J. Danton had reported his version of what had transpired, “but I can’t see how she hopes to collect if she did throw the Frenchman at you.”
“What miserable pervert?” the President asked.
“Who said that just looking at your wife made him tinkle down his leg? Santa Claus? No, Ol’ Hockey Puck Christian. That miserable pervert.”
“Mommy dearest, what Mr. Christian said was that looking at me made him tingle down his leg. Not tinkle.”
“What’s the difference?” the First Mother-in-Law asked.
“To tingle,” Robin Hoboken said, “is to feel a ringing, stinging, prickling, or thrilling sensation. Tinkle is what small children say when they have to urinate.”
“Either way, it’s perverted. But anyway it’s moot.”
“What’s moot, Mother Krauthammer?” the President inquired.
“Whether that miserable pervert pisses down his leg when he sees Belinda-Sue here, or just prickles. As a Southern lady, I don’t even want to think about Matthew Christian prickling. But I know perversion, whether it’s tinkle, tingle, or prickle, when I hear it. But that’s not your problem, Joshua. That’s what’s called moot.”
“What is my problem, Mother Krauthammer? If I may ask.”
“If it ever gets out what you’re planning to have this Colonel Castillo of yours do to those poor illiterate teenagers with your Delta Force and your SEALs, you can rename this new library of yours.”
“What do you mean rename it?”
“The President Joshua ‘Child Murderer’ Ezekiel and Mrs. Belinda-Sue Clendennen Presidential Library and Last Resting Place of the Monster comes quickly to mind. ‘Here Lies the Murderous Bastard’ also comes to mind.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about!” the President said.
“If I may hazard a guess, Mr. President,” Robin Hoboken said, “I suspect that the First Mother-in-Law is alluding to Somalian teenagers.”
“What about Somalian teenagers?”
“God, he doesn’t know, does he?” Mother Krauthammer said.
“I don’t know what?”
“Demographically speaking, Joshua,” the First Mother-in-Law said, “your typical Somalian pirate is between fifteen and nineteen years of age, and a kindergarten dropout. In other words, he can’t read or write.”
“I can’t believe that!”
“Believe it, Joshua. I got it from the Vienna Tages Zeitung.”
“From the what?”
“It’s a newspaper. I suppose if my name was O’Hara, I’d be reading the Dublin Daily to get the news I can’t get here, but my late husband, Otto, may he rest in peace, was a Krauthammer and of Viennese ancestry, and he taught me to get it from the online edition of the Vienna Tages Zeitung.”
“Hackensack, you know about this newspaper?”
“That’s Hoboken, Mr. President,” Robin replied. “Yes, sir. It’s a daily, three hundred and sixty-five thousand circulation, four hundred and forty-five thousand on Sunday. It is a member of the Tages Zeitung chain, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Gossinger Beteiligungsgesellschaft, G.m.b.H. It has a very good reputation.”
“And this newspaper says the Somalian pirates are illiterate teenagers?”
“So they do,” Mother Krauthammer said.
“And they suggest that one of the reasons the piracy can’t be stopped is that so far no one has been heartless enough to start shooting illiterate teenagers.”
“My God, I’d be known as the Heartless Butcher of Somalia!” the President said. “Every Somalian-American in the country would vote for my opponent! I’d never get reelected! Is there nothing I can do?”
“One wild thought running through my mind,” Mother Krauthammer offered, “is that you turn this Colonel Castillo of yours to other things.”
“Hoboken—” the President began.
“Thank you, Mr. President,” Robin interrupted.
“For what?”
“Getting my name right.”
“Right. You’re welcome. What I want you to do, Hackensack, is get DCI Lammelle on the phone.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. President. May I ask why?”
“Because I told you to, you moron. By now you should understand that I’m the President and you’re the flunky, and that means I give the orders and you obey them. Got it?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“When you finally get around to obeying your orders and get Lammelle on the phone, I’m going to order him… which I can do because I’m the President and he’s another flunky… to immediately get on his airplane and fly to Cozumel, where he will order Colonel Castillo to immediately cease and desist any outrageous plans he may have in mind to slaughter innocent and illiterate Somalian teenagers.”
[THREE]
Penthouse A
The Royal Aztec Table Tennis and Golf Resort and Casino
Cozumel, Mexico
1830 21 June 2007
“Well, we seem to have been swept away on Cupid’s wings, don’t we, my dear Agrafina?” General Sergei Murov said as he reached for the bottle of Stolichnaya on the bedside table.
“Either on Cupid’s wings, or on a wave of lust,” she replied. “Stolichnaya tends to arouse that in me.”
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