Bloodthirsty Liberal

[For previous chapters, click here]

What do you say when you’re sitting next to the second most powerful man in the world—some would say numero uno?

“How’s the family?”

The Vice President was studying documents, red pen at the ready. He looked at me over his glasses, which were perched precariously on the end of his nose?

“My family?”

“Yeah, you’re going to be a new grandpa, aren’t you?”

“Yep,” he said, returning to work. “Everyone’s fine.”

“Which one is it?”

“Which what?” he answered with the vaguest hint of impatience, damned if I know why.

“Which daughter? You have two, right?”

“Yes. Mary.”

“Is she the…uh, you know, the monologist one?”

His eyebrows narrowed. “The what?”

“You know, homeopathic. The Girl in the Flannel Shirt.”

“Are you asking me if my daughter’s gay?”

“Well, I didn’t want to be rude.”

“Yes,” he said. “Anything else?” he added in a tone suggesting that there had better not be.

“No, no…well, out of curiosity, how did she actually get pregnant?”

“Why?” His eyes were two ice-blue drills, boring into my flesh.

“Well, I just…. Did she know the donor, or was it like a trip to Home Depot, you know, off the shelf?”

The drill spun a little faster, dug a little deeper. “You’re trying to get bounced from this mission, aren’t you?”

“As hard as I can.”

“Won’t work.”

“I can try harder.”

I don’t doubt it,” he said, his temper abated. “But I’ve had six years of Congress and David Gregory trying to eat my shorts. You I can handle.” I saw his point. “But listen, you don’t have to do this. You have rights.”

“So does Jose Padilla,” I observed.

“No, he doesn’t,” the veep countered. “He plotted terror against the people of the United States of America. You’re just an annoying punk. Big difference.”

“Thank you. But when I take a client—or, as in this case, when a client takes me—I see it through. I just want you to know what you’re getting. I’m unpopular enough with my own countrymen.”

“We’ve taken care of that. Your new cover name is Armin Pain, a Frenchman. No one will ask any questions.”

[to be continiued]

Harmon Paine, PI — Chapter 3

[Newcomers to this serialization can catch up on the action so far (such as it is) here and here.]

Without any announcement, the plane began to roll. Whether I was a stowaway or an invited guest, I was going for a ride.

There was a quick rap at the door, which opened before I could respond. “You decent?” the Vice President asked as he came in.

“Not since ninth grade,” I answered.

“I’m the Vice President,” he said, extending his hand. I shook it.

“I recognized you from the nickel,” I said. “Harmon Paine.”

His grip was firm, his eye contact granite. “Glad to meet you, Harmon. Well, we better take a seat. I have a deal with the crew. They don’t tell me to what to do, and I do it.”

We sat on the extra wide love seat and fastened our belts. “They don’t hassle you about the tray table and seat back, though, I bet.”

“No,” he said. “Say, did Brad offer you a drink or something?”

“He’s bringing me a root beer.”

“A root beer. That sounds good. Although I figured detectives for bourbon or scotch.”

“Liver disease or gum disease–it’s up to the individual.”

“I’d take either one,” he said, tapping his sternum.

“Yeah, how is the ticker?”

He shrugged. “Like living with a Triple-Whopper in my chest. I’m never going to love broccoli.”

There was another knock at the door, and Brad entered with my root beer.

“The hard stuff,” the VP said. “Can you bring me one of those when we get airborne, Brad?”

“I, er–,” Brad demurred.

“What, was that the last one?”

“No sir, it’s just Mrs. Cheney—”

“I know, but Mrs. Cheney’s not here. Just bring me the damn root beer.”

“I can’t do that, sir,” Brad said, looking at his feet.

“Fine!” the Vice President growled. “Just bring me a ginger ale. Caffeine free.

“Of course, sir.”

While Brad bowed and scraped his way out of the cabin, the VP scowled at me.

“Aren’t you going to drink it? One of us might as well enjoy himself.”

I sipped. The root beer was perfect. Cold, but not paralysingly so; sweet, yet with a hint of bitterness.

“Back in the day, I could knock back three Johnnie Walker Blacks over lunch and rewrite the tax code before cocktail hour. I can still make foreign leaders soil their pants and the Speaker of the House cry like a little girl. But I can’t drink a root beer.”

“You could,” I suggested. “One little root beer?”

“Nah, screw it,” he said, waving me off. “One more coronary event and we’ll have ICBMs pointed at Lapland.”

He turned toward me. “I guess you’re wondering where we’re going,” he said.

I coaxed a silent belch out my nose, making my eyes water. “No, I’m wondering where I’m going.”

“Right,” he chuckled. “We’re going to Andrews AFB. Then you’re going on to Iran. If you wouldn’t mind, that is.”

“Iran?” I gasped, nearly spewing my root beer. “Like Ayatollah Khomeini Iran? With the little guy who looks like Morey Amsterdam?”

“Ahmadinejad. I had Bill Dana pegged to play him. And Khomeini’s dead. But yes, we’d like you to go over there.”

“To do what?”

“Look around. Investigate. Do what you do.”

“What I did,” I corrected him. “But my specialty was adultery, and I understand that’s encouraged over there. Unless you’re a woman.”

“We don’t care who they sleep with,” he said. “It’s their waking activities that concern us.”

“What could a godforsaken place like Iran possibly do that would concern the most powerful nation on earth?

“Besides foment terrorism in Iraq, Israel, and elsewhere?” he asked.

“Yeah. Besides that.”

“Build a nuclear weapon.”

“You’re shitting me. They’re seriously doing that?”

“That’s what we want you to find out.”

“Why not the CIA?” I asked.

He waved me off. “It might as well stand for Completely Incapable of Anything.”

I sipped my root beer to think. Except for the language, religion, customs, and lay of the land, it sounded like my standard fare.

The plane began to accelerate. But this was no standard thrust. My eyeballs felt like they were being driven through the back of my skull.

“How do you get this thing in and out of a suburban air strip?” I asked through gritted teeth.

“Classified technology.”

“A giant slingshot?”

“Something like that,” he answered. And we were airborne, banking over fields and forests, rising steeply into the clouds.

[To see the first installment of this roman á clay feet, click here:

A couple of special forces guys hauled me into the chopper like a spent marlin. With my shirt untucked and my hair scattered like a particularly knotty pick-up sticks problem, dignity was difficult to convey. I met their hard looks with one of my own meant to convey that I could slit a man’s throat with with a damp cocktail napkin.

“You airsick?” one of them asked contemptuously.

I shook my head and looked out the open side. My tomato plants were still quivering in the chopper’s downdraft. At least they’ll pollinate, I thought. Tomato plants are the pandas of the vegetable world. Their reproduction is so chancy, it’s a wonder they’ve survived.

“Where we headed?” I asked.

He just smiled a jagged smile and said, “You’ll see.”

The copter lifted high over the city and headed resolutely west. Despite their undeniable and irrefutable compensatory skills, my companions weren’t trained in the finer arts of conversation. I contented myself with my own thoughts and the view. I wondered about this world in which you could be tending your tomato plants one minute, and abducted by your government the next. Or one in which you could be flying to see your Aunt Gladys in Van Nuys one minute, and make an unscheduled stop at the 93rd floor of the World Trade Center the next. It didn’t make sense, but sense is a human affectation. Reality has no use for it.

We had left the city about ten minutes behind when we approached a small suburban airstrip. As we descended, I saw that the field was empty, except for an enormous 757, with a flag of the United States on its tail. I looked at the closest special forces guy. “Is that who I think it is?” He held up two fingers.

“Veep,” he said.

We were on the ground in a second, and I was escorted off the chopper, across a short span of tarmac to the stairs, and up into the plane. I read the words on the side carefully just to make sure: United States of America. A young man in a gray suit received me at the top of the stairs. His thinning hair tossed about freely in the breeze.

“Good flight?” he asked.

“Not bad, but I had to hand over my shampoo,” I replied. “And no peanuts.” My military companion shook his head, saluted, and left us.

“Well, if you’re hungry, we’re fully equiped to offer you anything you need.”

“Answers would be nice.”

“I’m sure they would, but I’ll let the Vice President fill you in. If you’ll follow me…”. He led me to a small but comfortably furnished sitting room. There were a few magazines scattered on a coffee table, an oil painting of a craggy mountain rising out of the plain, and the seal of the Vice President of the United States. “I’ll let him know you’re here. Are you sure there’s nothing you want?”

“On second thought, the ride did make me a little thirsty. Got any root beer on this bucket?”

“Root beer,” he repeated. “I’ll check.”

While waiting, I looked around the room. There were a few photos on walls, mostly of state visits. One picture was of a much younger VP with a hunting party. I swear one of them looked like Jimmy Hoffa.

[to be continued]

Longtime readers of this page (that would be me, pretty much) might remember my abortive attempt to serialize a detective story. I wrote three chapters. I have no reason to believe I’ll be more successful this time, but I do have few more readers to watch my literary high-wire act. I’ll submit a chapter a day, and try to stay a few days ahead to keep the pressure off. The first three chapters have been lightly edited from the original (which have been removed from the site). The inspiration was a quote from Ahmadinejad to the effect that anyone who messed with Iran would be met with “harm and pain”. Thus was born, almost a year ago, Harmon Paine, PI.

I had given up the gumshoe business, retiring to my roof terrace to raise heirloom tomatoes, when I got the call.

“Harmon Paine?” an unfamiliar yet authoritative man’s voice asked.

“If you were expecting Jill St. John, she just left, disheveled and out of breath, but very happy,” I deadpanned.

“You’ll do,” he said. “This is your country calling.”

“My country? You need money? I’ll have to check my wallet, but I could probably spare you twenty.”

“Save your change, wiseguy, and your lip. It’s you we want.”

“Tell the First Lady I’d do her, but I just started Cipro and I’ve got to be a good boy for a few days.”

“Look up, Lenny Bruce, and you’ll see a chopper approaching from 270 degrees.” I did, and I did. “One more smart remark, and I give the order for a kill shot.” That got my attention. “Cat got your tongue, Don Rickles?”

“You sent a helicopter? For me?”

“Not me, pal. My boss. He wants to see you, asap.” The chopper was directly overhead now, and descending. I couldn’t hear what else the man on the phone said. A rope ladder unfurled from the open deck of the chopper and swung wildly across the terrace. Did he expect me to climb up?

“Do you expect me to climb up?” I screamed into the phone over the roar of the chopper.

“…know what’s…for you,” was all I could hear in reply. It was enough. My Brandywines and Cherokee Purples would have to battle aphids on their own for a while. I liked their chances better than mine.

[to be continued]