“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?