“Watch out for that bird over there.” My copilot pointed out a seagull that apparently didn’t see us until the last second.
“Wow, that was close,” I commented as the bird dove under us, clipping its tail on a skid. “I hope he’s all right.” I nosed the helicopter west a few degrees to get a glimpse of the seagull as it sailed away, appearing to fly backward because we, of course, were going considerably faster than it.
PS. To whoever is holding Popeye hostage, contact me before it’s too late! And many thanks for the tips you, my faithful readers, have been sending me about Trish Thrash.
Be careful out there!
Fifteen
The minute Windy Brees blew into Hammer’s office, Hammer knew there was trouble. “Heavens to Betty! Have you seen what Trooper Truth just put up on his website?” Windy declared.
“Yes,” Hammer replied. “I saw what was up this morning.”
“No! He’s put up something else, and you won’t believe what it says!”
“Put up something else?” Hammer was baffled, yet she was not about to let on that she had prior knowledge about Trooper Truth or his publication schedule. “That’s interesting,” she said. “I suppose I just assumed he posted only one essay a day.”
“Well, not so,” Windy said. “Whoever he is, he is one proliferated writer. I wonder what he looks like and how old he is. He must be old to know so much. All that history and everything …”
“What makes you think Trooper Truth is a man?” Hammer inquired as she logged onto the website.
“Well, he’s so smart, for one thing.”
When Hammer began reading the essay, she ordered Windy to leave her office and shut the door. She got Andy on the phone.
“That’s it!?” she said in an outraged whisper.
“A common Tangier expression,” Andy remarked. “That’s it! means the person saying it is really saying none of your business. For example, if I ask you if you’re mad at me for not telling you about my secret mission, or will you be mad if I tell you that something awful was left at my house last night, and you say That’s it!, you mean
…”
“Meet me at.. . !” she interrupted him as she groped for a location.
There was really no place in Richmond either one of them could go without being noticed, especially if they were together.
“Meet me in the Ukrop’s parking lot in fifteen minutes!” she decided angrily.
“Which Ukrop’s?” Andy asked over the line. “And I can explain everything.”
“Not over the phone, you’re not. The Ukrop’s at Stonypoint. We’ll talk in the car.”
Major Trader had just read the essay, too, and he huffed and puffed as he hurried his considerable bulk into Governor Crimm’s office.
“Governor!” Trader exclaimed as he burst in without knocking. “Trooper Truth has been to Tangier and claims some island boy named Fonny Boy is the one holding the dentist hostage! He’s a journalist who wears a disguise!”
“What?” the governor inquired weakly as he emerged from his private bathroom and straightened his plaid vest, making sure the railroad watch that had been passed down for generations was safely tucked back into the watch pocket. “The island boy’s a journalist? What island boy? And what in thunder are you talking about, and you know not to just walk in on me.”
“Fonny Boy’s his name. Some island boy named Fonny Boy, and we’ve got a description,” Trader excitedly said. “And no. Trooper Truth disguised himself as a journalist, not Fonny Boy.”
“He’s disguising himself not as Fonny Boy but as a journalist?” Crimm fished his office magnifying glass out of a landfill of papers. “You’re supposed to be a bloody press secretary and you butcher the King’s English, simply butcher it. Constantly and consistently. And for God’s sake, don’t you ever take your suits to the dry cleaners? Doesn’t your wife complain?” The governor cast an enlarged eye over Trader’s slovenly bulk. “You have chili on your shirt and your tie’s too short. You look like Big Daddy after he’s been on a goddamn bender, and I’m thinking very seriously about firing you one of these days.”