“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]
“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?”