The flare exploded through the air like a small fiery missile, streaking straight toward Caesar and slamming into his chest. The crabs and trout watched in horror as the fisherman burst into flames and ran several steps before collapsing. Trader fled in his banged-up state car, the trunk still open, the windshield a spider web of shattered glass. When he limped into the governor's mansion a little later, he was pale and bloody, his suit and tie torn. He was agitated, paranoid, and confused.
Regina was confused, too. She had never seen her mother so made-up and heavily perfumed. Had Regina run into her mother in a funeral home, she would have assumed Mrs. Crimm was full of formaldehyde and overlaid in putty and had gotten her clothes mixed up with some other dead lady who was much smaller and fond of fuchsia.
"What the hell happened to you, Mama?" Regina asked as she worked on a thick slab of honey-glazed ham that was tucked inside a huge biscuit dripping with butter and globs of mint jelly.
Mrs. Crimm, running a little late, seated herself at the foot of the table and lifted a fork to signal that everyone could begin eating.
"What do you mean, what happened to me?" Mrs. Crimm shot Regina a threatening glance. "And you're not supposed to start eating before everyone else. As if I didn't raise you better."
Andy cut off the only morsel of lean ham he could find in the mound on his plate as Trader walked into the dining room. Andy noticed instantly that the press secretary was bloody and in shock and smelled faintly of burned chemicals and gunpowder.
"I'd rather know what happened to you," Andy said to Trader.
Mrs. Crimm inferred from this that her handsome young dinner guest didn't think for a minute that anything at all had happened to her. She always looked alluring and thoughtfully put together. It was irrational and Victorian for women to hide their bodies beneath thick layers of loose, long clothing. Andy's attention would find its way down to the foot of the table any minute and linger to wander all over her. After dinner, the two of them would sneak up to the master suite and she would lock the door and say yes and mean it. Even if the governor came home, as long as she and Andy were quiet, he wouldn't see them.
"Did you wander into a riot or a hurricane?" Andy's attention remained on Trader, who went into a lengthy, breathless explanation, talking so fast that his words tangled and ran into each other midair.
"What on earth did he say?" First Lady Crimm asked Andy every few seconds. "I wonder if he's had a stroke!"
Trader's story could easily be summed up, although he took a long time to tell it and the facts changed like clouds. The gist was this: He arrived at the river at nineteen hundred hours and an African American male was fishing out by his bicycle. Trader greeted the man and they discussed the weather as Trader dumped the crabs and the trout overboard.
"Oh dear," Mrs. Crimm interrupted. "He didn't toss the crabs into the James, did he? Unless they can find their way back to the bay, they'll die, sure as shooting."
Trader rushed ahead with his story.
"He says there was a shooting, now that you mention it," Andy translated. "A Lincoln with New York plates roared up and a Hispanic male in his twenties started firing a nine-millimeter Sig-Sauer pistol out the window and yelling obscenities. He shot the fisherman at very close range, probably in the chest, and the fisherman possibly caught on fire, possibly from burning gunpowder that was possibly fueled by a Bic lighter that was possibly in the fisherman's shirt pocket."
"How come he doesn't know anything for sure?" Regina reached for another biscuit. "Didn't he even check to see if the poor man just might still be alive or if he was really burning up? Why didn't he try to put the fire out or call for help?" She fastened her eyes on Trader as she ate. "You just rush off and not try to help or anything? What kind of person are you?"
"He shit at me!" Trader raised his voice, not realizing that his sudden speech problem was due to post-traumatic stress that had somehow activated a genetic code that caused him to talk like a pirate.
"We don't talk that way at the table!" Mrs. Crimm fired back at him.
"He shit at me again and again! I was afeared to get near him!"
"I can't stand this." Regina covered her ears. "Someone talk for him. Andy, just tell us what he says. And does he really mean to imply that the Hispanic was doing number two at him? Doing it or throwing it?" She scowled. "What does he mean that the gunman shit at him?"
"Regina!" her mother scolded her. "We don't talk about bathroom habits at the dinner table!"
Trader started to make the point that he was talking about a shooting, when Andy cautioned him not to say the words shoot, shot, shooting, or shooter, but to simply simulate by mutely pointing his finger and firing it like a gun. This worked, and the First Family settled down and resumed eating as Trader claimed, through Andy, that he was certain the Hispanic was the one committing the hate crimes and was coming after the First Family next, so Trader had raced back to the mansion instantly to make sure all were safe and protected.
"He say he hated Crimm," Trader blurted out. "And he thinks all Crimms should be put to death."
"You sure he didn't mean criminals, as opposed to Crimms?" Regina considered as she chewed. "Papa's very much in favor of sending criminals to death row and is known for it."
"Honey, that wouldn't make much sense," Mrs. Crimm replied. "The Hispanic is clearly a criminal himself, so why would he be on a spree of hate crimes that target people similar to himself?"
"Damnation seize my soul, the villain meant ye!" Trader pointed at each Crimm in an ominous, morbid way. "Crimm. Not criminals."
Faith was frightened. "We won't be able to leave the mansion ever again, Mama."
"What if he's out there somewhere?" Constance's eyes were wide, and she kept refilling her wine glass with nervous hands.
"I've never heard of anyone catching on fire when they're shot." Andy pressed Trader on this point. "Did you really see smoke and flames and his clothes igniting? I realize you're saying you didn't hang around long and were frightened and also concerned for the Crimms and may have suffered a small stroke, but I'm having a very hard time with your story."
Trader rather condescendingly replied that it was a well-known scientific fact that people do burst into flames and have cremated themselves unannounced since the beginning of time.
"It's called spontenuous combusting," he said. "Look it up."
Andy didn't need to look it up. He was quite familiar with spontaneous human combustion and the stories of people suddenly bursting into flames for no good reason.
"Well," he said to Trader, "we'll see what the medical examiner has to say."
"You don't think that psycho's gonna come here and set all of us on fire, do you?" Constance worried aloud.
"Why would he hate us?" Grace couldn't make sense of it. "What did we ever do to him or any Hispanic? And we're not a minority except for our practically being a royal family, and there certainly aren't many of those."
"We don't even know any Hispanics," Faith reminded her family as she looked around the table, her horse-shaped face wavering in soft candle light. "And Papa hasn't a single Hispanic working in his administration and never has. So what do the Hispanics have to be resentful about?"
"Probably what you just said," Andy replied.
"Which was what?" Regina asked between chews.
"It's been my observation that the governor's administration could use a little more variety." Andy tried to be diplomatic. "When an entire group of people finds itself excluded, hard feelings arise and can turn to violence."
"But Bedford doesn't speak Spanish," Mrs. Crimm explained. "He sees no reason to."
"He really doesn't see reasons for much of anything, First Lady Crimm." Andy was candid, and he almost added with all due respect, but the specter of Hammer had been hovering over him all day. "I'm convinced if he could do something about his vision, his life would dramatically improve."