“Not that it would matter,” Trump said. “Haven’t you figured it out by now? There’s literally nothing I can say that will actually hurt me. It’s just ‘the Donald saying what he thinks.’ It’s just ‘the Donald telling it like it is.’ If you published them as a book, you’d hit number one on the Times best-seller list.”
“Telling it like it is?” Jimmie said. “That’s just another way of saying you call people names. You’re just… being shitty.”
Trump nodded. “I’ll let you in on the secret: All these yahoos out there in flyover country don’t want to be fat and poor with crappy jobs in towns with no live theatre. That’s the hand they were dealt, and they’re frustrated. Their lives are shitty, and they want to take it out on someone.
“Used to be, you could be shitty to the blacks. Then somebody said, Oh, no, we can’t be shitty to the blacks anymore. Then we were shitty to Kardashians and somebody flipped out about that too. The real problem in this country is the PC police. Who do they think they are, trying to guilt-trip us over wanting to exercise our God-given American right to be shitty to people who are different than we are? It’s been bottled up for too long-you can taste it in the air when it’s released.
“So when people see me saying the stuff out loud that they can only scream at their TVs? I’m their hero. I’m living the new American dream, Jimmie: being an asshole and getting away with it. And if I can do it, maybe they can do it too.”
Jimmie gaped at Trump. “That’s crazy.”
“No, the Republican establishment was crazy for ignoring such a huge sector of angry registered voters. Millions of pissed off, frustrated people just waiting to be mobilized. The other Republican candidates acted like they were too good for them. Not me, my friend. Know your market. Maximize your options. That’s from the expanded edition of the number-one best-selling book of all time, Trump: The Art of the Deal.”
“I know,” said Jimmie. “It took me six full boxes of crayons, but I finally made it through the damn thing.”
“So you know the first rule: Think big. Did you ever stop to ask yourself why I chose Lester Dorset as my ghostwriter? Why would I invite one of my harshest critics into the White House?”
“To neuter him,” Jimmie said.
“Wrong. I didn’t want to neuter him-quite the contrary. When no one in the intelligence community could pin down the blue-cap threat, I decided to throw a little chum into the water.
“Dorset jumped at the chance to spend time with a sitting president. We gave him the same deal we gave you. He could follow me around and whatever, but he didn’t seem as interested in that as in the interview sessions. The beauty of it was I just had to be myself in the interviews. I think he believed that ‘the Donald’ was this persona. A TV character. That in private, I’d tone things down. Instead, I put a little extra polish on my bon mots, just for him. You should have seen him! His eyes lit up like a kid on Christmas morning every time I said something that offended him. It was only a matter of time before he started telling his libtard friends about the killer quotes I was giving him. I just had to sit back and wait.
“After a couple of months, the sharks started circling. The Socialist Justice Warriors. Before we could reel them in, though, Kitty Cat over here throws our bait right off the goddamn roof! We should have just pinned Lester’s death on her right then and there.”
“Why didn’t you?” Jimmie asked. “It would have been easy, especially if you had the surveillance video.”
“Then we would have had to explain why the Secret Service shot him, and it would have opened a whole barrel of monkeys. No thanks. Christie thought it was best to forget about the whole thing. Hang onto what we knew for the time being, in case we needed to put pressure on the Daily Blabber. The bigger problem was that we couldn’t find the recorder. I thought we’d have to start all the way over with you and string you along the same way to draw these social justice clowns in. I didn’t count on you being so strangely… competent.
“I told Emma we should go for another New York Times liberal patsy, but she insisted you were a better choice. Now I know why-she was trying to undermine me. She wanted someone who wouldn’t get involved in the politics. Someone who would stay in their lane. How wrong she was.”
“So you didn’t know she was a spy?”
“No idea! When I mentioned a ‘leak,’ I was just trying to make you dance a little. See if it wouldn’t help stir up the resistance into making a move. Which Cat here was willing to assist with by acting as bait, once we let her know that we knew where she’d been that night with Lester. And I was right-I always am.” The president pointed his gun at Jimmie’s head. “But if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a show to watch. I hear tonight that the dragon chick is finally gonna bang Tyrion. Too bad you won’t be alive to see it.”
Jimmie closed his eyes. Before he could recant his atheism once more, he heard the clang of metal on the floor. He opened one eye. Christie had Trump in a bear hug from behind. The gun was lying on the floor at Trump’s feet. Lewandowski was pounding away at Christie with the butt of his rifle, trying to get the former New Jersey governor to release the president. It was like watching the panda fight all over again.
Christie lowered a shoulder and twisted, rolling Trump onto the ground. Lewandowski fell forward, slamming the butt of his gun accidentally into Trump’s face and impaling himself on the knife attached to the barrel.
The president uttered a string of expletives that would have gotten a lesser politician impeached. Christie slammed the president’s head into the ground with his ginormous paw. Trump slumped over onto the lifeless body of his press secretary.
Christie pulled a switchblade from his pocket and sliced the ropes binding Jimmie in one swift motion.
“Why are you helping me?” Jimmie said. “I led the Socialist Justice Warriors right into Trump’s tiny hands.”
“You’re a good guy,” Christie said. “But you’re dumb as shit. This was never about the Democrats or Republicans for me-or, God help me, the Clintons and Bushes. I deserved that VP slot, not that pretty-boy ball-licker. I was biding my time until the right dirt showed up on Trump. I don’t know what’s on these interview tapes, but if everybody wants it, it must be pretty important.”
“There’s nothing on them! Weren’t you listening?” Jimmie said with a sigh. “Don’t you get it?”
“No, you don’t get it,” Christie said. “Bend over and spread those skinny cheeks so I can get my hands on that Hello Kitty flash drive-”
Christie’s eyes went wide. He toppled forward, and Jimmie crashed to the ground underneath the janitor’s massive girth. Jimmie fought for air. He hadn’t come this close to the end game to be smothered to death by a Dallas Cowboys fan. Jimmie summoned the power to roll Christie off of him just enough to slide out.
A machete was buried deep in Christie’s back.
Jimmie snatched up the switchblade and spun around, looking for the assassin. The hallowed halls of the Lincoln Monument were empty of lurkers, though. He was the last man standing. Lincoln’s somber visage stared across the carnage, disapproving but unable to do anything about it.
A closer look at the machete revealed an inscription, which read, “PROPERTY OF CARLY FIORINA.” Apparently the former Hewlett-Packard CEO was cutting more than jobs now.
Jimmie’s eyes flicked back to where Ted Cruz had been tied up. There was a pile of cut rope at the base of the pillar… and a deflated orca. Cruz and his oddball running mate Fiorina had absconded together, apparently. One of them had saved Jimmie from Christie, though, and he owed that person a debt of gratitude. Or possibly not. Maybe they could just call it even. Yeah, that sounded about right.