"Well?" Rona demanded.
"I don't see any bullets."
Someone suggested that he pull the trigger. The press liaison did just that, neglecting to remove his face from the line of fire.
Fortunately, the campaign manager for the Ripper campaign understood that pistols sometimes go off even when pointed at unintended targets. He lunged for the press liaison's gun hand and attempted to wrestle it free.
He was both just in time and too late, simultaneously.
He was just in time to keep the press liaison from blowing his head off, and too late to prevent the bullet from snarling out of the barrel.
It burned past the liaison's head, ricocheted off an overhead pipe, and imbedded itself in the most generous target in the room.
Rona Ripper suddenly found herself seated in the middle of the floor, with a surprised look on her face and a dull pain in her ample behind.
"What happened?" she gasped. "Is it an earthquake?"
No one wanted to tell the probable future governor of California that she had been shot in the ass. They weren't sure, but somehow her rights probably had been violated. And there was an excellent chance she would sue them all into bankruptcy. She had done it to major corporations all over the state after a lot less provocation.
Rona Ripper had solved the problem for them. She tried to stand up. Her body refused to work. She looked around her and saw the blood.
Then, with a soft but vicious "I'll sue" issuing from her lips, she fainted.
Rona Ripper had awoken on her stomach, with her backside swathed in bandages, repeating that same mantra over and over.
The doctor on staff immediately put her under with an injection, then transferred to another hospital. He knew Rona Ripper had single-handedly raised malpractice insurance rates all over California.
So it was that, when Rona Ripper finally regained consciousness, she was reduced to describing her symptoms to an anonymous doctor on the other side of the closed hospital room door.
"How do you think I feel? I have a bullet in my butt!"
"Is there anything else we can do for you?" the doctor said, smiling inanely, as if at a homicidal maniac.
Rona Ripper dictated a thirty-seven-item list of demands, and the anonymous doctor went away.
She knew she was going to get what she wanted when demand number twelve, the sealing of the keyhole against intrusive odors, was carried out. Total obedience. That's the way it always should be, she thought smugly.
"When I'm in charge of this state," she muttered to herself, "people are going to jump when I bark."
"Woof-woof," a voice said, as the door opened.
"Hold it right there," Rona commanded.
Remo Williams paused on the threshold.
"Before you enter, do you, or have you ever, smoked in your life?" demanded Rona Ripper.
"Not in years," Remo said.
"Then you can't come in."
"Too late. I'm in," Remo said, flashing his Secret Service ID. He looked around the room and noticed it was empty.
"No press?" he asked.
"They know I'd sue them if they so much as pointed a camera in my face," sniffed Rona Ripper.
"I don't think your face is where they'd be pointing their cameras," Remo said dryly. "No offense," he added quickly, as he saw Rona Ripper's bloated face turn purple.
"You get out of here right now!" she screamed.
"Now now, you'll wake the homeless," Remo chided.
"Too late," came a growling voice from under the bed. "I'm already awake, man."
Remo looked under the bed, where he discovered a man in a dirty green nylon sleeping bag. The man said, "City Ordinance 42-D. We get the beds if they're empty, and the space under them if they ain't."
"I would like to have a private conversation with this woman," Remo said wearily.
"He stays," said Rona Ripper. "He's part of my natural constituency."
"No, I ain't. I'm voting for Esperanza. He gives me hope."
"Get that bum out of here!" Rona screamed.
"A pleasure," said Remo, reaching down and pulling the sleeping bag into the light. The man was struggling to get out. Remo zipped the sleeping bag as far as it would zip, entangling the slide in the man's blond beard.
Remo then dragged the sleeping bag out into the corridor and into the elevator, where the card game was still in progress. He set down the wriggling, nylon-sheathed form on the pot.
"Going down!" Remo called, hitting the LOBBY button. The steel doors closed as the players scrambled for the pot.
Back in the hospital room, Rona Ripper was in no better mood.
"I don't talk to pigs from Washington," she snarled.
"Then listen. Someone tried to kill Enrique Esperanza. Someone tried to kill Barry Black. You're the only other candidate in the running. The finger of guilt points to you."
"It does not."
To prove his point, Remo took the steel-hard index finger of his right hand and used it to test the thickness of the bandage over Rona Ripper's generous left cheek.
This produced an ear-splitting howl from Rona's other end.
"Answers. Are you behind this or not?" No.
"Then someone in your organization is?"
"No, I swear!"
"There's no third suspect. Do better than that. The finger of guilt is very, very angry."
Remo pressed harder. Tears streamed from Rona Ripper's pain-squinted eyes. Her long black hair threshed about, like a bloated octopus struggling to free itself from a net. She bit her lips to fight back the waves of hot pain.
"I can't tell you what I don't know!" Rona Ripper moaned.
"Okay," Remo said, trying not to sound disappointed.
"You're not behind the shootings. But someone is. Maybe someone who's willing to go pretty far to put you in office. I need entry into your organization."
"Any . . . anything!" Rona gasped. "Just . . . just stop!"
Remo scooped up the telephone and handed the receiver to Rona Ripper. "Set it up. The name's Remo Gerrymander."
"The card said Drake."
"The card lied." Remo folded his arms as Rona Ripper called her campaign headquarters.
"Blaise? Rona. I have a new man for you. What? Of course I sound strange. I'm lying on my belly with a slug in one cheek. How do you think I should sound? Bubbly? Now this guy. His name is Remo. When he shows up, put him to work where he'll do the most good."
Rona Ripper hung up, saying, "It's all set. Go to the Main Street office."
"Remember, mum's the word," said Remo, as he left the room.
After Remo had gone, Rona Ripper scooped up the telephone and stabbed the redial button.
"Blaise. Rona again. That Remo I told you about. He's dangerous. Get rid of him before he learns too much."
Chapter 21
In the Santa Monica headquarters for the Rona Ripper campaign, Blaise Perrin hung up the telephone with trembling fingers.
Almost immediately the phone rang again. Thinking it was the candidate herself calling a third time, he scooped up the receiver and fumbled it to his pinched face.
"Hello?"
A sharp voice announced, "This is Cheeta Ching, demanding a statement from your candidate."
"Aren't you on maternity leave?" Blaise asked.
"You leave my womb out of this! Do I get to talk to Rona or not?"
"Not," said Blaise Perrin, hanging up. He left the phone off the hook after that. He had enough on his mind. First, Rona had been shot in a freak accident, freaking out the organization. Now there was a problem with someone named "Remo."
Only the day before, Blaise had been presiding over a busy campaign headquarters. But ever since the first report that Rona had been shot-never mind that it had been an accident-the volunteers had begun deserting in droves.
Now, less than six hours later, Blaise Perrin was responsible for every ringing phone in the office. Under a barrage of reporters' phone calls, he had been forced to disconnect all but the unlisted number that existed for the candidate's personal use.