Kevin was getting into the swing of things. He suggested that it might be a good idea to similarly break all ties with Senator Bambakias. They went out for a leisurely brunch of red beans and rice, and returned to find the original pay phone swarming with Reg-ulator goons in fast pickup trucks. They tried to earn a little money with their guitar and accordion, and they were told to get lost.
They hitchhiked from Mamou to Eunice, and made another pay-phone call, this time to the Senator’s office in Washington. The Senator was no longer in Washington. Barnbakias had gone on a fact-finding mission to the newly conquered Netherlands. In fact, the en-tire Senate Foreign Relations Committee had set up shop in The Hague, in a vacated Dutch government building. Oscar apologized, and was about to hang up, when the Senator himself came on the line. He’d been paged from across the Atlantic, and he had woken from a sound sleep, but he was anxious to talk.
“Oscar, I’m so glad you called. Don’t hang up! We’ve heard all about the event. Lorena and I are just sick about it. We’re going to pin this thing on Huey. I know that it means outing me on the Moira debacle, but I’m willing to face the music there. Huey can’t go on savaging people like this, it’s atrocious. We can’t live in a country like that. We have to take a stand.”
“That’s very good of you, Senator. Courageous principled apol-ogize it was all my fault anyway.”
“Oscar, listen to me carefully. The Haitians have survived this thing, and so can you. Neurologists around the world are working on this problem. They’re very angry about what was done to Dr. Pen-ninger, it’s a personal affront to them and their profession. We want to fly you into Den Haag, and try some treatments here. They have excellent hospitals here in Holland. In fact, their whole infrastructure is marvelous. Roadblocks absolutely unheard-of These government facilities here are top-notch. The Foreign Relations Committee is get-ting more work done here in Den Haag than they have in a year in Washington. You have resources, Oscar. There’s hope. Your friends want to help you.”
“Senator, even if you do help Greta, I’m a special case. I have a unique genetic background, and neural Colombian conventional medical useless.”
“That’s not true! You’ve forgotten that there are three Danish women here in Europe who are basically sisters of yours. They’ve heard about your troubles, and they want to help you. I’ve just met them, and I’ve talked to them personally. Now I think that I under-stand you better than I ever have before. Tell him, Lorena.”
The Senator’s wife took the phone. “Oscar, listen to Alcott.
He’s talking perfect sense to you. I met those women too. You’re the pick of the litter there, that’s very obvious; but they do want to help you anyway. They’re sincere about it, and so are we. You’re very important to us. You stood by Alcott and me in our darkest days, and now it’s our turn, that’s all. Please let us help you.”
“Lorena, I’m not insane. Huey’s been like this for at least two years, and Huey’s not insane either. It’s just a profoundly different mode of cognition. Sometimes I have a little trouble getting issues to clarify, that’s all.”
Lorena’s voice went distant suddenly. “Talk him down, Alcott! He’s using real English now!”
Bambakias came on, in his richest and most intent baritone.
“Oscar, you are a professional. You’re a player. Players don’t get an-gry. They just get even. You have no business wandering around in Louisiana, with an Anglo terrorist hacker who has a police record. That is just not a player’s move. We’re going to nail Huey for this; it’ll take a while, but we’ll pin him down. Huey made a fatal error — he poisoned a member of the President’s NSC. I don’t care if Huey’s got a skull full of turbochargers and afterburners. Insulting Two Feathers by gassing one of his staff was a very stupid move. The President is a very hard man — and most directly to my point, he’s proved himself a far better politician than the ex-Governor of a small Southern state.”
“Senator, I’m listening. I think there’s something to what you say. ”
Bambakias exhaled slowly. “Thank God.”
“I hadn’t really thought much about Holland before. I mean, that Holland has so much potential. I mean, we own Holland now, basically, don’t we?”
“Yes, that’s right. You see, Holland is the new Louisiana. Louisi-ana is yesterday’s news! You and I were right to get involved in Louisi-ana earlier, there was a serious difficulty there — but as a rogue state, Louisiana is a sideshow now. It’s the Dutch who are the real future. They’re a serious, well-organized, businesslike nation, people who are taking methodical, sensible steps about the climate and environment. Believe it or not, they’re ahead of the United States in a lot of areas — especially banking. Louisiana is over the top. They’re not serious. They’re visionary crawdad-eating psychos. We need serious political organization now, a return to normalcy. Huey is yesterday’s man, he’s out of the loop. He’s a fast-talking loon who throws technological innovation here and there — as if randomly spewing a bunch of half-baked ideas can increase the sum of human happiness. That’s sheer demagoguery, it’s craziness. We need common sense and political stability and sensible, workable policies. That’s what government is for.”
Oscar swirled this extraordinary statement over in his mind. He felt thoughts and memories sifting like a soft kaleidoscope. “You’re really different now, aren’t you, Alcott?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I mean this regimen you’ve been through. It’s completely changed you as a person. You’re realistic now. You’re sensible and prudent. You’re boring.”
“Oscar, I’m sure that you have some kind of interesting insight there, but this isn’t the time for chatter. We need to stick to the point. Tell me that you’ll come to Den Haag and join us. Lorena and I, we feel that we’re your family — we’re in lieu of your family, at a time like this. You can come here to Holland, and take your place in our krewe, and we’ll set you all straight. That’s a promise.”
“All right, Senator, you’ve convinced me. You’ve never gone back on your word to me, and I’m very touched by that pledge. I can see I’ve been impulsive. I can’t go off half-cocked. I need to think these things all the way through.”
“That’s great. I knew I could make you see sense, I knew I could cheer you up. And now, I think we’ve talked too long on this phone. I’m afraid this line isn’t secure.”
Oscar turned to Kevin. “The Senator says this phone isn’t se-cure. ”
Kevin shrugged. “Well, it’s a random phone, man. It’s a big state. Huey can’t be tapping every last one of ’em.”
Two hours later they were arrested on a roadside by Louisiana state police.
Green Huey was at a cultural event in Lafayette. He and part of his corps of semilegal good old boys were whooping it up on a hotel balcony, overlooking the folk festival. There was a monster fandango taking place, in near silence. At least a thousand people were engaged in a kaleidoscopic square dance. They were all wearing headphones with positional monitors, and some code within the silent music was directing their crowd flow. They seemed free and controlled at the same time, regimented but spontaneous, bacchanalian but exquisitely channeled.
“Y’know, I really dote on these grass-roots folk events,” Huey said, leaning on the curvilinear iron of the hotel’s balcony rail. “You Yankee boys are young and spry, you ought to give it a chance some-time. ”
“I don’t dance,” Kevin said.
“Pity about the big sore feet on the Moderator here,” Huey said, squinting in the sunlight and adjusting his new straw hat. “I dunno why you brought ol’ Limpy Boy along anyhow. He’s no player.”