Trader licked his fingers and wiped them on his voluminous trousers. "I wouldn't push my luck, if I were you," he snipped. "Not after you cheated at pool the other night. Naughty, naughty."
"I didn't cheat!" Macovich bellowed so loudly that other state employees poked their heads out of offices up and down the hall.
"The First Family certainly thinks you did, and it's just fortunate for you that the governor has more important matters on his mind," Trader retorted haughtily. "I'd hate to be the one who reminds him that you aren't very popular in the mansion these days. You certainly wouldn't be the first EPU trooper to find himself back in uniform, riding around in a car all day and night."
"Well, Superintendent Hammer ain't gonna do that to me, 'cause then who's gonna fly the governor's old, blind ass around, huh? Who's gonna fly the First Family's lazy big asses around, huh?"
"Would you please lower your voice?" Trader raised his.
Macovich stepped closer to the faux colonial desk, his sunglasses glaring at Trader. "In case you've forgotten," Macovich snarled, "we're down to two helicopter pilots 'cause First Lady Crimm runs 'em all off." Macovich turned to walk out, then spun back around. "And guess what else, Trader? Life ain't no big plantation anymore, and one of these days you're gonna wake up and find yourself smack in the goddamn middle of Gone With the Wind!"
Unique First had never seen Gone With the Wind or read the novel, but she could relate to the expression. She had always been able to disappear without a trace, and as a child had discovered that if she rearranged her molecules while trespassing or breaking into her neighbors' homes, she would become invisible. She followed the cobblestone of Shockhoe Slip and slipped inside Tobacco Company, an upscale restaurant and bar in a renovated old tobacco warehouse not far from the river. Unique sat near the piano and ordered a beer and began to smoke as she relived last night.
Acting as a decoy for the highway pirates was getting boring, if she were to be honest about it. The road dogs she had begun to associate with months ago were small-minded and stoned most of the time. Their leader, in particular, was frying his brain with booze and pot and was so out of it that Unique no longer bothered having sex with him. She tapped an ash and signaled the waitress to bring another beer as she felt the stare of a woman sitting alone at the bar.
"You from out of town?" the woman asked, and her strong energy and hot eyes registered clearly on Unique's sexual radar.
"In and out," Unique evasively replied with her sweet smile.
"Oh." The woman got up and marveled over this pretty woman's unique way of expressing herself. "Mind if I join you?" She set her beer down on Unique's table and pulled out a chair. "My name's T.T., which is really funny now that this Trooper Truth stuff is all over the place. You won't believe it, but people who know me and even strangers all of a sudden got this crazy notion that my initials T.T. stand for Trooper Truth, and just because I wrote for my high school newspaper, I'm supposedly Trooper Truth but don't want anybody to know!"
Unique held T.T.'s gaze and sipped beer.
"Well, I'm not," T.T. went on. "But I wish like hell I was because that's the new mystery in this town: Who is
Trooper Truth? What's the truth about Trooper Truth? Like he's Robin Hood or something. You got any guesses? And you sure have amazing hair. You must brush it all the time."
"I don't know," Unique replied as T.T. bounced her foot and fidgeted nervously like a schoolboy with a crush. "My car's broke down. Maybe you could give me a ride home?"
"Sure!" T.T. said. "Hey, no problem. Man, you got such a quiet voice. Sorry about your car. Man, that's such a bitch when your car fucks up, you know?"
T.T. continued to rattle on as she smacked a ten-dollar bill on the bar and put on her leather biker's jacket. She usually wasn't this successful when she tried to pick up women, but it was about damn time her luck changed. T.T. worked for the state and had to wear dresses and other feminine attire in the office, where no one knew the truth about her private life. So the only opportunity she had for assuaging her loneliness was to dress the part and hang out in bars at night and on weekends. This was expensive and largely unproductive, and her hands were shaking with excitement as she let Unique into her old Honda.
"Which way?" T.T. asked as she pulled out onto Gary Street.
"Let's go down to the dock, you know, off Canal. I love looking at the river. We'll walk on Belle Island," Unique replied in her tiny, hushed voice as her Purpose, as she thought of it, throbbed inside her and a slow burn of ancient rage began to consume her brain.
Minutes later, she and T.T. got out of the Honda and stood along the water, the chilled September air blowing
Unique's hair like black fire. There wasn't another person around and it vaguely penetrated Unique's spell that T.T. was incredibly stupid to wander off with a perfect stranger, and how dare she just assume that Unique was of her persuasion and would be interested. How incredibly stupid the other ones had been, too. Unique took T.T.'s hand and they walked over a footbridge that led to Belle Island, where Union soldiers had been imprisoned during the Civil War. The island was densely wooded and cut with bike paths and trails. Unique pulled T.T. behind a tree and began to kiss and fondle her into a frenzy. "I want you to have a unique experience," Unique whispered as she dug her tongue in T.T.'s mouth and slipped a box cutter out of a pocket.
Three
Major Trader had served in the Crimm administration long enough to realize several things. First, the governor did indeed have a lot on his mind and was therefore easily persuaded to endorse a policy or suggestion that differed from his original conception. Second, as if he weren't already confused and almost blind, he was forgetful and easily distracted, especially if his bowels acted up. Third, Trader was best served if he stole good ideas and blamed other people for bad ones.
As Trader sat in his office, looking out the window at Macovich's cloud of smoke retreating across the graceful Capitol grounds, he considered the governor's positions on various agendas and reminded himself that Crimm had been pounded repeatedly for transportation problems throughout the Commonwealth. Traffic continued to be impossibly congested and motorists were getting increasingly hostile in northern Virginia. Roads and bridges were falling apart. Trains did not always run on time or at all and were overcrowded, and nobody liked to fly anymore. The governor was blamed for all of it and more.
Although Trader did not intend to give Macovich credit for warning him about the people of Tangier, Trader was certain that the governor's latest notion about speed traps on the island was going to be met with stinging resentment, and it was therefore probably best to give someone else the credit. He jotted some quick notes on a pad of paper, wondering what the new initiative should be called. He tried Speed Check Aviation Regulation but decided SCAR wasn't quite what he was looking for, but he was rather pleased with SCARE, which could be an acronym for Speed Check Aviation Regulation Emergency. Yes, he thought, that could work very well. SCARE would make the governor's point about scaring people into behaving, and Emergency hinted to the public that the governor believed that stopping speeders on Tangier Island and elsewhere was a matter of life and death. No matter what Trooper Truth leaked about pirates, the public wouldn't pay any attention, because citizens would be in a lather about speed traps. Trader tried the governor's private line.
"Yes?" Crimm sounded weak and bleary.
"I think I've come up with something. How would SCARE work for you?" Trader tapped his pen on his notepad. "It certainly sends the message you want. Just imagine SCARE painted on signs across the Commonwealth."