The jet black Hummer sped off down Highway 8, careening through traffic.
"How much dough are we talking about here?"
"Well, certainly your old rate... plus a certain percentage." Dougie couldn't believe it. Rabble -- alive. Rabble -- dirty, stinking and penniless, begging for loose change in front of his favorite Tunisian tea joint, but alive, breathing, and now, in typical Rabble fashion, negotiating.
Rabble took a drag of his cigarette. "My old rate plus nine hundred percent."
"Nine hundred percent!" K-Rock screamed, without having any idea how much this meant in actual dollars. Nine hundred was a lot of percent, he knew that.
"You'll have to forgive Mr. Rockefeller. He's finance, he's not used to this sort of thing."
"Rockefeller, eh?" Rabble looked him over. "What's a fella with a name like that doing in government?"
"My father. My father was a senator. My grandfather was the governor of New York. He ran for President." K-Rock laughed. "It's quite a long legacy, actually -- my family -- I mean..."
"No sense of humor either." Rabble stamped out his cigarette on his armrest, melting a small circle of vinyl.
The driver lowered the partition window and motioned to Dougie. "I'm gonna go down two-fourteen. Should be quieter."
"Do what you have to do." Dougie said, as the window slid back up. He turned to Rabble. "We'll get you cleaned up as soon as we get back to D.C."
"Yes, cleaned up and dressed" K-Rock said. "What are your sizes? I'll phone them in to my assistant."
Rabble looked at Dougie. "Can we do something about this guy? Because I'm a pubic hair away from punching him in the face."
"Now listen... listen to me. I'm just trying to help you. Get you dressed. Do you want to go on looking like that?"
"How do you think I ended up like this? You think I chose this?"
"I think anyone who... who allows themselves..."
Rabble grabbed K-Rock by the collar and pulled him close. "I'll perform a tracheotomy on you with my pinkie. You'll be talking like a god damn robot." He took his pinkie and traced a small circle below K-Rock's Adam's apple. "You have no idea what it's like. No idea!"
"What's your damn problem? Dougie, tell him to let go of me!"
"My problem?" Rabble shoved K-Rock back into his seat. "What's my damn problem?"
Rabble thought about all he had been through. All he had done for this country -- his country. He remembered Cambodia, Iran, Afghanistan, and Belgrade, returning home to Arlington in an Apache helicopter and then, upon landing, feeling discarded, like a wrinkled business card in the back of some bureaucrat's overstuffed wallet. His passport, his bank account, his social security number -- all gone, invalidated. What was his problem? Was this guy pulling his leg?
He sat there, silent.
"Well?" said K-Rock, still red in the face. "Anything else to say?"
Rabble understood better than anyone the power of silence. He was the Harold Pinter of the intelligence set, with a poker face as unreadable as a Joyce Carol Oates novel. He could control each muscle of his face individually -- every blink, every furrow of his brow, every quiver of his lip was calculated. It was as if he could command each cell, each molecule; direct the flow of oxygen towards the tissues that needed it most. Now he was sitting there, expressionless, eyes wide open, silent. That was another thing about Rabble. His eyes were as dry as pumice. He never blinked unless it was absolutely necessary.
K-Rock looked at the stoic Rabble and giggled. "Well alright then."
They rode like this, in silence, for forty-five minutes. Then, just when K-Rock had begun to relax, to forget the tension and entrance himself with the green blur of trees that passed by his window, Rabble cleared his throat.
"You motherfuckers dropped me like a penny from the observation deck of the
"What do you mean, John?" Dougie said.
"You know what I mean."
"I don't, I'm sorry."
"Yes, please do explain." said K-Rock.
"Kevin, please just try to be quiet. Please." Dougie knew that if K-Rock's attitude persisted, Rabble might literally kill him. He'd seen him do it for less.
"It's just that..."
"Kevin..." Dougie said. K-Rock knew from the tone of his voice that it was serious. He swiped his finger across his mouth, zipping his lips, then tossed an imaginary key over his shoulder. Only mouths had zippers with locks.
"Listen, John, it's as mysterious to me how you ended up like this as it is to you. We thought you were dead. Moose... Abraham Moskowitz... do you remember him? He's Secretary of the Interior now. They flew him out to Montenegro, showed him your body. He saw the... the tattoo. Your tattoo. The whole body was burnt to a crisp. They ran DNA tests...
"Bullshit." Rabble took a drag of his cigarette; barely more than the filter was left.
"I'm not bullshitting you. There was an investigation. A fifty page report. Every now and then we would hear rumors -- you were like Elvis. You were in Mississippi, hiding out on a farm. You were in Vegas, operating a whorehouse. I wouldn't have been surprised to hear that you were in outer space, collaborating with damn aliens. There was evidence, John. DNA evidence."
Rabble looked at Dougie. Here was a man he always trusted, the one man who he knew always kept his word. Had they gotten to him too? Was he a liar now, just like all the others? But how was it possible? Whose body was that in Belgrade? And the tattoo... no one else had that tattoo, he was certain.
Something smelled fishy. He was going to have to figure out exactly what kind of fish it was.
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