T. Bunn - Drummer in the Dark

“You think things are going to get busier?”

Carter smirked. “You’re about to redefine the term, upwardly mobile.”

Kay Trilling was waiting at the front doors, Esther one step behind. “How’s our man tonight?”

Carter answered for him. “Raring to go.”

“He looks a little green around the gills to me. You nervous?”

“Absolutely terrified.”

“Probably a healthy attitude.” She withdrew a sheet of paper from her navy jacket. “Graham wrote you out another missive.”

Wynn read the shakily printed letters. Pray .

“Man has a way with words, doesn’t he?” Kay patted his lapel. “We’ll be up there in the balcony doing just that.”

Three other members of the House of Representatives stood to shake Wynn’s hand and thank him for his assistance. Carter and Kay were upstairs and seated by the time he reached his own desk. The chamber was not particularly large; he had addressed the final meeting of his employees and shareholders in a ballroom twice this size. The desks were scarred, the carpets scuffed, the odors mostly of dust and beeswax. But the pressure of history and brilliance and power squeezed his chest until Wynn was panting with the exertion of having made it this far.

To his right, a man was droning into a microphone. He wore no jacket. The top three buttons of his vest were undone. His tie dangled at half mast. He read from a tome of typed sheets with the bored voice of one who had been at it for a very long time. The Speaker’s chair was taken by a man Wynn did not recognize. None of the other front desks were occupied. The stenographer appeared almost asleep behind his machine.

Gradually the chamber filled, both the desks about Wynn and the balconies overhead. Without warning, the orator at the lectern turned and said, “Mr. Speaker, I relinquish my place to our newest representative from the great state of Florida, the distinguished Wynn Bryant.”

“Congressman Bryant, do you wish to address the House?”

It took him three tries to rise. “Yes, Mr. Speaker.”

“You have the floor.”

The orator patted his back in passing. “Way to go, son. Way to go.”

Wynn fumbled in his pockets, came up with the sheet of paper he had prepared, and flattened it on the lectern. Four breaths later, he realized he had pulled out Graham’s message by mistake. He stared at the single word, illuminated now by the chandelier overhead and by his own churning dread.

“Congressman Bryant?”

“Just a minute.” With an eerie sense of calm, he pulled out the proper page and said as instructed, “Mr. Speaker, I move for the inclusion into H.R. 451, the current appropriations bill, an amendment entitled. .”

“Yes, Congressman?”

Wynn looked up at the balcony and saw Esther seated beside a very worried Kay. The name on the page suddenly seemed incomplete. “Entitled the Hutchings Amendment.”

The speaker shifted through the pages before him. “You are renaming what I have here before me as the Jubilee Amendment?”

“I am. Graham Hutchings dedicated his life to seeing this matter addressed.” Esther watched him with a look of stunned disbelief. Kay Trilling, however, crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat. She gave him a single nod. “It seems the least we can do is honor him in this way.”

“Very well. I have before me a motion to amend H.R. 451 with the Hutchings Amendment. Do I have a second?”

A voice from the chamber intoned, “Seconded and move for a voice vote, Mr. Speaker.”

“Seconded.”

“Very well. All in favor of the inclusion of the Hutchings Amendment, say aye.” Wynn added his voice to those others from the chamber. “All opposed?” When no one spoke, the Speaker rapped his gavel. “The ayes carry. Congressman, do you have further business before the House?”

“Yes, Mr. Speaker.” Following the script to the letter now. “I move to vote on appropriations bill H.R. 451.”

“Seconded.”

“So moved and seconded. All in favor? All opposed?” Another bang of the gavel. “The ayes carry it. As the companion legislation has already moved out of the Senate, H.R. 451 will next be considered by the Conference Committee.”

“Mr. Speaker,” Wynn continued, “I move to recess.”

“So moved.”

“Seconded.”

“All in favor? Very well. The House is recessed until ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”

Wynn accepted a few more handshakes on his way out the rear doors. He noted a few solemn thanks, then heard the man who had relinquished the lectern tell his neighbor that it was a historic event. The congresswoman beside him shook her head, eyed Wynn with unmasked pity, and said, “Now the blood will flow.”

Tuesday

Eric Driscoll sat behind the wheel of his Porsche and worked to unfreeze his mind. He had followed the traders from First Florida’s downtown headquarters to the Kissimmee strip. The town had not so much grown as mutated, grafting on one hideous segment after another until the main drag became a twenty-mile-long neon netherworld. Eric sat in the parking lot of a bar sporting a fifty-foot-high sign that promised honky-tonk heaven. The lot was full of pickups, mud-spattered SUVs, and customized vans. His Porsche stood out as boldly as the Lexus and Ferrari and two Mercs the traders had parked in the handicapped zone. He watched the last of them careen into the club as the bouncer greeted them and held the door. They had claimed this place as their own and paid to ensure they were well protected. Eric swallowed hard and worried over past and future mistakes, just inches away from real nausea.

Reluctantly he left the safety of his car and hurried across the parking lot. It was raining slightly, a warm, sticky mist that felt like the world was sweating with him.

The doorman gave him a brief look, then jerked his chin toward the collection of gleaming metal parked alongside. “You with them?”

“Y-yes, I guess. .”

“You better move your machine over where I can keep an eye on it.”

“No.” If he got back in the car, he wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to flee. “I won’t be long.”

The bouncer shrugged massive shoulders. “Your wheels, man.”

The music struck with fists of acid rock. A trio of ladies danced the central aisle, while another pair concentrated on the poles rising from the circular stage to his right. The boys from First Florida were clustered in two booths to one side of the circular stage, waving bills and drinks at the women. Two of them rode the padded hammock separating the booths. Eric tried to saunter over and slip into the booth, but failed. One trader spotted his move, hooked an elbow into his neighbor, and instantly Eric confronted a phalanx of hostile faces.

“I’m a spot man on Hayek’s floor,” he shouted.

One of the traders, the guy Colin had attacked with the bush, used the partition as a saddle and slid down beside Eric. Up close the man looked bloodless. “So?”

“So I want a switch. The world’s getting stale over there. Word is, you’re the guys in the know. The hot data’s all coming your way.”

The trader rolled his cigar in the ashtray and exchanged silent communication with his pals. One passed a quick hand signal, too fast or too alien for Eric to catch. The trader asked, “How’d you know where to find us?”

“I followed you guys. Figured it was best to chat where others wouldn’t see.”

The trader raised up and whistled once. Loud.

Instantly a man bigger than the doorman was by the booth. “You rang?”

The trader pointed a thumb in Eric’s direction. “This slimeball is bothering us. You know how much we dislike being bothered.”