Карл Хайасен - Squeeze Me

“Ha! He’s not a fan of bats.”

“I’d never put you on the spot, Mr. Tile.”

He patted her arm. “I’d never tell you anything, anyway.”

“But how does he know me? And why did he send you to my court hearing?”

“Ask him when you get there, Angela.”

She bit her lip. The last man to call her Angela was the judge who sent her to prison.

“Fine,” she said. “He knows I’m coming, right?”

“Hell, no. If I told him that, he’d be gone.”

“So what’s he going to say when I suddenly show up at his hideout?”

“Probably ‘Get the fuck outta here!’—pardon my French. Then it’ll be up to your charming, green-eyed self to calm his rude ass down.”

Tile slid the map toward Angie. She re-folded it and put it in her handbag. “Does the governor have a gun?” she asked.

“I’d be amazed if he didn’t. Now, you don’t mind, I believe I’ll have a piece of pecan pie.”

Angie had one more question: “Is your friend alone on that island?”

“If he was,” said Jim Tile, “you and me wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

—

Mockingbird continued to call him Keith in front of the other agents. When the two of them were alone, he was Ahmet.

“We don’t have much time,” he told her.

“What else is new,” she said, locking the door.

They disrobed, oiled each other up, and got on the massage table, Mockingbird having feigned a migraine and instructed her deep-tissue guru to take the afternoon off. She hadn’t told Ahmet about her productive chat with Paul Ryskamp, but he suspected that she’d made a major, behind-the-scenes move; otherwise he would have been on that flight back to D.C.

He muted his microphone but left his earpiece in place, as always, in case a threat surfaced elsewhere on the property. During foreplay the curled tube dangled distractedly from the side of his face, along with the wire to the pocket radio unit that he’d propped on a corner of the table. The apparatus always bothered Mockingbird but Ahmet refused to unplug it, so they’d become skilled at having sex in an orderly way that wouldn’t dislodge his earbud, or send the receiver tumbling to the floor.

Over time their stealth intimacy had grown more and more intense, almost Tantric except for the speed—they never had more than a few minutes alone together, and other Secret Service agents were always nearby. Mockingbird kept a playlist of meditation tunes for her deep-tissue sessions, but she didn’t use it with Ahmet because he said sitar music was a buzz kill. Instead she put on Post Malone, keeping the volume loud enough to muffle what few moans they inadvertently made.

Afterward they took turns showering, in case somebody knocked on the door. Ahmet rinsed only his lower half so as not to drip water in his sensitive earpiece. As he was getting dressed, Mockingbird asked what he thought of Jennifer Rose.

He said, “Smart and steady. She’s a good agent. Why?”

“Maybe you should flirt with her a little. You know, just to put the idea out there.”

“What idea?”

“To make them quit gossiping about you and me,” Mockingbird said.

“Are you out of your mind? There’s no flirting in the Secret Service.”

“Calm down,” she said. “You’re putting your underwear on backwards.”

“I can’t believe you’re serious. What’s left of my career is already hanging by a thread.”

“Just think about it, please.”

Ahmet buttoned his shirt and said, “I’m pretty sure Jen’s seeing somebody.”

“Oh, so what.” Mockingbird was still wearing only a towel. Her hair was pinned up, and the conch-pearl earrings he’d bought her shined like hibiscus dewdrops.

“You don’t have to do anything with her. In fact, you better not,” she said. “All I’m talking about is a smile or a laugh when you’re in the same room. Body language, Ahmet, that’s it. A fake show for all those snoops on the kitchen staff.”

“I’m no good at acting. I can’t fake—”

“Here, hon, let me help you with that.”

As she reached up to knot his necktie, her towel came undone and dropped.

“Oops,” she said.

He took her by the arms and pulled her close. She still smelled like her special massage oil—eucalyptus and bacon mint. Ahmet stifled a sneeze and said, “Are you sure the President doesn’t know about us?”

“Nobody around him would have the guts to tell him. Even if they did, he’s too damn vain to believe it.”

“Yes, but what if—”

“Hush,” said Mockingbird. “He can’t accuse me of anything, not while he’s got that pole dancer stashed in a cabana down at the beach. Suzi, the phony nutritionist. Have you seen the thighs on that woman?”

“No, ma’am.”

“I love that you still call me that.”

“Reflex,” Ahmet said self-consciously.

He had never imagined himself capable of having a thing with the First Lady of the United States, much less falling in love with her. The agency’s rules against such entanglements were inflexible and unambiguous; instructors at the Rowley Training Center devoted an entire afternoon to the topic:

Do NOT fuck anyone you are guarding, male or female. NO intimate contact of any type, with any part of your body, under any circumstances! Do not initiate, do not accede, do not even contemplate! ARE WE CLEAR ?

Sometimes Ahmet wondered if he was subconsciously trying to get himself fired. Perhaps he was cracking under the pressure of the job, and secretly wanted to bail. As a teenager he’d aspired to be nothing more complicated than a pro hockey player. It was too late for that, but there was still woodworking; Ahmet enjoyed making household furniture, and he was good at it. His specialty was Shaker media cabinets.

In college he’d played well as a first-line forward, but no NHL teams drafted him. He joined the Boston police and was on Boylston Street when the bombs went off during the marathon. Afterward Ahmet and other Arabic-speaking officers got assigned to an anti-terrorism squad, but he never felt at ease despite being half-Irish. The day he applied to the Secret Service, his longtime girlfriend dumped him because she didn’t want to move to Washington; she owned a pottery studio and had only four payments left on the kiln.

As a special agent, Ahmet had limited free time. He dated sporadically, rarely following up, and even his cabinetry output declined. He hadn’t slept with a woman in almost a year when Mockingbird made the first move—a furtive pinch on his ass while he escorted her through the private entrance of her favorite botox-and-enema salon on Blue Marlin Lane. Ahmet had been careful not to react, but weeks later it happened again in the hallway outside her suite at Casa Bellicosa. When she surreptitiously tugged one of his fingers, he turned and fell into eye contact. The next night, she called him into her wardrobe closet on the pretense of being unable to reach a certain Panama hat on a certain high shelf.

And when she kissed him, he kissed her back.

The affair was reckless, nerve-racking, and utterly addictive, made more thrilling by the impassive role that each of them was forced to play in public. Although they never spoke about devising a future together, Ahmet wanted to believe that, beyond the heat of the moment, Mockingbird cared for him as much as he cared for her. He understood it was likely the biggest mistake of his life; it was also the biggest rush.

When she kicked her towel away, he said, “No, we’re supposed to have you out on the croquet lawn in seven minutes.”

“For what?”

“Make-A-Wish photo op.”

“Oh, right. That poor child.” She let go of Ahmet and asked, “Is she in a wheelchair?”