Robert Stone - Fun With Problems

Scully and the crew looked on while the agents took Taylor's coffee from his hands and tossed it over the side. Two of them bent his arms behind him and forced him to his knees on the deck. One slid plastic handcuffs over his wrists.

"You're under arrest for assault on an officer of the United States cabinet and on federal officials," the young woman informed him.

Negus, who had sent Jimmy Junior up to take the wheel, interrupted her reading of Taylor's rights.

"Fuck you doin'?" he asked her.

The woman blazed up at him. "You got a problem, sir? You stand aside or you're going with him."

"Listen, Captain," the senior agent said wearily. "Just get this thing to Quonset Point. We got an ambulance and backup there."

Captain Negus looked at his watch.

"We ain't going to Quonset Point," he told the agent. "Ace! Officer! Quonset Point's over two hours aboard this motor vessel. I got a crewman freezing cold and maybe injured. I'm going to the island Coast Guard station."

"Sir," said the agent in charge, "they don't have what we require there."

"I know what they got there, Ace. They got a chief corpsman. The victim got a wife there."

"The victim?" the agent in charge asked.

The young woman stood as if transfixed. She spoke rapidly and mechanically.

"We'd have to get a helicopter for the Secretary's safety," she declared. "We can't take the perpetrator in the same aircraft or vehicle. I haven't read this man his rights!" she said, turning toward Taylor as though he were unoccupied space. "I haven't finished reading the subject his rights."

"I know my rights!" Taylor shouted. Scully came out of the galley with another cup of coffee for him and a replacement blanket. In an after hatchway, the Secretary was locked in silent struggle with a much larger agent, and the others turned to watch him. After a moment the big man prevailed and drew the Secretary out of the hatchway.

"I seen it," Scully told them all. "Kid just passed a remark. Crazy old fuck threw him over."

"We all saw it," the captain said, although he had not, really. "Kid just passed a remark."

When they tied up, the Secretary was free of restraint though closely observed by his guardians. The crewmen were telling the agent in charge that they had all seen it. Taylor had simply passed a remark. The agent in charge seemed to be writing it down. On the dock, people took pictures of the Secretary's triumphant turn around the top deck. He was smiling broadly. But suddenly his mood changed. He began to snarl and swear at the small crowd.

"Sir," one of the agents asked the cabinet officer, "would you like to come down and take it easy?"

"Like hell," said the Secretary. "Feeling fine. I'm not afraid — we have to defend ourself from fanatics. Little bastard!" he screamed. "Scum of the earth! Ha ha!"

Officer Ussolini took Captain Negus's report over the satellite phone. He pulled up in his squad car, lights flashing. Negus went down to the pier to talk to him.

"What's the matter with him?" the island cop asked. "He go nuts or something?"

"Nuts? He thrown Taylor Shumway off the ferry."

Ussolini stared at him.

"So?" he asked after a minute. "Is there a complaint?"

"I got a complaint. I don't know about America in general."

"You mean he just tossed Taylor over? Without no provocation."

"Wasn't any. Old guy's bad-eyeing Taylor. Kept him from work. Interfered with him. You know Taylor. He passed a remark."

"Jeez."

"Next thing the guy puts Taylor in the drink. No provocation, not particularly, no. His own detail tried to stop him."

"This is a high-ranking individual," Ussolini said.

"Christ," the captain said, "that's the whole point, ain't it?"

While they talked, one of the agents walked over to the squad car.

"We'd appreciate it if this incident was kept confidential," the man told them.

"Yeah, what am I supposed to tell the company? What do I tell the Coasties?"

The agent was annoyed. "We'll take care of that, boss. Don't worry about it."

"Lot of people seen it," Negus said.

"Don't take it on yourself — you know what I'm saying?"

On the top deck of the ferry, the Secretary seemed to be in flight from his own security detail. The chief agent looked around uncomfortably. His eye fell on Eric, who looked disheveled and was walking up to the pier.

"Who's that guy? Didn't you have him in custody?"

"We're not holding him. He's just some writer," Ussolini said.

Approaching the gangplank now, the Secretary seemed to be edging away from his guards, who were moving subtly to block his path.

Negus and the officer watched Eric. He was looking for his glasses, which were hanging from his shirt collar.

"He's a freelance reporter. He's on assignment for Roxy magazine."

" Roxy? " Negus asked. "I thought they were a fuckbook."

"That's what I thought. But I talked to this woman editor — sounded educated. Like she had clothes on."

"What do you know!"

"I called Sheila, too, to come down." Sheila Toolin was the all-season doctor on the island. "And you know what? They said forget about it. They got their own doctor."

"Keepin' quiet about it, ain't they?"

"I hope someone told Annie."

"I told her," the cop said, shaking his head. "Bells of hell, Delbert, you didn't want to be there for that." Ussolini looked up the hill. "She'll be coming down with Sheila. They better get the old fucker off island. Anyway, I bet ya Annie gets it in the paper next week. Me, I gotta write a report. Them Secret Service, they'll be scattered to the winds of the world. I gotta live here."

"I wonder how much of a screwball old Eric over there is. Hey, Eric!" Negus beckoned Eric with the crook of a finger. "You do stuff off the record?"

"Of course," Eric said. "I never got anyone in trouble for talking to me." This was not altogether true. Eric could be quite discreet, however. "Did the Sec really throw Taylor off the boat?"

Officer Ussolini looked troubled.

"Wait a second, Del," he said.

"Word's gettin' out, Charlie," Captain Negus told the policeman. "Annie's gonna write about it. You're gonna write it up for the record. They know they can't kill it."

"Yeah," Ussolini said. "But Eric's — pardon me, Eric — he's a little strange."

"No, no," Eric said. "I only appear strange. You can check my clips. My background."

The two of them watched him. "I could call you," Eric suggested, "'officials familiar with the circumstances.' I wouldn't have to say 'local officials' if you didn't want me to. If the Coast Guard investigated, I could say 'Homeland Security officials.'"

"They couldn't kill it after that, could they, Charlie?"

"Trust me," Eric said. He gave the captain his card. "I'll be in touch."

Being led tenderly up the gangway, the Secretary was sure he spotted wise guys in the crowd. Some were taking photographs with their cell phones. Agents advanced on them threateningly. A reporter on the dock was wrestling an agent for his laptop.

"How do you like it now, gentlemen?" the Secretary called merrily to the people on the dock. That, he happened to know, was what Hemingway used to say to wise guys.

In a day or so, Eric sneaked back onto the island to interview his eyewitnesses. Taylor refused to speak to him. Annie also refused. But in the end it was Annie, working day and night at the island paper, who got her version of the events in print before anyone else. Annie's version was extremely partisan but convincing enough for the paper's owner to triple the print run and sell copies on the mainland. Blogs picked it up before the mainstream press did, together with YouTube videos of the Secretary's tantrum. The package was a great success.

A magistrate dismissed the charges against Taylor on the grounds that he had only passed a remark. The Sorenson-Shumways were not litigious and sought no settlement, although they were irritated to discover that in common law the king could do no wrong.