Mark Costello - Big If

The motorcade arrived outside. Tashmo heard it on the comm, Gretchen in the parking lot, telling the snipers to spread out.

A runner came in from the vans and whispered to the emcee of the event. The emcee, a ranking Moose, climbed onto the stage and stood behind the podium, tapping the microphone. “This on? This on?”

The entourage was coming in, a rush of noise, a clatter on the stairs. The crowd stood up. A cheer.

And so they came to Portsmouth,that early haven of the English-speakers, that former spice-and-whaling port, that faded base of long-range bombers and ballistic submarines, that host of now-ghost throw weight, that pretty harbor city voted third most livable by the editors of a well-known in-flight magazine, that swing of state elections, that home to fifty thousand souls (including the down-county towns), that target of the pollsters and perfect microcosm of the—

“What’s the opposite of microcosm?” asked the wire service woman, pausing at her laptop as she typed her lead. She was sitting at the bar of the renovated inn, the Old Governor Weare, which wasn’t pronounced “weary” but rather “wear,” she had learned from the snippy concierge. It wasn’t very renovated either, from the looks of it, except for the roof bar itself, which revolved slowly, offering successive views of, first, a steeple like a candlestick on Market Square and, later, the black channel of the Piscataqua River, a ribbon of no light between the populated banks.

The wire service woman asked the question of the tall, graying gentleman to her left, thinking he was a fellow journalist or columnist or possibly a speechwriter or in-house campaign memosmith, a word-worker of some sort.

The tall man popped a salty cashew from the dish. He said, “Opposite of microcosm?”

“And don’t say ‘macrocosm,’” said the wire service woman. “Micro is a little version of the thing. Macro is a bigger version. I’m asking, what’s the thing?”

“You got me,” said the man, scoping out her blouse. “They call me Tashmo, by the way. I’m with the VP’s detail. May I buy you another flavored vodka or would you care for a mixed drink?”

The wire service woman suddenly remembered an appointment down the bar, leaving Tashmo at the taps, one cheek on the stool, drinking Bud from a pewter tankard. The bar was crowded, network men and beat people, producers and politicos. O’Teen, Herc Mercado, and Bobbie Taylor-Niles shared a table in the middle of the room, where they were working on a round of drinks.

The barkeep slid another Bud in front of Tashmo and fiddled with the bills by the cashew dish. Tashmo drank in the manner of old cops. Put a fifty on the bar when you sit down, leave it there all night, watch it go, fifty turning into twenties, twenties into tens and ones and fives, as the barman does subtraction, wet fingers in the pile. This was how you drank, paying as you went. It was more a custom than a law, like throwing rocks in Falling Rocks when he was a kid — stay motionless until it hits, only a punk would turn his back on a falling rock. The Bud arrived and, with it, the thought: he was endangered here, tonight. He saw the wire service woman at the far end of the bar. He thought, I guess the word is “cosm”—as in “cosmos,” a word containing every other word except, of course, “macrocosm,” which was a bigger version of the cosmos.

He drank the beer, left a tip, left the bar. There were six floors at the renovated inn. The VP was on six, just below the bar. He was always on the top floor, whatever that floor was. The elevators were, of course, locked out of the sixth floor. There were troopers in the stairwells, in the lobby, on the roof, cops and K-9 in the parking lot, guarding the vans against a bomb plant. The vans would be bomb-dogged in the morning, a full sweep, but the Service stored them under guard just to be certain. The planners always rented out the entire floor the VP was staying on, or the entire wing in a very large hotel. The rooms in the secure zone (the whole top floor tonight) were parceled out to the VP (he got a suite, empty rooms on either side for anti-eavesdropping purposes), his military attachés and close civilian aides, his top politicos, the agents on his detail, the aircrews on his jet and helicopters, which often left a lot of empty rooms, and gave the secure floor a creepy and deserted feel, tense and dead all at once. Tashmo knew the feeling well.

He shared a room with Sean Elias. He sat on the bed, watching Elias carefully unpack his undershirt supply. Tashmo had come back to call Shirl and confront her on her statements of earlier that day ( I love you and I trust you, everything is going to work out ), but now that he was here, sitting on the bed, he felt the danger again. Lydia and Shirl. He decided not to call.

Elias tidied up the tabletops. Elias was perhaps the only man on earth who felt the need to tidy up a new hotel room.

Tashmo hung his cowboy suit inside the bathroom door, ran the shower hot to steam out the wrinkles for the morning. He dressed himself in sporting clothes, slacks, loafers, and a short-sleeved turtleneck.

He said, “Fuck it, Eli, let’s go grab a pop.”

At the table in the middle of the bar, Herc Mercado was splitting an order of Cajun chicken fingers with Elias and O’Teen, and trying to figure out if they had ever stayed in the Governor Weare before.

Herc said, “This is Portsmouth, right?”

“Look around you,” said O’Teen. “Or better yet, just look and let the building move.”

Bobbie said, “The building’s moving?”

“That’s a rodg,” Elias said.

Bobbie looked relieved. “I thought it was me.”

Tashmo, feeling dumpy still, nursed a beer and listened to them talk.

Herc said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this bar before. When were we last here?”

“October,” said Elias. “We stayed in this hotel. We always stay here when we come to Portsmouth. It’s on the list of Plans-approved dignitary lodgings. I think they gave it two stars.”

Herc said, “Did we drink in this bar?”

O’Teen said, “Hell yes — don’t you remember, Herc? I scratched your pager number in the men’s room. I’ve never seen you so irate.”

“I was getting paged for days,” said Herc. “But it was a different bar, I’m pretty sure of it. The bar we drank in had a buccaneer motif.”

The agents looked around the room, risking motion sickness. The waitresses wore tight white breeches, low-cut bodices with big puffy sleeves, and shoes with big square buckles. The barmen wore a similar getup with cockaded tricorner hats. The imitation fireplace was six feet wide, hung with pots and kitchen implements of hammered brass. There were crossed oars on the walls, hanging sabers and muskets on pegs.

Elias said, “It’s fairly buccaneerish, Herc.”

Herc said, “No it isn’t. Check the menu.”

The menu was seven heavy pages cased in plastic. Every drink was dubbed, of course. Vodkas-by-the-glass (in a spate of flavors) were listed as the Shots Heard ’Round the World, Bloody Marys were called the Boston Massacre, martinis were known as the Midnight Ride.

Herc said, “That’s more your revolutionary theme.”

The waitress appeared, a pert coed in breeches, pen ready at her pad. She said, “Hi, my name is Kelli. I’ll be your server for the evening.” She looked at their suits. “You all flight attendants or something?”

Bobbie said, “What happened to our other server? She was nice, I liked her.”

“She had to cash out early,” Kelli said. “Her psoriasis was acting up.”