Joker Moon

by George R. R. Martin

  Pauline moved through the crowd shaking hands with the men and exchanging hugs and air kisses with the women. When the president reached Clara she gave her a real hug and an actual kiss on the cheek. I started to join them only to find myself blocked by one of the nat agents.

  I pointed first at one woman then at the other. “My wife. My cousin. By marriage. May I pass? Not that passing is ever possible for me, but you catch my drift.” The guy’s stony expression didn’t change at my attempt at humor. Nor did he move. I felt the blood rising up my neck and into my face. “Look, pal, I know you’ve got a job to do, but I’m going to lose my temper pretty damn soon.”

  Fortunately, Lady Black stepped in before things could escalate. She touched the agent on the elbow with one gloved hand. “Relax.”

  “He’s a joker,” the man said.

  “No shit,” I said at the same time that Lady Black said, “I know him. It’s fine.”

  The agent reluctantly stepped aside, and I joined Clara and Pauline. “Bradley!” the president said with evident pleasure. I couldn’t help it; I gave the agent a see, I told you so, asshole look. Pauline pressed one powdered cheek against mine, and I noted that her hair contained more gray than when we’d seen her on a campaign stop in New York City back in the summer of 2016. But she still had all the van Renssaeler grace and elegance, the noblesse oblige that typified old money. I might be the son of an enormously successful and wealthy Hollywood director, but I always feel a little grubby and very nouveau riche in the presence of Clara’s patrician family.

  “Your children are here?” the president asked.

  “Yes,” Clara said.

  “I’ll get them,” I added. I pulled out my cell phone and started texting. “Easiest way to summon The Young,” I explained at Pauline’s quizzical expression. “Sometimes I have entire conversations with my children via text when we’re all sitting together in the living room.”

  Within minutes the twins and Caitlyn arrived. I stepped back and enjoyed watching my kids interact with the most powerful woman in the world. I was especially pleased to see that they were neither awkward nor overawed. Clara came to my side. I slipped an arm around her waist and whispered, “We did good.”

  “Yes, we taught them to be respectful and polite,” she said.

  “But to know their own worth and never take anything at face value,” I added.

  Truthfully, I had no idea how my sons or my wife had voted. The presence of Duncan Towers on Pauline’s Liberty ticket had made it an easy choice for me. I’d lived in New York City for decades and I knew Towers for the blustering buffoon he was, so it had been a no-brainer to support the Democrat in the three-way race for president. I just prayed that by the end of Pauline’s second term, the fever that had gripped the country and brought a rather kooky third party to power would break.

  There were four minutes of inconsequential chatter before the chief of staff gently touched Pauline’s elbow and said respectfully, “Madam President, I just spotted the Ragsdales.…”

  Pauline gave us her patented politician smile. “Do excuse me. It’s sad when family takes second place to donors, but such are the waters in which we swim.” More kisses were exchanged, and she moved away with the perfect smile perfectly in place.

  “Well, that was nice of her,” Clara remarked.

  “Yeah,” I said. The interlude had momentarily displaced my bafflement over why the national security adviser wanted to talk with a joker doctor from Manhattan.

  Caitlyn spoke up. “May I go? There’s a boy who asked me to dance.”

  “Okay,” I said. I then called after her, “But he better not be a Republican or a Libbie.” My voice carried more than I expected and a few foul looks were sent my way, along with an exasperated one from my wife. “Just ignore your father, dear,” Clara called as Caitlyn gave me the patented teenage eye roll.

  “In this crowd it’s probably a lead-pipe cinch this guy will be either one or both,” Brook said.

  “Or she could hit the trifecta,” Bryce added. “Republican, Liberty Party, and Libertarian.”

  “That would be a whole basket of crazy,” Brook added.

  “Hush, all of you,” Clara said. “You’re going to get us tossed out.”

  “We should be so lucky,” I grunted. The evening had soured for me after the bathroom exchange. The boys laughed and went off in search of girls, drinks, food, or all three.

  “What is wrong with you?” Clara asked in an undertone. “You’re the one who pushed me to attend.”

  “Something weird happened. I’ll tell you back at the hotel.”

  “I hate weird. Weird is never good,” Clara said.

  “Ain’t that the truth.”

  It was a good thing the Mayflower was within walking distance of the White House. Otherwise, unless I hired another limo, I would have had no way to get there without my customized van. As I trotted up the driveway to the guardhouse, I couldn’t help feeling a surge of awe and excitement. I’d never been to the White House. I’d attended the Kennedy Center Honors a few years ago when Dad had been honored, but this was quantitatively different. A few years back when JFK, Jr., was president we had thought my dad might get the Presidential Medal of Freedom, but it hadn’t happened, and given the recent direction of the country I doubted it was going to happen anytime soon.

  I dredged up some history from a long-ago class and recalled that John Adams had been the first president to live in the White House. Since then it had seen its share of statesmen and scoundrels, but it was still the house where Lincoln had crafted the Emancipation Proclamation, FDR had saved the country from the Depression and the world from fascism, and the first Kennedy had kept the world from dying in nuclear fire.

  As I pulled out my driver’s license to present to the guard I found myself thinking about John Adams’s prayer, written in a letter to his wife and now engraved on a mantel in the State Dining Room—“I pray Heaven to bestow the best of Blessings on this House and all that shall hereafter Inhabit it. May none but honest and wise Men ever rule under this roof.” I wondered how old Adams would have handled the fact that it was now a woman who ruled. I had a feeling Abigail would have approved.

  It seemed to be a requirement that all security guards look surly and the two in the guardhouse were no exception. I felt like I was coming in for extra scrutiny when the wait time stretched into minutes as the guards looked at my license with suspicion, checked the logbook, checked the license again, back to the logbook, stepped aside to mutter to each other. One of them picked up the phone while the other one returned to the counter.

  I gestured down the length of my horse body. “Honest, there isn’t another guy hiding in back.” I didn’t even get a smile. If anything, my sally made the guard look even more grim and sour.

  The phone talker hung up and returned to his partner. “It’s okay. He is actually going to see the general.”

  “Okay. Go on in. You’ll be met,” the other guard said.

  They handed me a pass and I made my way up to the building. They must have called ahead because the door was already open. The guy from the john was waiting. He led me down several halls. We were passed by intense young people in suits and skirts hustling by, many of them clutching folders. They were certainly focused. I only got a couple of startled looks. It seemed odd to me that only one day after the inauguration everything was up and running. Then I realized that was probably a dumb reaction. This was Pauline’s second term. Of course they’d know the way to the bathrooms and how to turn on the lights.

  We ended our trek at a conference room where General Campbell was waiting. There were a couple of aides with him. Body Builder settled in a chair next to his boss. Apparently, he was more than mere muscle.

  The general stood and held out his hand. “Thank you for coming, Doctor.”

  “Well, you don’t normally turn down an invitation to see the head of National Security at the White House. Of course, I can’t help but wonder why.”

  O
ut of force of habit Campbell gestured toward a chair. He stopped partway through the gesture and gave me an embarrassed look. “I’m not exactly sure how to make you feel welcome.”

  “A cup of coffee would go a long way. I was up late last night.”

  “So were we all, but probably not for the same reasons.”

  A call was made and a few minutes later a young aide rushed in with a china cup with the seal of the White House on it. I wondered if I could steal it. The general waited for me to take a couple of sips before speaking. “You’re probably wondering why I asked you here.”

  “That would be an understatement. If it had been the surgeon general I would have had some idea, but aren’t you like the top spy or something?”

  Campbell had a chilly smile. “Not exactly. Though I do talk to a lot of spies. Then I synthesize and inform the president of possible threats against the nation.”

  “And I fit into this … how?”

  He deflected instead, asking, “What do you know about Theodorus Witherspoon?” Campbell reacted to my darkling expression. “I take it you aren’t a fan.”

  “He stole away my chief of security,” I burst out. “Troll … Howard Mueller … had worked at the clinic for decades, and suddenly he tells me he’s leaving to go work for some billionaire down in South Carolina? Yeah, fuck Howard and fuck Witherspoon, too.”

  Campbell seemed taken aback. He rolled his chair back from the desk as if to escape my ire. “That might be a problem. I was hoping I could send you to talk with Witherspoon. Joker to joker.”

  A trickle of ice ran down my human spine. When nats start talking about joker-to-joker conversations, we hear what Black people hear when whites start telling them they need to talk to their communities. They are about to point out to us how we are failing our people and giving nats or white people the sads. “About what?” I asked.

  “I need you to get him to tell you what the fuck he’s doing out in the asteroid belt.”

  “Duh fuck?” I asked intelligently.

  “Beginning in 2008 and continuing for a number of years thereafter, Witherspoon has been sending ships to the asteroid belt.”

  “Uh … why is he doing that?”

  “Well, that’s the question. He told us at the time it was for research.” The general did air quotes. I didn’t kill him for it. “Our long-range scanners indicate that there are presently a shitload of asteroids heading toward the inner solar system, if you will pardon my French. We want to know where they’re headed and why. That’s where you come in.”

  “If Witherspoon is on the Moon you can count me right out.” Most people don’t know that I got teleported to an alien planet a while back and had to spend two fucking years getting back home to Earth. I’d done enough space travel for ten lifetimes.

  “He’s at his family estate. So will you speak with him?”

  “And ask him what … exactly?”

  “We want access to his flight control so we can be sure none of these bastards hits the Earth. That would be a really fucking bad day.”

  “Like death-of-the-dinosaurs bad day?”

  “Yes.”

  Not the answer I had wanted. “How do I get the appointment?”

  “We’ll reach out and get something set up.”

  Body Builder stood up, indicating the meeting was over. I held up the cup and asked Campbell, “May I?”

  He smiled, relieving some of the deep lines in his face. “Wouldn’t you rather have a clean one?”

  A cup was handed over and we left. As we passed a busy outer office, I spotted Pauline walking toward us. She was murmuring to an intense-looking young woman taking notes on her iPad. Secret Service agents walked behind them. She spotted me and smiled.

  “Just one moment, Julie,” she said to the younger woman. She came over and gave me a quick hug. “Thank you so much for doing this.”

  “Wow, news travels fast in this place,” I said.

  “It has to, given the state of the world. I’d like you and the family to come over to the residence later for tea. Would you like to?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “My staff will be in touch.” She started to walk away, then turned back. “And thank you again for doing this. I can’t think of anyone better to handle it.”

  I sure as hell can, I thought, but what I said was, “I’ll do my best, Madam President.”

  Clara and I continued to be overawed. My kids, not so much. The boys were busy laying waste to the finger sandwiches, cookies, and petit fours the White House chef had supplied. Caitlyn was nibbling daintily on a cucumber sandwich and gazing at her brothers with the air of a time-traveling anthropologist studying Neanderthals.

  The family quarters were surprisingly homey and comfortable, but clearly a space inhabited by a single woman. Pauline had never married or had children. All of her focus had been directed into her career. By doing so she had achieved the pinnacle of power for an American politician. She had a strong resemblance to her grandmother, Blythe van Renssaeler, whose portrait hung in the clinic that bore her name; she was pretty, blonde, and (for a president) relatively young at only forty-nine. She had also been blessed by the Charisma Fairy, which had made her a formidable television journalist. Alas, the fairy had overlooked my wife, but as I gazed at Clara’s profile I knew I would take brains and passion over charm any day.

  Clara was, however, proving that she wasn’t going to curb her tongue just because her cousin was president. “I can’t believe you put that dolt on the ticket. You beat him for the Liberty nomination in 2012. Why give him anything this time around?”

  “I understand your dismay, but Duncan was able to amass a very large following over the past four years. If I hadn’t brought him into the tent—”

  “He’d burn down the whole circus … or the crazies who support him would,” I offered. “Pauline, I know our politics don’t align. You’re pretty conservative and I’m a flaming Hollywood liberal, but you really tried to weed the truly crazy and offensive out of your party. By bringing in Towers as your running mate you just undid all of that good work.”

  “If I hadn’t, he would have challenged me and probably taken the nomination.”

  Clara gave a sniff of disdain. “Then Rodham would have beaten him.”

  “I don’t agree. Towers is a buffoon, but anger is a powerful motivator and his supporters have that in spades. Against that, Gramma in a pantsuit wouldn’t have had a chance.”

  Clara began to bristle. I hurried into speech. “Let’s not relitigate the entire election, please?” The two women exchanged one final familial glare, then nodded. “Let’s just all agree that Towers is a towering fool, but he’s also a snake. You should watch your back, Pauline.”

  “Well, I’m term limited out after this so I’m not worried.”

  “Just make sure you don’t help him follow you into the White House,” Clara warned.

  After that I went searching for safer topics … which wasn’t easy in a family with as many secrets and lies as the van Renssaelers. Thank God we had Hollywood to fall back on.

  It didn’t happen as quickly as I expected. The family returned to New York, the boys headed back to Harvard, Caitlyn went out on way too many dates, and I had way too many patients. I pretty much forgot about the odd request until mid-February, when I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize. I answered with my surly voice, assuming it was some kind of telemarketer. Instead I heard a woman’s voice asking, “Doctor Bradley Finn?”

  “Speaking. What’s this is regard to?”

  “This is Mathilde Schwartz; I work for Theodorus Witherspoon. The White House contacted us. We understand you wish to meet with Mr. Witherspoon?”

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Regarding what?”

  “I think it better that I discuss that with Mr. Witherspoon directly.”

  “Then you don’t get your meeting.”

  “Then Mr. Witherspoon doesn’t get to hear about my trip back from Takis aboard three different alien
spacecraft.” I’d done my homework on the big snail since my conversation with Campbell and knew he was space crazy.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Ask Jay Ackroyd. He sent me to fucking Takis. Ask my wife who had to wait two years for me to get back so we could get married.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “As the grave.”

  “I’ll get back to you.”

  She did, in about ten minutes. “Mr. Witherspoon would like to meet you. We’ll send a Stormwing for you.”

  Because that doesn’t sound ominous at all. I debated about whether I was giving up too much of my negotiating position by agreeing too quickly. Maybe I should insist on government transport? But I was curious about these spaceships that were threatening to put Boeing and Airbus out of business. “Okay. Where do I grab the ride?”

  “Tomlin. The plane will be at Tomlin in an hour.”

  “I won’t. I’ve got rounds. Give me three.”

  She hung up. I took that as a yes.

  I was standing in the fuselage of the aircraft. It was obvious that seats had been hurriedly unbolted and removed and other accommodations had been made. The fold-down stairs had been covered by a ramp so I didn’t have to contend with small steps and squeezing my bulk between handrails. The captain had welcomed me, shaken my hand, and then vanished into the cockpit with his copilot and shut the door.

  Left to my own devices I pulled a can of Coke out of the small fridge up near the cockpit and found a drawer filled with bags of chips, nuts, and granola bars. I went for the nacho-flavored Doritos. As I noshed through the orange-colored chips I acknowledged that I was nervous as hell.

  The captain’s voice came over the intercom telling me to hang on. I grabbed the back of the only remaining chair as the Stormwing catapulted into the air.

  The ride was pretty much go straight up, brush the edges of the atmosphere, and dive straight down. In fact I got a brief glimpse of that yawning icy darkness beyond the warm cocoon of atmosphere. I pulled my gaze away and back to the curvature of our beautiful blue marble. There was a storm brewing over Virginia. Which sounded like the start of a particularly ominous country western song.