Dave nodded.
‘Sure. That’s why I’m stuck here. Fair enough too, unless you want more planes getting bit in the ass.’
‘Yeah, whatever. Don’t bother yourself with the policy questions,’ Foxy told him. ‘We’ll have our own experts to do that. You just need to answer some basic questions about dragons. How dangerous are they? How do we kill them?’
‘But you already know the answer to that,’ said Dave. ‘Really fucking dangerous, and you kill them by shooting, I dunno, missiles or something at them. Whatever those air force guys did last night.’
‘AIM-9X Sidewinder,’ said Igor. ‘And twenty-millimetre cannon fire. Though I think an A-10 might be better.’
‘What are you? An air force groupie now?’ Zach asked.
His colleague gave him a surprised look, to which he replied with a shrug.
‘It’s all over the war blogs.’
‘Thank you, soldier,’ said Foxy, favouring him with the sort of grin Dave hadn’t had out of her since she woke up. ‘That’s great detail. Our audience will love that sort of stuff.’ Igor
nodded and coughed to cover the blush that crept up from his neck as the elevator stopped and the doors whooshed open.
A small crowd was waiting for Dave.
02
They weren’t as rowdy as the college boys, but there were more of them. Maybe a dozen in all. And they were way more determined. They started calling his name as soon as they saw him.
‘Dave.’
‘Dave.’
‘Mr Hooper.’
Bellagio security – there were four of them, big slab-shouldered dudes in identical grey suits – seemed at a loss. One guy in a much nicer, more expensive-looking dark blue suit stepped forward with his hand out to shake.
‘Ms Knox, Mr Hooper, if you’ll come with me we have a media suite ready for you.’
‘Thanks, Alec,’ said Foxy.
Hey, thought Dave, I’ve been banging Foxy Knoxy. That’s awesome.
He allowed himself to be carried along in a flying wedge of hotel security, reinforced by Zach and Igor. Behind them trailed the small crowd of hangers-on who’d been hanging on since he’d exited the elevator. Dave wondered why this Alec dude didn’t just have his goons run them off. What was the point of having goons if they didn’t run people off?
‘Huh, yeah whatever,’ said Dave in reply to something Alec had said. He wasn’t sure what. He’d been distracted by the small crush of expensively dressed men and women trailing along behind him, calling out his name. They reminded him a bit of the photographers you saw at red carpet things like the Oscars, except that none of them were toting cameras. A few waved their phones at him, and one seemed to be gesturing to him with a large envelope of some sort, but he really had no idea who the fuck they were or what they wanted of him other than his undivided attention. He almost slowed down to ask them what business they had with him, but found himself carried along on a fast-running flood tide of hotel muscle.
‘That’s great, just great,’ said Alec, obviously pleased with Dave’s response, whatever it had been. ‘Armando has some outfits ready. We took the liberty of providing a complete ensemble.’
‘If we have time, Alec,’ said Foxy. She made to look at a wristwatch that Dave recalled hanging from the taps in the hotel suite’s spa. Instead she checked her phone, and swore under her breath again.
Dave was suddenly very aware of how he was dressed and how bizarre it must look and he was seized by the anxious certainty that somebody would take his photograph and his boys would see him splashed all over the web. But nobody else seemed to notice or care. The security detail merely hurried him along as efficiently as they could while manoeuvring to stop his well-dressed entourage getting too close. As they had done since leaving New Orleans, his SEAL escort merely tagged along, just making sure he didn’t disappear on them. Foxy Knoxy kept up a steady barrage of news bites and factoids she thought he needed to know. Hospitals in New Orleans were over capacity. There had been such a run on guns and ammunition that even the biggest retailers were being forced to ration what they could sell to individual customers. Fourteen cities had imposed curfews. The Feds were denying a second outbreak in New York. The president was still hiding somewhere in a secure and secret location.
‘Oh, and we’re getting unconfirmed reports of someplace in Georgia
. . .’
She frowned at her phone as though somebody had sent her a porn link.
‘This can’t be right,’ she said. ‘Look, Reuters has picked up some Internet chat, Facebook posts or something, out of someplace called
. . .
Buttecrack,’ she frowned again. ‘Something about them fighting off a demon horde on their own.’
Igor chuckled.
‘I think it’s pronounced beau-cray, ma’am.’
‘Boo what now?’ she asked.
‘Beau-cray,’ said
Igor. ‘But sure, yeah, everybody calls it “butt crack”.’
The faces of Igor’s companions obviously needed further particulars. He shrugged.
‘Dumbass small town names is my party trick. I got one for every state. And yeah, Buttecrack –
beau-cray
– is in Georgia. Beat out some real competition from Beaver’s Lick too.’
Foxy Knoxy shook her head as they arrived at the Bellagio’s media suite, or some room they had set aside as a media suite. ‘Just go with the French name if you have to,’ she told Dave. ‘It sounds like the sort of podunk shithole where Fox makes out like bandits.’
Then she stopped so quickly Dave almost tripped over her.
‘Shit! The hammer! We forgot the big hammer.’
‘Lucille? She’s downstairs. Want me to get her? She’d love to be on TV.’
Foxy Knoxy gave him a sidelong glance that may have spoken to a lack of faith in his sanity. ‘Damn it,’ she said. ‘They’re gonna want to see the hammer.’
‘It’s a splitting maul, technically. Marty Grbac’s –’
‘Yeah, whatever. We don’t have time for you to go get it. Alec, you got any
. . .
splitting mauls in-house?’
Alec, the hotel suit, stood by a double door, waiting to run a swipe card through the electronic lock.
‘I can ask, Ms Knox. But I don’t think so. There’s probably a sledgehammer somewhere, or a fire axe.’
She frowned.
‘Maybe not. Fucking Jon Stewart would probably find out and do us like a drunken frat girl. Okay. Forget the hammer. Let’s just go with Dave.’
Alec shrugged and swiped open the doors. He ushered them into a lounge room where two technicians and another nattily dressed man were waiting for them. The man carried armfuls of clothing.
‘Armando!’ Foxy cried out. ‘I love you. You are my new favourite.’
Armando, narrow of waist, thick of shoulder and long of ponytail, smiled and dipped into a strangely formal little bow. Could he have been any more gay? No, Dave thought. No he could not.
The room looked as though it was normally used as business lounge, but the techs – a camera guy and sound man to judge by their equipment – had pushed a lot of the furniture up against the walls to create a small, makeshift studio space. The video camera wasn’t a big studio unit, but it was a lot bigger and more expensive-looking than the camcorder Dave had used to capture his boys’ Little League games in happier times. Cables snaked across the floor. Harsh white lights burned inside spindly looking silver umbrellas, illuminating a chair perched in front of a bookshelf where he presumed they wanted him to sit.
The Bellagio goons deployed across the entrance to the suite, and the SEALs took up position inside, blocking any chance of access for the trailing entourage. Their cries grew louder for a moment as Dave stepped inside, but were cut off abruptly as the doors closed behind him.
‘So, who the hell were those guys?’ he asked.
Alec looked uncomfortable.
‘Yes, I am sorry about that,’ he said. ‘It is a difficult situation for the hotel.’
‘They’re scouts, headhunters,’ said Knoxy. When Dave looked perplexed, she waved her fingers to bring Armando over with his clothes and explained as Dave dressed.
‘Seriously, you don’t need the pants. Just get the shirt on and let me put a bit of makeup –’
‘Makeup? No way.’
‘Yes way,’ she said, ‘unless you want to look like a toothless crack whore.’
She ripped the silken shift from his chest with one ferocious movement.
‘Now that’s more like it,’ Dave said, but Armando was suddenly there slipping Dave’s arms into a light blue business shirt, while Knoxy patted at his face with some kind of powder puff.
‘The guys outside have been stalking you from the moment word got out you were staying here,’ she explained. ‘Most of them probably drove overnight from LA to get here because of the no-fly rule. Nobody from the East Coast would’ve been able to make it in time. That fucker from the
Times
was here for a conference.’
‘Hey, thanks Armando, but I can do my own buttons, dude,’ said Dave brushing the man’s flighty hands away from his abs. ‘So, who are they?’
‘One minute,’ one of the technicians called out. ‘Gonna have to go with a hand mic. No time for a lapel.’
He tossed Foxy a small black tube which she plucked out of the air with practised ease.
‘I’ll turn this on just before I hand it to you,’ she said. ‘Hold it about a hand span from your mouth, and don’t wave it around when you talk. Don’t touch the power button, just speak in to it normally.’
‘Sure, got it,’ said Dave. ‘But my wolf pack outside, who are they?’
She hurried him across the room and pushed him down into the chair facing the camera. Dave felt her fiddling around with something in his ear. ‘What the
. . .’
‘It’s just an earbud so you can hear the questions coming from the studio,’ she explained.
‘But you said the questions were coming from you.’
‘Yes,’ she sighed. ‘From me, to New York, and from New York back to you.’
He wanted to ask what was the point of all that fucking around, why didn’t she just ask the questions of him directly, but a warning look made him back off. She rewarded that rare instance of common sense by answering his previous question.
‘The people outside want you as a client, Dave. Some of them will represent talent agencies, some of them the big PR firms, I think there was even somebody out there from
Next Top Model
. That’s making it difficult for Alec. He can’t fuck them off. They’re repping for some powerful interests who already have a relationship with the resort. But he’s running interference for me, aren’t you, sweetie?’
She threw Alec a smile and he nodded.
‘We do have relationships with these agencies,’ he explained. ‘Many of their clients are our clients too. I cannot just kick them to the curb. Only delay them for Ms Knox.’
‘And we love you long time for it, Alec.’
‘But of course.’
‘Thirty seconds!’
‘Now you will remember, won’t you, Mr Hooper?’ continued Alec, looking a little anxious in his expensive suit. ‘You tell the people watching at home how much fun you’re having at the Bellagio. How you really needed to unwind after New Orleans. How you can’t think of anywhere better than here in Las Vegas to do just that. All good?’
‘Err
. . .
Sure.’ He looked at Foxy Knoxy, who somehow managed to be the most commanding person in the room while dressed in a too short bathrobe. ‘Is that cool?’
‘More than cool, Dave. It’s a done deal. Alec has comped our suites and turned over the facilities of the hotel to the network while you’re here. And he’s made sure the other networks don’t get a fucking look-in. This is an honest to fucking God exclusive, Dave. And Alec helped me get it. Just give him a decent reach around, would you?’
Igor chuffed with laughter just behind him. Alec smiled and made a gesture with his hand as though he was shooing away a butterfly. ‘Georgia, it was nothing, really.’ He turned back to Dave. ‘I’m sure Mr Hooper will do fine.’
‘Ten seconds.’
Georgia – her name is Georgia Knox, Dave said to himself. Georgia. Georgia. Georgia.
Georgia Knox flipped on the microphone, handed it to Dave, positioned it at just the right distance from his face and withdrew out of shot. Alec smiled, nodded eagerly, and gave Dave two thumbs-up. The technician with the headphones pointed at the screen in front of Dave, which suddenly came to life with the smiling faces of the two weekday
Fox and Friends
anchors – whose names Dave promptly forgot when he saw his own face on a smaller screen-in-screen display in the corner. He was sure the whole country was now looking right at his junk.
The screen exploded in a riot of bright primary colours and blaring, vaguely martial music before the studio camera swooped in on the frowning face of the Haircut who announced that later in the hour they’d be crossing to Washington to hear some bullshit from some other Haircut about how Obama was fucking it all up and surrendering to the monsters before the war had even begun.
Or something.
Dave had all the trouble in the world not looking down to where his bare legs poked out from under the hem of the natty blue dress shirt Armando had put him in. And then
Survivor
Chick was smiling and talking about Navy SEALs and American heroes and even American superheroes and he thought he heard his name and it was all going by in such a rush that he wasn’t quite sure what
Survivor
Chick had asked him but Alec from the Bellagio was nodding and grinning and giving him another thumbs-up and that was enough of a cue for Dave to get rolling.
‘Thanks
. . .
guys,’ he said. ‘Right now I’m at the Bellagio which is just fucking awesome. I mean it’s
. . .
it’s a really great joint
. . .
Oh
. . .
Sorry
. . .
Damn
. . .
Anyway, yeah the Bellagio rocks. You should all stay here next time you’re in Vegas. I will be.’
He flashed a grin that he’d hoped might be endearing, but it came back at him on the monitor like Wile E. Coyote licking shit from a wire brush.
Survivor
Chick didn’t look at all put out and even managed a giggle which might’ve been partway toward genuine. He expected to see Foxy Knoxy face-palming over in the corner, but she had some sort of headset on and was busy staring off at a point a thousand miles away, talking into the attached microphone, but in a voice so low he could barely hear her. She stood with one foot on a low, heavy-looking marble coffee table piled high with tapes, cables and industrial-grade plastic carry-cases. He heard his own name again, and with an effort of will dragged his attention away from the fine brown curve of Foxy’s thigh and back onto the TV panel where –
Elisabeth. That was her name.
– where
Elisabeth
seemed to be waiting for him to say something.
‘I’m sorry, darlin’,’ Dave said, breaking out his best boyish grin. Or at least one that unpacked a helluva lot easier than that last shit-eating grimace. ‘You’ll have to ask me that again. I’m nervous as hell here. Happy to kick monster butt sun up ’til sundown. But I’m afraid talking to a pretty girl like you makes old Dave a bit anxious.’
He fluttered one hand over his heart to emphasise the point.
She laughed then, a real laugh he was sure of it.
‘Oh you,’ she mugged for the camera, ‘I was just asking, Dave, if you had any advice for the people at home who are worried about their safety this morning.’