Crack-Up (39 page)

Another night I found myself being hounded by a black helicopter, flying without lights, its silhouette barely visible in the sky until it buzzed me like an angry giant wasp.
 
I took cover beneath the front archway of the Lincoln Memorial, watching it circle above the reflecting pond, or sometimes the
Washington
monument.
 
Breathlessly, I spoke into my trusty tape recorder, describing the incident like a reporter under fire in a war zone.

Somewhere along the way, I’d begun recording all my cares, worries, and suspicions.
 
So it became quite a chore to play back the parts relating to my chief nemesis, the cabal.
 
I’d have to keep fast-forwarding over the irrelevant parts and then rewinding when I’d skipped too far ahead.

“What if the president’s evil too?
 
Just as evil as the impersonator’s cabal?” I heard myself say one day while playing back an old voice recording, although I can’t find this dialog on my machine now.
 
In actuality, I must’ve been ignoring whatever words I’d actually been speaking while hallucinating the message.
 
“It’s the president’s own administration behind the data mining, after all.
 
Suppose the president wants secrets on everybody.
 
On all his enemies.
 
All his minions too.
 
Wants to know who he can get to do things.
 
Think of the power, Argus!
 
Think of it!”

I did think of it—in my sorely addled way—as I trekked barefoot toward Keisha Fallon’s condo in
Dupont Circle
.
 
She’d always been a good sounding board for me, and I felt an intense need at that moment to run my latest notions by her.

It happened then to be some black, silent hour creeping toward dawn.
 
I’d been awake all night with my evolving—and revolving—worries, way too amped for sleep.
 
I halted beneath a sulphur-hued streetlight along
Massachusetts Avenue
when I felt something odd, a subtle tingling from the neck down.
 
I found my rugby shirt and blue jeans both vibrating visibly.
 
An instant later, my outer garments began to fade away before my eyes, their once solid textures bleaching into transparency, threatening to disappear altogether, just as my shoes and socks had done.

“It’s those damned forces from another dimension!” I cried.
 
“The blue-haired dwarf is innocent!”

I danced in circles beneath the light in a herky-jerky, spasmodic
Charleston
, trying to prevent the forces from another dimension from latching on to my clothing’s precise geographical coordinates.
 
It seemed to work, so I kept it up, breaking into my dance steps anew every ninety seconds or so along my journey.
 
It was either that, I figured, or walk around in nothing but my aluminum foil-lined underpants, which were really chafing me by the time I reached Keisha’s place on account of all the dancing.

She hadn’t yet repaired the window pane I’d busted out during my last break-in.
 
So all I had to do was punch out the square of cardboard that I’d taped over the hole myself to get to the window latch.

It was pitch black inside Keisha’s bedroom, the window shades all down.
 
The steady rumble of light snoring helped to guide my steps.
 
I sat down, sidesaddle, on the edge of the bed.
 
On the nightstand in front of me I could make out the silhouette of a tall, shaded lamp.
 
I switched its light on.

Keisha lay on her back.
 
Her hair, the way it spilled upon the pillow, seemed to float about her face.
 
Angelic peacefulness pervaded her expression.
 
Anything but a gentle buss upon her two plump lips would’ve been a cruel awakening, I remember thinking as I kissed her.
 
Her eyes opened even before I’d withdrawn, and she screamed.

“Sssh!” I said, jumping to my feet.
 
“It’s okay, it’s okay, Keisha, it’s just me!
 
Me, Argus!
 
Sssh!”

My clothes began to vibrate again, so I broke into my dance routine.
 
By now I’d begun mixing things up a bit, trying to stay a step ahead of my invisible foes, throwing in some country line dance kicks now and then.

“Argus Ward,” Keisha said.
 
With a loud grunt, she sat up, clutching the top bed sheet tightly to her chest as if she were nude or wearing a flimsy negligee instead of an oversized Tee shirt.
 
“Argus Ward, you scared the holy Jesus out of me.
 
Again.
 
What are you doing here?
 
What . . . what are you doing?”

“Forces from another dimension trying to steal my clothes,” I gasped, never slowing my furious feet.
 
“They’ve already swiped my shoes.
 
You wouldn’t happen to know the Macarena, would you?”

“Say what?”

“No, not your style.
 
But you could teach me how to dance hip-hop, right?
 
I’ve got to keep mixing things up, or they’ll lock on to my coordinates, sure as hell.”

“Huh?
 
You’re not making sense.
 
Not a lick.”

“Never mind, I’ll explain later.
 
Got much more important things to tell you.”
 
I halted my gyrations for the time being and brought her up to date.
 
I told Keisha about the confessions of Bernard Alan Simpson and Elizabeth Hardtack and the corporate jet passengers.
 
Then I described my visit with Nathan Pitt and summarized what he’d told me about the data mining.
 
And I’d just brought up the impersonator and his secret cabal when it was time to dance again.
 
But I didn’t let that interrupt my story.

“They want to assassinate the president, Keisha, that’s what they’re really after.
 
John Helms was just a warm-up.”

For a brief moment, Keisha stared at the ceiling.
 
“Please, God, let this be a bad dream.”
 
She dropped her gaze to me.
 
“
Now
what are you doing?”

“ ‘The Twist.’
 
You know.
 
Chubby Checker?”

She groaned.
 
“I can’t take much more of this.”

“Now hear me out, Keisha, hear me out.
 
That’s what I came here for—to run this all by you.
 
Here’s what I think.
 
And when you hear this—Ha, ha!—I just know you’ll be a believer.
 
Oh, yes.
 
I think the cabal wants President Ames dead because he’s the one behind the data mining project.
 
That’s right!
 
The president himself is secretly working—”—here I made the mistake of trying to do the splits—“—Ouch, ouch.
 
Pain.
 
To create a secretly transparent society he can bend at his will.
 
Twist at his whim.
 
And the cabal, they want the power all to themselves!”

Keisha dropped her chin to her chest and then slowly shook her head—a clear sign she agreed with me, I felt.

“I know,” I said, scrambling to my feet again for a little Irish river dancing.
 
“I know just how you feel, Keisha.
 
It’s sad.
 
It’s sickening.
 
Rat bastards everywhere you turn.
 
The president.
 
The cabal.
 
The Wall Street consortium.
 
Evil fucking rat bastards at the highest pinnacles of power.
 
How did
America
ever come to this?”
 
In short order I’d become so pissed off by my own rhetoric that I found it hard to dance.
 
So I turned to my black belt repertoire of karate chops and kicks.

“Argus, stop,” Keisha said, “please stop.
 
Whatever it is you’re doing.”

But I didn’t.
 
I couldn’t.
 
The flap and flurry of my martial arts moves continued.
 
“Problem is they’ve got me, Keisha.
 
The cabal, I mean.
 
Trapped in their spider web.
 
I may have to do something.
 
Something I really don’t want to—”

I halted abruptly—my speech and body both—not from being tired or winded, but because Keisha had begun staring at me strangely, as if she’d never seen me before, as if she’d never seen anything like me before.
 
Because I sensed her fear.

“What?” I said.

“Promise me something,” she said.

“Promise what?”

She threw back the bed covers and swung her feet to the floor, her Tee shirt hiked up, muscular legs like dark-stained wood sculpture.
 
I caught a flash of pink panties as she slid off the mattress.
 
She came face to face with me.

“Promise you’ll believe what I’m about to tell you, Boo.”
 
Boo
was her term of affection for me.
 
“Because it’ll be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.”

“Promise to believe you?
 
Keisha, if these last few weeks have taught me anything, it’s that a man’s got to make up his own mind about what to believe or not believe.”

“Believe this, Argus.
 
You awe me.
 
You’re amazing.
 
That murder plot against John took genius to invent, and to pull off so invisibly.
 
True evil genius.
 
Only it wasn’t invisible to one person.
 
To you.
 
You with half your wits missing, time to time, and half the cops in DC hunting you down meanwhile.
 
I should’ve known better.
 
Should’ve listened to you earlier.
 
But now you have got to listen to me, Argus, you have got to.”
 
She gripped my shoulders tightly.
 
“It’s finally happened.
 
You’ve lost your mind.
 
You’re insane.
 
Psychotic.
 
Completely bonkers.”

I laughed.
 
“Quite the madman, am I?
 
Seems like you’ve told me that before.”

“This time’s different.
 
A child of five would know I’m right this time.
 
You need medical attention.
 
Before you do any harm.
 
To yourself.
 
To others.
 
To me.”

A thought darkened my mind so thoroughly that my vision briefly dimmed.
 
I studied Keisha carefully.
 
“How do I know they haven’t gotten to you somehow?”

“Who?”

“The cabal.
 
They could easily have something on you.
 
They probably have something on everybody.”

Keisha sighed.
 
“That’s not the case.”

“How would I really know?”

“Have I ever lied to you before?”

I didn’t have to ruminate long.
 
“Yes.
 
I think so.”

Her jaw unhinged.
 
“When?”

“Ten years ago.
 
The morning after that one beautiful night we spent together in a
Miami
hotel room.
 
You said—”

“Oh, God, Argus!
 
Don’t—”

“You said—”

“I know what I said.”
 
She scowled at me.
 
“I said I didn’t want to get involved with a co-worker.”

“That was a lie.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Then it wasn’t the complete truth,” I said.
 
“Because the whole truth would’ve factored in my skin color.
 
Right, Keisha?”