London Comfort
From Hollywood to the White House: An American Idol's Dangerous Real World Adventure
Henry E. Scott
Copyright Henry E. Scott 2012
Smashwords Edition
Published by The Pine Forest Press
The Pine Forest Press
Los Angeles, CA
www.thepineforestpress.com
All rights reserved.
The characters in this book are fictitious except for those actual national political figures who are parodied and identified by name.
ISBN: 0983768226
ISBN-13: 978-0-9837682-2-7
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to Michele Bachman, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Andy Martin, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, and Rick Santorum, whose campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination have made credible the incredible story that follows.
Chapter 1
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15
HIGHWAY 405
WILSHIRE BLVD EXIT
LOS ANGELES, CA
"Oh fuck!"
The flashing red and blue light penetrated the tinted windows of London Comfort’s Bentley GT, bouncing off her rear view mirror, the inside of the windshield, and the cover of the odometer, which read seventy-five miles per hour. It was followed in less than a second by the low “mwah-mwah” of a siren that grew louder and louder and louder until the sound smothered the beat of Theodis Ealey's "Stand Up In It” that blared from the speakers.
“Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck! Oh, fuck!”
As she slowed down and steered the car to the narrow edge of the 405, London ran through her mental checklist. Drugs? Nothing in the car, she was sure of that, although she had done two lines at Jason’s party. Booze? She’d had only three drinks. She was a girl who could hold her liquor. So no worries about touching her nose with her eyes closed. Still, what a drag this was going to be. If she hadn’t been so determined to bust Jason’s balls, she would have stayed at the party, spent the night with him, and she wouldn’t be going through this crap. But she’d promised herself that until he gave up that video of her, Jason wasn’t getting any more nooky from London. She came to a stop, turned off the ignition, and let out a deep sigh. Maybe at least the cop would be hot. She’d seen a movie where the cop who stopped a girl ended up in the sack with her. She did have this uniform fantasy. But those CHiPS guys looked like they’d spent too much time at Krispy Kreme. Real life was disappointing like that. On the other hand, those UPS guys always turned her on. London still had fantasies about what brown could do for her.
Finally, the siren died, and London looked into the rear view mirror. He had just stepped out of the cruiser, and in the oncoming headlights he was looking good. Just maybe she’d get out of this if her smile said innocent and her eyes said sexy and she touched his hand longingly as she passed over her license.
“Good evening, ma’am. Can I see your license and registration?”
He was maybe thirty. Thick, hairy forearms. Thick, dark eyebrows. A square jaw and low forehead. Just the sort of Neanderthal man that turned her on. Just the sort of Neanderthal man that was impossible to find at the clubs and parties where she hung out. She fished in her Birkin for her wallet, extracted her license, and handed it to him, making sure to caress his palm ever so slightly as she did. He started, but not in a bad way.
“Let me find my registration.” she said.
She stretched over toward the glove compartment on her right, conscious that her butt, one of her best features according to the gossip columnists, was elevated off the seat. She found the leather portfolio with all of the car papers and handed it him with a polite smile.
“What was I doing wrong, officer?”
“Well, ma’am, you were talking on your cell phone a few miles back, and you weren’t wearing your seatbelt, and you were doing seventy five miles an hour in a sixty five zone. Now, you stay right here while I go back to my vehicle for a moment.”
He walked away, and she looked at her watch and sighed. Five a.m. and in eight hours she had to be at the Ivy for lunch with her agent and that woman from Warnaco. A London Comfort lingerie line! She didn’t even wear panties! She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and looked into the rear view mirror. He was still talking on his walkie-talkie or whatever. She needed to pee. She needed to sleep. She needed to get this over with and go home. And now what’s this? Another cruiser is pulling up? Don’t these people have real work to do?
Suddenly her cave man was back at her window, this time accompanied by a black woman, if you could call her a woman, in a uniform that looked a lot like his. Her breasts drooped down over her waist. She wore a huge phallic nightstick on her belt. Her hair was cropped tight. When she got really close, London couldn’t believe the size of her hands.
“Ma’am, would you step out of the car please?” she said. “We’re going to have to take you in.”
“Take me in? Officer, for what? What do you mean take me in? Can’t I just get my ticket and go home? Oh my God! What is happening?”
Cro Magnon man spoke up.
“Ma’am, we’re placing you under arrest for driving seventy-five in a sixty-five-mile-per-hour zone, for driving without wearing a seatbelt, for talking on a cell phone while driving, and for driving while your license is suspended. Ma’am, you have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed for you. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law. Do you understand your rights ma’am?”
London nodded, biting her lip to keep from crying. She stepped out of the car onto the broken pavement, snapping the heel off one of her Roger Viviers in the process. Then the woman cop asked her to turn around and put her hands behind her back.
“You’re going to handcuff me? Why are you going to handcuff me? I can’t believe this!”
As the metal cuffs closed around her wrists and locked with a clink, London let go. Tears streamed down her face, washing her eyeliner with them, and a warm stream of urine trickled down the inside of her left leg. With a quick shove, the woman cop bobbed London’s head down as she pushed her into the back seat of the waiting cruiser. The door closed with a tinny slam that London noticed was nothing like the solid clunk of her Bentley. In just seconds, lights flashing, they were off.
London twisted to get comfortable on the vinyl seat, made clammy by the wet spot on the back of her skirt.
“You okay honey?” asked the woman cop.
They handcuff her hands behind her back, and they want to know if she’s okay? London didn’t respond. It seemed like only a few minutes had passed when they pulled off the highway and twisted and turned down blocks dotted with small houses and anchored by corners where groups of black and brown men stared sullenly at the police car. Suddenly they stopped in front of a bland three- or four-story building whose sign identified it as the Century Regional Detention Facility. It looked to London like one of those cheap hotels her father had managed when he first came to the United States from Saudi Arabia — before he made his fortune, and before he changed his last name to Comfort in what London’s agent had called a brilliant piece of branding.
The drive was full of cars. Suddenly London realized why. Photographers! How did they know she was going to be there? How did they know what was going on?
“Oh, fuck!”
It’s not like she wasn’t used to photographers. God knows, they followed her practically everywhere. They were one reason her father had nagged her to get her own driver and make sure she had a security guy with her at all times. But London liked to drive. London liked to be in control. London liked being photographed. She’d learned to keep her head high and smile demurely as she walked through a sea of flashes. Tobias, her makeup artist, had even created a special foundation for her that he claimed was ideal for a face constantly assaulted by bright light. London, however, had never thought about how she’d handle a situation like this. She’d seen people on TV and in magazines who were arrested and walked into courthouses and jails with jackets over their heads. That looked so pitiful, so lame. London’s impulse was to walk in with a regal pose, not smiling exactly, but not looking frightened or sad either. On the other hand, her makeup had to be a mess. She was missing a heel on one of her shoes. There was that wet spot on her skirt. What would that look like in US Weekly?
As if she had been reading London’s mind, the woman cop spoke up.
“Keep your head high honey,” she said. “Don’t let ‘em see you crying. Don’t let ‘em see you looking scared. Don’t act like you got something to be ashamed of.”
For a moment, London was ashamed. This woman was being nice to her, while London had been thinking she was so impossibly pathetic and ugly. She smiled at the woman, who smiled back. There was beauty hidden under that ugly blue uniform.
“Thanks,” she said, slipping off the other Roger Vivier so she could walk comfortably. “I will."
Chapter 2
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 15
SOMEWHERE IN THE TOBA KAKAR
MOUNTAINS, PAKISTAN
“Oh, neik!”
Abdullah looked quickly outside his tent. He was relieved that none of his bodyguards seemed to be within earshot. His men knew he had a temper, having received many a stern rebuke invoking the Prophet’s name. Still, it wouldn’t do to be heard using that sort of profanity.
There was reason to be angry. At night, the temperature was twenty-five degrees, and during the day it was hot, with alternating torrents of dust and rain that blew through even the tiniest holes in a man’s tent. Abdullah was dirty. Abdullah was wet. Abdullah was tired. Now, after learning that the latest plan to wreak terror on the Great Satan had come to naught, Abdullah was pissed.
It wasn’t easy trying to top 9/11. But Abdullah knew he had to try. He knew that both narcissistic American capitalists and fanatically devout Muslims shared one thing — a short attention span. He knew what the Americans were thinking: “Sure you Muslims blew up the Twin Towers. But we killed bin Laden. What have you done lately?” And his Muslim brothers, the dwindling number of whom weren't spending all their time with video games and cell phone apps? Well if Abdullah and his men didn't do something big soon, they'd find someone who would. Maybe it was paranoia, but lately when Abdullah walked around his compound some of his men looked more like possible rivals than supporters. Having majored in marketing at King Abdul-Aziz University in Jeddah, he knew Abdullah bin-Salem’s reputation was only as good as his last bombing. Routine acts of terror in Muslim countries — a car bombing in Baghdad, a market in flames in Beirut — barely rated thirty seconds on Al Jazeera these days. No, Abdullah need to take his campaign back to the heart of infidel culture, and in a big way. That was increasingly hard to do, witness the latest efforts of Ahmed Azhar, Abdullah's nephew, and one of only a handful of friends he was sure he could trust. Ahmed, having studied at Mississippi State University, spoke English with a Southern accent — a characteristic that led airport security staffers to see him as a rube rather than a rebel. With that, and a career as a model, he could slip into and out of the United States and Europe without arousing suspicion.
Abdullah crumpled in his hand the latest chronicle of failure. One hundred thousand dollars and six months spent recruiting a team of four young men to drive a pickup loaded with fertilizer-based explosives through the front doors of the biggest Wal-Mart in Kansas. The problem was the decadence of the United States. According to Ahmed, it was impossible to lure young men to the cause of Allah with the promise of martyrdom in heaven surrounded by seven young virgins. According to Ahmed, there were no female virgins in America over the age of fifteen, and young men didn’t mind. Instead they, or so Ahmed said, preferred girls with experience. The team Ahmed had recruited in Kansas seemed promising at first, although not that religious. They were computer geeks — nerds the Americans called them. One of them reportedly spent eight hours a day editing submissions on Wikipedia (where Abdullah had spent more than a few hours correcting some of the more outrageous errors in his biography). Another spent his out-of-school hours on something called Second Life, a virtual community, whatever that was. The other two were website programmers. Abdullah had seen pictures of them. While one of them looked like the star of a teen girl movie, the others three were fat with faces dotted with acne and bad haircuts. Those boys were not going to get laid without some divine help. Ahmed had recruited the Kansas team at a madrassa in Kansas City. Ahmed's initiative pleased Abdullah. While he loved Ahmed like a son, he had to admit he shared some of his friends' concerns about his obsession with fashion and his reluctance to accept the wife that had been offered him. So he was relieved to hear that while Ahmed was in Kansas City to model for an underwear show at Neiman Marcus, he also was doing Allah's work, visiting the local madrassa and the local mosque to recruit some help. That's where Ahmed had met Hassan, the handsome young man who was a dead ringer for Wael kfoury in his younger days, a star to whom Ahmed was often compared.
Ahmed had offered to take Hassan and his friends to see a movie called “Primer,” apparently a geek masterpiece, at a local college film festival. After that it was flights by Ahmed back and forth from New York, where he frequently modeled for Calvin Klein, to talk with the young men about the Prophet and the insidiousness of American culture. Slowly he introduced the idea that these boys could do something about it. Martyrdom was always a tough sell. But, Ahmed told Abdullah, these boys lived such virtual lives that giving up real life hardly would matter. The clincher was the seven virgins, or a total of twenty-eight, given that all four boys were needed for this plot, and also Ahmed’s promise of eternal work on a new social community that the Prophet was building on the Web. Okay, so that wasn’t exactly something one would find in the Koran, but Abdullah understood that an Islamic revolution required unusual measures that Allah would forgive.
Finally, everything was set. Abdullah’s lieutenants alerted a friendly correspondent at Al Jazeera that there would be some big news on July 4, and it wouldn’t be the Macy’s fireworks and a patriotic speech by the ruler of the Great Satan. Abdullah had even trimmed his beard a little and washed up for the video his men were planning to make. And then — nothing happened.
Hassan, Ahmed said, had “gotten lucky,” as the Americans described it. When he was supposed to have been driving the pickup, the boy had been at home trolling MySpace, an explanation Abdullah didn’t really understand. There Hassan met a young American girl of loose morals who happened to be into Arab guys. The boy had gotten laid. Suddenly seven young virgins in heaven looked like a bunch of birds in the bush compared to a very randy bird who was eating out of Hassan’s handsome hand.
Abdullah was furious. Abdullah was discouraged. What do you do in a society where sex is so easy that even the promise of seven young virgins in Heaven isn’t enough? It was a promise that was beginning to lose its appeal in the Middle East as well, what with word getting around that the seven young virgins was a mistranslation of a Koranic promise of seven white raisins, which, Abdullah knew, had been as rare a treat as virgins in the Prophet’s time.
"Khatraa! Khatraa! Khatraa!"
Abdullah's brief indulgence in self-pity was over. The screams of danger were quickly followed by the whistling sound of a missile, then an explosion. He stepped out of his tent to find his men running to their various vehicles. Two of them grabbed him by the arms and hoisted him into a jeep. It was a drone, they said. The Americans had found them. They sped along a bumpy and narrow path, sending up clouds of dust, in search of an overhang that a drone's missile couldn't pierce. Abdullah turned to look behind. A column of smoke was arising from the middle of his encampment of thirty tents, many of which were on fire. With luck, they'd be able to return later to retrieve whatever belongings had survived. Luck, however, was in short supply these days. Abdullah resigned himself to the possibility that they would be starting over, sleeping in their jeeps and trucks with no protection from the sun and rain and cold and dirt until they managed to scrounge some new supplies.
The next morning Abdullah and a dozen of his men started to make their wary way back to the camp. Against the advice of his senior lieutenants, he had situated it in an open yet inconveniently remote area, with a Pakistani general's assurance that the Americans never would find them there. He watched his men arguing and gesturing among themselves. From the way they fell silent when he approached, it was clear they were talking about that decision and him. They were wet and hungry and demoralized. A count the night before had turned up a dozen missing, all now martyrs in Allah's cause.
They drove in their jeeps out of the cold mountain shadows and into the brilliant desert sun. Down below, Abdullah could see what remained of the camp, where the tattered canvas of the remaining tents flapped gently in the light breeze like white flags signaling surrender. They stopped first at the site where the drone's missile had landed to pay tribute to their martyred brothers. Then Abdullah and his men broke down the surviving tents. His had survived, and he was relieved to find the leather pouch that contained his most important and private possessions.
In less than two hours they were back in the dark mountain shadows, erecting the tents they had rescued. The roar of several cooking fires and the clatter of pots and pans injected some life into what had been a deadly quiet scene the night before. At one point Abdullah even thought he heard laughter. After dinner, he made a speech in which he attempted to rouse his men to revenge, reminding them that martyrdom was a great privilege. Then he crawled back into his tent for some reflection. He was surrounded by two dozen fellow fighters. Yet he felt alone. He was reviled in the Western media as the most dangerous man in the world. Yet he felt impotent.
Abdullah was beginning to think young Hassan had been wise to choose the assurance of sex in Kansas over the possibility of martyrdom in Heaven. After all, he had gambled everything to rid the world of infidels and bring Allah's grace and glory to earth. But it wasn't working out — the aborted Kansas bombing had been one in a string of failures. And unlike Hassan, Abdullah hadn’t been with a woman in a long time. That was to be expected, he realized, given that he spent his days in a tent in the Pakistani mountains, surrounded by his mujahideen supporters. Back in the day, he recalled, with a chuckle to himself, he’d had more than his share of virgins and women of more accomplishment. As the first son of the fourth wife of the wealthiest real estate developer in Jeddah, Abdullah was seen as quite a catch. He became expert at divining what lay underneath those damned burkas, the head-to-toe black garments that he hated as a young man but now had to support for religious reasons.
Abdullah also got to experience sex with the infidels. When he finished college, he was given a passport and an allowance that gave him the chance to explore Beirut and Istanbul, and later Paris and London and Berlin. For a while, he had considered staying in Paris to run a branch of his father’s business. He was almost ashamed to remember how much he had enjoyed that city. There was a club called Cleopatra where he had been a regular. At Cleopatra, Abdullah experienced sins he hadn’t even imagined growing up in Saudi Arabia. He still didn't understand the allure of the latex bodysuits that so many of Cleopatra's female patrons wore. The restaurant served food that was remarkably pedestrian for a city such as Paris. But then one didn’t go to Cleopatra to eat. More important appetites were sated in a suite of rooms behind the bar, where black leather tables and divans supported all manner of public sex. His family wealth and social standing, invisible in that atmosphere, did nothing for Abdullah. His six-foot-five height and long beard, which woman said tickled in the most amazing way, were what got him laid.
His father, however, called him home. There he found a wife waiting for him, and a job in the family business. Adara, the daughter of one of his father’s business partners, certainly was the virgin her name would suggest. The problem was that she never learned to enjoy sex. After a year of unrestrained coupling in Paris, Abdullah found the always-tentative intercourse with his wife a disappointment. The job wasn’t much better. His father, determined not to show undue favoritism at so early an age to one of his dozen sons, detailed him to a division that built housing for immigrant workers. Abdullah’s job was site manager, a task that kept him in the hot sun overseeing inconsequential projects and incompetent émigrés. Most of the time, he sat in his trailer and read. The story, as his PR firm later spun it, is that he rediscovered the Koran and developed his revolutionary fervor during those long days in that trailer. In fact, it was an article in an old issue of Time magazine, probably left behind by a Halliburton contractor, that really launched Abdullah on his jihad. “Enterprising Evangelism” described in detail the influence that television preachers such as Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart were wielding in the United States. The idea that one could foment a religious revolution and also own a Rolls Royce and a house in Palm Springs, and have a glamorous wife, had an appeal to Abdullah that grew daily as the sun beat down on the construction trailer, and his wife feigned more headaches, and his father refused his requests to take another bride or two. So one day, oh what a day, Abdullah just up and quit.
Everyone in the Middle East knew the rest of the story. The anger of his father, who publicly threatened to disinherit him. The furor of the Saudi government, when the king learned that Abdullah was taking jihad so seriously as to upset the Bushes. The late-night flight on a bin-Salem corporate jet into exile in the barren mountains along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Had it been the right decision? Abdullah had his doubts. After all, things didn't exactly turn out so well for his buddy Osama, whose life had followed a similar, if more dramatic and widely publicized, arc. Now it was pretty much impossible to see a Rolls Royce or a Palm Springs mansion in his future. He was lucky to find a sure-footed camel and an untattered tent. As for the glamorous wife, well, at the age of forty-five, it looked as if sex was destined to be a bigger part of Abdullah’s past than his future.
But here he was. He looked at his watch. He had an hour before Isha Salat, the last prayer of the night. Next to him was the leather pouch he'd rescued, which Ahmed had sent along with his chronicle of failure. Abdullah whispered a prayer of forgiveness to Allah and, withdrawing a key from his thawb, unlocked the pouch and removed a tightly wrapped package. Peeling away the paper, he saw copies of US Weekly, OK, Celebrity Digest, and Hustler, each several months old. With a half smile, he lay back on his damp mattress and prepared himself for a journey into the world he had left behind, a world he sorely missed.
Chapter 3
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 17
THE OVAL OFFICE
THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON, DC
"Oh fuck!"
John Edsel watched helplessly as his semen shot onto the raw silk upholstery of the sofa that only last night had been featured in a PBS special about his wife’s efforts to restore the White House to its former glory.
“What’s the matter?” asked Bree, his aide of three months, whose last minute jerk of the head had caused this problem.
“Nothing. Nothing. Look, I’m sorry. But you have to go now. This is making me very nervous."
Bree pulled her thong back into place as she stood up. She buttoned her blouse and said, clearly angry: “Don’t I at least get a wash cloth?”
The President of the United States gestured absently toward the private bathroom off his office.
“Hey, would you bring out a wash cloth for me?” he asked, thinking that a little moistening might remove the incriminating spot, which seemed to grow bigger and bigger by the minute.
Bree came out of the bathroom, her nose in the air and a fiery look in her eyes.
“Well, thanks for all the after glow,” she snapped. “I thought I meant something to you. I guess I was wrong.”
“You know how much I care about you, Bree," Edsel said, zipping his pants. But I’m going through a tough time right now. The first hundred days are almost up, and the damned press is already at my heels like a pack of rabid dogs. Jesus Christ, I’m supposed to be on my honeymoon.”
“Your honeymoon?” Bree wrinkled her nose in confusion. “I thought you’d been married for, like, ages. You’ve could have kids my age.”
Thanks for reminding me, Edsel thought.
“No, not that honeymoon. My honeymoon with the press, with Congress, with the public. They’re supposed to cut me a little slack in the first hundred days. But look at this!”
Edsel spread the front page of The New York Times on his desk. There, above the fold, was an analysis by Adam Nagourney: “John Edsel: Did the Voters Buy a Lemon?” Edsel crushed the newspaper in his hand and tossed it into the trash. Under it was the Wall Street Journal, opened to the editorial page. “Who is John Edsel?” was the lead editorial. Edsel ripped that page apart and trashed it too.
Edsel escorted Bree out a door to his office and into a corridor where her presence would be noted only by Jack Northern, a Secret Service agent he trusted so thoroughly that he had named him to replace the Marine who traditionally stood outside the Oval Office door. He sat back at his desk and stared at the semen stain, which now seemed as big as the presidential seal woven into the center of the carpet. God, Betty was sure to see that. She’d hit up old Anabelle Ramsey for something like $10,000 just to reupholster that damned sofa. What a waste of money, money that could have gone to EdselPAC. Knowing Betty, she’d have the damned thing taken out and tested for DNA.
Edsel surveyed the stack of papers before him. Schedules, briefings, proclamations. National Discount Auto Parts Dealers Month, National Ferret Day, National Pasteurized Cheese Manufacturers Day — boy, the money guys at the RNC had been busy! He had thirty minutes to sort through all of this before Jesus Ramirez, his Secretary of Labor, showed up for his monthly fifteen-minute meeting. The man was dumb as a box of rocks, and Edsel couldn’t understand half of what he had to say. Hell, it had taken Edsel a few weeks to learn the man’s name was pronounced “Hay Soos,” and not “Jesus.” Lockehart Jones had insisted Ramirez be appointed to cement relations with what he called “the Hispanic base.” Lockehart knew his politics, but somehow Edsel felt strange appointing a man named Jesus, however you pronounced it, to a cabinet post. His poor mother, devout Southern Baptist that she was, probably was spinning in her Alabama grave at the thought of Jesus reporting to her son, instead of it being the other way around. For the first time all day, Edsel chuckled.
Lockehart should be the one to meet with Jesus and all of these other characters, Edsel thought. After all, in a way it was Lockehart who got him into all this, arguing that he should run for president when he’d been damned happy at the Governor’s Mansion back in Montgomery. Edsel had never worked so hard. The campaign was as intense as the football training back at Mid-Alabama Tech, where he was the star quarterback. The actual job of president, though, was like those damned history and sociology courses he’d had to take in college. Edsel hadn’t done well with them, and he knew the only reason he was able to graduate was because he was the best quarterback the Devils had ever had, and because the father of his high-school bride and their family manufacturing company were big contributors to the Mid-Atlantic Tech building fund.
The buzzer on his telephone sounded.
“Mr. President, Mr. Jones here to see you.”
“Send him in,” Edsel bellowed, sprawling back in his chair and putting his feet up. Damned if he was gonna let this job turn him into an office drone, although Betty would raise a racket if she saw his feet on this antique desk.
“Mr. President, good to see you, sir.”
Lockehart Jones was tall, with a face like a young Mitt Romney and wearing a suit that looked as if it cost more than his annual salary as Special Advisor to the President. He moved across the vast expanse of presidential carpet with his hand outstretched, as though he were running for office himself.
“How ya doing, Locke?” said Edsel, ignoring the outstretched hand and not bothering to shift from his relaxed sprawl. “Listen, I got ole Jesus coming in here in a few minutes. So we gotta make it quick.”
“Mr. President, please remember that it is pronounced 'hay soos.' Latinos will be offended if they think you are calling Mr. Ramirez 'Jesus. Anyway, sir, I took the liberty of postponing Secretary Ramirez’s meeting until next month. There’s an urgent matter I need to take up with you.”
“Well, that’s a relief. At least I can understand you when you talk. What’s up Locke?”
“Mr. President, we finally have the results from last week’s polling in, and we’ve got some problems. The big concern is voters see you as weak on terrorism and foreign policy. Also, you don’t seem to be connecting with young people.”
“Terrorism and foreign policy? Jesus Christ, Locke! I made that damned speech you wrote for me last week. Every single one of those geezers at the VFW Convention applauded. I even got a standing ovation — at least from the ones who could stand. The others were thumping their canes. And it’s not like we’ve had any terrorist activity. I hear every morning about that terror alert, and it’s been pink — I think it’s pink, or is it orange? — every day since I’ve been elected.”
“I know Mr. President. But the press has made a lot of noise about that pickup truck with all the fertilizer and chemicals that the police found in the parking lot of that Wal-Mart in Kansas. I know nothing happened. But suddenly people are worried again. I mean, if a Muslim terrorist could strike in the middle of Kansas, well then, no one’s safe.”
“Hell, how do they know it wasn’t some damned farmer getting ready to fertilize a field? What makes them think it was a bomb? Okay, okay. So what do you want me to do about it Locke? I gotta go and make another damned speech? We gonna turn that light from pink to green or whatever? What do you want me to do?"
“Well, Mr. President, we think we know where Abdullah bin-Salem is hiding. We’d like authorization to kidnap him. This could be as big a deal as the assassination of Osama bin Laden.”
“Abdullah bin-Salem? You’re fucking kidding me! I mean, the whole damned world has been looking for that goober since bin Laden was killed and ain’t been able to find him. Now you know where he is? Hell, Locke, let’s just do it! Let’s just damned well do it. We even could use that new Kudzu 990 helicopter my father-in-law is building if the damned Defense Department would just buy it.”
“Thank you Mr. President. I knew you’d like this plan. Your administration will accomplish something the last two administrations failed at. You’ll go down in the history books for this.”
“And Locke, I want that son of a bitch brought here. I wanna see him. I wanna look him in the eye.”
“Mr. President, I would advise against that. Our plan is to take him to Gitmo and intern him there. There could be legal ramifications if you bring him into the United States, and security issues, and …”
“Dammit Locke! You heard me. I want the bastard standing in front of me. I wanna be able to tell the American people I looked eye-to-eye with the asshole responsible for all this terror. I wanna be able to say I stared down that murderer. You hear me boy? There ain’t gonna be any debate on this one, Locke. I want him here.”
“Yessir, Mr. President. I hear you sir.”
Lockehart Jones stood and gave the slightest bow as he made ready to leave. “Mr. President, there’s one more thing. It’s a minor problem, but I want to check with you.”
“What is it Locke?”
“Well sir, regarding your problem in the polls with young people. There’s an opportunity with London Comfort, the celebrity. She was arrested for speeding sir, in California, and it looks like she’s going to be sentenced to prison for violating her probation. I wouldn’t bring this up with you sir, except that her father, Ali Comfort, is one of your very biggest supporters. There’s a chance, if you’d approve it, that we could convince the judge to order her to do community service instead of prison. It seems Ms. Comfort saw your wife’s White House tour on television, and she’s told her advisors that she would like to do community service at the White House, maybe as a tour guide. I know it’s highly unusual sir, but it would really help us with the youth vote. It also would cement our relationship with Mr. Comfort and his fellow hotel owners.”
“That's a great idea Locke! I guess that’s why I have you on the payroll boy. Just make sure you let Betty know, will ya? She's in charge of the White House.”
“Thank you sir. I’ll take care of it.”
Jones turned and began to move purposefully out of the President’s office, when something caught his eye.
“Mr. President. Did you notice that spot on your sofa, sir? Is there a leak? Should I ask someone to take care of it?”
Edsel groaned and waved Jones out the door. The most powerful man in the world turned to his computer to Google solutions for upholstery stains.
Chapter 4
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 17
THE WEST WING, THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, DC
Lockehart Jones walked down the West Wing hall to his office. Not sixty days in the White House, and John Edsel was already impossible. The man didn’t read anything put in front of him. He couldn’t pronounce the names of his own cabinet secretaries, much less those of the leaders of half the free world. Now that the campaign glad handing and speech reading were over, John Edsel was looking like the empty suit the Democrats said he was. To Jones, who had more than a casual interest in fashion, Edsel’s wasn’t even a good suit.
It was classic, Jones realized. The dumb straight guy in the top job, with the smart, yet closeted, gay guy making him look good. When the chairman of the Republican National Committee had first approached Jones for help in “packaging” Edsel, he was dubious and reluctant. Edsel’s highest previous office had been as governor of Alabama, a state that distinguished itself by keeping Mississippi or Arkansas from ranking last on every list. As lieutenant governor, Edsel had inherited the governorship after the incumbent collapsed and died at his desk in a scandal Jones had helped hush up. The party chairman argued that at least Edsel wasn't Lydia Quinn, whose abrupt decision not to seek a second term as President had mystified everyone in the nation except for the people at Institute of Living, the private psychiatric hospital in Hartford, Connecticut, where party leaders had delivered her after a series of bizarre public statements that had made even Michelle Bachman, the GOP's newest reality TV star, sound sane. With Edsel, there were no pronouncements, no positions, no initiatives, and thus no record that the Democrats could make hay with. Edsel was a tabula rasa, the party chairman had said, trying to make a virtue of the fact that John Edsel hadn’t had a single original idea or achieved anything of note in four years in public office. Within the party, Locke Jones, with the help of some expert polling and advertising, got most of the credit for turning John Edsel into a candidate who could secure the White House for the GOP for a second four years. John Edsel was the man who would finish paying off the US debt by selling off all the useless crap, including a few states, that had been accumulated over the years. With Edsel's inauguration, GOP majorities in the House and Senate, and seven justices sitting on the far right of the Supreme Court, the Democrats would have no more impact than those pesky mosquitoes Locke had to slap off during his campaign visits to Alabama.
Not that it had been easy. Even the guys at Halliburton, who had gotten assurances about Edsel from George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who submitted a recommendation in writing from Leavenworth, were doubtful after they met the candidate. Jones had briefed Edsel thoroughly for that meeting, but it just hadn’t stuck. Edsel confused Halliburton with Smithfield, their four p.m. donor call. His good ole boy jokes about “makin’ bacon” didn’t find a receptive audience. Then there were the problems with Edsel making three a.m. room service calls at hotels around the country, the goal being to score sex with chambermaids. Jones tried to put a stop to that by telling Edsel the story of Dominique Strauss-Kahn. "You don't want your opponents of accusing you of acting like a Frenchman, Mr. President," he had said.
It was galling. Not only because Edsel was so stupid. He also was racist, and sexist, and homophobic. Jones knew Edsel’s reputation for hitting on White House aides and interns. He knew he was carrying on with Bree Collard, a twenty-year-old whose D-cups were the only possible reason she scored a coveted White House job. Not that Jones could complain. He had used sex to curry favor on his own behalf, and for friends. It was a very, very friendly professor at Brown, who had served in several previous administrations, who had scored a White House post for Jones soon after his graduation. Jones himself had just helped Roberto Diaz, London Comfort's PR guy, whose private relations prowess was as amazing as his vaunted public relations skill. Still, Locke Jones wasn't the President of the United States.
What pissed off Jones was that Diaz could be himself, a real flamer, and still be a success in Hollywood public relations. Jones, in the White House, in the GOP, a few steps away from a redneck president, had to live in the closet. He couldn’t even afford to be seen in one of those bars on “P” Street where gay congressional staffers and lower-level administrators in federal agencies would cluster, sometimes with one of the few “out” Congressmen in tow. It played hell with his love life. He didn’t dare hire a hooker for fear he’d be blackmailed. That’s where Roberto helped. He knew Jones’ type — dark, ethnic — the opposite of the Boston super-WASP that was Lockehart Jones. When he met someone who he thought might measure up, Roberto would make the discreet introduction. Thanks to Roberto, Jones was working his way around the southern hemisphere, all without leaving the United States. In fact, he kept a world map on his bedroom wall, where colored pins identified the homelands of his sexual conquests. Latin America was a thicket of stickpins. Africa was pretty barren, except for a few pins in Cape Town and Rabat. Lately, Jones, with that drive to achieve that had made him a magna cum laude graduate of Brown, was focused intently on the Middle East. Israel was pricked with a dozen pins. There was one in Cairo. But the one Jones was most proud of was stuck right in the middle of Jeddah.
That was a new pin. Roberto had been in town to meet with some writers from the Washington Post a month ago, and he’d called Jones for a drink. When Jones showed up, Roberto was escorting a sexy guy, in his early thirties, with a dark complexion, a slight Southern accent, and a butt that couldn’t be believed. “Locke, meet Abdul,” Roberto said. “Abdul, meet Locke.”
Roberto slipped out after fifteen minutes, leaving Abdul and Jones alone. A quick dinner at a nearby restaurant morphed into dessert at Jones’ condo followed by breakfast the next morning — an early one, given Jones’ seven a.m. start time at the White House. There was something about the strangeness of the other that excited Jones. Abdul, despite the complexion and the accent, was an Arab and Muslim, a turn-on for Jones, an Episcopalian who couldn’t be bothered with practicing religion. He'd heard all those George Bush speeches about how Muslims were our friends, but Jones was turned on by sex with a guy who might have been just as happy killing him. There was something exotic and exciting in the pillow talk afterwards about Abdul’s time in the Saudi army and his skill at slitting a sheep’s throat to prepare for the Id-Ul-Fitra feast that ended Ramadan. Jones had to admit that Abdul’s unavailability also made him alluring. He was an actor appearing in commercials overseas, and he wouldn’t be back in the United States for another two weeks. To thank Roberto for the introduction, Jones had offered to use the power of the Oval Office to help Roberto's client, London Comfort, bunk in the White House for a few months instead of a Los Angeles jail.
Jones smiled to himself as he realized he was getting a hard on. Only the President should be walking around with a boner in John Edsel's White House. Quickest way to get rid of that was to place a call to the Secretary of Defense and tell her the plan to abduct Abdullah Bin-Salem was a go. People assumed Lockehart Jones was single because he worked so hard and was so devoted to his job. But they knew Secretary of Defense Cherry Samuels worked so hard and was so devoted to her job because she was single.
“Marsha, put me through to Secretary Samuels.”
“Good afternoon Madame Secretary. Thanks for taking my call.” Locke was unfailingly polite, even though he knew his position with the President, and the party, meant Cherry Samuels didn’t have any choice but to take his call.
“Good to hear from you Locke. What’s up today?”
"Hello, Madame Secretary. How is that helicopter evaluation going? Are Sikorsky and Mid-South Manufacturing still in the running? Curious whether there will be some Kudzu 990s joining the fleet, or whether we'll be sticking with Sikorsky's Black Hawk?"
"They're the two finalists, Locke. We should have a decision in two weeks. I'll keep you posted."
“Thank you ma'am. But the main reason I called is I've just talked with the President. We have authorization to proceed with Operation Ali Baba.”
“Great, Locke. Wonderful news. I assume you’ll tell the veep. I’ll alert Admiral Roster.”
“Ma’am, you should know there’s a bit of a wrinkle in our plans. The President insists that we bring our prisoner here.”
“Here? Oh fudge! Locke, you’ve gotta be kidding. I mean what if one of those judges grants a habeas petition? You can't even trust Clarence Thomas anymore. Since he had that stroke, he’s been absolutely unpredictable. He’s acting like he thinks he’s Thurgood Marshall.”
“I know Madame Secretary. I agree with you. But the President insists.”
“Oh, fudge Locke! Oh, fudge."
Chapter 5
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20
CENTURY REGIONAL DETENTION
FACILITY LYNWOOD, CA
London, dressed in stained blue cotton pants and shirt and wearing rubber slippers, sat at a Formica-topped table in the visitor’s lounge at the Century Regional Detention Facility. Across from her were the two most important people in her life, other than her father, and she didn’t like what they were telling her.
She’d spent six nights in this horrible place, denied bail because she had violated probation and because she was deemed a “flight risk.” Ralphie Soltis, her lawyer, was telling her she was sure to be found guilty if she demanded a trial. That meant there was a good chance she would go to jail for a few months. Her publicist, Roberto Diaz, nodded in agreement.
“A few months? It’s so unfair! Roberto, can’t you do something?”
If anyone could get her out of this, it was Roberto Diaz. Luckily for her, he was gay as a goose. For one thing, London didn’t have to worry about him hitting on her. For another, he was part of that Velvet Mafia the gossip columnists talk about. Her father and his friends always said the Jews ran the media. London knew better. The media was, like, totally queer! And Roberto was the queerest queer London had ever met. It seemed like he’d had sex with someone at every studio in Hollywood, on every entertainment news show, at every major newspaper, and every magazine. He must have been good, because when he called for favors, he and London got them.
“Baby, I wish I could,” Roberto said. “But it looks like the judge who’s going to hear your case isn’t one of my friends, if you know what I mean. We’ve looked into it. He’s married, Republican, as straight as a five-dollar bill. We do have an idea though. How would you like to work in the White House?”
“What white house?”
“The White House,” Roberto said. “You know, the one where the President of the United States lives.”
“I don’t know,” London said, very tentative. “It’s in Washington? I’ve never been to Washington. I don’t know anyone there.”
“But baby,” Roberto said. “You’d have your own room there. It's like a cool hotel. We think we could even get a TV deal out it.”
“So what does this have to do with the judge and with me going to jail?” London asked.
Ralphie took this one.
“London, the judge is surely going to find you guilty. He’s up for re-election soon. If he lets you loose, he’s gonna get creamed. But we know he wants to be a federal judge. And, well, let’s just say he’ll have a crack at being a federal judge if he’ll release you on what they call community service.”
“You mean like picking up leaves and garbage in public, like Elton John?” London’s frown said “no.”
“We’ve got a classier idea for you,” Roberto said. “That’s where the White House comes in. You would be an intern or a tour guide at the White House! It’s patriotic! It’s noble! It’s self-sacrifice! It’s the new London Comfort — concerned for her country!”
“Intern? Tour guide? I don’t know anything about the White House. What would I do? What would I say? Would I have to wear some geeky uniform?”
“No baby,” Roberto said. “You’d dress like you always do. Well, maybe longer skirts, and maybe looser blouses. But pretty much the same. It would be like being a television host, except without the television cameras. Every day there would be a different audience, there to see London Comfort, and the White House. Whaddya say?”
“So how long would I have to do this? You’re sure it would keep me out of jail?”
“Three months, tops,” said Ralphie. “Monday through Friday, eight a.m. to five p.m., with an hour for lunch and a half hour break each morning and afternoon.”
“Eight in the morning? Are you fucking kidding me?” London said. “Do you know how many lines of coke I’d have to do to be awake at eight in the morning? Ralphie, Roberto, get real.”
“Baby, it’s either that, or more of this,” Roberto said, gesturing with open arms to the visitor’s room, now full of enormous black and Latin women on London’s side of the tables, and screaming babies and the tattooed gang members who fathered them on the other side.
“Okay. Okay.” London relented. “I’ll do it.”
The alarm sounded to indicate the end of visiting hours. Roberto and Ralphie blew kisses across the table to London before turning to make their way through the throngs of people to the door. London stood for a moment, watching their backs recede, stunned by the enormity of what had happened to her and what was likely to continue happening. She joined the long line of women waiting for a pat down from one of the big prison matrons, who would make sure she wasn’t smuggling a file or a gun or a lipstick back into her cell.
"Life is so unfair!" she complained to the young Latin woman standing in front of her, who rolled her eyes at hearing that from one of America's best known and wealthiest young women.
London couldn't believe the judge had denied her bail. He could have fixed one of those Martha Stewart ankle bracelets on her and let her go home, like some of the other girls in her cell when she first arrived. The prosecutor had argued that she was a flight risk. Like, where the hell was she going to fly? She wasn't about to pull a Roman Polanski and run away to Paris. The only thing French that she liked was the kissing and the fashion. The only time she had even flown out of the United States, other than for visits to resorts in Mexico and the Caribbean, which sort of belonged to the United States anyway, was against her will. That was twenty years ago, on September 13, 2001, and it had been a nightmare. She remembered all too well the last-minute call from her father’s lawyer. They thought one of her mother’s brothers had been involved in the Trade Center bombing, and they were trying to get them all out of the United States before other people learned about it.
London hadn’t wanted to leave. After all, she told her mother, at the age of eight, with blonde hair and flawless gold skin, no one was going to mistake her for some Arab terrorist. Yes, her mother and father were Muslim, or at least they had been way back when they were growing up in Saudi Arabia. But now her mother and father were Bel Air through and through. And so was London. She didn’t even really know what Muslim meant.
The lawyer had insisted though. She had thirty minutes to pack. Thirty minutes to pack! That was, like, so totally insane. Her nanny managed to throw only a few things into London's Vuitton by the time the car came for her and her mother. She’d been put in an economy seat in a chartered jet — even at that young age the first (and thankfully only) time in her life she’d flown in the back of an airplane. The meals were just awful. She’d already seen the in-flight movie. She was surrounded by strange people she was told were relatives. Some of the women wore those black shrouds that showed only their eyes and noses, an outfit her mother donned only just before the plane landed. The guys dressed normally, although they looked like dorks. It was strange the way they looked at her mother, like they were undressing her with their eyes and wanting to beat her up, all at the same time. Twenty-four hours later they landed in Saudi Arabia. Before she got off the plane, a woman came up and insisted London, because she looked more like she was thirteen than eight, also put on one of those black shrouds. It was awful, and it was made of muslin. Muslin, Muslim. There was forever a connection in London's mind. London’s skin itched all the way to the hotel, where, once in her room, she finally was able to peel off that damned shroud and take a hot bath. Muslin was all wrong for delicate skin like hers.
A week or so later she was back in LA. No one had connected her parents or London with this Abdullah bin-Salem. When London asked her mother about him, she just rolled her eyes. “I have a dozen brothers, and a dozen sisters. You expect me to remember all of them?” she’d said.
After ten minutes of shuffling along in the line, it was London's turn to be patted down. She was surprised to recognize the woman cop who had arrested her.
“How you doing honey?” the woman asked, giving London one of the few smiles she had gotten in this place since she’d arrived.
“I don’t know. Not so good,” London said. “What are you doing here?”
“Got transferred. I wasn’t with the Highway Patrol, you know. I was with the Sheriff’s Department. Just got called out because they needed a woman to help bring you in. You’re looking good honey. Hope you ain’t letting this get you down.”
“It is getting me down. It’s not looking good for me. Uh, I’m sorry. I don’t even know your name."
“My name is Kameela. You’re London Comfort, the celebrity, right? Well, I gotta get this line moving. So I can’t talk now. But I’ll stop by a little later if you’d like.”
“Sure,” London said. “I mean, whatever. That would be nice.”
London shuffled off to her cell. At least, because of her celebrity, she had one to herself. She’d heard horror stories about some of the other inmates. She’d had sex with other girls, and it had been fun, but only with guys involved too. The women in this prison — well, let’s just say it was clear none of them had ever had a bikini wax. They looked like truck drivers.
The door to the cell clanged shut behind her. London was back in her little eight by ten room, with a single bed, a metal toilet bolted to the wall, and a metal sink with a metal mirror. The light was fluorescent. Never had she felt or looked so ugly. There was no TV, no radio, no iPod, no wireless Internet, no telephone. They told her they would order books for her, but London wasn’t really the reading type. She was just so damned bored!
An hour must have passed when she heard someone quietly calling her name outside the cell door. It was Kameela.
Chapter 6
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 23
CENTRAL AVENUE
SOUTH CENTRAL LOS ANGELES
It was hot, and it was long and sometimes hard to walk in. But in a place as dirty and depraved as her South Central LA neighborhood, Kameela Ishaad felt safe and secure in her burka. Now, standing in line at Honeys Kettle Fried Chicken, surrounded by men who otherwise would have been jiving to catch her eye, the burka let Kameela pretend she was in another place, a more beautiful place, a place where the air was scented with something other than burning chicken fat, and the land was covered with flowers and grass instead of junked cars, bone-thin dogs, and ramshackle houses. People who asked her about the burka assumed wearing it was a sacrifice she made to show her devotion to Allah. To Kameela, the burka was no sacrifice. It was one of the great joys of her faith. Her sacrifice came in not insisting on wearing it at work. She was sure she could have. After all, there were Sikhs in the department who wore their turbans. But Ahmed had asked her to keep a low profile on the job. That meant not wearing a burka, not following the ritual required for the daily prayers. Instead, when her wrist watch sounded the hour for the noon, afternoon, and sunset prayers, Kameela would perform her ablutions by briefly touching the clean, dry soil she carried to work in a Zip-Lock bag and wiping her hands and face. Then she stood for a moment and recited the Dhurh, ‘Asr, and Maghrib prayers to herself. No one ever noticed. Kameela felt guilty about not following the prescribed ritual. But her imam had assured Kameela that Allah forgave her, indeed that Allah wanted her to hide her faith at work so that she would be able to undertake a very important mission. What that mission was, Kameela had yet to learn.