Taft 2012 - Jason Heller [54]
TWENTY-TWO
Albuquerque looked like just another twinkling grid riveted into the landscape, one of dozens Taft had seen from his airplane window over the past several weeks as he’d begun to reacquaint himself with the now much quicker paced business of campaigning. Now that he’d become accustomed—or at least numb—to air travel, the whole business of looking down on the world from a six-mile height didn’t seem so unnatural. He’d even been able to enjoy and keep down a few dozen packets of delicious sweet nuts he’d been given by the fetching brunette attendant. They paired quite well, he had to admit, with the tiny bottles of whiskey he’d been steadily consuming since takeoff.
Taft licked the astringent sweetness from the tips of his fledgling whiskers and sighed.
“What’s the matter? You’re not getting sick again, are you?” Kowalczyk was staring at him and misinterpreting his downcast expression. The agent rooted around in the pocket on the back of the seat in front of him and drew out a paper sack.
“What did you call that again?” Taft asked as Kowalczyk popped the sack open.
“Barf bag.”
“Ah, yes. Barf bag. The eloquence of the twenty-first century never ceases to astound me. See, Kowalczyk? This is why I need you to accompany me on my travels. How could I possibly survive in this dazzling new world without knowing the proper nomenclature of the barf bag?”
Kowalczyk made a face at him. “Someone has to teach you the basics of survival while Professor Weschler is teaching you all the complicated stuff.”
Taft looked around to make sure Susan hadn’t returned to her seat yet—how could anyone, no matter their size, squeeze into those infernally small airplane bathrooms, anyway?—and leaned his forehead against the cold pane of the window. “Susan is a dear woman, a learned scholar, and, all in all, a good friend. But I must say … I cannot quite forget that she jots down all that I do and it will end up in a book eventually.” Kowalczyk smiled faintly, and suddenly Taft felt a chill run through his body. “Kowalczyk. You aren’t going to write a book about me, are you?”
The agent snorted. “I ought to say yes—that’s what you get for insisting your Secret Service agent do double duty as your confidante. No, Mr. President, sir, I intend to devote all my attention to guarding your ass for a long time to come. I’ll let other people worry about analyzing it.”
When they landed, Rachel was there to meet them, a staff aide in tow. They drove to a nearby diner, one of these gleaming fortresses of greasiness that calls itself Denny’s, and, as Taft squeezed through the narrow aisles between tables, he saw Trevor and Abby waiting for them at a large booth. His heart leapt at the sight of his great-great-granddaughter; this would be her one visit to the campaign trail, since her parents were determined to preserve her normal life at home with her father as much as possible while Rachel split the season between stumping with Taft and fulfilling her legislative duties on Capitol Hill.
With a prudence he was proud to muster, Taft poured himself a cup of coffee from the pot on the table and gulped it down before wedging himself into the booth—a laborious process that, he noticed with a scowl, amused the nearby tables to no end. “Damned shoddy construction,” he muttered, then poured himself another cup of coffee. He could already feel himself sobering up. Oh, Nellie would have had a mouthful to say about his occasional nip at the bottle. Prohibition was nothing but a dim, distant memory to this nation—although, Taft had to admit, what he’d seen of the country’s current legislation against recreational pharmaceuticals was no less misguided and ineffectual. He turned to Abby, hoping the coffee had sufficiently masked the booze on his breath.
“So, what’s new with you, young lady?”
She stared at him sternly. “Grandpa, you got bigger.”
“Ah, well, yes. More of me to love and all that, wouldn’t you say? Speaking of which, unless I’m mistaken, you’ve gotten taller.”
“How can you tell? I’m sitting down.”
“Your daughter