What Would Satan Do_ - Anthony Miller [22]
Nobody was really sure how many heart attacks he’d had. In his second term as vice president, his trips up Connecticut Avenue to the National Naval Medical Center had become so frequent that CNN stopped covering them. After his last visit to the hospital he trudged out, hunched over, with a look of grim determination on his face, and glared with a cynical eye at the few newspaper reporters who’d showed up.
“I’m fine,” he said, and he stalked off to get into a waiting town car.
Whitford’s last heart attack had been a very anxious time in the underworld. In Hell, several of the higher-up demons sighed with relief. Their job had been to prevent the Vice President’s arrival at all costs, and they had succeeded – again – in putting it off for another day.
A nervous demon had approached Satan.
“My Lord,” the demon said, “I thought you might like to know that the Vice President of the United States is scheduled to arrive today.” He handed the Dark Lord a parchment scroll.
There was a long-standing policy in Hell: Any time a despot, dictator, tyrant, or genocidal maniac was on his way down, Satan himself was to be informed. He unfurled the scroll and began reading. It was covered in a tiny, handwritten script, written in blood (which Satan thought was disgusting, but it seemed to make his minions happy, so he went with it).
Under normal circumstances, a welcoming committee of high-ranking demons would be convened, and the new soul would be led off to endure a uniquely tailored program of ironic torture.
“You must get up there and stop this,” he said, his eyes wide. Satan, by this time, already had some inkling that he might not be sticking around. Leaving Hell unmanned was one thing. Leaving it unmanned, with a guy like Whitford running around, well, that was another matter entirely.
“My lord?”
“Er... This one is not meant for us,” he said, handing back the scroll. “Go and intervene. He cannot come here. Go.”
“Yes,” said the demon. He crept off to do his master’s bidding.
And so, after his eighth or twelfth or fifteenth heart attack – the one that really, definitely should have killed him – Whitford had spent almost a week recuperating, and then had returned to work. Six months later, he and his cadre of support staff (rumored to be technicians) removed themselves to his ranch just outside of Austin.
Their sojourn there, however, was a short one. For just a few weeks after Whitford returned to Texas, the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor – both of whom had far less going for them in the bionic parts department than Whitford – departed this mortal sphere. And through a series of maneuvers that will be puzzled over by government professors at the University of Texas for decades to come, Whitford stepped in as the Governor of Texas, sworn in by his long-time friend and spiritual advisor Bill Cadmon.
There was tiny, almost inaudible squeak as the giant, oak door to Whitford’s cold, dark office swung open. Two men entered. Their names were Clyde Parker and Sam Harris. Both had worked for the Governor since before he’d left Washington. Parker had been with Whitford since before he went to Washington in the first place.
Parker ambled in. Harris’ entrance fell more toward the frenetic end of the spectrum.
Parker wore cowboy boots, a ten-gallon hat, and a poncho for warmth. He walked slow and talked slow, and he and Whitford had known each other since back around the time Lincoln was President. He was Whitford’s general problem solver and the guy who dealt with whatever nastiness needed to be dealt with.
Harris, on the other hand, had on a shirt and tie underneath a tasteful grey sweater and horn-rimmed glasses and talked through his