Chapter Thirty-Six

A Little Ditty

After an exhausting day of totally boring meetings, Jimmie found himself with an hour to kill until he was supposed to meet Cat for dinner. Most of the staffers had left early for the day to get a head start on Labor Day weekend. As good a time as any to dispose of Lester’s recorder.

He removed it from its hiding spot. The worthless “game-changing” interviews on it had already gotten two men killed. Jimmie had no desire to be the third. And yet . . . he couldn’t quite bring himself to just ditch it. It might come in handy—as evidence for the emerging story. Right now, there was precious little to hold onto. He didn’t know where Lester was buried, and Connor Brent was fish food.

There was a knock at the door. He panicked, stashed the recorder in his desk, and then answered the door.

“You’re not answering your phone,” Chris Christie said, bursting in like Meat Loaf on a motorcycle.

It wasn’t a question. It was an accusation.

“The battery must be dead,” Jimmie said, pulling the door shut.

“Don’t lie to me,” Christie said, muscling his way past Jimmie. He sniffed the air. “I’m from Jersey. I can smell a lie from a mile away.”

“You know, Emma’s phone died Monday morning. Maybe we need new phones. Are we eligible for upgrades?”

“Not sure why somebody would lie about their battery being dead?” Chris Christie paced the length of the room (which wasn’t more than five paces) and spun on his heel. “Let me tell you a little story about a couple of kids named Jack and Diane. They grew up together in the American heartland. One of ’em thought he was gonna be a football star someday. The other was just along for the ride in the back of her boyfriend’s car. I think you can see where I’m going with this.”

“Is this a John Cougar Mellencamp song?”

“Maybe,” Christie said. “But just because Johnny Cougar sang about it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. What I’m trying to say is that Jack wanted to run off to the city, but Diane wasn’t having none of that. But Jack . . . well, Jack was restless. He left one day for LA to be the next James Deen. Became one of them porno stars out there. Forgot all about playing football, which I suppose I would too.”

“I suppose.”

“Damn right you suppose,” Christie said. “But he eventually turns to drugs. Gets in a bad way. Can’t perform no more. Life goes on, though, a long time after the thrill of living is gone. He’s depressed, and he thinks about Diane. Sweet Diane. By this point, he’s gone balls deep in hundreds of girls, but she’s still the only one he’s ever loved. He texts her, and she doesn’t answer.”

“Because her phone is dead.”

“Except that it wasn’t. She’d seen his text but ignored him. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to get all mixed up with Jack again. But that text . . . the more she thought about it, the more she thought about leaving her husband and kids behind. You see, for her, life had gone on too. The thrill wasn’t there either. Finally, she texted him back: ‘Sorry, my phone died. Didn’t see your text.’ But it was too late. Jack was dead. He’d taken an overdose of Viagra. His wiener exploded.”

“That’s terrible,” Jimmie said. “And this really happened?”

“I have no idea. I’m just telling you why someone would lie about their battery being dead. That’s just one reason. I could probably think of . . . a few more. Another kid named Tommy, used to work down on the docks. His gal Gina’s working at the diner all day. They’re both down on their luck, just trying to hold on to what they GOT!”

Christie slammed a large paw down on the desk, which rattled the fillings in Jimmie’s back teeth. The drawer slid open, and Christie peered over the desk into it. “Do you mind . . . ?”

“Go ahead,” Jimmie said as Christie picked his phone up. He thought he saw Christie’s eyes linger on the recorder, but maybe that was Jimmie’s paranoia.

Christie held down the power button. Jimmie’s screen saver flashed on the phone.

“Cute girls,” Christie said. “These your kids?”

Christie’d been at every Trump rally to date, right behind the president . . . and he didn’t know who was on Jimmie’s screen saver?

“Those are the USA Freedom Girls for America,” Jimmie said. “They’re all legal. In some states.”

Christie snorted. “Looks like your battery is fine, wouldn’t you say—”

The screen went black.

Christie thrust the dead phone into Jimmie’s hands. “Keep it charged from now on, okay? Emma was trying to reach you for the past forty-five minutes. Thought maybe you’d gone home, but I said I’d check up on you. And here you are.”

“Here I am,” Jimmie said. “Do you know what she wanted?”

“A half hour opened up in the president’s schedule. He wants to talk to you.”

Jimmie plugged his phone into his charger. When he turned around, Christie was still blocking the door.

“One more thing,” Christie said, reaching into his suit jacket . . .