Chapter Forty-Nine

Something Strange in the Neighborhood

Jimmie stepped into the hallway. He could just make out the Secret Service agent through the eyeholes. Jimmie slouched down and raised his arms inside the sheet. The agent, standing guard some twenty yards away, took no notice.

“OooOooOooOooooOOoOOOO,” Jimmie moaned.

Grow Some Fucking Eyebrows swung his head in Jimmie’s direction. There was a deeply unamused expression on his face.

Jimmie froze. He’d suddenly lost his bravado. This was, undoubtedly, the height of his stupidity. He’d done some dumb things before, but this one took the Little Debbie snack cake.

The agent lowered his sunglasses to get a better look at the phantasm.

Jimmie waved his outstretched hands from side to side, swaying in the hallway as if he were at a USA Freedom Girls for America concert.

The agent stared at him. Either the man was frightened to his very core, or he was in such a state of disbelief that he couldn’t move a muscle.

“OooOoOOOOooOOO,” Jimmie said, getting his nerve back. “OoooOoOoOOOoooOOo.”

The agent finally pushed his sunglasses back into place. “Very funny, Junior,” he said. “Now get to bed. Your dad wouldn’t be very happy to hear you were up this late.”

Jimmie dropped his arms. Junior? Of course. The agent thought he was Donald Trump Jr. up past his bedtime. This was the first that Jimmie had heard about the forty-year-old still living at home, but why not? If Jimmie’s parents lived in the White House, he’d do the same.

He walked past the agent and hiked up the tablecloth so that he didn’t trip while walking up the steps. The agent grabbed him by the arm and spun him around.

This ghost just got busted.

Jimmie tried to inhale deeply to steady himself, but all he could take were quick and shallow breaths. His heart was pounding now like a hotel bed against a wall. The agent had a hold on him and was staring through his eyeholes, just inches away.

“No Xbox, you hear me?” the agent said. “You need your sleep. Big day tomorrow.”

If Jimmie didn’t respond, he’d be unmasked for sure; if he said something, even a word, the agent would discover his ruse.

He looked the agent in the eyes . . . and stomped his Oxfords in protest.

“I don’t make the rules, kiddo,” the agent said, letting him go.

Jimmie stomped his way up the stairs, playing the part of the petulant Trump child to a T. When he reached the third floor, he turned down the hall and ditched the tablecloth behind a potted plant.

From the closed door nearest him, he heard a full artillery at work: machine-gun fire, grenades. Human Hiroshima 3: Soldier of Misfortune, if he wasn’t mistaken. Somebody was disobeying daddy. If he was anything like the gamers Jimmie had known in college, Junior wouldn’t be getting up for a good long while—not even to use the restroom. Jimmie was thankful he’d only ever been a casual gamer. He could stop any time he wanted—and he had stopped, when he’d pawned his PlayStation to pay off his parking tickets. And then pawned his Xbox after his car got towed when he double-parked outside the ticket-payment office.

Jimmie straightened his tie and ran a hand through his short-cropped hair. He strutted down the hall. So this is what James Bond felt like. A little tipsier, probably, but there’s a swagger that begins to course through your veins when you’re firing on all cylinders. James Bond . . . Jimmie Bernwood. They even shared the same initials. They also shared them with Justin Bieber, but Jimmie wasn’t quite ready to proclaim himself the next Biebs.

He paused at the doorway to the Lincoln Bedroom. The door was cracked an inch. He looked to his left and to his right down the hallway to confirm he was still alone and then slipped inside the Lincoln Bedroom.

Moonlight filtered in through the spacious glass doors that opened onto the veranda. The sliver of light shone directly onto the desk, where a handwritten copy of the Trump Address was laid out on permanent display. Next to it sat the recorder.

He felt his way along the wall toward the desk. If he’d planned this out, he would have brought a flashlight with him. If he’d had his phone, he could have used a flashlight app, even. But he didn’t have time to plan. He didn’t even have time to use the restroom (which he badly needed to do).

Jimmie picked up the recorder. He could barely believe it was real, but it was. A sense of relief rushed through him. He still had to figure out a way to get the damned recorder out of the White House, but the first part of his mission was complete. Mission impossible? As W would say, “Mission accomplished”!

But just like George W. Bush had learned, you should never celebrate before the end of a mission, even if the end is within sight. Before he could even turn around for the door, a woman’s voice rang out from the darkness:

“Took you long enough, Mr. Jimmie.”