Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Stories Without Pictures, Chapter 2: A Hilly Comes A-Calling

Here's the second in the installment of Stories Without Pictures. It's a transcript of a recent telephone-call I had...


A HILLY COMES A-CALLING




I was sitting at home in my palatial, oak-paneled library at Palmerwood, sipping Auld MacBlechantochuan, and lingering over the naughtier passages in the "Decameron," when Cubbings approached with the phone.

"Mrs. Clinton, sir," he murmured.

"Oh, good God's urge, tell 'er I'm out. Or dead," I snarled. But Cubbings was adamant.

"She says it's urgent, sir," he said firmly.

"Damn it to heck," I muttered, grabbing the phone. "Remind me to flog you later, Cubbings."

"I live to serve, sir," Cubbings said, and withdrew soundlessly.

I took the phone, and, wincing preemptively, groaned, "Hello?"

Having already braced himself, I was glad I did.

"JIMMEEEEEE!" squawked the phone in tones redolent of something between a foghorn and a crow. "How are you? Did you vote for me? How are your lovely children? Sylvia, Lenny, Maxie, and, uh, Lorax? And your lovely wife, The Armenian?"

I wasn't sure whether I was more repelled by the voice or more nauseated by the blatant insincerity of her inquiries about my family.

"Oh, we're well, Hilly, thanks for asking," I said weakly, casting desperately around for a reason to end the conversation. "How've you been? I know the last few weeks have been rough."

"Oh, you know," blared the phone, "yeah, that was rough. But Huma and I were able to get down to Myrtle Beach for a little R and R."

"Myrtle Beach? Classy. You and Huma?"

"No, Bill."

"You said Huma."

"No I didn't."

"What can I do for you, Hilly?" I asked, gesturing furiously at Cubbings for more Scotch. I had the sinking feeling that this isn't going to be a quick call.

"Well, I'm glad you asked!" the phone cawed. "You and I are old friends, right, Jimmy? I mean, we go way back, don't we?"

"Look, Hilly," I said slowly and cautiously. I know enough to know when I'm about to get shook down, "I was glad to be able to kill Vince FOster for you--I always thought he was a zombie--and of course, I love partying with Marc Rich, but..."

"Good!" she brayed, and then her voice dropped to a conspiratorial rasp. "I knew I could count on you, Jimmy. You're my rock. Now listen, James, I need a favor...."

I gritted my teeth, waiting for Hillary to ask for her "favor."

"JP, Mrs. Clinton rasped, trying to whisper and failing pretty badly, "I'm in need of a swashbuckling, debonair, international daredevil who knows Russia inside and out and who has all kinds of highly-placed connections to perform a top-secret mission for me."

"You've got to be kidding me," I said. "Top secret mission? Hilly, you don't have any official capacity. You're not an elected official anymore. You don't hold any appointed positions. You're unemployed. Go knit something. Or take up gardening. Or ballroom dancing. Just retire already."

"But I'm a Clinton!" she barked. "That's official enough! Just being a Clinton is enough to get anyone to do anything I want! It's like being a Bush! Or a Kennedy! JUST DO THE DAMNED MISSION!"

"Well, it does sound right up my alley," I mused, half-tempted. It had been a while since I'd performed any high-stakes international espionage derring-do, and I was worried about getting rusty. Also, I was getting a little low on my favorite vodka, "Ol' One-Eyed Bolshevik Ivan's Blood of the Imperialist Capitalist Exploiters," and I was wondering if I called my old pal Vlad ahead of time, he couldn't have a couple of cases ready for me at Sheremetevo Airport.

"I'm listening, Hilly," I said. "Precisely what kind of unofficial top-secret mission for me do you have in mind?"

I must admit to being a little surprised when Hillary made her request.

"JP," Mrs. Clinton whispers, "I need you to sneak into Russia and bring back definitive proof that the Russians hacked the election for Trump."

There followed quite a long pause, which I ended by saying, "But there isn't any."

"Sure there is!" she bellowed. "Haven't you been watching the news?"

"Yeah, I've been watching the news," I snapped, grabbing a small marble statuette of Atticus Aristide Palmer, his great-great-great uncle off its pedestal and throwing it at Cubbings. "It's all just a long string of, 'Unnamed Sources Have Strong Reason to Believe,' and 'Intelligence Sources Now Think,' but there's zero proof. It's all just partisan hypothesis and conjecturing and grandstanding, and not one goddamn piece of solid evidence has yet been brought forward. Zero. There's just a bunch of phony outrage in the press. And from you."

"WHAT ABOUT THE CIA??!?" she roared.

"The CIA?" I snickered. "That bunch of geniuses with all their 'definitive proof of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq'? That bunch of twits who took eleven years to find Bin Laden? Honestly, Google Earth can show me chicks nude-tanning on the roof in Amsterdam, but the CIA can't find a six-foot, five inch Arab on dialysis whose face just happens to be on every milk-carton and hummus-container from Manhattan to Malaysia? Those Keystone Kops? Don't make me laugh. Come on, there are seventeen different intelligence agencies, and not even all of them agree on this. The CIA finds what the president tells them to find. You know it. I know it."

"How do you know about the Google Earth images of naked women sunbathing in Amsterdam?" Hillary asked.

"So I'm told," I said hurriedly, furiously gesturing to Cubbings to clear his search history. I began to sense the conversation going off the rails, so I tried to refocus Hillary.

"So let's recap, Hilly," I sighed. "You want the American people to believe that the Russians wrote a special, secret line of hacking-code that only the Russians or their stooges can use."

"Yes," she brayed.

"And they gave this super-secret code to Guccifer 2.0, a Romanian, and he used it to hack the DNC's servers, your personal email server, and John Podesta's and Colin Powell's personal email accounts."

"That's right," she cawed.

"And then Guccifer 2.0 turns all those juicy emails over to Wikileaks and DC Leaks, so that Julian Assange, another Russian patsy, who just happens to be under house arrest in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, can make it public."

"Yes," she squawked.

"And Julian Assange does this all at the behest of the shadowy, sinister Vladimir Putin, who, sitting spider-like in his lair at the Kremlin, directs all that is secret and skullduggerous across the planet with well-nigh Godlike omnipotence--all so his BFF Donald Trump can get elected."

"That's right," she honked.

"And that's how the Russians 'hacked' the American election, right?" I groaned. I suddenly had a pain in my lower back and felt a headache coming on. "That and some fake stories on Twitter, right?"

"Bingo," she screeched dulcetly. "And can you also find some proof that James Comey at the FBI is working for the Russians, too? And also Mitch McConnell? And Rex Tillerson, too?"

"Hilly," I said, "you do realize that that is some tinfoil hat-level conspiracy theory, don't you?"

"JUST FIND THE PROOF!!!" she bellowed.

"Good God's urge, Rodham," I snarled, "THERE ISN'T ANY. IT DIDN'T HAPPEN. Listen, do you want to know the real reason you lost? Seriously? Class, race, Russians, coal-miners, James Comey, Pussygate, blah blah blah. You really want to know why you lost the election?"

I took a deep breath, an even deeper gulp of Old MacBlechantochuan, lit another Cohiba, and barreled ahead.

"You really want to know why you lost the election, Hilly?" I said again. "Simple. NOBODY LIKES YOU."

"What are you talking about?" she bleated. "Obama said I was likable enough!"

"Well, he lied," I said flatly. "Look, American politics is a popularity contest. It;s unfortunate, but there it is. It just is. Americans don't really care about policy positions, or personal political philosophy, or character, or qualifications."

"But I went to Yale Law Schoo.."

"Doesn't matter. Americans vote for whom they like. Reagan--brains of a peacock, but he was folksy, avuncular, good with a quip. Mondale, unquestionably smarter and more honest, was as grim as a tombstone. Your husband is likable. Bob Dole came across as the crabby old man trying to send back his meatloaf at the early-bird special at Applebee's because it's too salty."

"But I was Secretary of...."

"Doesn't matter. Dubya couldn't find his ass with both hands, but he presented as the kinda guy you could have a beer with. Gore, unquestionably brighter and more qualified, campaigned like a fresh corpse. Nobody liked him. Even after Dubya got us into two completely pointless wars under false pretenses, he STILL beat John Kerry, who had the face of a horse and the personality of an unlikable horse, in spite of the fact that he was a smarter, better, and far more competent guy."

"But I..."

"DOESN'T MATTER, I keep telling you. Obama had the deck stacked against him--black AND liberal?--but McCain came across as crabby as Dole, only with hemorrhoids. Nobody liked him. Mitt Romney--who doesn't want to punch that smug prick in the kisser? So Obama won again, because he's funny, and cool under fire, and classy."

"But I..."

"And Trump was entertaining as hell. 'Little Marco,' 'Yeah, 'cause you'd be in jail,' 'WRAAAWWWWNNNG,' like it or not, the guy had some great TV moments. That stuff plays in America the Dumb. You just came across as elitist, hectoring, secretive, shrill, and artificial. All your one-liners sounded scripted--most likely by that putz Borowitz--and rehearsed. He sounded off the cuff and genuine. Would you have been the better president? Hell yes. Is he a trainwreck in a suit? No question. But Hilly... NOBODY LIKES YOU. It's just that simple."

I waited, bated breath, for Hillary to respond.

"So you don't think the Russians hacked my campaign?" she finally rasped.

"Nope," I said. "Matter of fact, the only campaign that got sabotaged in 2016 was the Democratic primary, when you screwed Bernie."

Hillary was silent for a long moment. It was one of the sweetest moments of my life.

"So you're not going to sneak into Russia and bring back definitive proof that the Russians hacked my campaign?" she growled.

"I am not," I trilled. "I might go anyhow--it's been a while since I hung out with the Rotenberg brothers at their dacha in Odessa, and that's always a party, but nope, I'm not accepting your mission."

Hillary chewed on this for another long minute.

"So I'm probably not gonna be president?" she gritted.

"Probably not, no," I said.

"Well, can I have a couple million for my Foundation?" she finally got around to asking.

"Will it get you off the phone with me?" I grumbled. It's a small price to pay.

"As soon as you like!"

"I'll have Cubbings drop off the check in the morning," I said wearily. And then I hung up. 


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