Minister Faust by From (html) (best ereader for pdf txt) 📗

fraud and a liar. Always hinting about his pathetic secret identity as some unnamed intrepid metropolitan reporter—”

“You mean he aint?” asked Smithing Wesson.

“Hardly. He’s actually the ‘acclaimed’ advice columnist of ‘Ask Aunt Edna’ in The Blandton Gazette-Dispatch.”

“An advice columnist? You kiddin me? What a sham artist!”

“Indeed. It’s one thing to lie to the public, but to us? So what does this ‘resignation’ mean, anyway? Nothing but a failed publicity stunt.”

“From what I heard,” said the Downsizer, leaning forward and checking each man’s face in turn, “this is for real. I heard Wally’s so depressed he’s thinking about getting the ol’ snip-snip.”

“Naw, no way!” said Smithing Wesson.

“Yeah. Depoweration.”

“Hah!” sneered Mr. Piltdown. “Well, regardless, he may as well’ve done so decades ago for all the good he’s ever done. Certainly with his…mm…problem—”

“Oh, y’mean,” said Smithing Wesson, “with the…?” He crushed his fist repeatedly, a mysterious gesture.

“Wait, you mean with the—?” added the Downsizer, flicking his fingers at the side of his eyes with equal mystery.

“I thought those was just rumors,” said Smithing Wesson.

“Far from it, gentlemen,” said the Squirrel. “And while I hate to give credit to any lunatic utterance of that refugee from the Laboratory of Apoplectic Baboons, we are now in a dire security situation. Much as I’m loath to concede the point, brain-power aside, Wally was our ultimate line of defense. Combine that with Hawk King’s intellect, and our planet was safe. But now…”

“So whaddaya sayin, Fess?” said Wesson. “You sayin the King really was murdered?”

“If he was, my friend, then I suspect the mastermind behind it will attempt to bury several more hatchets in the livers of our individual brothers…before he drives a combine over us all.”

“You think it’s Warmaster Set? Or,” whispered the Downsizer before he gulped, “Menton?”

The name, uttered even in a hush, chilled the already quiet room, drawing icy glares.

“I think I’d rather not say,” said Festus, “just yet.”

“Now wait a second, Squirrel—back up to Wally,” said Wesson. “What’s with this Wally stuff you guys were hinting about? Are you talking about those rumors a him bein like Fabulous Man and them?”

“No, not specifically,” said Mr. Piltdown, “though it wouldn’t surprise me. Wally’s never been married, never had a girlfriend to anyone’s knowledge despite that sham of a high-profile relationship with Ticker-Tape Girl in 1947 and then Princess Astra in the early eighties. The nickname Impotent Man didn’t get whispered for nothing—”

“Festus!”

Mr. Piltdown looked up into the eyes of the ravenish woman standing in front of him, draped in black. All whispering around the deli died.

“Our King iss dett, Festus,” said Iron Lass, glaring at him from behind her veil. “Iss zis respect? Unt Vally, however flawt he might be, vuss vun of us. Unt now…now our two mightiest are gone…unt neizer vun even set goodtbye…to me.”

A metallic tinkle splintered the silence, a sound like dimes dropped on a tile floor. And for the first time since I’d seen him in Soup ’n’ Heroes that day, Festus closed his mouth, his jaw muscles powered by an emotion almost certainly new to him: shame.

Iron Lass strode through the sclerosis of the crowd without pushing, since a path opened before her. Once she was at the dimmed jukebox on the wall, S. Bruce Pippen limped quickly toward her, kneeling to plug in the music player before putting a quarter in it for her.

“Danke schoen,” she whispered, touching his shoulder like a queen bestowing a knighthood on a commoner. She pressed keys for her selection, then walked back through the crowd. No one met her gaze except me.

Perhaps that’s why she sat with me, her face smeared between outrage and relief at what she no doubt regarded as hubris on my part. It was the first time she’d volunteered to speak with me about anything.

But she didn’t speak, not immediately; we sat silently listening as a jukeboxed Patsy Cline twangingly explained the single greatest mistake of her life.

“Ah ha!” whispered Mr. Piltdown over at his table, scanning his Squirrel Screen, which blazed with graphs, numbers, and two images: a swelling face shot of the Flying Squirrel and a diminishing one of the X-Man.

Gloating over his requested poll, Mr. Piltdown watched while the PNN anchor explained that X-Man’s racial allegations about Hawk King had driven support for the X-candidacy down to 50 percent. Support for the Squirrel had rocketed up to 25 percent, strongest among white male churchgoing Republican NRA members.

“Mr. Piltdown,” I called to him softly, “clearly you’re heartened by the PNN poll results. Nevertheless, surely you must be concerned about how the F*L*A*C will respond to your bout of fisticuffs with Kareem at this morning’s funeral.”

He walked over to our table, stood in front of me like a barricade of squirrelly muscle.

“Are you threatening me, Miss Brain?”

“Mr. Piltdown, I’m asking you a legitimate question about your feelings—”

“—because I’ll remind you not to exceed your mandate, which is limited to what transpires inside that brain-beautician’s salon you call a clinic. You are here, just as you were at this morning’s sacred commemoration, solely at the sufferance of the men and women of the F—”

“Mr. Piltdown, the F*L*A*C has given me broad authority to conduct my analysis wherever I choose, and base my report and recommendations on all observable behavior. So I repeat my question: How do you think the F*L*A*C will respond to your actions this morning?”

He breathed in, leaned down, spoke to me inches from my face.

“Given the current instability caused by the death of our king and the resignation of our atomic-powered jester,” he whispered, “regardless of this farce you call therapy, the F*L*A*C wouldn’t dare take action against me right now. Not when the alternative would be to hand over the election and Operations to that racialist rabble-rousing Reichstag-torching Rwandan.”

He straightened up, turned around, and returned to his seat while Patsy Cline sung lamentations to the lover who deserted her during a performance of the Tennessee Waltz.

I remember that night

And the Tennessee Waltz

Suddenly I heard more metallic clanging. Shining on the