Jennifer Government: A Novel (32 page)

“I can’t believe how it burned,” Claire said. “That’s just flour?”

“Flour and food dye.”

“No way are people gonna eat there again. No way!”

“You were really good,” Hack said to Claire. He kissed her. “Your speech, I liked that a lot.”

“Thanks.” She looked embarrassed.

“Man!” Thomas said. “How are we going to top that?”

“I know how,” Hack said. He’d been waiting for this. “We hit Nike.”

Holly T.A. talked into her cellphone nonstop from Parliament. Violet sat opposite her, their knees almost touching. The limousine’s third occupant was the soldier called ONE, and he sat beside Violet, not moving.

“It means we ramp everything up, right now,” Holly said. “Maybe US Alliance is obsessed with the Government; I’m not. I want directives by the morning.” She snapped her phone closed and looked at Violet. “Oh, come on. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Violet said nothing.

“You were useful to me today. I appreciate that. You helped identify an important opponent.”

“He’s…he’s evil.” The way John had cocked his fingers at her…Violet shivered.

“All our competitors are evil,” Holly said. She smiled. Violet couldn’t tell if she was joking.

“I want to go home now.”

“If that’s what you want.”

“I do. I want to get paid and go home.”

“As I recall,” Holly said, flipping open her cellphone again, “I said your pay was an ExxonMobil matter.”

“No, you—”

“Sweetie, it’s nothing to do with me.” She pushed buttons.

“Wait a second!” Violet reached out and took Holly’s wrist. Then ONE had his hand around Violet’s throat and was pushing her head into the seat. She choked and clawed at him.

“What a funny girl you are, Violet,” Holly said. She looked amused. “You’ve got a lot to learn about how the world works.”

Tramp
, Violet tried to say, but she had no air. Holly knocked on the window and the limousine pulled over. ONE opened the door and shoved. Violet banged her knees on the sidewalk. She
scrambled to her feet. The limousine was already moving again. “Bitch!” she shouted after it. “You—you bitch!”

She was on a bridge, with traffic roaring past in both directions. It was already dark. The air was thick with fog. After a while, she started walking.

T
he return ticket she’d received from ExxonMobil was still valid, and Violet got a flight for Melbourne the same day. Twenty hours later, she was stepping out of a cab at Claire’s house. It was eight in the morning but felt like ten P.M. She felt out of sync with the world.

Hack would probably have moved back to their apartment by now, but that was okay: Violet could freshen up before seeing him. She had been short with Hack, she realized now: she had said some things he might have taken the wrong way. Hack could be sensitive. She would need to be careful if she wanted him to help her get her three million dollars.

She still had a key, so she unlocked the front door and went inside. “Hello?” There was no answer, but she heard the shower running. And talking—Claire singing, maybe. Violet knocked on the bathroom door. “Hello?”

Silence. “Violet?”

“Yeah.” She rested her head against the door and closed her eyes. “I’m home.”

“Oh, ah—how’d it go?” The water shut off.

“Not so hot.” She felt abruptly close to tears. “Not so great at all.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Can I come in?”

“Uh—just a second!”

“I really need to talk,” Violet said, and swung open the door.

Claire was wearing a towel. Hack wasn’t wearing anything. She stared at them. It was like a hallucination.

Claire said, “Violet, before you say anything—”

“What the
fuck?”
she screamed.

“Violet, please, let me explain—”

“How could you? How could you do this to me?”

“Violet,” Hack said. “You left. You went away and said you didn’t want to see me again.”

“That was an
argument!
I can’t—I can’t believe you’re having an affair!”

“An
affair?”
Hack yelled. Hack was being surprisingly assertive for a man with no clothes on. Hack was being surprisingly assertive for Hack. “We’re not together!”

“How dare you say that! We are so!”

“You dumped me!”

“Everybody thinks they can
screw
me!” Violet shouted. She felt tears prick her eyes. “Everyone thinks they can fuck me over!” Claire said, “Violet, I’m really sorry—”

Violet slammed the door. The cab was still in sight, but only just. She ran after it, waving her hands. Its brake lights flashed. Violet hurried up to it. The cabdriver said, “Nobody home?”

“No,” Violet said.

T
he apartment was much cleaner than she remembered. There was no sign of her fight with John in the kitchen, and the crumpet toaster was gone. It made her feel like she was dreaming. She couldn’t help wonder if all this had really happened. Maybe if she went back to Claire’s house, Hack wouldn’t be…No, that was stupid. Violet pressed her hands against her face.

Suddenly, shockingly, she started to cry. Great, wracking sobs burst out of her. She couldn’t believe it. She sank to the kitchen tiles and wrapped her arms around herself. She shook uncontrollably. She didn’t know if she was crying for Hack or for her lost three million dollars or out of jet lag or maybe all of it combined,
but she couldn’t stop. It was a torrent. It seemed to drag out everything she had left.

She cried and hated herself. This wasn’t meant to be her, this small, beaten girl. She was meant to succeed. Other people had taken it all away from her.

She stood up and scrubbed at her eyes. She went into the living room and picked up the phone. Holly T.A. had said Violet had a lot to learn about how the world worked; well, she’d see about that. She’d see how fast she could learn.

It took a long time to get someone, and then the someone sounded as if she weren’t taking Violet seriously. “Tell him it’s Violet,” she said. “Tell him it’s the person who watched him kill a man in London. You got that?”

“Wait a second,” the woman said. “Did you say—”

“Yes,” Violet said.

“I’ll make sure John gets your message,” the woman said, and Violet hung up. She bit her nails. She was doing the right thing. She knew she was.

John had requisitioned a big table and spread a map of Los Angeles across it. It was covered with red ink, with words like “1
^st
Inf,” and “3
^rd
Arm.” He was beginning to wish he’d used pencil; the thing was getting pretty confusing.

“You are
so
the man,” the Pepsi kid said, circling. “I cannot tell you how cool this is.”

“Tell me about the Liaisons.”

“Most are full steam ahead. The campaigns these guys are rolling out, it blows your mind.” He peered at the map. “Is this artillery? Are you going to hit the Reebok office with
artillery?”

“Most
of them?”

“Aw, IBM still doesn’t like it, you know. And a McDonald’s store got attacked this morning in the Australian Territories. People are saying it’s a grass-roots protest.”

“A protest? About what?”

The Pepsi kid shrugged. “Consumerism, I guess.” “Consumerism? Since when did eating a burger become a crime?”

“I dunno, man.”

“Find out who’s behind it. I don’t want IBM or McDonald’s or anyone else to have a reason to start bitching about market backlash.” His intercom buzzed, startling him. “Quick,” he said. “Hide the map.”

“John? General Li NRA to see you.”

“Ah.” He relaxed. “Send him in.”

The Pepsi kid smoothed out the map: he had creased it down the 110. “Can I stick around? I can give you good strategy.”

“No,” John said. General Li stepped into the office.

“Aw, come on.”

General Li looked at the Pepsi kid. John said, “General Li, this is…” He realized he didn’t know the kid’s name. “The PepsiCo Liaison.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” General Li said.

The kid shook Li’s hand with enthusiasm. “Same, man. I love all this war shit.”

“All right, now piss off,” John said.

“I’ll be real quiet.”

“Go!”

“All right, all right.” The kid threw John a sour look. He closed the door hard behind him.

“Tough day?” General Li said.

John sighed. “Just a couple of Liaisons making trouble. Things were much simpler when I didn’t have to listen to other people, Li. Democracy is a pain in the ass.”

Li sat. “In the military, we have always had a healthy disrespect for democracy.”

“I can see why,” John said. “All right. Now let’s talk about tanks.”

“Before we begin,” the General said, “I should bring a matter to your attention. You remember our failed assassin, Billy NRA?”

“Is he dead yet?”

“I’m afraid not. Billy was held on a Government base for several days. We’ve only just reacquired his location. He’s on a United Airlines flight to L.A.”

“Well, you take that little prick out,” John said, then stopped. “L.A.? Why is he coming here?”

“I don’t know.”

“If the Government was taking him anywhere, it’d be Washington…” He snapped his fingers. “Billy got away. He escaped!”

Li cleared his throat. “I believe not. According to United, he’s traveling with Jennifer and Calvin NRA. We’re sure those are false names.”

For a second he couldn’t speak. “Jennifer’s coming here?”

“Excuse me?”

“Leave me,” John said. “I need to think.”

Li looked at the map. “Sir, if you want to coordinate a military campaign, we need to—”

“
Out!”

General Li withdrew. John pressed his fingers against his temples. How could she still be after him? The Government took months to organize a bake sale; with their top executives making an unscheduled splashdown in the Atlantic, they should be in chaos. How did they get two agents from London to L.A.?

But he knew: it was Jennifer. He’d been kidding himself, thinking he’d done enough to protect himself. Jennifer would chase him to the end of the earth.

There was a piece of paper on his desk, with a person’s number. He found it and studied it. “Violet ExxonMobil,” he said softly. “What do you want with me?” He thought it might be worth finding out.

H
e didn’t get out of the office until eleven, and then he was so wired he stopped in at the hotel bar to unwind. He was staring into his scotch when someone sat beside him, brushing his arm. He looked up in annoyance. It was a thin girl in a light dress. She smiled awkwardly. “You’re John, right? John Nike.”

“Who are you?”

She hesitated, then stuck out her hand. “Vanessa Fashion-Warehouse.com. I hope I’m not bothering you.”

He was tempted to tell her to get lost, but she was young and nervous and there was a possibility she might be about to offer to sleep with him. “Not at all.”

“I suppose—you probably haven’t heard of FashionWare-house.com. We’re a content provider and on-seller for several major labels.” She searched his eyes.

“Uh-huh.”

“I—we applied to US Alliance a few months ago, but they rejected us. They said they only took companies with revenues of a hundred million plus. But we’re new, and high-growth, and I was hoping you could…make an exception.”