Royal Digs (4 page)

Now that she’d upgraded to an iPad, the woman
was constantly reading. Roman and R may be the brawn of our
operation, but Bunny was the brains.

Me? Well, at this point, I was just the tag
along, hoping to soon earn my keep.

“I guess I’ve never really thought about it,”
I said.

Truth be told, till I became a part of this
family, I didn’t really care either. I used to be one of those
rather apathetic people who basically figured all of this was way
above my head, and even if it wasn’t, it was way beyond my ability
to do anything about it.

I definitely knew votes didn’t really matter
in presidential politics. With that damn Electoral College system,
who cares what the people want or who they vote for? Just ask Al
Gore.

“Well, we definitely need to think about it
now, Princess,” Roman said, joining us at our table in the front
row of Clitopatra’s cabaret. “You’ll see. We can affect the outcome
of this election.”

I sighed and sucked up my hesitancy to take
part in all of this. Heck, we couldn’t even go to see Clitopatra
and her famous Queens without politics going with us.

But this time, I guess that’s okay with me.
I’m one of those people who could care less about party politics. I
vote for the candidate I like. And I can tell you this...the more
I’m getting to know about Crumley, the less I like him.

• • •

As Cher’s raspy voice blasted through the
cabaret’s speakers, I sucked in my tummy, gave my rubber tits a
quick push up and slipped through the sparkling beaded curtains for
my rendition of “If I Could Turn Back Time.”

Singing this song always took me back to a
dark time. A decade ago, when I’d give anything to have had the
courage and means to have taken out Star Fish when I’d had the
chance. I was there when she – aka my Uncle Giotto Bernini – had
conveniently made my parents disappear. But I’d been too afraid to
stop him.

Well, I’d worked through that fear.

Uncle Bernini no longer had one up on me. Or
my family. I knew who he was underneath that drag persona, and
soon, Bunny and R would too. But not until I could ensure their
safety, even if it meant I would meet my parents’ fate.

I’ll give it to him. It took some big balls,
pun intended, for him to come back as a Queen. The guy must think
he’s on his way to nine lives fame. He may not have perished at the
hands of the Italian police or at the end of the gun barrel my
older brother had fired at him, but if I could help it, his reign
would end after life number three.

As his Drag Mother, it was my duty to show
him the ropes. And I planned to do just that. Both show him the
ropes, and hang him by one.

Harnessing my inner Cher, I finished my
number then blew kisses to my family, who I could tell, especially
by Zoey’s fabulous and boisterous reaction, really loved my new
act. That was all the encouragement I needed.

I hustled back-stage. While Star Fish
performed her first routine of the night, I had just enough time to
set my plan into motion.

Watch out Uncle B, your new momma is just as
lethal as the one you took from me. You’re about to find out you
never should have hurt Valerie Malloy or my father the way you
did.

“Y
es, this is
Clit...Clifford Bernini,” I said, always getting a kick out of it
when I confused my Queen nom de plume with my real name.

“I’d like to arrange for a transfer of one
hundred million dollars to Mission Green Freedom. Yes, that’s
right. Queen of the Night,” I stated, knowing before they even
asked that they’d need my private code. “And yes, I’ll fly down in
the morning to complete the transaction.”

So, the GOP thought they were the only ones
who could play the super PAC game. Not this year. There’s a new
political action committee boss in town.

Karl Cunningrove is no longer the only one
running the show, I thought, while trying to get myself out of the
black leather Cher get-up.

Cunningrove better enjoy his Weaver Terrace
breakfasts. Because his guests are about to get a better offer from
right here in Key West.

The current White House may have lost the
love of the big banks and Wall Street because of the passage of
their Dodd-Frank Act, but they should be celebrating that feat.
That’s where the true evil in this world resides.

Good for President Ruvama for trying to stick
it to ‘em. But, he needs some help when it comes to implementation.
Otherwise, those damn big bank and private equity firm lawyers will
have ‘em tied up for another two years in all of the how-to’s and
regulation writing needed for the act to actually be enforced with
some teeth.

The center of power will always be where the
money is. And now, thanks to my new super PAC, we’ll have a new
center with new money, and for once, be able to do good things with
it.

I turned the key, enjoying its reflection in
my dressing mirror. Uncle Bernini was turning out to be quite a
dumb ass in his final life. If it wasn’t senility, then maybe the
drag persona had him rattled. The root cause didn’t matter to me. I
was just tickled to be the beneficiary of his snafu.

Leave the key to your downfall in a wig box?
Now that’s a special kind of stupid. Hmmph. There’s no secret
hiding places in a cabaret’s dressing rooms. He deserved to lose
the key just because he was so careless in hiding it.

I considered putting a fake key back into his
wig box, so he’d been none the wiser regarding the missing one. For
a while, at least. But then, I decided against it.

Until we finally had the chance to snuff out
his last ounce of life, it was time the rest of us had a little fun
at his expense.

“Are you ready to head out?”

Roman appeared in the door of my dressing
room just as I had discarded the last of my over-the-knee boots and
was slipping into a pair of linen pants. I reached for a silk palm
tree printed shirt.

“The plane is on standby?” I asked, knowing
without a doubt that my half-brother’s employer had everything
arranged just as I’d asked him to do.

“Yes. We’re good to go.”

“Lighten up, my boy,” I said, giving his
gorgeous dark locks a ruffle. “This is gonna be fun.”

For the briefest of moments, I thought I saw
him smile. But I was probably totally imagining it. No one in
either of our families smiled much anymore. But hopefully, if my
plan worked, that would soon change.

“M
ission Green
Freedom? Who the hell is Mission Green Freedom, Ross?” President
Ruvama asked me.

As his Chief of Security in the Secret
Service, I should probably answer to the best of my knowledge.
Although, why he was asking me, I hadn’t figured out.

Being a Bellesconi, I was used to answering
tough questions, but answering them for the President of the United
States was proving to be the toughest of the tough. The President
was sharp, and unlike most people I dealt with in Washington, he
couldn’t be bullshitted.

While the President paced the carpet behind
one of the two couches facing each other in the Oval Office, I
gathered my thoughts so I could fill him in on Mission Green
Freedom.

“From what I’ve read,” I began, figuring
that, at least, I was telling the truth, “Mission Green Freedom is
a new super PAC.”

I had read about Mission Green Freedom. As I
always do, I read everything I can get my hands on from all
sources. Knowledge is the best protection. But I knew even more
from my personal connection.

“You know more than you’ve read about,
right?” President Ruvama asked, looking right into my eyes, making
it clear he already knew the answer to his question.

“Yes, that would be correct, Sir. Mission
Green Freedom is funded by friends of my family,” I said, then
cleared my throat.

This was going be a tenuous line to walk, but
I was more than prepared to do what I needed to do to keep The
President safe and back in The Oval Office for a second term.

President Ruvama stopped pacing for a moment
and relaxed his shoulders. I’m sure he was thinking as I had at
first. We were pretty good at reasoning things out in a similar
manner.

“Well, at least it’s friendly money this
time. I suppose that’s a positive start, right?”

“We could start there. Sure, Mr. President.
And since I’m not privy to your campaign conversations, we
shouldn’t have any trouble with the coordination rules at all
between the super PAC and your campaign officials.”

The President laughed, which I suppose was
appropriate, given our conversation’s turn to coordination
rules.

“Like there really are coordination rules
that any of us understand or are actually being enforced when it
comes to these super PACS. The Supreme Court didn’t help us much
there.”

Not feeling it was my role to entertain The
President with my thoughts and concerns when it came to
coordination rules that simply didn’t exist and never would, I
didn’t say anything. I was there to protect him. Period. Well, as
far as he was concerned.

Little did he know, and hopefully he’d never
have to know, that my protection went way beyond my Secret Service
duties. If it weren’t for me and my family and friends, he’d no
longer be the President of the United States.

“Well, it’s getting late. So, I guess that
will be all for now. I’m sure you have a great deal yet to do for
next week’s convention.”

“That I do, Sir. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be
heading to my office. Your usual team is right outside the door.
But don’t hesitate if you need my direct assistance.”

With our meeting over, I left the President’s
company and went to my office, which sat directly beneath the
President’s.

As I made my way to the intelligence
headquarters underneath The White House, warring thoughts juggled
for supremacy in my head. The President was smart. Very, very
smart. But how had he so easily latched onto the fact that Mission
Green Freedom was about to be a Bernini-funded super PAC? I needed
to get in touch with my brother and Uncle Cliff, but I couldn’t do
it till I got home. I certainly couldn’t talk about it from The
White House.

I had a strong hunch that the SEC’s
whistle-blower program wasn’t as sound as they claimed it was.
Roman and Uncle Cliff had to be warned.

In the meantime, The President was right, I
also had a bunch of stuff to line up for next week’s Democratic
National Convention, including taking a look at the reports I’d
requested from the FBI that were finally finished.

Hopefully, those reports would shed some
light on just how much danger my brother and uncle were in.

T
here’s simply no
such thing as a firewall between a super PAC and a politician. Just
like there’s no impenetrable barrier between Governor Crumley’s
wealth and the coffee, casino and foreign countries whose death
squads, along with my help and expertise, have made him one of the
richest men in the world.

Where there’s that kind of money, there’s
always coordination in how it’s spent. If The Governor’s tax
returns were made public, proving all kinds of coordination had
been taking place for years, the empires I’d built for both of us
could suffer substantial losses. And neither of us liked to
lose.

Once upon a time, when I still operated out
of Naples, I was the only one who knew the information and codes
that controlled entry to the other side of those formidable walls.
But because my deceased wife had been smarter than I gave her
credit for, I hadn’t been able to secure my hold on that
information until I’d once more gotten my hands on that damn
key.

What worried me was how much the rest of my
family knew. And the Bellesconis too. There could be hell to pay if
I didn’t handle this soon.

Don’t get me wrong. None of this frightens
me, and never has. Bankers and traders at my level aren’t repentant
if deals go bad. Those of us who own Wall Street have no fear of
being punished individually. The government doesn’t have the
resources to track what we do. And even if they did, the risks we
take on the trades we make pay off big-time. Any penalties pale
when stacked next to our personal profits. But that doesn’t mean I
won’t go to any length to remove threats against my livelihood.

Taking a break from working on my new Marilyn
Monroe routine for Clito’s Cabaret, I rubbed my aching feet,
swearing that I’d never get used to these fucking heels.

“Ah, there you are, Star Fish. I’ve been
looking for you, Honey,” Clito’s raspy voice filled the dark,
smoke-filled dressing room.

“You found me,” I purred, trying to play the
game.

“Just in time, too. We must get to work on
our show for the DNC Convention! My goodness, doll, if it doesn’t
start this coming Tuesday,” Clito said, sashaying around the
dressing room, taking stock of our costumes.

“Charlotte will never be the same,” I said
and meant it.

I never thought I’d see the day when a drag
queen would determine the Presidency of the United States. But
after I was through, it certainly would. In ways, no one would
imagine.

I waited till Clito started fussing with one
of her costumes, making sure she wasn’t into what I was doing. I
then reached into the bottom of my wig box, checking as I do a
dozen or more times per day for the key that would change the world
forever.

No! It can’t be.

My hand immediately tensed, almost cramping
into a claw-like form. I frantically, without trying to gain
Clito’s unwanted attention, searched the confines of the box’s
false bottom again.