The Day of the Donald (10 page)

T
rump and Putin descended the Grand Staircase, preceded by a phalanx of flag-bearing Marines. The crowd, including Jimmie, clapped enthusiastically at the president’s arrival. “The President’s Own” US Marine Band segued from “America the Beautiful” into a brass rendition of Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It.”

The world leaders waved from the first step as the flashbulbs went off.

Putin stepped to the microphone. “I thank the Donald for his invitation and affirm that we, Russia, stand by our friend, America, against her enemies around the world . . . especially if they have limp wrists and posh accents.”

When Trump took the mic, Jimmie slipped out to the State Dining Room. He wanted to get a good seat. Someplace close to the buffet, so he could load up his plate before John Kasich hit it. Kasich was already creeping toward the door in the most wrinkled tuxedo Jimmie had ever seen. Rumor had it the poor guy was living in his car.

Not only wasn’t there a buffet, however, but it turned out he hadn’t needed to rush: The seating was assigned. Emma
had put Jimmie at the head-of-state table right next to Trump and Putin.

Good. Excellent, in fact. Vladimir Putin was at the top of Jimmie’s list of suspects for Lester’s murder.

Jimmie had visited the WhiteHouse.gov website and found the list of everyone who’d been at the White House the night of July fourth. While the Trumps had indeed been out of town, three people besides Lester had clearance levels that would have given them access to the roof: Chris Christie, Corey Lewandowski, and—staying in the Lincoln Bedroom as a guest of the White House—Russian president Vladimir Putin. There’d been a handful of Secret Service agents with free rein of the family quarters and access to the roof. However, as Jimmie had seen, the Secret Service seemed to have no interest in lifting a finger for Trump. They weren’t going to kill somebody to protect his reputation. They wouldn’t even shoot somebody in the kneecaps.

After a half hour, Trump finally arrived in the dining room and took a seat next to Jimmie. “If you’re going to puke tonight, do it on the press,” the president told him.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Jimmie said, a bit too enthusiastically. He’d been back and forth to the open bar a couple of times already. He had a decent buzz going.

“Have you been to one of these things before?” Trump asked Jimmie.

“Politics isn’t my usual beat,” he said. “But I’ve had dinner before.”

“You’re going to love it. You’re going to have an amazing, amazing time. Do you know Vlad?”

Jimmie shook his head and self-consciously pulled the sleeves of his tuxedo jacket down. There hadn’t been time for alterations, so he was wearing a tux two sizes too small.

“Vlad is a riot,” Trump said. “We were out hunting today. Oh, boy. That guy, I tell you what.”

Jimmie could see it now: Trump, a big proponent of the Second Amendment, and Putin, an avid outdoorsman, marching through the Virginia woods together, blasting deer with Uzis.

“Will the first lady be joining us tonight?” Jimmie asked.

Trump snorted. “She hates Vlad. Thinks he’s a bad influence on me. Every time we get together, I end up stumbling home at four in the morning smelling like Strawberry and Cinnamon. And I’m not talking about scents. I’m talking about dancers. Those are their names: Strawberry and Cinnamon.”

“I get it,” Jimmie said.

“Good. You’re a good guy. You got a weak stomach, but you’re a good guy.”

“Thank you, Mr. President.”

“Please—call me Trump. There’ve been how many presidents? Forty? Fifty? There’s only one Trump.”

Unless you counted his wives, or his parents, or his children. But Jimmie had a feeling Trump didn’t count them.

“We have to schedule a time to talk,” Trump continued. “You’ve got to see the Oval Office. You know that it’s really an oval?”

“I was never any good at geometry,” Jimmie said, scanning the dining room. More than a hundred guests were seated and chatting, waiting on the arrival of the Russian president. Jimmie was already starting to sweat under the opulent chandeliers,
which cast so much light that it felt like he was in a tanning bed. Perhaps that was how Trump kept his luxurious glow intact.

“Which one of my hotels did Emma put you up in?” Trump asked.

“I found a place on my own. You know the Royal Linoleum?”

“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Trump said. “I’ll talk to Emma. We’ll set you up in one of my properties.”

Jimmie chose his words carefully. “If there happens to be an advertised vacancy at a Trump building, of course, I’ll jump on it. I don’t want any special treatment.”

“A vacant unit in a Trump building is about as rare as a Kate Winslet movie where we don’t see her honkers,” Trump said. “But I see your point. You’re a man who likes to do things on his own. You don’t like to be dependent on others. I can respect that. Can I give you some advice, though?”

Jimmie nodded.

“Until you can move out of the shithole where you’re living, stay away from Clinton Plaza. It’s a dangerous place. A dangerous, dangerous place. All sorts of degenerates there. I’m not just talking about the homeless or the marijuana addicts, either. There are dangerous people with dangerous ideas.” Trump leaned closer. “You understand what I’m saying?”

Jimmie sipped his water. Suddenly, his throat had gone very dry.

B
efore Jimmie could respond to what sounded an awful lot like a veiled threat, Vladimir Putin slapped Trump hard on the back.

Trump swung around, fists at the ready to defend himself. When he saw who it was, though, he jumped up to greet his buddy.

Putin put Trump in a playful headlock, and the American president threw up his arms in mock protest. The Secret Service agent with the shaved head—the one Jimmie had met the day before under very different circumstances—stood back a few feet, watching the public display of affection. Step aside, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen—there was a new bromance in town.

Jimmie wondered how much Trump/Putin slash fic there was out there. It wasn’t a question of whether or not it existed but a question of how many shippers had avoided legal trouble from Trump’s team.

A nervous waiter carefully poured a Miller Lite into a chilled glass for the Russian president, who had taken a seat on the other side of Trump. Putin made a hand gesture to a tuxedoed man who’d accompanied him into the dining room. KGB, Jimmie guessed. If that was still a thing.

The KGB agent swished a light swig of the beer around in his mouth. He had an intense look of concentration, which was made
all the more intense by the scar bisecting his right eye. He swallowed and gave Putin a sharp nod. The Russian president shot a perplexed Trump a look that said,
You can never be too careful
.

The waiter poured a Trump Zero for the president, who then held his glass out to the Secret Service agent behind him.

The agent made no move for the glass. Jimmie imagined he was rolling his eyes behind his shades, which he was wearing indoors simply to hide his annoyance with Trump.

Not wishing to be outdone on his own turf, Trump swung the glass around to Jimmie, who had no choice but to reluctantly accept it.

Jimmie cradled the glass with two hands and put it to his own lips, as if he were about to drink from the Holy Grail. He took a healthy swig and tried to repeat the KGB agent’s performance, swishing the carbonated liquid around like mouthwash. Had it been tampered with? How would he know? Unlike Putin’s goon, Jimmie was no poison sommelier. He tried to think back to the last time he’d even had a poisoned drink. When was that? Oh, yeah: way back in NINETEEN NINETY-NEVER.

Still, he made an attempt. What struck him at first was just how much like regular Trump Cola it tasted. Jimmie didn’t drink much pop. When he did, he usually opted for the stuff with real sugar or corn sweetener—the good stuff, in other words. Diet pop just tasted so phony, with that metallic aftertaste. He’d seen Trump Zero advertised as a better-tasting zero-calorie beverage, but it had always seemed too good to be true.

What a fool he’d been.

What a goddamned fool.

Jimmie handed the glass back to Trump, who raised his eyebrows expectantly. Putin leaned forward, craning his neck
around Trump. The room itself seemed to be holding its breath, waiting upon his pronouncement.

Jimmie finally gave a single nod, prompting a collective sigh of relief from the room.

After the taste test, Trump and Putin settled into a rowdy back-and-forth. At first, Jimmie tried leaning in to pick up as much of their conversation as he could, but Putin shot him an annoyed look. Jimmie backed off. Although he’d been seated close so that he could eavesdrop with impunity, he didn’t want to raise the Russian president’s ire. After all, Putin may have thrown the last ghostwriter off the White House roof to protect Trump.

Corey Lewandowski was seated to Jimmie’s left. Another possible suspect. Lewandowski was locked into a heated conversation with Secretary of State Omarosa over whether they should call the United Kingdom “England” or “Great Britain.” Jimmie had no interest in joining them, however. Lewandowski had already punched one waiter in the nuts for not refilling his water fast enough. And Omarosa . . . well, Jimmie remembered her from the first season of
The Apprentice
. He had no interest in tangling horns with her. He was referring, of course, to the literal horns that had sprouted from her forehead. Once, she’d shaved them down, but these days they grew long and curled.

Chris Christie, who was sitting directly across from Jimmie, made a gun with his hand. He pointed his index finger directly at Jimmie and pressed his thumb down.
BANG
. The White House janitor returned to his plate of cheese sticks, leaving Jimmie to wonder just what the hell kind of mess he’d gotten himself into this time. He was seated at a table with the most powerful men and women in the world . . . one of whom was a killer.

B
efore the State Dinner, the best meal of Jimmie Bernwood’s life had been at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in downtown Atlanta.

Cat, whom he was sort of dating at the time, was in Atlanta at one of those week-long journalism conferences. The kind with all the panels and workshops. Not Jimmie’s bag, but whatever.

By day three on his own in New York, however, he’d run out of packaged food in his apartment and had wicked-smart blisters on his hands. From, uh, playing video games. Why not surprise his girl by driving thirteen hours straight and showing up at her hotel unannounced? A grand, romantic gesture.

When Jimmie arrived at her hotel room, she’d answered the door in a robe, giggling deliriously. She looked at him first with confusion and then second with more confusion.

“Hurry up, babe,” a man’s voice said from inside the hotel room. Jimmie could see a pair of naked feet on the bed, just over Cat’s bare shoulder. The naked, wrinkled feet . . . of a naked, wrinkled man. The hair on the back of Jimmie’s neck stood up. It was the hetero Spidey-sense every straight guy possesses that lets him know there’s an exposed penis in close proximity.

“I’m sorry,” Cat whispered. “I thought you were—”

“In New York?” Jimmie said.

She shook her head. “I thought you were room service.”

He could have given her a chance to explain herself, but what was going on seemed pretty self-explanatory. He could also have pushed her aside and confronted whoever she was sleeping with, but he didn’t know if he could control his anger. He was sure he would learn who the man was eventually (and he was right—it was that Pulitzer-winning prick, Lester Dorset).

Jimmie stumbled backward, awkwardly, and then sprinted down the hall to the elevators. When the elevator door opened, a bellhop pushed a food cart out the door.

“Room 1273?” Jimmie said.

The bellhop nodded.

“I’m taking it to go,” Jimmie said, shoving the cart back into the elevator. He pushed the CLOSE DOOR button and waved to the stunned bellhop as the elevator doors shuttered. Jimmie lifted the lid off one of the food trays. Salmon and rice. Not bad. He hadn’t eaten a thing since his journalist power lunch, which consisted of a banana and a hard-boiled egg swiped from coworkers’ lunch bags.

He uncorked the pinot grigio that had been resting in the wine chiller and drank and drank and drank some more, riding the elevator up and down, up and down until he was thrown out of the hotel.

That
was a good meal.

The State Dinner, however, was giving that stolen room-service meal some serious competition. The White House chef, Guy Fieri, had prepared an array of appetizers, culled from the finest fast-food joints in the DC area. They’d all provided the food gratis for the free advertising. No president had ever had sponsorship deals in place with fast-food restaurants before, but the United States
had never seen a president like Donald J. Trump before. It was all quite practical—and, dare to say, somewhat genius.

For Jimmie, the best part was that it was all on the house. He wasn’t expected to tip the waitstaff even 10 percent. The White House was taking care of the bill.

No, scratch that. The best part was when he spotted Cat Diaz seated at one of the press tables . . . and then she spotted him sitting next to the world’s two most powerful leaders.

Jimmie raised his Miller Lite to her from across the room in a mock toast. He thought about dialing his smirk down a notch or two but couldn’t bring himself to do it. It was like those bracelets, the ones they sold in the White House gift shop:
WWTDYL? (What Would Trump Do, You Loser?)
. When Trump won—which he did often—he let people know about it. “If you don’t talk about your successes, nobody’s going to know about them,” Trump wrote in the expanded coloring book edition of
Trump: The Art of the Deal
, which Jimmie had only colored a quarter of the way through. “And if nobody knows about your successes, then you haven’t really won, have you?”

Jimmie puckered his lips and threw a smooch Cat’s way.

She rolled her eyes and looked away in disgust.

Hashtag: WINNING.