6 HOURS LATER. OLYMPIA, NEW DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 11:30 PM PST. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2025.
It was so good to be
home and running things again. Allison Sok Banh loved the feel of
her familiar desk chair, loved the idea that she was working late
at night, loved it all. Tonight it had been easy for her to tuck
Graham in and avoid his perpetually attempted conversation about
the relationship. He’d passed out at the moment of mattress
touchdown.
Allie had Lyle throw
an extra bucket of coal into the fire under the hot water tank.
From the locked steel box at the back of her bedroom closet, she
took pre-Daybreak lavender Castile soap and Wild Turkey, plus Kona
that Lisa Fanchion had given her in appreciation of the tax
exemption on coffee.
Her scalding shower
was at least five times as long as the ration, and in no way “cool
and comfortable” as Graham Weisbrod’s housekeeping directive had
specified, but more along the lines of “sinfully
decadent.”
So bizarre. Before, she’d never really understood
that Graham was serious about this good-gov shit. Allie’s family
had “dove ourselves neck-deep in politics as soon as we ditched the
boat and got the vote,” she remembered Uncle Sam saying, literally
while he was teaching her to work the cash register. “Before you
buy a business, buy the cop and the judge so you can keep it,
Allie.”
Snug in her thick
terry bathrobe, she drizzled the scarce and wonderful bourbon into
the pot of Kona, poured a cup, and settled in to work. The drink
burned down her throat like hot, slick ebony inlaid with gold; she
drew the fumes from the cup into her nose, sighed, and reached for
the first memo.
“So the summit was
aborted,” Mr. Darcage said. “And you got to see your ex, and, I
should guess, impress him. How fortunate all around.”
She put her feet down
abruptly, crossing her legs under the desk and tugging at her robe.
Who the fuck lets him in? Lyle? Gotta
know! “Ever think about knocking or maybe showing up in
regular hours?”
“My employers would
be delighted if you’d meet with me openly and regularly; the tribes
crave recognition.” He stepped out of
the dim shadows in the corner of the office; in the flaring
lamplight he seemed more gaunt, his face more lined, almost
ancient, but his precisely geometric beard and hair were black as
pitch. His eyes bulged slightly, his lips were too thick, and there
was a patch of old acne scarring along one sideburn.
“That’s not what I
meant. And you know it.” She held her robe closed with one hand, as
if afraid it might pop open; her other hand reached under her desk,
seeking the pistol—
The space was
empty.
Darcage set the
pistol down on the desk in front of her. “I don’t want you to keep
loaded guns around.”
“I do many things you
don’t want me to.”
“You think you do things I don’t want you to. You don’t
ask, often enough, what I want you to
do.” He gestured toward the gun lying on the desk. “That’s why I
had to unload the gun for you. I shouldn’t have to do that. I
shouldn’t have to do that for you.”
His repetition was
annoying her, and she said, “I get it.”
“Of course you
do.”
“Why did you come
here and why am I not throwing you out?” she asked, as much to
herself as to him. He sat with one leg running along the edge of
her desk, curled against the other, a supported flamingo, and
leaned slightly forward, but did not speak. I
could suddenly bite his nose and it would serve him right. I wonder
if he’s trying to see down my robe. She resisted the urge to
look down or yank it closed; can’t let him
know he’s bothering me. Come on, talk,
asshole. This silent act is creeping me out. “You work hard
at telling me what I don’t want.”
“That’s because
you’re not always clear about what you do want. Don’t you want to make things run
smoothly? Don’t you want all the good relations you can possibly
get?”
I know what I don’t want: to
be caught in just my bathrobe, here in the middle of the night,
with contraband bribes on my desk and what’s obviously a Daybreaker
agent alone with me. “What did you have in
mind?”
The silence lay in
the room like a dead cow on the floor, too big to go around,
impossible to climb over without admitting that there was something
in your way. The lamplight from her desk lamp flickered and danced.
Little kid campfire trick, Allie
thought, wishing she could disdain it. Shine
light up on a face from underneath and it looks
scary.
“Don’t worry about
seeing Doctor Yang again; he is on the right side and more attuned
to your needs than you might think. In fact, he’d like to hear from
you; why don’t you write him a letter?”
The light flickered
slightly. She looked up. He wasn’t there. Her coffee was now too
cool, anyway, the Wild Turkey wasted, the Kona wasted, and she felt
sad and lonely. Maybe she’d go down to the main bedroom and curl up
with Graham tonight; he always liked it when she did.
She poured her
pitcher of Turkey and Kona down the sink, rinsed everything
thoroughly, blew out the lamp, and took the back stairs passage
down to the main presidential suite.
Darcage had not
concealed that Daybreak was more interested in Arnie than they were
in her. It bothered her; she didn’t like being second to
anybody.