Bob? It’s Mike McGill.”

Bob had acquired a bit of Texas in his accent.

“Mike! Jesus, man, it’s been years! How you been?”

“I followed you out of Chicago. Set up on my own in New York.”

“Good for you, man. Always said you were the smartest guy in the agency. So what’s up?”

“You still in San Antonio?”

He laughed. The laugh had a bit of edge in it. I filed that away, nervously.

“Sure. You need something?”

“Listen, me and my partner need to fly down there today and do some digging. Any chance you could give us some local knowledge?”

“Damn, I’ll pick you up at the airport. Got a flight yet?”

I’d already booked tickets by phone, and gave him the details. That was that, and we hung up.

“Huh,” I said, standing over the phone.

“Problems?” Trix said from the bathroom.

“I don’t know. He didn’t sound right.”

“Define.”

“Nothing ever got to Bob. He was Teflon—everything just slid right off him. Stuff only ever came out when he was drunk. He sounded…not stressed, but edgy. Not like Bob.”

“Been a while since you saw him, though, right? I think I like being your partner, by the way.”

“Well, what the hell else was I going to call you? I couldn’t tell him you were my girlfriend or anything.”

Waited.

“No, you couldn’t,” came her voice.

Shit.

“Friend-with-benefits doesn’t sound too professional, either,” she laughed. Making damn sure I had no idea where things stood.

She tripped out of the bathroom, flames around her eyes. “So what’s the plan, boss?”

“Bob’ll pick us up, we’ll find a hotel, and he’ll give us some background on the next visit.”

“Which is?”

“Ever heard of Roanoke Oil?”

Her face set. “Yes, I have. Serious eco-criminals.”

“I didn’t know that. Well, we’re going to have some fun. Because the thing was bought from our briny friends by the Roanoke family.”

“Oh, wow. That’s interesting. How long ago?”

“Three years, I think.”

“Wow. You know one of the Roanokes tried to take a stab at the presidency last time around?”

A few things went click click click in my head. And, I don’t know, call it an aftereffect of the exfiltration of vintage semen, call it suddenly becoming uncomfortable with only ever having told her part of the story, call it what you fucking like, I don’t care. But I asked her to sit down, and I told her what the book really was. Told her what I’d been told it was and what it was for.

After a while, she blew out a breath and said, “Holy shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Holy shit.”

“You said that.”

“What do you think he wants it back for?”

“Well, I don’t think it’s a magic book. I think it’s a little bit of history that he wants safely swept under his own carpet, rather than floating around out in the world.”

Trix stood up. Sat down again. Thought for a moment. Stood up. “Can I have one of your cigarettes?”

I handed her the pack and the lighter. There was memory in her fingers as she lit up. I felt bad for bringing on a relapse. She sucked the smoke down, and coughed it back out in big blue puffs. “What the fuck are these?”

“They’re organic.”

She looked at the pack. “You smoke cigarettes called ‘American Ghost’? Jesus, Mike. Organic what? Dead bodies?”

“Feeling better?”

“No!”

“Oh.”

She stabbed the cigarette to death in the ashtray. “Mike, I’m working for the White House.”

“It’s an adventure.”

“It’s the government.”

“It’s their money we’re spending. It’s their money I’m giving you. They are paying for our adventure because, well, they’re nuts and they think there’s a magic book on the loose in America. It’s not a magic book. It’s a faintly embarrassing antique that they are handing over stupid amounts of money for me to attempt to return to them. That said—”

Trix found my eyes. “—that said, one of the Roanokes tried to take a stab at the presidency last time around.”

“Yeah. So you said. What happened?”

“The guy couldn’t get on the ballots. Had worse problems than Nader. Spent a lot of money, but it all fell apart. Indymedia called it Bush Envy. See, what threw people was that he had no experience at all, in anything. He made Ross Perot look like JFK, you know? No one knew what made him think he could win. But, what I’m now thinking is, see, if he had the thing, the book, an actual honest-to-God whole other draft of the Constitution…”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah. If he’d managed to get into the political fight, he could have, I don’t know, shown it off, or used it as secret leverage…”

“Hold on.” I quickly lit myself a cigarette. “You’re a bit ahead of me. Mentioning him running for office, that put up the red flag, because it’s the first political connection to the book I’ve had so far. But you think it could actually leverage someone into office?”

“Don’t know. I mean, if your guy honestly believes it’s full of…what? Precepts by which America can be healed? If your guy believes it, maybe someone else is crazy enough to. A book that can save America, signed by all the Founders…”

“…hell. That’s interesting. That’s really interesting. We need to get on a plane.”

“Hell, yeah,” she said.