Chapter 14: The Dream Booty's Toll

The killer hired by Claude Mink couldn't find Lewin Baltry, the runaway commissioner. It was maddening. On the home front, Claude grappled with a marital crisis: Electra had walked in on him test-humping the Dream Booty inside the closet where she kept her charity-ball gowns. No credible excuse for what he was doing had sprung to Claude's mind, so he hadn't chased after his angry wife. Instead he got dressed, walked downstairs, and acted like nothing had happened. Electra wouldn't speak to him that morning and still hadn't, except to banish him from the Maybach when he tried to ride with her to the office. Afterward Claude stashed his alluring polymer companion in a wall safe behind a Chagall print in the den. He was the only one who knew the combination, which he kept on a scrap of paper in his sock drawer.

Now his body man Dumas was driving him around town in a dull white Sequoia, the Minks' utility vehicle. When the killer called, Claude reamed him out. The killer let him go on for a while.

Then he said:

The governor of Florida stood ready to appoint a new county commissioner, one that would fall in line and vote yes on the Bunkers project. But first Lewin Baltry had to be erased from the picture.

Claude Mink had already hung up. The killer finished charging Baltry’s golf cart and drove it to the club, where he had a midmorning tee time. He hooked his first drive into a retention pond and triple-bogeyed the hole. Mink’s anti-Semitic snipe had deeply upset him.

Twenty-six hundred miles away, Lewin Baltry was organizing the contents of the refrigerator in the house he’d rented in Wolf Creek, Montana. The fugitive commissioner had felt conspicuous staying at the fishing lodge. Dinner conversations with the flycasters had been painful, as Baltry didn’t know the difference between a rainbow trout and a barracuda. The two-bedroom rental was crazy expensive, but what price—Baltry had rationalized—can one put on blessed solitude? He paid for three months with cash using the name Donnie Lee Estefan. The owner of the house, who was dodging bed taxes, didn’t ask for an ID.

Barry Martino, the fixer-lobbyist, called repeatedly from Florida. Baltry wouldn’t answer, and soon stopped listening to Martino’s baleful messages. One afternoon he drove to the I-15 rest stop near a town called Dearborn and placed his cellphone inside a spare tire under a tractor-trailer rig that was—fortuitously for Baltry—heading first to Alberta and then back to the port of New Orleans.

Baltry bought a new phone in Cascade and began mulling his next move. Montana was a good place to hide, but he didn’t want to stay much longer. There were grizzlies in the mountains and cougars in the canyons. The river water was too cold for swimming, and sometimes at night he smelled skunk on the wind. His neighbor up the road had shot a muskrat in his pond and asked Baltry if he wanted the pelt.

The options, in Baltry’s view, were few. He could stay lost and ultimately burn through his money—or return to Florida, vote to approve the Bunkers project, and pray he didn’t get indicted for bribery.

There was also a third, more daring course: Go to the FBI and make a deal to testify against the Minks, Martino, and the other corrupt commissioners. They were, after all, scum. And the witness protection program didn’t sound so terrible; certainly it was better than prison, or being murdered by operatives of the Minks. Baltry could picture himself tending a modest tract house in a drab but quiet neighborhood, like the one where Ray Liotta’s character ended up in Goodfellas.

As long as there was a decent golf course nearby.

With a driving range.

Baltry thought about the phone number given to him by the menacing stranger at the Wendy’s drive-through. The scrap of paper was still tucked with the cash in his billfold. There was no cell service at the house, but Baltry got two bars at the gas station in Wolf Creek. When he dialed the stranger’s number, the call went directly to voicemail. Baltry didn’t leave a message. He wasn’t sure that two time zones away was a safe enough distance.

Assuming that the Minks had already hired someone to track him, the commissioner drove the rented Highlander all the way to Portland, turned it in, and bought a used Outback on Craigslist, one hundred and nineteen thousand gritty miles on the engine.

Baltry didn’t look in the glove compartment until he got back to Montana. Immediately he phoned the seller and said,

Guns made Baltry nervous.

The man chuckled.

Twilly’s father was called Little Phil and his mother’s name was Amy. They took him to Paris when he was thirteen with a game plan to do all the museums, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, the works. During their first full day in the city they went for a cruise on the Seine. As the tour boat approached the first bridge, Twilly’s mom started freaking; she was terrified that a pedestrian on the span would spit down on them. Where such a disgusting idea sprung from, Twilly couldn’t imagine. Little Phil dropped his voice and told Amy to quit making a scene. Although she had many eclectic phobias, Twilly had never seen her unravel in public. He tried to hold her hand, but she shook free and shielded her head with both arms as the boat passed slowly under the bridge. Nobody honked a gob on the cruise passengers. However, there were other bridges over the river, and then there was the return trip, so Amy Spree’s drama repeated over and over. She spent the rest of the France trip meditating at the hotel while Little Phil halfheartedly hauled their only son around to see the famous sights. Twilly recalled admiring the van Goghs at the Musée d’Orsay but nearly suffocating on human body odor at the Louvre, where the tourists had packed in like squirming garfish to see the listless Mona Lisa.

That was, unsurprisingly, the Sprees’ last family vacation. Twilly’s parents stayed married for five more years, until Little Phil—a die-hard real estate man—ran off with a clerk from the title-and-escrow company. By then Amy Spree was well down a transcendental path, incapable of resentment or jealousy. Nonetheless, she hired a tough lawyer and ended up with the family house, the Nissan coupe, and both WaveRunners. Twilly himself was newly independent thanks to the unsought inheritance from Big Phil, his mountain-plundering grandfather. At the time, the value of the trust was approximately five million dollars. Although Twilly was only eighteen, he devised a budget that allowed him to live off the interest and dividends. He steered clear of the principal, and over the years his net worth wealth grew vastly. When the trust expired, on Twilly’s fortieth birthday, he immediately converted the portfolio to tax-free bonds. His only extravagance was anonymously bankrolling environmental lawsuits against out-of-state developers or sugar companies. More often than not, these cases withered in court. Twilly Spree didn’t discuss his wealth with Viva, or anyone in his past.

They were lying in bed at his place. It was seven thirty in the morning. Clothes and sheets lay in a riot on the floor. Viva was propped on one elbow with her hair pulled back. She’d been entertaining Twilly with the story of her bachelorette party in Nashville, where her best friend had gotten buzzed and toppled off a party bus on Broadway only to be scooped up and adopted by another rowdy female armada—competing bachelorettes from Philadelphia. It had been the last time Viva ever saw her friend, who stayed in Nashville, skipped Viva’s wedding, got her boobs done, and moved in with a nightclub bouncer.

Twilly told her about the brawl at Fever Beach, and Figgo’s bird-brained Key West plot.

Viva warned him to be careful dealing with Jonas Onus.

Twilly took a pressed white tee out of the drawer.

Donna Figgo was at the gym, pounding the heavy bag, when a tall, pretty African American woman walked up and said,

The woman was calm and firm. Donna kept punching the bag.

“Oops. My bad.” Donna was sticking left jabs, keeping to her rhythm.

Only I doubt your kid’s a moron, Donna thought, ending her workout with a brisk right-left-right combination. She took off her boxing gloves and said, “Well, I guess we can chat. I owe you that much.”

Her name was Mary Kristiansen. It was her husband, Noel, who’d been hit by Dale Figgo’s Ram 1500 in front of their home in Sanctuary Falls. The experience had profoundly affected him, Mary said, and it wasn’t just the head injury.

Donna Figgo listened courteously as she helped the woman lace on a dry pair of gloves. She agreed that her son’s actions were inexcusable, especially him fleeing the scene and all. Mary stepped out of her flats and started hitting the bag, hopping from side to side, barefoot in her red shift dress. Her form was free-swinging and unschooled, but she could punch hard.

Mary Kristiansen did three full minutes and stopped. She was breathing hard, the slope of her neck damp with sweat. The gym was warm. She removed the boxing gloves and smoothed back her hair. Donna Figgo handed her a towel and a bottle of water.

Donna opened the baggie and stared at the headline on the flyer: “EVERY SINGLE ASPECT OF THE EVIL COVID AGENDA IS JEWISH.”

“Ever since Noel got home from the hospital, he hardly sleeps,” Mary went on. “Sometimes he goes out late and lies about where. The all-night bowling alley where he supposedly plays in a league went out of business two months ago—there’s one example. Now he’s bought a gun. This is a man who couldn’t hit a Greyhound bus with a fire hose, and suddenly he’s taking shooting lessons with an AR-15. A man who once got his finger stuck in an electric pencil sharpener!”

Mary Kristiansen felt somewhat sorry for Dale Figgo’s mother, and it showed. She said,

Donna peered more closely at the flyer.

Donna swore under her breath. She slipped the flyer into the Ziploc and asked if she could keep it. Mary said of course.

Donna laughed ruefully.

Impossible, Donna thought. Border-line hilarious.

Mary looked down and away.

Mary Kristiansen put her shoes on.

Donna Figgo watched her visitor walk out of the gym, and turned back to the heavy bag. No gloves, this time, just bare knuckles.

The meeting was painful. Nicki Boyette wore a short silk dress that had been proven to drive her future ex-husband crazy. Harold Fistman chose a tailored gray suit but no necktie, unbuttoning his shirt just enough to flaunt a retro gold chain nestled in his silver chest hair. The congressman’s attorney was Chip Milkwright from Milkwright & Menser in Fort Lauderdale; he specialized in divorces involving unfaithful professional athletes. He’d taken the congressman’s case as a favor to Clay Boyette, who years ago had cut him in on a lucrative land swap involving a phosphate mine.

They gathered in the long cold conference room at Fistman’s office. Nicki and Fistman sat on one side of the mahogany table, the congressman and his attorney on the other. In the middle was a pewter pitcher of ice water and a dozen blue ballpoints that nobody touched. The lawyers all came armed with laptops.

Clure Boyette’s mood was impatient and downcast; seeing Galaxy and Viva Morales together the night before had floored him. His date, a seasoned escort from Boca Raton, took home a thousand bucks for doing nothing except wolfing a four-star meal. Naughty leash play had been the last thing on the congressman’s mind. That Viva and Galaxy were sharing notes about him was now the source of a dyspeptic ache.

The viper Fistman started the mediation by swinging for the fence:

Fistman chuckled.

Florida being a no-fault-divorce state was true only in the abstract. Nicki Boyette had the names of sixteen women—not all of them prostitutes—who had slept with her husband during the marriage. It was combustible information to possess in the midst of a tense re-election campaign. The loyalty of the congressman’s conservative base would be strained by revelations of double-digit adulteries, and possibly appalled by the cringy details of his cosplay preference. By and large, his voters were dog lovers.

Harold Fistman winked at Nicki Boyette, who nodded.

The congressman blanched.

Fistman explained that Mrs. Boyette wanted to be sure no joint marital funds were tapped to fund the entity if it was, in fact, a legitimate nonprofit.

Chip Milkwright spoke up:

Queasily Boyette turned and whispered into his lawyer’s ear:

Early polling showed that the congressional race was closer than expected, Boyette’s constituency having tired of him voting every few months to shut down the U.S. government. A major employer in his district was an Air Force base where four hundred–plus civilians worked, most of them registered voters who didn’t enjoy biannual drama involving their paychecks. Many no longer viewed Boyette as a principled young budget hawk; they saw him as an attention whore rapidly approaching asshole status. His Democratic opponent was a schoolteacher and twice-divorced mom nobody had heard of a year ago. Yet now, somehow, she hovered within ten points of the incumbent. Her yard signs were sprouting all over the place, even on the lot across from Clay Boyette’s gated estate. He told his son to wake the fuck up and start kissing babies.

Harold Fistman and his client were aware that the congressman was highly motivated to expedite the divorce and seal the court file. They countered at fifty-five percent but added one more high-end demand:

Boyette bristled.

Nicki lightly drummed two fingers on the table.

“But it was a lease,” said Boyette, boiling on the inside. The new car had been promised to Galaxy, and there was zero chance that his old man would pay for two of them. None of this was known to the congressman’s divorce attorney.

She asked Harold Fistman to read the list aloud.

Fistman began reading out the female names his IT ace had screen-grabbed from Boyette’s unprotected Venmo account. He made it only as far as number five before the congressman cut in:

The Boyettes departed within two minutes of each other. Milkwright shut his laptop while griping that nobody had told him there was a fucking Venmo list.

After the meeting, Clure Boyette hurried out of the building and phoned his father, who called him a pathetic fucknoodle and refused to order a second Aston. One was enough, Clay Boyette snapped. But he would come around, the congressman felt sure; his father was all about tying up loose ends before the election. He was more worried about the narrowing poll numbers than his son was, because Clay Boyette didn’t know that the once-problematic Precinct 53 was a lock. He’d never heard of the Strokers for Liberty and was unaware that Clure was summoning an armed force to Carpville as “citizen poll watchers” on voting day.

The old toad will be impressed, the congressman thought confidently. He was wrong, but that would turn out to be the least of his troubles.

Unlike many white supremacists, Dale Figgo wasn’t addicted to the internet—just the opposite. He avoided the dark web because groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers—corrupted with informants since the original January 6th prosecutions—continued to maintain a loud, oversize presence. It irked Figgo to see their frequent posts and the blind fervor of their followers, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened that day in Washington. He feared that impressionable Strokers might defect, as Raw Dog had, in hopes of a larger social profile and a benefits package that included future legal fees.

Figgo had conceived the Key West mission not only as an easy practice but also as a morale booster. In advance of the trip, his touchiest dilemma was deciding what to do about his former number two, Jonas Onus. Figgo had expected him to resign from the Strokers after his drubbing at Fever Beach, but Onus remained silent. Figgo’s first impulse was to expel the hotheaded goon from the group, but Twilly Spree advised him to hold off.

Of all the Strokers, it had been Twilly alone who had rushed to Figgo’s aid when Onus jumped him on the beach. And, even outweighed by twenty-five pounds, Twilly had kicked Onus’s ass. It had been over so fast you couldn’t even call it a fight.

He and Twilly were having beers in the kitchen at the townhouse. Twilly was waiting for Viva to get home from work. He’d given up trying to talk Figgo out of the Key West trip; from now on, it was damage control. Figgo was scrawling out a budget for the mission so he could hit up the congressman for a cash advance. He’d felt comfortable enough to remove his postsurgery mask in front of Twilly, who refrained from commenting on the peculiar texture of Figgo’s rebuilt nose.

Yo, let’s meet up, Figgo texted Onus.

Already on my way, Onus texted back.

Figgo was surprised. I meant tomorrow, he typed.

Nothing.

Ten minutes later, the Tundra rumbled into the driveway. It was pouring rain outside. Figgo, watching from a window, reported that Onus looked pretty rough.

Twilly was reading one of Viva’s New Yorkers. He glanced up and said,

Onus walked in with a labored, bent-legged waddle, as if a freezer was strapped to his back. His clothes—the same ones he’d worn to Fever Beach—were wet and dirty. The Chris Stapleton–style beard had been rinsed of its patriotic hues and hacked to a sagebrush stubble. Through puffy slits, Onus glowered at Twilly, who put down the magazine but remained seated.

Figgo shut the door.

Twilly rolled his eyes.

Matching Glocks, of course. Douche v. Douche. Twilly popped the clip from each gun and checked the chambers.

Figgo sneered.

Onus hungrily eyed his empty Glock on the counter where Twilly had placed it.

Neither of the men would sit.

Figgo frowned, fidgeted, then:

Onus responded with an odd, desolate grin.

Figgo looked coldly at Twilly.

Onus threw up his hands.

The air in the room turned heavy.

Figgo shoved his hands in his pockets.

A key clicked in the lock, and the front door opened.

Viva walked in with a dripping umbrella and muttered,

Immediately she read the room.

Please don’t say it, Twilly thought.

But she did.