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Nicole Yoshida clicked the remote’s channel-up button, first once, then twice. The same story led on Fox News, Fox-CNN, and Fox-MSNBC. At President Pence’s order, the governor and lieutenant governor of Connecticut had been remanded to protective custody on a charge of treason for refusing to cooperate with federal court-mandated immigration sweeps.
Connecticut state Cabinet officials had unanimously resigned in protest; the media said they had, anyhow. On a temporary basis—so every network’s newscasters assured their audience—the chief of the Connecticut State Police had been appointed acting governor of the state.
The governor of California made a disgusted noise and turned off the TV. She remembered when the difference news channels each had a different spin on things. She remembered when some of them dared disagree with the federal government.
It hadn’t been that long ago, either. They’d stayed that way well into President Trump’s second term. The good old days, she thought sourly. Then consolidation hit television and radio and what was left of the newspapers. That social media had already gone the same way made finishing the job easier.
“‘Therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee,’” she quoted.
Her CHP bodyguard—one of her CHP bodyguards—let out a snort. “Yeah, the whole country is Donne to a turn,” Captain Myron Flegenheim said with malice aforethought.
She winced to let him know she’d noticed what he’d done. “How long till the Last Trump blows for me?” she replied, just as maliciously.
His pained expression told her he’d hoped a governor would be above such things, and she’d just disappointed him . . . again. “The United States is washed up,” he said. Then he added, “Anybody got a cigarette?”
“Go outside,” Governor Yoshida told him.
“I always do,” Flegenheim said.
And he did. Even almost a third of the way through the twenty-first century, even with vaping driving cigarette manufacturers batshit, some stubborn people with a nicotine jones still got their fix from good, old-fashioned tobacco. Captain Flegenheim was one of them. He was polite about it, but he was.
Being polite helped only so much. People who smoked smelled bad all the time. The odor clung to their clothes, their skin, their hair, their breath. You couldn’t tell them so, either. They refused to believe you. They’d got so used to their stink, they were noseblind to it.
Nicole Yoshida wished she were. She’d thought now and then about asking Chief Musavi to take Flegenheim off her guard rotation and to replace him with a nonsmoker. She hadn’t done it yet. He had a lively, sardonic wit, which was about as uncommon in cops as it was in politicians.
