Fitzsimmons, because then the deputy director would have been obligated to tell the President, who would freak out and order the information classified as secret. He was still balls-deep in his anti-Diego crusade on social media.
“So, Paul, what do we do about these damn snakes?” the deputy director asked.
“I’ve reached out to a specialist.”
“Good. Make sure he searches the property thoroughly before the Commander’s Ball.”
“It’s a woman.”
“Really? How weird is that. You check her out?”
“I did,” said Ryskamp. “She’s clean.”
TWENTY
The Knob was supposed to avoid natural sunlight during periods when he was testing one of the presidential tanning beds. Usually he spent his daytimes watching porn in his motel room, and at night he went out to gorge and drink. In spite of his somewhat off-putting appearance, he almost always attracted female company. He never wasted a moment trying to understand how or why. The women who approached him seemed genuinely curious; often they asked if he had a circus background. Sometimes one would get a friend to snap photos while she smooched the knotty crown of his head.
For having such a large body mass, The Knob was easily impaired by alcohol. He carried a pair of Vic Firth drumsticks wherever he went, and after only two Rum Runners he’d start channeling Keith Moon, pounding madly along to whatever style of music would be playing, or to no music at all. The Knob wasn’t a fighter or a belligerent drunk, but he could be ungainly and destructive. On one such night, at the bar of an upscale restaurant in Jupiter, he upended a table occupied by several famous professional golfers. Having zero interest in sports, The Knob didn’t know who the men were, or why he was being asked to leave. It was just an accident, after all.
Still he found himself being escorted to the parking lot, where—with California surf music twanging in his skull—he couldn’t restrain himself from drumming “Wipe Out” on the hood of a gleaming new Bentley GT. The vehicle happened to belong to one of the pro golfers, who popped the trunk, snatched a three-wood out of his bag, and furiously began pummeling The Knob.
Twelve hours later, he awoke sprawled half-nude on Juno Beach. Bruised, blistered, and hungover, he was also momentously sunburned and therefore unfit for duty in the Cabo Royale. The Knob looked at his watch and thought it must be broken. There was no sign anywhere of his billfold or phone.
A slight blond woman wearing Daisy Duke cutoffs and a Patriots jersey snored beside him on the sand. It was a project to rouse her. When the Knob asked for a lift to Palm Beach, she laughed and threw up on his lap. He washed off in the ocean and walked dripping to A1A and stuck out his thumb. The first vehicle that stopped was a police cruiser, which took him to the emergency room.
As soon as Christian arrived at the hospital, he realized the gravity of the situation. The Knob was swollen and buttered with aloe, his skin as raw as carpaccio. Mastodon had scheduled a tanning session for mid-afternoon, and now there was no one to pre-test the bed. Finding a club employee the right size—and then obtaining a security clearance—would be nearly impossible on such short notice. Christian called Spalding and asked him to scout the service staff, but the search proved futile. The only fit candidate, a bartender who topped six feet, had a body odor so pungent that it posed a respiratory risk inside the tanning chamber.
So, upon returning to Casa Bellicosa, Christian—who weighed only a hundred and sixty pounds—put on three cotton bathrobes for padding, donned The Knob’s wig and eye protectors, climbed into the Cabo Royale, and closed the canopy. It was an act of courage, for Christian had been fiercely claustrophobic since the age of five, when his older sisters had put him inside a recycle bin and duct-taped the lid.
Christian was hoping that the sun lamps inside the Cabo would ease the suffocating sense of confinement, but the eerie bluish glow made him even more anxious. As the temperature rose he tightly closed his eyelids and began worrying that the goggles might melt to his face. The instant he began to hyperventilate, a familiar thrash of panic took hold. Both legs began to kick uncontrollably and the canopy flew open. Christian lay there gasping, clammy, and ripe with perspiration.
He tore off the hairpiece and hurled it across the room. Once his heart