Black Books-Chapter Three

A fictional account of life in MAGAritaville.

He threw the folded Washington Post across the table with a loud ‘Goddammit!’, knocking the serving spoon out of nearly empty dish of creamed spinach, leaving a gelatinous green streak on the white table cloth.

A few of the other diners turned around to see the jowly man sitting alone in the leather banquette at the back of Morton’s Steakhouse, his usual spot for lunch on week days when he was in D.C.

He liked to keep close tabs on the types that have availed themselves of his favors through the years - and his usual perch in the dimly lit back room was the best place to do it.

Whispers and burps along with the din of clanking silverware on porcelain provided sonic cover for eavesdroppers and listening devices.

At least as much as possible, this whole town was wired for sound but that never bothered him - as he was the one who ordered most of the bugs.

A bit of potato au gratin stuck to his buttery lips as he cursed to himself.

Those fuckers at DOJ were supposed to handle this - he left them very specific instructions before he left. How the fuck did WAPO get a hold of the bank records?

He smelled a rat and that wasn’t surprising.

‘Christ,’ he thought to himself, how much shit had he shoveled for Donald Trump in his second stint as Attorney General.

He was wily enough to get the hell out of town before all that January 6th shit went down - handing in his resignation as soon as he got wind of it and spending January free of the immediate fallout, with plenty of time to start his memoir.

But now it was gonna hit the fan again.

Hell, he didn’t mind taking care of Epstein - that one was personal - and gave him the same visceral thrill he got from punching hippies back in his Columbia days.

‘Bill the Bully’ they called him even back at Horace Mann; he wore that sobriquet like a badge of honor.

Jeff had it coming the same way those long-haired, anti-Vietnam War freaks did - and he knew far too much about far too many people to stay above ground.

He never quite got what his old man saw in him, besides being his wingman at Dalton and their mutual tastes for really freaky stuff.

He buried the evidence along with the secrets.

He was bred to be a fixer, a keeper of confidences and purveyor of the dark arts.

The king of the cover-ups - and nobody needed more covering up than that moron down at Mar-a-Lago.

Some men spend their lives speaking truths and some men trafficked in lies.

Barr was the second sort of man and that kept him gainfully employed; the perfect fit for keeping Trump out of trouble or at the very least mitigating the damage.

Opus Dei insisted on as much when Bill himself had suggested a more expedient approach to their problems.

The orange predator was sloppy, he knew that going back to his CIA days. The corpulent, idiot-playboy needed a minder especially since he had the same tastes as Barr’s old man - that never worked out well unless there was someone in the shadows to clean up the mess.

To bury the evidence, or at least as much of it as they could find, before it all ended up in Putin’s shaky hands.

He didn’t mind the ‘wet work’ as they called it back in his ‘Company’ days.

Now here it all was in black and white.

Ten million from Egypt’s El-Sisi because this skinflint motherfucker from Queens was too cheap to fund his own campaign.

He stood to make billions back in ’16 and he did, raking it in through Jared’s slender hands but Donnie wouldn’t pony up a measly ten mil to stake himself at the table.

Never trust a man who won’t pay his own buy-in.

Now the moron was lining up for round three, he even had that crazy freak Mike Flynn staging an ‘assassination attempt’ with live rounds and collateral fucking damage.

If these assholes didn’t pull off the next coup there’s a damn good chance they could all end up in prison.

Or worse, if they double-crossed Putin.

He knew Manafort would snitch ‘em out for a new pair of Tony Lama’s.

Snakeskin for the snakes, don’t even get him started thinking about Roger Stone and Steve Bannon - who was probably dreaming up all kinds of hijinks at Danbury Fed this very moment.

He’d be out before November and lord knows that kind of chaos they had planned.

SCOTUS could only do so much and Garland’s slow roll would wear off if Kamala got into office.

Which seemed ever more likely now and everyone knew it, even the press; much as their bosses still wanted Trump, for he was the cash cow.

Barr needed to get a handle on all of it ASAP.

Cook up some kind of plan or else…

He shuddered at the thought of the house of cards finally tumbling down as he dug into his cowboy cut ribeye, extra fried onions.

It was gonna be a long three months until the election.

The boys from Fed Soc were getting restless; they had sunk a lot of coin into this shit show already and it was supposed to be a done deal by now.

He had to give Biden some credit, that old fox had out maneuvered them at the last minute and now Trump was knocked back onto his Cuban heels.

Joe was no fool - his time on Senate Foreign Relations gave him a pretty good inkling of who was really running the show.

He was also smart enough to know that Barr and the boys still had a few tricks up their sleeves.

Trump avoided the pool at Mar-a-Lago.

A lifelong fear of water, the only man in Palm Beach without a boat.

Sure, in the old days he would toss ‘models’ into the pool when Epstein visited - to impress his partner in all things trafficked.

As much as he hated Barr now he was damn grateful he took care of Jeffrey for him.

Hell, it was half the reason he picked him for his A.G..

He knew that was a loose end he could not leave to chance.

The Russians had warned him of that - and besides, Epstein would be replaced soon enough which meant a bigger cut for him.

If there’s one thing the billionaires that backed him in Palm Beach couldn’t get enough of it was underage girls and of course tax cuts - Trump delivered both.

The former being his stock in trade for many years.

It was how he met Mel.

She of course turned out to be kind of a dud (and couldn’t stand the sight of him anymore) but still had an airtight contract so she wasn’t going anywhere.

She liked the money too much.

Tonight the billionaires gathered to hear the greatest hits - tax cuts and punishing the poor.

It never failed to make them smile.

They dined on chopped steak and shrimp cocktail.

They cheered loudest when he promised to cut Social Security and Medicare.

They loved him for that one.

Why should they give one pilfered penny they could instead keep for themselves?

Mega yachts didn’t grow on trees and neither did judges; money best spent on their own kind is how they saw it.

Even if it wasn’t their own money.

They could sense the recruitment was going well for the MAGA soldiers Flynn was now training for election night.

They wouldn’t know what hit ‘em.

It was gonna be glorious and they all agreed that Trump would make a splendid Führer.

Who knew cruelty could be so intoxicating?

Trump did and always had; he would get a kick out of throwing rocks at the neighbors’ baby when he was still a kid.

He loved the way it made the adults eyes go wide.

Anything innocent or vulnerable he always wanted to smash.

If he saw another kid admiring a flower or a bug he would run over and crush it.

He was just wired that way.

He governed with the subtlety of a syphilitic warlord and his followers loved him for it.

They came to Palm Beach from all over the South to see their orange godhead on his big day.

Scorching themselves in the Florida sun, while men far wealthier plotted inside of an air-conditioned, private club - to take away more of their future.

They rushed in from places like Salty Taint, Alabama to bask in the glow of a man who owned his own 757 and spent most of his adult life living in a penthouse on Fifth Avenue, despising folks just like them but filling his Atlantic City casinos’ slot machines with their monthly pension checks.

His grift had shifted to politics and much to his surprise it was even more lucrative.

He would have to wait and see what November would bring.