Things You Should Know(78)

“Where’d he get that?”

“We don’t know.”

She puts her hand in his pockets; there’s money—singles and a five.

“Did someone take you away? Did someone give you a ride?”

“I got tips,” he says.

The Bel Air police pull up with Philip in the back of the car. “Sorry to bother you,” one of the cops says.

The agents grab the President, like a mannequin, and protectively pull him behind the van for cover.

“Do you know this man?” the cop asks.

“Has he done something wrong?” she asks.

“He was out, walking and singing, and he has a glossy photo of your husband and, well, we thought he looked a little like John Hinckley.”

“He’s our trainer,” she says.

“That’s what he said. And you’re sure about that?”

“Quite.”

“All right then, I’m sorry.” The cop gets out, lets Philip out of the back of the car, and unlocks the handcuffs. “You can never be too careful.”

“Of course you can’t. Thank you.”

“How did he get all the way to Beverly Hills?” Philip asks, when he finds out where they found him.

“I don’t think he walked,” she says.

She is livid. She wants to take him and shake him and tell him that if he ever does that again she’s sending him away, putting him in a home under lock and key.

Instead she goes inside, picks up the phone, and calls Washington. “Head of the Secret Service, please, this is Nancy Reagan on the line.”

“Can I have him return?” his secretary says.

“No.”

“One moment, please.”

The head of the service comes on the line. She reads him the riot act, starting calmly and working her way up. “I don’t know what kind of agency you’re running…” By the time she’s finished she is screaming and the man on the other end is blithering. “How many men have you got there? We’ll do a full investigation. I’ll replace the whole crew. I don’t know what to say. Maybe they weren’t thinking. Maybe they’re burned out.”

“Burned out…You’re supposed to be the best in the world and the man wandered away from his own home.” She slams the phone down.

Philip helps him take a shower and change into clean clothing—jeans and a cowboy shirt. Philip has a cowboy hat for him, a toy guitar, and a piece of rope. They are in the backyard doing rope tricks.

“I’ve upset Mother,” he says.

“It’s all right, Chief, you gave us all quite a scare.”

She is brittle, flash-frozen. And she has a backache. She takes a couple of aspirin and tries to catch her breath.



Later, he is in the bedroom, sitting on the floor playing with his toy guitar.

She goes to the padlock, starts spinning the numbers, one to the right, two to the left. She takes a sharp breath, makes an odd sound, turns around, gives him a surprised look—and falls face down on the floor. The sound is like a plank of light wood; there’s a distinct snap—her nose breaking, her beak bending to the side.

“The hummingbird is down, the hummingbird is down.” The call goes out when Philip finds her.

He rolls her over and attempts CPR. “Someone dial 911—dial 911,” he shouts.

“That man is kissing Mother,” he says, strumming his guitar.

Philip’s breath, his compressions are useless. The paramedics arrive and try to jump-start her. Her body bounces off the floor, ribs snap. They are about to call for backup when Soledad steps forward, living will in hand, and tells them to stop. “No heroic measures,” she says. “It’s enough.”

Soledad calls Dr. Sibley, who arranges for someone to meet them at Saint Johns, and they slide her into a garment bag, and discreetly tuck her into the back of Jorge’s gardening truck under a pile of grass clippings. The ambulance stays out front while she is taken out the back. Jorge’s Ever Green Gardening Service pulls away just as the news trucks pull up, raising their satellite dishes into the sky.

And he still sits on the bedroom floor strumming the guitar and singing an old cowboy song—“Yippee-ti-yi-yay, get along little dogies, you know that Wyoming will be your new home.”