NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events.
I see Albrecht walking towards me, having left his Hummer next door at the Light House Gas Station for servicing. It is a bright cool morning outside the Cavendish Pie Shop, where I sit expecting to meet Diddlie and Sophie before the afternoon heat.
“Fred, how are you doing buddy?”
He hangs his SnazE AR case with five clip storage and non-reflective zip, over the back of a chair and sits down next to me, facing the parking lot and gas station.
“You are carrying some serious protection, I see.”
He puts his new Sig Sauer P365X-Macro Optic Ready Compact Pistol
on the table.
“Oh, and that too!”
“Yeah, don’t want to leave them in the truck.”
“Are you expecting some action?”
“Always Fred, I am always ready for them.”
Albrecht takes off his aviator sunglasses and rubs his left eye.
“Aren’t we a bit exposed, sitting here?”
“We are, but I think I’ll see trouble from here before trouble can get us.”
He puts his glasses back on with a swift motion.
“What kind of trouble do you expect?”
“Well, it could any number of enemies of the people.”
“Who are these enemies?”
“Various weaponized organizations.”
“Really! Where do you hear that?”
“Up until recently, it was Vanity Tucker.”
“Who?”
“Come on Fred, you know Vanity’s channel.”
“Oh, on the ‘Rack and Ruin’ site.”
“That’s it, she got kicked off.”
“Vanity’s commentary is very popular, isn’t it?
“She is one of our best entertainers.”
“Isn’t she one of Armond Macadamia’s big boosters?”
“Sure.”
“So, what is the problem?”
“The whole thing is a mystery.”
“But Vanity is huge!”
“Oh yeah, she’s worth about, sixty million.”
“How could this happen?”
“That’s the question, and what will she do next?”
Albrecht watches a mechanic walk into one of the bays at the Lighthouse.
“You remember when Mac was accused of being at an orgy on the Sardanapalus yacht in Biscayne Bay?”
“Oh yeah, one story had him with naked underage Asian girls and another had it as boys!”
“They are going after Mac on that again, now.”
“Who is?”
“The radical left.”
“A bit late now, isn’t it?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“What about the statute of limitations?”
“They can still get a lot of media mileage out of it.”
“Well, so can you!”
“Oh, sure. We are going to win this thing.”
“Was it the Dr. or Mac cavorting with the young nubiles?”
“It was Dr. Sardanapalus who was smeared with those fake pictures.”
“Yes, but I thought Mac was in the company of some porn star.”
“Yeah, that was on Slur.com.”
“Was it? I forget.”
“It was Gordon Byron’s wife, Isabella.”
“What? busting out of that teeny bikini?”
“No, that was someone else.”
“Isabella had no business on the yacht!”
“Well, she and Mac had a thing going.”
“So, Mac tickled her fancy, huh?”
“No Fred, it was a business thing.”
“A transaction where Gordon gets juicy tips.”
“Something like that.”
Hat in hand, Sophie gets out, of a blue Hyundai IONIQ EV sedan. She puts her wide-brim green straw hat back on and walks over, draped in a colorful silken waterfall. The sedan hums and slowly moves across the parking lot to Maxwell Avenue. She waves at me.
“Sorry Fred, Diddlie can’t make it.”
“Okay, Sophie, do you know Albrecht?”
“Oh yes, so good to meet you, Albrecht.”
“You mean we have met already?”
Sophie sits down opposite us, facing the Cavendish.
“No, no, no, I have heard about you and your political activities.”
“Is that right, Sophie?”
“Yes, you are well known, as an activist around here. You must know that.”
“Well, I guess it all depends on who you’ve been talking to.”
“So it does, Albrecht.”
“Okay, Sophie, I hope you’re going to support Mac’s efforts to win in 24.”
“Albrecht, would you mind putting your weapon away?”
He takes his automatic off the table and holsters it under his open blue-tone SnazE Camo windbreaker, with non-reflective zip.
“Thank you, Albrecht. Honestly, I must tell you, I will not be a supporter.”
“Don’t you want to support the ‘Post-Party’ candidate and be a winner?”
“Winner of what?”
“A winner in life!”
“Oh, you are asking a big question.”
“It sure is.”
“You see, Albrecht, I don’t see my life as a competition.”
“Okay, but you want to win the election, don’t you?”
“I will win nothing.”
“No, I mean, be on the winning side, supporting a great America.”
“There are many unrecognized forces at work, these issues are very complicated.”
“That’s true. Mac has the best PR in the world, and he is his own best strategist.”
Sophie pulls a deep purple business card out of a small, beaded purse and hands it across the table to Albrecht. He reads it out loud,
“Readings by Sofonisba, The Cremona Building, Alexandria Va.”
“You should come by Albrecht.”
“No Sophie, I don’t buy this stuff.”
“This stuff, as you call it, is hidden from you only by your own mind.”
“Look, our team has millions of loyal fans who want to clean up America.”
“Albrecht, just bring that card with you, and your first reading will be free. No buying involved.”
“Well, I appreciate that. I have a lot going on right now.”
Sophie smiles and sits back to look in the Pie Shop.
“Excuse me, I am going in to get some tea.”
She stands carefully gathering the layers of thin translucent silk that she wears like a saree.
“How do you know her, Fred?”
“Sophie is a neighbor.”
“Here in Fauxmont?”
“Yes, right next door to Lou Waymarsh.”
“When did that happen?”
“While you were away, I think.”
“Have you had a free reading yet, Fred?”
“No, neither free nor paid.”
“Do you believe that stuff?”
“Ah, maybe, in a way.”
“WHAT?”
“She does a lot of good, helping people with things they don’t want to think about directly.”
“Come on Fred, the lines in our hands and the constellations and all that, I mean it’s just nonsense!”
Sophy returns carrying a blue mug steaming with aromatic tea. She puts it in the middle of the table and fans the spicy mix toward Albrecht and me with her hat.
“How do you like it, guys?”
Albrecht breathes in deeply.
“Smells like Chai, Sophie.”
“Yes, it is Chai with a little something I added after I bought it.”
“What would that be, Sophie?”
“It’s a mixture I use at my practice.”
“Okay.”
“It helps one relax.”
“Some kind of drug?”
“No, Fred, just aromatics.”
“While I was away, I visited the folks at “Think Right”, you know, the think tank and website.”
“Sure Albrecht, I remember them promoting Boris Tarantula’s replacement for the Washington Monument.”
“That was years ago. We have grown a lot since then.”
“I know they purvey a lot of nonsense!”
“Fred, it isn’t nonsense, it makes all kinds of sense to our supporters!”
“These people are being misled!”
“Look, it is all about making money and associations.”
“Yeah, getting rich off of bamboozling the public.”
“That’s politics!”
“I think it is also a kind of high-tech rhetoric.”
“You’re not far off, Fred.”
“So, you admit it.”
“We use analytics instead of intuition.”
“I get that.”
“We find out what people are angry about and associate those things with government.”
“But government protects our way of life as well as complicating it.”
“Once the word government is associated with, unfairness and victimization, we have won a voter over to our team.”
Sophie tosses some silk over her left shoulder.
“Yes, Albrecht don’t you think you might have some mistaken associations about my readings?”
“Not at all Sophie.”
“Will you look into my crystal ball with me?”
“I don’t have time, sorry. I have real-world issues to deal with.”
“What could be more real than your own thoughts?”
“Sophie it is the thoughts of voters that concern me.”
“That is a thought of your own!”
“Well, okay, but we need focus groups and research, not psychics.”
“Do you know my website OAnon?”
“No, I haven’t seen that one.”
“Well, next time you have a free moment in your busy schedule, check out my pod casts. Click on, ‘Fish Weed’. The web address is on my card.”
Albrecht lifts his baseball cap with almond and macadamia nut symbols and runs his hand over his buzzcut.
“What’s it about?”
“Our work is radically different, but we have more in common than you might think.”
