58. Get Smart

‘She’s a rookie.’

I had my hands up. So did Sam. Apart from a red flush to her cheeks, she seemed ok. She’d stay that way if she stayed quiet. I hoped she knew she’d played the Queen of Trumps on the Feebs’s deuce.

‘No kidding,’ Agent Snodgrass said.

Maybe the other guy had been pretending to sleep so he didn’t have to talk to him.

‘We’ll get to Agent 99 later. I’m Kowalski, most people call me Agent K, if I can’t hear them. What’s your name? And don’t get smart.’

I laughed and Sam didn’t. When she asked what the joke was, I said I’d explain later.

‘I’m Gabriel Chandler, consulting P.I. Consulting to the GBI, Agent Sara is minding my ‘p’s and ‘q’s.’

‘Don’t she have a second name? Or is that how they do things in the boonies?’

I thought Agent K might shoot Snodgrass himself.

Instead he asked me what I knew about FLOTUS’s appointment tomorrow and what kind of undercover operation could possibly have anything to do with it.

Agent K looked like he might once have been unbranded beef too. It was little things. A paisley pocket square and tie combo with the sharp Fed suit. He wore two-tone wingtips, like George Raft. His hair was too long to go far in the Bureau, without gender reassignment. He was either approaching retirement or had signed on for extras. He probably knew more about being a Fed than Snodgrass would ever learn if he retired at a hundred in seventy years time. Snodgrass had no pocket square, but his tie was navy blue. The effect of the white shirt was spoiled by the stain just by where his belly pooched it out.

‘We believe there may be an attempt to kidnap FLOTUS.’ It was true too. I meant to do it.

K exhaled. ‘I don’t know. Meantime let’s have a look around the car.’

I was happy to show them. I popped the hood first. Snodgrass tried to look like a grease monkey about to tell an old lady that he could do it but it would cost the big bucks because of the gooberator. Agent K had a quick look.

‘Damned if I’d recognise any parts on these engines nowadays. You need to be in IT not an automotive engineer. Let’s see the trunk.’

It was already popped by the time we walked round. Snodgrass had finally thought to switch on a flashlight, though I was surprised he was pointing the right end towards the inside.

‘No spares in these, just some aerosol gunk if yuh get a flat.’ Agent K said. He slammed the lid. Then he whistled a few bars of the theme tune of a very old TV show. He lifted two fingers to in imaginary hat, whilst looking at Sam Sara,

‘See ya tomorrow, Agent 99.’

I laughed again. It was still funny.