"Sorry. Driver, let's go. Wallah!"
Don Cooder had been holding on to the cab's chrome trim when the passenger gave the order. The trim was torn from his hands, taking part of a fingernail with it. "Yeoow!" he screamed, anguish gullying his craggy features.
Reverend Jackman came running up, horror writ large on his own pop-eyed face.
"Are you shot? Did he shoot you?"
"A fingernail! I lost a fingernail! How will this look before America?" Reverend Jackman put his hands on his hips and a frown on his face.
"You know what? You are wound tighter that the mainspring of my granddaddy's old turnip watch. Never mind your damn manicure. We gotta fetch us a ride."
"All America looks up to me for personal grooming guidance," said Don Cooder, sucking on the injured digit, which happened to be his thumb. He looked very comfortable sucking his thumb.
The next cab to come along actually slowed down when it saw them.
Reverend Jackman started for it. He saw the back seat was empty. His face exploded in pleasure.
"Hey, thumbsucker!" he called. "I got us a lift!"
Don Cooder looked up from the curb where he sat performing surgery on his ripped thumbnail with a small penknife.
"What say?"
"It's empty. Get your thumb out of your hole and your ass over here.."
Cooder shot to his feet. In a flash, he was beside Jackman.
"We go to airport, savvy?" Jackman was saying to the driver.
Don Cooder shoved him aside, saying, "You don't say 'savvy,' you idiot. This is Irait. You say 'wallah'!" He turned to the driver. "You, take us to the airport. Wallah!"
The driver regarded them through a dense mesh veil. For the first time they noticed that the figure behind the wheel was shrouded in the native costume of a Moslem woman.
"I thought women weren't allowed to drive in this country," Reverend Jackman muttered.
"That's down in Hamidi Arabia," Cooder retorted. He addressed the silent driver. "You! Maddas Airport. Got that? Maddas. Mad Ass. Savvy?"
"La! Maddas," said the driver. The shrouded head nodded eagerly.
"Great!" said Don Cooder. "She understands. Let's go."
They piled in back.
The cab got under way, tires squealing.
"This is great," chortled Reverend Jackman. "You done good. When I'm president, I might just have a place for you in my administration."
"President? You're dreaming. You're pass."
"You just lost a chance to be my press secretary," Reverend Jackman sniffed. "I'm a shoo-in next time. All I need is the black vote. That's almost forty percent if I can get them into the voting habit. Brother minorities, like the spies, wops, et cetera, should fetch me fifteen percent. Then I got the NOW vote. That's thirty-five percent. Those who watch my talk show. I got a two share. That's what? Two million? We'll call it four. I figure that's three percent of America. Then the liberals. Twenty percent for sure. And those who admit being liberals. A quarter of a percent."
"That's almost one hundred and fifteen percent!"
Reverend Jackman smiled confidently. "In like Flynn."
His smile went south when he noticed that the aircraft lifting off could not be seen through the windshield past the driver's head.
"Must be a lull," he remarked.
"Sure hope they didn't run plumb out of gas," added Cooder. "Gas has been drying up all over this town faster than cow piss on a flat rock."
Over the engine mutter they heard the continual roar of takeoffs.
Don Cooder looked out his window and Reverend Jackman his.
They saw no aircraft, although the intermittent roar continued.
Their eyes met, grew wide, and all at once they snapped their heads around to look out the rear window.
There, framed in the bouncing glass, was a climbing string of aircraft. They were all shapes and sizes. Large air buses. Small private ships. Even a couple of helicopters. It looked like the fall of Saigon.
Their heads whipped back around and they began accosting the silent driver.
"Hey, you! Islam. You're going the wrong way."
"Driver, turn around. You turn around right now. That's a direct order. I'm an American anchorman."
Don Cooder reached out to grab the driver's shoulder. He snagged instead the hood of the black garment. It came away in his grasping fingers.
"Now you done it," Reverend Jackman whispered. "I think what you just done is against the law in this place. In fact, it's practically rape or something."
"I don't care. I'm going to the airport. Wallah! Wallah! Turn around."
The driver did turn around finally. But not the way they expected. After braking the car abruptly, throwing Reverend Jackman and Don Cooder slamming facesfirst into the front-seat cushions, the driver himself turned around in his seat.
A vaguely familiar visage showed a broad smile and the manhole-size muzzle of a shiny pistol.
"Bass!" he said. They took that to mean "Settle down." They weren't far off.
After they had stopped bouncing back and forth in their seats, Reverend Jackman's eyes seized upon the face of the driver.
"You know," he hissed, "this guy ain't a he. He's a she."
Don Cooder swallowed. "Does she--I mean he-kinda look like Maddas Hinsein to you?"
"Kinda. But everybody in this neighborhood looks like Maddas."