The Secret Service agent bit his lips. The word from the West Wing was to stonewall the press until an official statement was put out.
"Sorry," he said.
Frustrated, reporters descended on citizens and tourists who were gathering on Pennsylvania Avenue, weeping and stunned.
"What does the Presidential loss mean to you personally?"
"Where were you when you heard the news?"
"I need a shot of someone crying," a reporter called out. "If you've got tears in your eyes, raise your hand and I'll put you on the BCN Evening News. "
No one raised their hand. But someone threw a rock. It bounced off the reporter's skull, and for the next ten minutes he became the story as cameras closed in on him lying on the pavement, bleeding from a gash over one eye, saying, "Help me. Someone help me."
"Sorry," he was told by his colleagues, "you're news now. We can't help you."
"Can't you bleed a little more?" another colleague requested. "This is kinda dull. How about a nice painful groan?"
NO ONE NOTICED the panhandler arrive in a metallic blue Porsche.
The panhandler stepped from the Porsche after parking it near the Treasury Building, one block east of the White House. He was wearing a shabby tan trench coat and a black acrylic baseball cap with the letters CIA stamped on the front. His aviator-style sunglasses were taped together with duct tape on the bridge and stems.
He shuffled toward the east White House fence, making no effort to solicit spare change from the gathering crowd.
There was a Secret Service special agent stationed under a spreading magnolia tree, and while his attention was elsewhere, the panhandler suddenly knelt and pulled a black-and-white cat from under his trench coat. He shoved the complaining feline through the fence, saying, "Scat!"
Secret Service Special Agent Clyde Norman caught the motion out of the corner of his eye.
"Hey!" he yelled at the kneeling panhandler. "Get away from that cat!"
The panhandler abruptly straightened up. "I was just petting it," he said defensively.
Trotting down to the fence, Norman lifted his left hand to his mouth. "Flea Dip is loose again."
"Who the hell is Flea Dip?" a voice called back.
"First Cat."
"Oh, right. Just take it slow, Norman. He's very mellow for a cat."
"Must have inhaled," Norman said, slowing up when he realized the black-and-white tabby wasn't disposed to run away.
He looked mellow, all right. In fact, he looked somewhat on the stoned side.
"Here, Socks. Come, boy. Or girl. Or whatever you are."
The cat swung its piebald head around, fixing Norman with dull yellow eyes. It wore a red leather collar.
Norman sank to one knee. The panhandler had already moved on.
"Come here, Socks. Come on."
The cat simply sat there, looking absolutely zoned out.
"What are you, deaf?"
Norman got up, taking care to make no sudden moves. Still crouching, he inched toward the cat.
Just as Norman was about to scoop him up, the cat gave an unexpected leap, sailing over his shoulder, and bounded along on paws like soft white fur boots.
"Damn!" Norman got up, whirling.
"Norman to Base. Flea Dip is coming your way. Repeat, Flea Dip is coming your way."
"Roger."
SECRET SERVICE Special Agent Dick Armbruster was standing post on the breezeway between the Oval Office and the family quarters of the White House when he received the transmission.
"Damn that moron cat," he grumbled, stepping onto the lawn.
More often than not he got stuck with feline protection, as the service had dubbed it in its limitless bureaucratic hightestosterone style. Feline protection ran the gamut from hauling the little fur ball down from Andrew Jackson's magnolia tree to the joys of the weekly flea dip.
It was Armbruster who had coined the First Cat's code name, Flea Dip-a coining scrupulously kept from Ballbuster and Braces, or the First Lady and First Daughter in service code.
Armbruster was coming around a corner when he heard a faint hissing. "Aural contact with Flea Dip on north side."
"Roger. Approach with caution, Armbruster."
"Roger," said Armbruster, thinking they make it sound as if they were stalking a wild animal.
The hissing was still audible as Armbruster turned the corner and came upon the First Cat diligently licking its fuzzy butt.
Armbruster froze, his agent's instincts kicking in. The cat was licking itself steadily. Yet there was a protracted hissing coming from the cat itself.
As he knelt to observe more closely, Agent Armbruster thought he saw a fine mist rise from the feline's red leather collar.
The cat seemed to sense something was wrong, too. It began to sniff itself with delicate curiosity.
Not for the first time, Armbruster thought it was one hell of an ugly cat. Its face mask was a mottling of black-andwhite patches without symmetry or beauty.
Blithely unaware of its ugliness, the First Cat continued sniffing itself.
Armbruster reached out a tentative hand. Usually the First Cat would come to him, dumb-ass feline that it was.
"Here, brain dead."
Without warning, the cat gathered itself up on stretching legs and arched its back. Hackles rising with porcupine suddenness, the First Cat opened its mouth and hissed. This was a different hiss than the earlier sound, deeper, more threatening.