CELL PHONE NOISE
“Goddammit. Why can’t these idiots get liquored up during the day like Thrush does? Hello?”
“Magafort, it’s Manafort!”
“Don’t call me that. Hello, Paul. Took the deal, huh?”
“Took it? Yeah, I took it. You ever seen The Accused? I took it like Jodie Foster took that bar.”
“Highly inappropriate, Paul.”
“I didn’t even get a pinball machine.”
“Move on or I’m hanging up.”
“Maggie, between you, me, and the multiple spy agencies listening in on this conversation, I did not come away from that negotiation well. Mueller took everything. All the houses. All the cars. All the bank accounts he knew about.”
“He knew about?”
“All the bank accounts. He took all the bank accounts.”
“You squealed?”
“Like Ned Beatty in Deliverance.”
“I am going to need you to stop referring to cinematic rape scenes. It’s just so unnecessary, Paul.”
“Hey, I’m going to prison. It’s on my mind. Although, I’ll most likely be assassinated before I even have the chance to be raped, so that’s something. There’s a silver lining.”
“Tell me about your deal. What did you tell them?”
“Everything, Maggie. You don’t understand what it’s like to be questioned by Robert Mueller. He just stares at you and crushes walnuts in his hand. Plus, he had the whole “dying in prison” thing to hang over my head. So he’s already operating from a position of power. But, still: the bit with the walnuts was very intimidating. I gave him everything. The meeting with Junior and Jared, the Pence thing, everything. And I taped everything.”
“Jesus, was everyone within a twenty-foot radius of Trump wearing a wire?”
“Everyone who wasn’t a moron, yeah.”
“Why were you taping everything?”
“Blackmail.”
“Ah. Were Junior or Jared recording?”
“No. They’re morons.”
“Sure.”
“He’s like a machine, Maggie. Mueller. All he does is swim and indict people and make baby Muellers. You ever see his eyes, the way they roll back all black when he’s about to subpoena somebody? Black eyes, like a doll’s eyes.”
“You’re talking about Jaws.”
“Those two softboys are next. Christ, I gave the government enough to send both their pale asses to jail forever. They both knew that meeting was about colluding with Russians. Junior wore a fucking tee-shirt that read I HEART COLLUSION in Cyrillic. And the morons put Donald on speakerphone, but he thought he was talking to Pizza Hut and kept shouting “Extra cheese!” so they hung up. Does that count as a felony? Being in the room where a conspiracy is taking place, but being too dumb to realize it?”
“Good question.”
“The man’s so stupid that he spawns philosophical discussions. That’s a rare and powerful stupid, Mag.”
“Can’t argue with that. What about the Vice-President?”
“Milky Jesusface? Yeah, next time he gets on his knees, it won’t be to pray. That man’s about to take some forceful dick. Big old red-white-and-blue, walnut-crushing dick right to the tonsils. He might even make that duck noise. Not gonna be pretty, I can tell you that.”
“For the last time: pick a new analogy other than sexual assault.”
“Mueller’s gonna shit on his chest.”
“Marginally better. Why?”
“Because I sent him memos outlining Donald’s involvement with the Russians and sold him on the fact that he’d be President by 2019. And some cash. I had quite a bit of cash sent to him. But, you know, it locked us up the Religious Fanatic vote.”
“Memos?”
“Maggie, have you been following my story? I left evidence everyfuckingplace I went.”
“You were not the most discreet criminal.”
“Nope. Literally any prosecutor who looked could’ve indicted me. Question.”
“Okay.”
“Has my family been murdered yet?”
“No.”
“I hope I’m murdered first, but knowing the people that are going to be ordering the killings, I’m pretty sure they’ll do my family first. I gotta tell you, it’s much easier to order someone else’s family executed.”
“Jesus, you’ve had families executed?”
“Not directly. But sometimes I would tell clients about problems, and then those problems would get hacked to death in the middle of the night. Did I cause that? Maybe. I had a part in it, let’s say that, but if we’re portioning up blame, I won’t take all of it.”
“Paul, you’re gonna die in prison.”
“No, I’m not making it to prison. I’m gonna die here in jail.”
“Probably.”
“Talk me off?”
“Goodbye, Paul.”
DIAL TONE NOISE EVEN THOUGH PHONES NO LONGER DO THAT
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