“Wrong,” Alek barked from the bar, as he handed the drink to Marcy. “Honest man has more enemies than anyone.”
Marcy brought Calhoun the glass and watched as he lifted it to the light. “What in the hell is in this?” he asked.
She clasped her hands in front of her and batted her eyelashes. “Try it, and we’ll tell you,” she said, pulling out an unexpected Betty Boop imitation that Cooper thought was damn good. Tickled, Calhoun took a huge gulp and immediately started hacking. He flushed red and grabbed at his throat. Cooper thought he was going to have a heart attack. He peered up at Marcy through watering eyes.
“Drain cleaner?” he coughed.
“Jet fuel,” Marcy said. “Just a tablespoon’s worth, but the best buzz on earth.”
“Murdering a U.S. congressman is a capital crime, you know.” But he took another, smaller sip. “It grows on the palate,” he said. He held the glass in front of his face and swirled its contents around. “But if I were you, I’d conserve as much fuel as possible.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sal asked.
Calhoun waved the remark away. “Nothing. I’m just saying you should conserve. I do. I’m green. Eco-friendly. I recycle. I compost. Well, shit, I don’t compost, but I conserve. I’m a conservative.”
Cooper could see that Sal was oddly charmed by Calhoun’s deflection. “Conservative and incoherent,” Sal said. “Amazing how often those two things go hand in hand.” Calhoun raised his glass at Sal, and Sal grinned, despite himself.
“So you’ve got your eye on the JP-8,” Bozer growled from the table next to Calhoun. Cooper noticed Denise quickly place her hand on Bozer’s knee.
“JP-what?”
“The fuel. You plan on holding back supply until you get your way?”
Calhoun was surprised. He peered back at Bozer. “I plan on protecting the integrity of scientific inquiry.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Bozer replied. “But I do know what it means when we don’t got enough fuel to get through the winter. I’ve got a station half built out there and if anyone fucks with my fuel supply, it’ll be buried under eight feet of drift-snow in a month.”
Calhoun blinked back at Bozer, and Cooper felt a wave of compassion for the man. He had no business being at Pole. He was beefy Midwestern stock, about sixty. His dark eyes looked sad, even when he was laughing, and his second chin looked like another smile. The eyebrows were fuzzy, almost furry—black shot through with wiry white hairs. Cooper searched her pockets for her pen, found it, and painstakingly tried to sketch the congressman on a napkin. Sal saw what she was doing and smiled.
He turned to Calhoun. “What exactly do you guys want?” he said. “I mean, you come down here with your parade of imbeciles, squawking about scientific integrity, but in the meantime, no one knows what your point is. What’s the plan? To hold the station hostage until you get reelected? To subpoena every climate scientist until there’s no one left to do the research?”
Calhoun held Sal’s steady gaze. “I have nothing to say on that subject. It is out of my hands.”
“And whose able hands is it in now?”
“Scaletta’s. We tried to compromise. She rejected it.”
“What are you offering?”
“Basic fairness. Scientific integrity.”
“Already built into the system.”
Calhoun shook his head. “If it were, then Frank Pavano would have had freedom of movement while he was here, free access to equipment. He’d still be on the ice. The NSF ensures minority scientific views get a seat at the table. Equal access to taxpayer-funded research sites at the Poles.”
A small, strangled scream caused everyone to turn. Sri stood in the doorway, his hood still on, holding a chess set with both hands.
“You want the NSF to fund research that tries to prove global warming is a hoax,” Sri said, his knuckles whitening as he gripped the box. Calhoun finished off his South Pole Highball and set it on the table too hard.
“Young man, I’m not saying that’s what I want. I’m saying that’s the proposal on the table. Your bosses have said no. We will take advantage of the tools at our disposal.”
“Including subpoenas? One of the WAIS researchers was subpoenaed yesterday by her state’s attorney general. They’re taking her off the ice because someone from your office called and—”
Calhoun rose from his chair unsteadily. “This shit’s above your pay grade, and I’ve already talked too much. I was just looking for a nightcap and some conversation.”
Sal stood up and took the congressman’s arm. “I’ll walk you to the DV barracks.”
Calhoun yanked his arm out of Sal’s grasp. “I can get there myself, son,” he said, and, after putting on his jacket, haltingly made his way out of the bar.
After the congressman left, the room grew loud and raucous with discussion about the unexpected visit, and predictions about the intensity of his hangover tomorrow after Alek confessed to putting a double shot of jet fuel in his drink.
Cooper turned to Sal. “I’m going to bed. Wanna join me?” He hooked his fingers into her belt loops and pulled her close, but then noticed Sri was lightly thumping his head against the wall. “I gotta console Sri,” he said. “I’ll come by later.”
Instead of heading straight to the Jamesways, though, Cooper decided to drop by her studio, maybe fill out the sketch of Calhoun a little. She’d seen something in his face that she liked.
She had just opened the door to the trailer, when she heard someone mumbling from what sounded like the far end of the hall. Speak of the devil—there he was, in a crumpled heap, sitting with his back against the wall. He startled at the sound of her boots squeaking across the linoleum.
“Thank god,” he said. “I wasn’t out of there two minutes before the earth started spinning. I can’t get in my room.”
“That’s because your room isn’t in this trailer,” she replied, as Calhoun struggled to his feet, using the wall for leverage. “It’s in a much fancier one.”
“Where am I?”
“This is the Artist and Writers’ Annex.” She gestured down the long hall. “Behind these doors all of us geniuses spend our days staring at blank walls, contemplating a career change.” The cheap joke raised a laugh, and Calhoun asked her what kind of art she did. When she told him she was a painter, he laughed again.
“What’s funny?”
“I’m just thinking about how many times I’ve said something like ‘The federal endowments for the arts are wasteful and elitist, and steal much-needed funds from the hardworking folks of the middle class.’”
“Might be right about the wasteful part, at least in my case,” Cooper said. “I painted nothing but mittens for the first three months I was here.”
“Mittens?”