The Day of the Donald by Andrew Shaffer

the dining room and took a seat next to Jimmie. “If you’re going to puke tonight, do it on the press,” the president told him.
    “I’ll see what I can do,” Jimmie said, a bit too enthusiastically. He’d been back and forth to the open bar a couple of times already. He had a decent buzz going.
    “Have you been to one of these things before?” Trump asked Jimmie.
    “Politics isn’t my usual beat,” he said. “But I’ve had dinner before.”
    “You’re going to love it. You’re going to have an amazing, amazing time. Do you know Vlad?”
    Jimmie shook his head and self-consciously pulled the sleeves of his tuxedo jacket down. There hadn’t been time for alterations, so he was wearing a tux two sizes too small.
    “Vlad is a riot,” Trump said. “We were out hunting today. Oh, boy. That guy, I tell you what.”
    Jimmie could see it now: Trump, a big proponent of the Second Amendment, and Putin, an avid outdoorsman, marching through the Virginia woods together, blasting deer with Uzis.
    “Will the first lady be joining us tonight?” Jimmie asked.
    Trump snorted. “She hates Vlad. Thinks he’s a bad influence on me. Every time we get together, I end up stumbling home at four in the morning smelling like Strawberry and Cinnamon. And I’m not talking about scents. I’m talking about dancers. Those are their names: Strawberry and Cinnamon.”
    “I get it,” Jimmie said.
    “Good. You’re a good guy. You got a weak stomach, but you’re a good guy.”
    “Thank you, Mr. President.”
    “Please—call me Trump. There’ve been how many presidents? Forty? Fifty? There’s only one Trump.”
    Unless you counted his wives, or his parents, or his children. But Jimmie had a feeling Trump didn’t count them.
    “We have to schedule a time to talk,” Trump continued. “You’ve got to see the Oval Office. You know that it’s really an oval?”
    “I was never any good at geometry,” Jimmie said, scanning the dining room. More than a hundred guests were seated and chatting, waiting on the arrival of the Russian president. Jimmie was already starting to sweat under the opulent chandeliers,which cast so much light that it felt like he was in a tanning bed. Perhaps that was how Trump kept his luxurious glow intact.
    “Which one of my hotels did Emma put you up in?” Trump asked.
    “I found a place on my own. You know the Royal Linoleum?”
    “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Trump said. “I’ll talk to Emma. We’ll set you up in one of my properties.”
    Jimmie chose his words carefully. “If there happens to be an advertised vacancy at a Trump building, of course, I’ll jump on it. I don’t want any special treatment.”
    “A vacant unit in a Trump building is about as rare as a Kate Winslet movie where we don’t see her honkers,” Trump said. “But I see your point. You’re a man who likes to do things on his own. You don’t like to be dependent on others. I can respect that. Can I give you some advice, though?”
    Jimmie nodded.
    “Until you can move out of the shithole where you’re living, stay away from Clinton Plaza. It’s a dangerous place. A dangerous, dangerous place. All sorts of degenerates there. I’m not just talking about the homeless or the marijuana addicts, either. There are dangerous people with dangerous ideas.” Trump leaned closer. “You understand what I’m saying?”
    Jimmie sipped his water. Suddenly, his throat had gone very dry.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Trump Zero
    B efore Jimmie could respond to what sounded an awful lot like a veiled threat, Vladimir Putin slapped Trump hard on the back.
    Trump swung around, fists at the ready to defend himself. When he saw who it was, though, he jumped up to greet his buddy.
    Putin put Trump in a playful headlock, and the American president threw up his arms in mock protest. The Secret Service agent with the shaved head—the one Jimmie had met the day before under very different circumstances—stood back a few