Текст книги "The King"
Автор книги: J. R. Ward
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“They’ve got him on this, Abalone. They’re going to win this one—because there are more than enough left who are repulsed by the notion of a half-breed queen and a seriously diluted heir.” His cousin’s voice dropped lower. “Do not be on the wrong side of this, my blood. They’re prepared to do anything that’s necessary to secure a unanimous vote when the time comes, and the law is what it is.”
“He could change it. I’m surprised he hasn’t.”
“No doubt he’s had a few more pressing matters to contend with than some dusty old books. And frankly, even if he reworded the provision? I don’t know if there’s enough support to carry him.”
“He could retaliate against the aristocracy.”
“What’s he going to do—kill us all? Then what?”
When Abalone finally hung up, he stared into the eyes of his father. His heart told him the race was in good hands with Wrath, even if the King isolated himself in many ways. But his cousin made a lot of sense.
After a long while, he made another call that sickened his stomach. When it was answered, he didn’t bother with any preamble. “You have my vote,” he said roughly.
Before Ichan could laud his good sense, he ended the call. And promptly dragged over a wastepaper basket so he could vomit.
The only thing worse than having no legacy at all … was not living up to the one you’d been given.
* * *
As Xcor strode out of the aristocrat’s house, he was annoyed to find that Ichan, the Council’s representative, and Tyhm, the lawyer, were waiting for him in the moonlight.
“I think we were persuasive enough,” Ichan announced.
So much pride in that haughty voice—as if the male had already placed his sagging arse upon the throne.
Xcor looked back at the Tudor mansion. Through the diamond-pane windows, the male they had confronted was on the phone, smoking a cigarette like his lungs required nicotine more than oxygen. Then he paused and stared up at something. A moment later, shoulders sloping in defeat, he put the cell back to his ear.
Ichan’s phone went off and he smiled as he took it out of his pocket. “Hello? How lovely of you to call—” There was a pause. “Oh, I think that’s so wise of you—hello? Hello?”
Ichan put the cellular device away with a shrug. “I shan’t even be offended that he hung up on me.”
And another one falls to the logic.
Xcor gripped his stolen apple and wrenched it from his blade. With a sure hand, he began to peel the bloodred skin from its crisp, white flesh, whittling around and around until a curling strip formed beneath his weapon.
As opposed to his favored stance of assassination, this new legal approach to a forced abdication was going well. They had another half dozen members of the First Families to meet and brief, and then it was time to make this official at the Council level. After that? The killings would have to be done—no doubt one or all of the aristocrats they were dealing with would have delusions of the crownal variety.
Easily cured, however, and then he would have what he wanted.
“…meal of our choice?”
As Ichan and Tyhm looked at him, he realized that he’d just been asked out to eat.
Xcor let the strip of skin fall to the snow at his feet. No doubt the dandy inside had groundspeople who would pick it up, although given how unsettled the dear boy was, mayhap he would venture out for a walk amongst his fucking topiaries and see it himself.
Threats were best made on multiple levels.
“The field awaits me the now,” Xcor said as he carved out a section of flesh and bared his fangs, bringing his knife up to his mouth along with the piece.
The crack as he bit down had its desired effect.
“Yes, well, of course, indeed, for truth,” Ichan said, his words like a ballerina spinning off her pointed shoes and careening into the orchestra pit.
How cute.
And then there was a pause, as if the adieu was to be repaid. When Xcor merely cocked a brow, the two dematerialized sure as if there were emergencies afoot at their respective manses.
So irrelevant these pawns were—he had used some up already and no doubt one or both of the pair that had just departed would find their graves in service to him.
Inside the great house, the Council member they had come to see was still hanging his head—but not for long. Someone entered the room, and whoever it was, the aristocrat didn’t want them to know of his upset. He pulled himself together, smiling and holding out his arms. As a young female went unto him, Xcor figured her to be the daughter.
She was beautiful, it was true—the drawing had been accurate.
But she was not a patch on another.
Unbidden, memories flooded his mind, images of fair skin and hair, and eyes that were capable of stopping him in his tracks sure as a bullet, tangled his thoughts until he was the one tripping over his boots even as he remained standing.
No, however pretty and young that daughter was, she was but a far-off echo of loveliness compared to his unattainable Chosen.
“You must stop this,” he said into the cold night breeze. “Stop this the now.”
A fine command, indeed—and yet it was several minutes before he could calm himself enough to focus and dematerialize from the front lawn.
A blink later and Xcor was finally in his element: The alley before him was an urban armpit, the snow filthy from the tire grab left over after countless dump and delivery trucks had passed o’er this stretch behind half a dozen cheap restaurants. In spite of frigid December gusts, the stench of spoiled meat and denaturing green matter was enough to make the inside of the nose tingle.
Breathing in, he searched for the sickly sweetness of the enemy.
He had been born deformed and cast away unto the world by the female who had brought him forth from her womb. Reared in the Bloodletter’s war camp, he had been honed as a blade in that sadist’s fire pit of aggression and pain, any weakness pounded out of him until he was as deadly as a dagger.
This theater of combat was where he belonged.
And he was not alone for long.
Wrenching his head around, he braced his weight into his thighs. A group of human men came into view, clearing the corner, walking in a pack. When they saw him, they stopped and drew in on themselves.
Xcor rolled his eyes and resumed his promenade in the opposite direction—
“Whadafuckyadoin’,” came the shout-out.
Turning back, he eyed the five of them. They were wearing some sort of coordinated theme of tough human: leather jackets, black skull caps, bandannas tied to the bottoms of their faces.
They had clearly intended to come upon someone or someones else.
Not the kind of foe he bothered with. For one thing, humans were so inferior physically, it was like biting into that apple. Secondly, they were liable to involve others of their species, either on purpose through that dreaded 911 thing or inadvertently, by causing a noise that alerted passersby.
“Whadafuckyadoin’!”
If he stayed silent, mayhap this would escalate into a coordinated song-and-dance number? How frightening.
“Go about your night,” he said in a low voice.
“Go about your—whatreyasomekindaforiegnfuck?”
Or something to that effect. Their accents were difficult to decipher—moreover, he was disinterested in making much effort on that front—
From out of nowhere, a car careened around that corner, its tires losing traction as its driver pounded on the brakes.
Gunshots rang out, echoing through the night, scattering the assembled, including himself.
Wrong place, wrong time, Xcor thought as he caught a slug in the shoulder, the pain blazing through his head—and making it impossible for him to dematerialize.
He wanted nothing of this silly fight amongst the rats without tails. But it appeared as if he were going to have to engage.
He was not dying as the result of a human’s bullet.
THREE
I-87, A.K.A. THE NORTHWAY
Oh, that new-car smell.
A combination of too-fresh carpeting, still-viscous hinge oil, and glue that was only surface dry.
Sola Morte loved a fresh start in the automotive department, which was why she always leased her Audi A4s. Every three years she got a new one—sometimes more often if there was a program that let her jump ship a month or two early.
So, yeah, this was familiar territory … except for the fact that she was getting a whiff of heaven from the trunk of whatever sedan she had been shut into.
Not the way she’d planned on ending her night, but sometimes free will was out on break when you needed it.
The question now was, how to survive the kidnapping and get back home.
Given her line of work as a burglar, she was used to improvising in dangerous situations. She wasn’t exactly MacGyver-capable; it wasn’t like she could build a nine-millimeter autoloader out of duct tape, a tube of toothpaste, twelve cents, and a Bic lighter. But she was smart enough to feel around, looking for a tire iron, a tool kit … a forgotten soda can. Anything she could use as a weapon.
When she’d been abducted from her house, she’d had nothing but the parka on her back and a desperate hope that whoever it was got her out before her grandmother made it down the stairs and was dragged into all this. The latter happened. The former? Bad news, because she didn’t even have a cell phone.
And so far, her palm expeditions around the trunk had yielded a big fat nada.
She also had no clue where she was being taken. Going by the purr from the undercarriage and the lack of potholes? They must be on the highway—and had been for a while.
Man, her head hurt.
What the hell had they hit it with? A hammer?
Straining her spine upward, she patted under the small of her back, thinking she might be lying on the compartment that held the spare tire—and tools. She didn’t feel any seams in the carpeting, though. Maybe you had to lift the whole thing up? Shit.
Reaching over her head, she rechecked the side walls, feeling the soft scratch of the carpeting and the undulation of the wheel wells … then the netting that might have held groceries in place … a folded sheet of paper that could have been a map, a receipt for some kind of purchase, a “Top Ten Ways to Torture a Captive” list …
Drawing her knees into her chest, she turned herself around in the tight space, shoving with her hands and her feet, cramping her head into an angle it really didn’t appreciate.
“Jeeeesus…” she groaned as she paused to catch her breath. “Cirque du Soleil is so out for a second career.”
Resuming the stretching and twisting, she finally got her prize—the ability to check out the opposite—
“Well, hello…”
Digging her fingertips into a break in the carpeting, she followed the square cutout until she found latches on either end. Disengaging a compartment cover, she popped the panel free and found …
Toolbox? First aid?
A lottery win manifesting itself in a fully loaded Smith & Wesson?
As she navigated by touch alone, trying to decipher the shape and feel of what was inside, she was reminded of how much she appreciated her vision.
“Gotcha,” she hissed, digging her nails into the box and fighting with the hold to get the thing free.
When it popped out, she realized there was a handle on the lid. Dumb-ass.
Its latch was simple to pop free, and inside …
The cylinder was about eight inches long and an inch and a half wide. On one end there was a cap with a rough patch on its top, and inside? Party time.
This flare was her only shot.
Tightening her hand on the thing, she refocused on trying to figure out where she was going to end up—other than a morgue, of course. The problem was, she had no idea how long they’d been en route—but if they were taking her to Benloise’s house? Then they had to be closing in on their destination. West Point wasn’t that far from Caldie.
And this was Benloise’s doing.
Payback by the narcotics wholesaler for her little home invasion and redecorating gig. Which in turn had been her way of telling him to F-off over a payment issue.
That had involved Assail.
Closing her eyes—even though she couldn’t see a damn thing—she imagined that man, everything from his glossy black hair to his deep-set eyes to that body that should have belonged to an athlete … as opposed to a drug dealer who was probably going to take over the entire eastern seaboard as his territory.
For a split second of insanity, she entertained a fantasy that he would come after her and help get her out of this mess. And yup, that was awkward on so many levels—one, she had never relied on anyone before, and two, the whole save-me-big-man bullcrap was enough to make her want to hurl on principle.
But her pride was taking a backseat on this one: She knew waaaay too much about Benloise. It was going to take a miracle to get her free, and Assail was the closest thing to one of those she’d met. Too bad he wasn’t going to miss her anytime soon. They knew each other only because she’d been paid—partially—by Benloise to spy on him. Assail hadn’t appreciated that and had turned the tables on her.
Which had led to … other things.
Shaking her head until the pain made things spin, she reminisced on all that had been so important before she’d gotten ambushed in her own kitchen: the cat and mouse between the pair of them, the seductive threat he threw off, the erotic charge she got just by being in his presence.
All of that had been so fucking important.
The current roll of the dice had wiped that slate clean, however. Now she was in survival mode—and if that didn’t pan out, she just hoped her grandmother had something left to bury.
Because she wasn’t fooling herself. Benloise wasn’t going to cut her any slack just because she had been, for a time, almost like a daughter to him in some ways. She shouldn’t have pushed him. Temper, temper, temper; her anger had been her undoing.
God, her grandmother.
Tears threatened, stinging her eyes, making her crack her lids and blink to keep them from falling.
Too much loss in her vovó’s life. Too many hard things. And this was probably going to be the worst of it all.
Unless Sola got herself out.
As feelings too big and complicated to hold in threatened to short out her brain, she struggled to contain them … and the eventual solution for that was a surprise. She went with the impulse, however—in the same way she intended to use what she had found in the trunk wall.
Putting her only weapon down by her hip, she clasped her hands over her heart and bowed her head in prayer, chin to chest.
Opening her mouth, she waited for the rote passages of her Catholic childhood to resurface in her brain and tell her tongue what to do.
And they did. “Hail Mary, full of grace…”
The words formed a cadence, a beat like that of her heart, the rhythm uniting her with a whole host of Sundays in her distant past.
When she was finished, she waited for some relief or strength or … whatever you were supposed to get from this age-old ritual.
Nope. “Damn it.”
Words—it was all just words.
Frustration made her kick her head back, slamming it into the compartment—in just the wrong place. “Fuck!”
Time to get real, she told herself as she tried to reach around and rub the sore spot.
Bottom line? No one was coming to save her. As usual, she had only herself to fall back on, and if that wasn’t enough to get her out of this? Then she was going to die in a truly horrible way—and her grandmother was going to suffer. Again.
Talk about your prayers? Sola would have given anything just to go back and rewind the evening, hitting pause at that moment when she had come home and missed the strange sedan parked across the street. In her perfect, redo world, she would have gotten her gun out and put a silencer on it before setting a foot past the front door. She would have killed them both, and then gone upstairs and told her grandmother she was going to move the furniture around just as her vovó had asked the week before.
Under the cover of night, she would have then taken the pair of men out into the garage, backed the car up, and put them in her trunk. Or … more like one in the backseat and the other in the trunk.
Out to the boonies. Bye-bye.
After which, she would have packed up her grandmother and they would have left within the hour—even though it would have been the middle of the night.
Her grandmother wouldn’t have asked questions. She understood where things were at. Hard life, practical mind.
Off into the sunrise, so to speak, never to be seen again.
See? Much better movie all around—and maybe that could become reality again, provided Sola took care of business when Benloise’s bodyguards put on the brakes and finally let her out.
Grasping her flare, she started to prepare herself. What angle she was going to take. How to come at them.
Just mental masturbation, though, wasn’t it—everything was going to depend on split-second timing that was ultimately unpredictable.
As her mind floated into the zone, her breathing slowed and her senses sharpened. Waiting was not a problem anymore; time ceased to have any measure. Thoughts were not an issue. Exhaustion didn’t exist.
It was as she settled into that netherworld between now and later that something truly transformative happened.
She saw clear as day a photograph of her grandmother. It had been taken back in Brazil when she was nineteen. Her face was unlined and full in the best sense, youth gleaming out of her eyes, her hair down and flowing, not bound.
If she had known then what awaited her in adulthood, she would never have smiled.
Her son dead. Her daughter dead. Her husband dead. And her granddaughter, the only one who was left?
No, Sola thought. This had to end well. It was the only option.
Sola didn’t say anything out loud this time—there were no rote phrases or clasped palms. And she wasn’t sure she believed her own prayer any more than the other ones that had been taught to her. But for some reason, she found herself bending God’s ear in earnest.
I promise, Lord, that if you get me out of this, I will leave the life. I will take vovó and get out of Caldwell. I will never, ever endanger myself or steal from another or commit an evil act. This is my solemn vow to You, on my vovó’s beating heart.
“Amen,” she whispered aloud.
THE IRON MASK, CALDWELL, NEW YORK
“Oh-God-oh-God-oh-God…”
As Trez held the blond college student up off the floor, he had a good grip on the backs of her legs—but he was sorely tempted to drop her like a Hot Pocket. The sex was adequate—along the lines of the cold-pizza standard: Even if it’s cold, it’s still pizza.
But it ain’t no Bella Napoli on 7th Ave in Manhattan.
And this about-to-see-God stuff? Total buzz kill, and not because he was religious in the human way or jel that she was having a great time while he was thinking of pizza. Her grating, squeaky YouPorn performance with the head throws that kept landing her extensions in his face was getting on his nerves.
Closing his eyes, he tried to concentrate on the feel of his cock going in and out of her. The woman had big fake tits that were as hard as basketballs, and a stomach that had some jiggle, and he couldn’t decide what was worst: the fact that he wasn’t attracted to her in the slightest; the reality that he was fucking this skank in the front bathroom of his own club—so his staff was going to catch him walk-of-shaming it; or the chance, however slim, that his brother might hear about this from somebody.
Shit, iAm. The male had a stare that could make a football player in full tackle gear feel like his bare ass was in a stiff breeze.
Not what Trez was looking for.
“…God, oh, God, oh, God…”
FFS, if she could only spice it up with a couple JCs or something.
“OHGODOHGOD—”
Reaching between them, he decided to put himself out of his misery. Tickling her clit, he pitched her over that edge just in time for his erection to completely deflate and all but fall out of her.
Setting her back down on her feet, he immediately had to catch her, because her knees buckled.
“Oh … God … you’re amazing … you’re…”
Uh-huh, thanks, honey. The only thing he cared about was how long it would take to get her clothes back on. “You, too, baby.”
Trez leaned to the side and picked up her—was it that bra thing she thought was a shirt? Or her thong? Or—
“Oh, I don’t need my leggings yet … do I?”
These were for her legs? he thought as he held the black strip up. Hard to imagine it covering more than a hand or maybe one of those serving-bowl-size breasts.
Who had taken the pseudo-stockings off? Not him, he didn’t think, but he couldn’t remember, and not because he was drunk. This whole session, just like the last however many years of his love life, was not just utterly, but rather, purposely, forgettable.
Then why did he insist on pulling this shit again and again—
Right, no reason to channel iAm. His brother was more than capable of running through that rhetorical Every. Single. Fucking. Time. they were together.
“Daddy, I love you,” the girl said as she gripped his biceps and hung off him like he was a stripper pole. “I love this.”
“Me, too.”
“You love me, right?”
“Always.” He eyed the door and wished he’d scheduled a preemptive knock. “Lemme have your number, ’kay? ’Cause I gotta go back to work.”
Cue the pouting—and didn’t that make him want to bare his fangs and chew his way out of the bathroom wall.
“We could do it again,” she drawled, getting up on her tiptoes to try to nuzzle against his neck.
Girlie, I could hardly get through it once, he thought. A repeat is not anatomically possible.
“Pleeeeeeeeeeeease, daddy…” More nuzzling. Then she eased back. “Please?”
Trez opened his mouth, frustration sharpening his temper and his tongue—
Except as he met her eyes, he saw an honest emotion in them and nearly recoiled. Talk about mirrors … he felt like he was looking at himself: sad. Hollow. Rootless.
She was half a woman.
He was half a male.
On that basis alone, they were Match.com time, two broken SOBs thrashing around the sex pool, trying to connect in ways that guaranteed their isolation would only continue.
“Please …?” she begged, like she was getting ready for another loss in a string of them.
Staring down at her, he realized he’d common-denominatored her to her externals, but as with all strangers, there was a story behind how she’d ended up in a bathroom throwing around the L-word with a man who wasn’t a man at all.
Hell, he wasn’t even a normal vampire.
Trez brushed her cheek with his knuckles, and when she turned her head into his hand, he whispered, “Close your eyes—”
The knock was a one-and-doner, and considering how loud and to the point it was? Not like there needed to be a second.
“Boss? We got issues,” came through the panels.
Big Rob’s voice. So it was a security problem—and given that the guy hadn’t gone to Xhex with it? She was either out for some reason … or, more likely, had sent for Trez herself.
The blonde’s fake eyelashes lifted, but he didn’t want that. “Gimme a minute, B.R.”
“Roger that, boss.”
“Close your eyes,” he said again. As the blonde complied, he quieted himself, the muffled thunder of the club’s bass beat drifting off, the smell of her too-heavy perfume abating, the pain in the center of his chest … well, that stayed right where it was, but the rest of everything went on the dimmer switch.
Reaching into her mind, he did what his brother had called him out on: As opposed to so many of these women, he took the time to erase the blonde’s memories of them being together, from the inane conversation that she’d started up by the bar, to his taking her back here, to the religious experience she’d just had.
iAm was right. If Trez had been tidying up after himself like this all along? He wouldn’t have gotten into the trouble he had with that other chick. And he and his brother wouldn’t have ended up having to move into the Brotherhood’s mansion. And that female Selena wouldn’t have entranced him even more …
Refocusing on the blonde, he decided not to just stop at the Wite-Out routine. Instead of leaving the twenty or so minutes as a blank zone, he gave her the fantasy she was after—that she’d met a guy who was googly-eyed over her and they’d had the sex of their lives five times in this bathroom before she’d decided she was too good for him.
Which in her new mind-set was going to be something she did frequently.
Finally, he inserted a thought that she should dress herself and check her makeup. And as a last-minute chaser, he tacked on that she was going to have the best year—no, decade—of her life.
Trez stepped out a moment later, fly up, shirt retucked, mask of all-good back in place. Big Rob was hovering in the shadows, discreet as any guy the size of a mountain could be.
Joining the guy, Trez crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the cloth-covered wall. He didn’t usually talk business out in the club proper, but the music was loud enough, the crowd self-absorbed in the way of the drunk and the desperate, and, last but not least, he felt compelled to keep an eye on the blonde. Make sure no one tried to get in there before she came out.
Plus he guessed he wanted some confirmation that he’d left her in a better state than he’d found her in.
At least one half of them could be improved.
“So what’s up?” Trez scanned the dark, moody club, his monitoring both second nature and a matter of training: Shadows tended to be watchers, but after working with Rehv and now being the head of this den of iniquity, the shit was his primary interface.
Big Rob cracked his knuckles. “Alex broke up an argument about an hour ago between two non-regulars. Both men were kicked out, but the aggressor came back and is circling the sidewalk outside.”
The blonde emerged from the bathroom, clothes where they needed to be, makeup retouched, hair pulled back instead of all over everywhere—but more to the point, her chin was level, her eyes calm and focused—and that secret smile on her lips took her essentially average looks into enticing territory.
As she walked into the crowd, Big Rob’s eyes followed her and so did a lot of men’s. But she didn’t seem to care, her confidence all she needed as an escort.
Trez rubbed the center of his chest and wished he could whammy his own self and turn things on a dime like that. Then again, all the self-improvement in the world wasn’t going to change the fact that the s’Hisbe wanted him back as a breeding stud for the rest of his natural life.
“Boss?”
“Sorry, what?”
“You want us to disappear the guy?”
Trez rubbed his face. “I’ll go deal with him. What’s he look like?”
“White boy, black clothes, Keith Richards hair.”
“That narrows it down,” Trez muttered.
“You’ll see him out front. He’s not in line.”
Trez nodded and cut around the thick of the crowd, heading for the door. On his way, he looked over all the people, unconsciously searching for signs of conflict that could escalate from posturing bullshit to bowling-alley knockdown.
Even Goths could be frat boys if you pumped enough alchie into them.
Halfway to the exit, he caught a flash of something metallic off to the right, but as he stopped and reached out with senses other than his eyes, he couldn’t find anything. Resuming his stride, he pushed his way out of his club, nodded to Ivan and the new guy, who were manning the entrance, and took a wander down the wait line, which was full of the usual suspects.
Although not the Kevin Spacey kind, of course. And more’s the pity—he loved the guy in that movie.
No one out on the sidewalk fit B.R.’s description.
Guess whoever it was went for a wander.
As Trez pivoted to head back for the door, he got hit in the face with the beams of a trolling car, and the sting made him pull a vampire and shy away from the light. Blinking to clear his vision, he somehow made it to the front of the line and—
“What the fuck—he doesn’t belong here! Why’re you letting him in!”
As Trez realized he was the subject up for discussion, he stopped and looked over his shoulder. The mouthpiece with the attitude was about five-ten, one hundred and fifteen pounds—and not a girl. Clearly, motherfucker suffered from terrier syndrome, his beady little eyes all fired up as he glared at Trez, his Stampy McStampy drill making him breathe heavy.
Probably played a lot of World of Warcraft or whatever it was—and that made him forget that if you were going to be a bigoted big-mouth, you’d better be able to back shit up.
Trez leaned down to the guy and gave him a moment to soak up the size difference—and what do you know, bitch’s mouth closed and stayed that way.
“I own this place,” Trez said in a low voice. “So the question is, why the fuck should I let you in.” He glanced at Ivan. “He’s not welcome here. Ever.”
There was some conversating at that point, but he was done. As a Shadow, he was used to being stared at—regular vampires didn’t know what to do with his kind, and frankly, he didn’t really care for them, either. In fact, he’d been brought up to believe that the two shouldn’t mix—at least until Rehvenge had stepped up to the plate and helped him and his brother in their exile. At first he’d been distrustful of the guy—until he’d recognized that Rehv was as they were: a foreigner in a closed club of folks he didn’t respect.
Oh, and as for the human world? Everyone assumed he was black and attached their own racial associations, good and bad, to that—but there was the irony. He was neither “African” nor “American,” so none of that shit applied to him in spite of the fact that his skin happened to be dark.
That was humans for you, though—self-absorbed to the point where they just had to see themselves in all situations. Meanwhile, there were whole other species walking among them, and they were none the wiser.
Although … that being said … if some misguided dumb-ass tried to pull the racial shit with him at his own front door? Then the idiot could fuck off.
Back inside the club, the strobe lights and the noise hit him like a brick wall and he had to force himself to break through the resistance. The flashes were just way too bright and the sound was worse, ricocheting around the inside of his skull until whatever was playing became an unintelligible mess.
What the hell was his staff thinking? Who’d made the call to crank it up so high—
