Buck Passes Flynn

1 FROM across the men's room Flynn aimed his gun at the President of the United States. The President had said, "I don't need you guys to help me do what I'm about to do," and closed the door on the crowd of Secret Service agents and other aides in the hotel corridor. He nodded to the agent stationed in the men's room, who smiled and nodded back and left. Believing himself alone, taking a small plastic vial of eyedrops from his pocket, the President stepped to a washbasin. It was while he was using the mirror, applying the eyedrops, that he saw Flynn appear through the wall behind him. "Oh, Lord." The President dropped the plastic vial into the washbasin. He turned around. "I'm dead." "That you are," agreed Flynn. "Deader than a campaign promise." Through a peephole, Flynn had watched the President enter the men's room. As soon as the President busied himself at the washbasin, Flynn slid aside the panel he had built into the false wall and stepped out, gun in hand. The President glanced at the door to the corridor. "What if I yell?" "It will come out a whistle," Flynn assured him, raising his aim, "through the wee hole in your throat." The President nodded at the front of Flynn's handgun. "That's a silencer." "It is," confirmed Flynn. "It permits me to empty the gun into you without threat of interference." The President was trying to look around Flynn, at the wall behind him, a section of which was missing. "How did you do it? How did you get in here?" "I didn't get in here. I was in here." "You couldn't have been. There was a Secret Service agent in here." "A man with the unfortunate habit of suckin' his teeth when he's nervous. I was here before him." "You couldn't have been here while they were checking the room. They would have put you out." "I was here," said Flynn, "watching them. They checked the room twice, they did. They even opened the cabinet door and flushed the toilet. And, in fact, they did ask an old man to leave, an hour ago, sayin' they were securin' the room. He'd been here a dreadful long time. I think he was tryin' to pass a stone. Sure, they could have given him another ten minutes." Flynn continued in his soft, rapid lilt. "The Secret Service made the same presumption I did, you see, that most likely you'd use the bathroom nearest the speaker's platform here at the Waldorf-Astoria, to straighten your tie, clear your eyes, pat your hair, practice your smile in the mirror, whatever, before being introduced to . . . who is it? Who's waiting to hear you speak?" "The Brotherhood of Christians and Jews." "Ach," said Flynn, "a noble group. Won't they be surprised to hear you've been shot right in the middle of their salad? They'll know the right prayers to say over you, that group will." "I want to know how--" "Are you really interested? Or are you merely stallin' for time, Mister President, thinkin' that one of your Secret Service agents--good lads that they are--might get curious and come through that door, lookin' to see how things came out?" "You're standing there with a gun on me. If one does come through that door, you're deader than--than--" "Yesterday's joy?" "Yesterday's joy." "Deader than last year's pain?" "You mean to torture me with your humor--" "I mean to shoot you. The locked-door mystery, Mister President. Do you read mysteries?" The President blushed. "I don't read anything else--voluntarily." "Then you know all about the locked-door mystery. You might consider this room locked, in that it has beenMcdonald, Gregory is the author of 'Buck Passes Flynn' with ISBN 9780345336903 and ISBN 0345336909.