Suddenly, the crabs and trout were sailing out of the bucket as if they were dashing out a fire. They flew through the air and splashed into the James River, where the crabs sank to the bottom and sat, looking around, stunned, as the trout swam in lazy circles over them.

"Look! I see the trout swimming down there!" Trader pointed at the shadow of the trout deep below the sparkling surface. "They're not dead! You threw away my fresh seafood! Hand over fifty dollars!" he demanded.

"Nope." Caesar gathered up his ruined fishing gear.

Trader's pirate genetic coding was fired up and he punched Caesar in the eye. Caesar turned his fishing pole into a whip and stung Trader's cheek with thirty-test monofilament and several small sinkers that Caesar had attached with his teeth shortly after arriving hours earlier on his bicycle. The two men fought fiercely with each other, rolling on the ground, yelling obscenities and beating on each other. Enraged and bleeding, Trader darted for his car, which Caesar began kicking before he smashed out the front windshield with his damaged metal tackle box.

Frenzied and out of breath, Trader dove into the driver's side and fumbled for the flare gun he always kept hidden under the front seat. He cut his fingers on splinters of glass as he stuffed a.12 gauge flare into the wide barrel of the old flare gun that had been handed down in his pirate family since 1870. He rolled out of the car and pointed the flare gun in Caesar's direction as the deranged fisherman hurled lead sinkers at him, one of which struck Trader on the nose, causing an instant reflex that twitched his trigger finger.

The flare exploded through the air like a small fiery missile, streaking straight toward Caesar and slamming into his chest. The crabs and trout watched in horror as the fisherman burst into flames and ran several steps before collapsing. Trader fled in his banged-up state car, the trunk still open, the windshield a spider web of shattered glass. When he limped into the governor's mansion a little later, he was pale and bloody, his suit and tie torn. He was agitated, paranoid, and confused.

Regina was confused, too. She had never seen her mother so made-up and heavily perfumed. Had Regina run into her mother in a funeral home, she would have assumed Mrs. Crimm was full of formaldehyde and overlaid in putty and had gotten her clothes mixed up with some other dead lady who was much smaller and fond of fuchsia.

"What the hell happened to you, Mama?" Regina asked as she worked on a thick slab of honey-glazed ham that was tucked inside a huge biscuit dripping with butter and globs of mint jelly.

Mrs. Crimm, running a little late, seated herself at the foot of the table and lifted a fork to signal that everyone could begin eating.

"What do you mean, what happened to me?" Mrs. Crimm shot Regina a threatening glance. "And you're not supposed to start eating before everyone else. As if I didn't raise you better."

Andy cut off the only morsel of lean ham he could find in the mound on his plate as Trader walked into the dining room. Andy noticed instantly that the press secretary was bloody and in shock and smelled faintly of burned chemicals and gunpowder.

"I'd rather know what happened to you," Andy said to Trader.

Mrs. Crimm inferred from this that her handsome young dinner guest didn't think for a minute that anything at all had happened to her. She always looked alluring and thoughtfully put together. It was irrational and Victorian for women to hide their bodies beneath thick layers of loose, long clothing. Andy's attention would find its way down to the foot of the table any minute and linger to wander all over her. After dinner, the two of them would sneak up to the master suite and she would lock the door and say yes and mean it. Even if the governor came home, as long as she and Andy were quiet, he wouldn't see them.

"Did you wander into a riot or a hurricane?" Andy's attention remained on Trader, who went into a lengthy, breathless explanation, talking so fast that his words tangled and ran into each other midair.

"What on earth did he say?" First Lady Crimm asked Andy every few seconds. "I wonder if he's had a stroke!"

Trader's story could easily be summed up, although he took a long time to tell it and the facts changed like clouds. The gist was this: He arrived at the river at nineteen hundred hours and an African American male was fishing out by his bicycle. Trader greeted the man and they discussed the weather as Trader dumped the crabs and the trout overboard.

"Oh dear," Mrs. Crimm interrupted. "He didn't toss the crabs into the James, did he? Unless they can find their way back to the bay, they'll die, sure as shooting."

Trader rushed ahead with his story.

"He says there was a shooting, now that you mention it," Andy translated. "A Lincoln with New York plates roared up and a Hispanic male in his twenties started firing a nine-millimeter Sig-Sauer pistol out the window and yelling obscenities. He shot the fisherman at very close range, probably in the chest, and the fisherman possibly caught on fire, possibly from burning gunpowder that was possibly fueled by a Bic lighter that was possibly in the fisherman's shirt pocket."

"How come he doesn't know anything for sure?" Regina reached for another biscuit. "Didn't he even check to see if the poor man just might still be alive or if he was really burning up? Why didn't he try to put the fire out or call for help?" She fastened her eyes on Trader as she ate. "You just rush off and not try to help or anything? What kind of person are you?"

"He shit at me!" Trader raised his voice, not realizing that his sudden speech problem was due to post-traumatic stress that had somehow activated a genetic code that caused him to talk like a pirate.

"We don't talk that way at the table!" Mrs. Crimm fired back at him.

"He shit at me again and again! I was afeared to get near him!"

"I can't stand this." Regina covered her ears. "Someone talk for him. Andy, just tell us what he says. And does he really mean to imply that the Hispanic was doing number two at him? Doing it or throwing it?" She scowled. "What does he mean that the gunman shit at him?"

"Regina!" her mother scolded her. "We don't talk about bathroom habits at the dinner table!"

Trader started to make the point that he was talking about a shooting, when Andy cautioned him not to say the words shoot, shot, shooting, or shooter, but to simply simulate by mutely pointing his finger and firing it like a gun. This worked, and the First Family settled down and resumed eating as Trader claimed, through Andy, that he was certain the Hispanic was the one committing the hate crimes and was coming after the First Family next, so Trader had raced back to the mansion instantly to make sure all were safe and protected.

"He say he hated Crimm," Trader blurted out. "And he thinks all Crimms should be put to death."

"You sure he didn't mean criminals, as opposed to Crimms?" Regina considered as she chewed. "Papa's very much in favor of sending criminals to death row and is known for it."

"Honey, that wouldn't make much sense," Mrs. Crimm replied. "The Hispanic is clearly a criminal himself, so why would he be on a spree of hate crimes that target people similar to himself?"

"Damnation seize my soul, the villain meant ye!" Trader pointed at each Crimm in an ominous, morbid way. "Crimm. Not criminals."

Faith was frightened. "We won't be able to leave the mansion ever again, Mama."

"What if he's out there somewhere?" Constance's eyes were wide, and she kept refilling her wine glass with nervous hands.

"I've never heard of anyone catching on fire when they're shot." Andy pressed Trader on this point. "Did you really see smoke and flames and his clothes igniting? I realize you're saying you didn't hang around long and were frightened and also concerned for the Crimms and may have suffered a small stroke, but I'm having a very hard time with your story."