Free Little Green Men by Christopher Buckley Page B

him a FACE-IV* to tell his grandchildren about. Palm Springs? That might work out nicely. Lots of clear airspace. It was hard to do a FACE-IV in a city, especially in D.C., where you ran
    * Full aerial close encounter of the fourth kind, a later addition to the alien encounter classification system originally devised by Dr. Allen Hynek.
    into all the security airspace restrictions. Yes, this could do very nicely. Being Palm Springs, it fell outside his regular district, so he'd have to fill out a D-86 form and run that through MJ-9 and MJ-4, with copies to MJ-3. The old boys in the chat rooms were always going on about what a bureaucracy it had become. In the old days, you just jumped in your car and drove out to the nearest facility, hopped in your bird, flew off into the night, and scared the bejesus out of the citizens. Now it was as much fun as doing your taxes. But MJ-12 was like any bureaucracy, you just had to figure your way around it.
    SEVEN
    The driver was waiting for Banion at the Palm Springs airport, holding up one of those dippy signs with the client's name, usually misspelled. Once he arrived for a speech in Kansas City to find the driver waiting for a Mr. Bunion. His lecture agent now took pains to make sure that the car company had the correct spelling.
    The driver was a burly, pleasant Hispanic fellow who introduced himself as Cesar. Normally Banion engaged the drivers in a bit of conversation. Chauffeurs perform a useful function for some media figures, providing local color without the need to do any real reporting. Cesar Rodriguez came to this country the hard way, by swimming across the Rio Grande ... But tonight Banion was too tired for chitchat about Cesar's views on immigration. Anyway, he needed to collect his thoughts for the dinner speech to the car dealers.
    He handed Cesar his garment bag and followed him to the parking lot, inhaling the warm, fragrant desert evening. His alarm went off at the sight of the car. A sedan? Why had they not s ent a stretch limousine? John O . Banion's speech contracts were very specific, beginning with stretch limo.
    "This is the car?" he said, as if he were being asked to ride in the back of a pickup truck, with pigs and chickens.
    "Yes, sir," said Cesar brightly, with such evident pride that Banion did not have the heart to complain. The car was probably his own.
    It would have to do, Banion decided grumpily. It was only a half hour to the Marriott in Rancho Mirage. Tomorrow he would call Sid Mint at Enormous Talent and read him a riot act to make his head spin. Sedan. For God's sake, what were they thinking?
    They drove off into the evening, the lights of expensive, gated communities twinkling in the distance. Cesar made no small talk. Good man. So many of them tried to start a conversation with a hearty "You have been to Palm Springs before?" Banion switched on the spotlight and read over his speech notes as they drove along boulevards named after comedians and singers. What a strange business it must be, giving directions in this place. Stay on Bob Hope till you come to Bing Crosby, then take a left on Frank Sinatra. If you hit Phyllis Diller, you've gone too far.
    Tonight's event: a keynote after-dinner address to the AACA, the American Auto Consumer Association. In the best tradition of lobby obfuscation, this was the trade association representing dealers of imported foreign cars. The invitation to address them for the tidy sum of $30,000 had come shortly after the column he wrote blasting Michigan Congressman Hinkoler's "mindless xenophobia" in calling for stiffer tariffs on Japanese and German cars. The speech was AACAs way of saying Domo arigato. *
    Banion was tempted to wing it and speak from notes instead of his prepared text. Despite his fatigue, he felt a bit frisky tonight. This flying saucer business had him so rattled, and that disastrous meeting with Burt Galilee ... What had possessed him to tell Burt? Would Burt tell the president?
    Well, whatever