Lincoln Moss at best was a teetotaler. He’d only been drunk once in his life, thirty-four years ago at the age of twenty-one. He rarely drank, and when he did, he would nurse a glass of wine all evening long. Right now, though, he was stinking drunk thanks to Gunter Wolf and the media. The minute the ten o’clock news came on, he was glued to the eighty-six-inch plasma TV in his family room. It was now past midnight. For company, he had a bottle of Jim Beam, who was now his best friend. Through his blurry gaze, he could see that there was barely an inch of alcohol left in the bottle. His curses were ripe, loud, and long.

Moss knew he was drunk and out of control, something he never allowed to happen. But he had let it happen. Now he was in this sorry condition. Right now, he wasn’t worth a good spit. And where the hell was that piece of crap Wolf? Where were the pictures he was supposed to send? Not that he needed them now. For the past two hours, he’d done nothing but stare at his beautiful wife. The picture that almost made him put his foot through the television, assuming he could even lift his foot that high in his present condition, was the shot of the President hugging his wife, then the shot of the First Lady whispering in his wife’s ear. He should have killed the bitch.

Moss took another slug from the Jim Beam bottle and reached for his phone. If he squinted, he could almost make out the letters that seemed to be running all together. None of the texts looked like anything he was interested in. Certainly not that crazy woman from the Post, who said she and her colleagues would be out to see him tomorrow afternoon. Like that was really going to happen. Not. He scrolled down and saw another text he must have missed, from Gunter Wolf, who said he was in the hospital with a shattered kneecap, and for him to shove his job up his ass and never contact him again. And then another line, which read, and don’t expect a refund. “Well screw you, Gunter Wolf,” Moss bellowed to the huge, empty room. “Did you hear me, Wolf, screw you and the horse you rode in on!”

Moss upended the Jim Beam bottle and emptied it. Now he was never going to find out where his wife was. He should have killed her. He wondered why he hadn’t. Maybe what he needed to do was go to bed and sleep off this drunk. In the morning, he could make some final decisions. He struggled out of the recliner he was sitting in, took two steps, fell flat on his face, and passed out cold.