"Oh, I don't mean the Resistance. Everyone supports that, especially Senator Bey. Well, almost. Our military.
They're supposed to be out there getting food for us, but a lot of people think they're keeping it for themselves".
"Speaking of the senator..."
"Oh, just a second. We can't talk about him or your operations just yet. I was hoping you might have a valuable or two up in your locker you could donate to the Winter Harvest fund. Also, Senator Bey has a reelection court date coming up, and lawyers are expensive. Even a small donation will help him win his case and keep supporting the people of Oklahoma in their struggle".
Valentine knew a demand for a bribe when he heard one. At least the fries were tasty, thanks to the salt.
"What's the senator like?"
"He's wonderful. A real American success story out of the good old days, you know? Bunting and John Philip Sousa and all that. A son of one of the tunneling engineers. But he broke out of the father's-footsteps stuff and started standing for selections young. He represented himself at his first selection and the judge was so impressed by his rhetoric, he became a representative from Third District. He caught the eye of the SecDef, and got a position on the Resistance Approbation staff. His press conferences were really something, I think I was nine when..."
"There's a press here?"
"Of course. All the big newspapers still exist... of course they only come out on Tuesdays, which is good news, Fridays, which is bad, and Sundays, which is all analysis. I've got a copy of the Times here...".
She extracted a single sheet of folded newsprint. Four "pages" of close-set type under a banner, front-page headline:
PALMETTO-BERGSTROM
INVESTIGATION WIDENS
Possible Cabinet Involvement
Vice President Declines Comment
"Will blades cut HUD staffer's throat?"
Valentine scanned a couple of paragraphs. Evidently a judge's clerk named Palmetto was caught sharing a portable walkie-talkie phone with a congressional aide named Bergstrom, violating Separation of Powers practice. The "new evidence" was from the Housing and Urban Development chief of staff, who admitted to Justice Department investigators that he tried to call Bergstrom, got Palmetto, and mentioned that a fresh supply of razor blades had come in.
"What an unwise", Ducks said. "All I can think is she didn't know who Palmetto was. They're just making a meal out of it because right now the VP and Donovan Baltrout are both in Majoritarian. So what about that contribution?"
"This shake is going right through me. I'll be right back", Valentine said. He went to the washroom, festooned with no smoking and water nondrinkable signs, took out two of his gold coins - the belt was now well over half-empty - and returned to their booth.
"Okay, I've got..."
"Oh good God, don't give it to me", Ducks said, sliding so far away from him she almost fell out of the booth. "Are you out of your mind? We'll swing by the Fair Politics booth and you'll fill out an envelope, one for Winter Harvest and a separate one for the senator's campaign. You'll have to do a lot of paperwork for the latter. Then they'll give me the envelopes".
"Uh-huh".
"The senator is on the anticorruption committee, you know. We're not going to be caught out".
She put the meal on the senator's account and they went through the paperwork at the busy booths off the Mall, which had an entire section of tunnel devoted to them.
Clusters of people with placards, pamphlets, cups, jugs, and purses filled the hall, swirling around those traveling to and from the booths. "Support Booth-Ramierez!" "Bring America Back needs you!" "Volunteer labor needed for Food for Thought, one free meal per day!" "Stop the Midwestern Senatorial Junta before they stop you!"
Ducks used her satchel like the prow of an icebreaker, holding it in front of her and forcing her way through the throng.
"Unpleasant".
Valentine pressed tightly behind her. People were shoving flyers in his collar, his boot, his empty holster, anything they could reach. They made it to a police officer, who put them in line for the next available federal bursar.
Valentine watched people step up to the glass booths. He'd seen rations doled out at old currency exchanges in the KZ and the setup reminded him of a clean, well-lit version of that. They only had a ten-minute wait, and Valentine's stomach gurgled as it tried to figure out what to do with the pub shake. Valentine extracted folded flyers from his clothing. Most featured drawings of ragged, starving children or trios of heroic-looking soldiers, two healthy supporting a wounded comrade.
Ducks' eyes lit up when she saw the gold coins. She helped him with the paperwork under the bored eye of the woman behind the glass. The bursar gave her a receipt for the Winter Harvest contribution, and the coin for the campaign went into a concealed neck pouch under Ducks' thin clothes.
The rigmarole left Valentine nonplussed. But all the careful record keeping gave the people in here something to do.