Gentle readers, you may recall that Lord Caligula invited a coy Mika to dine with him during an appearance on Morning Joe.  Despite her pretense of reluctance, his Lordship never doubted she would arrive.  Her gluttony for scoops had few equals.  And the promise of learning how Munitions Galore’s new line of bombs deterred was irresistible. 

At about 20.20, the evening of their conference, Mika arrived. She was 20 minutes late.  Lord Caligula sat at a table.  He was drinking a “51^st Street Manhattan,” a mix of rye, dry vermouth, Amaro Lucano, Benedictine, and bitters.  When Mika made it to his table, he pecked her left and right cheek, then asked what she would have.  She ordered an ice-cold triple of Belvedere Vodka and an ounce of Royal Osetra Caviar to go with it.  After praising her taste, he complimented her on her shaved legs.  “Too many older women get neglectful of their legs.  It’s unappealing to see a woman with legs reminiscent of a teen boy, if they even look that good.”    Mika glared, then smiled. 

His Lordship ordered sea trout and Spanish Mackerel as openers.  He thought a moment, frowned, then added a Shellfish Medley to the hors d’oeuvres.  For the main course, Lord Caligula ordered Dover Sole on a “potato cloud.”  Mika settled for poached skate that came with sweet peppers, fried capers, dill basmati rice and brown butter sauce.  Once he had main course ordered, he conferred with the sommelier, telling him to match the order with good wines.  Before the Sommelier went away, he told him to also tell the waiter he wished to have an order of white asparagus and the house vegetable panche. 

Looking at Mika, his Lordship asked her if she might save room for dessert.  “The vanilla crème anglaise with genoise sponge cake is divine here.  You’d not want to be blown up before you had some,” he chuckled.  He let his lefthand run over her left knee.   By then, she had enough the Belvedere and caviar in her to ignore the salacious intent.

The two of them made their way through the hors d’oeuvres.  Mika peppered Lord Caligula with questions about his businesses, especially Munitions Galore.  She focused on bombs.  His Lordship made a habit of shaking his head whilst he exclaimed as he stared at her cleavage, as if it were on the menu, “If only I had thought to invite Peregrine.  He is au courant about bombs.”  Sometimes he would pretend to slobber out the words, then stare as his transparent spittle droplets shined on Mika’s well-seasoned cleavage. 

When his Lordship was tucking his Dover Sole, Mika reminded him that he had promised to discuss what his bombs deterred. “Are you joking?” he asked.  “I had imagined a woman of your lineage, the daughter of a celebrated diplomat, would know.” 

She stared at him blankly. 

There is nothing like an “expectancy pause” to milk information from an interviewee.  Lord Caligula bit.  “Why fear, my dear.  It deters fear or gives the illusion of doing so, which is just as good. And when somebody put fear in them, they want vengeance.  If not for fear and vengeance, I’d be broke.  Nobody buys bombs to deal with a toddler. The Arms business is about fear and vengeance.  It’s that simple.  Peregrine’s gift, his genius as it were, is his ability to tap into the unconscious of his customers.  He knows how they want to get even, how they wish to intimidate.  You wonder to yourself, what has intimidation got to do with fear and vengeance? Well, sweetie, everything.  If you have no fear of your opponent, you just take what you want.  But now think about it.  Once you put it to another human being, you have an enemy.  That’s scary, even if you are too dumb to admit it.  It makes you, from my perspective, a better customer.” He finished up with a brief riff on how what the Buddhist call, the Three Poisons—Delusion, Anger, and Greed are elements of the human psychology that power the Arms biz.  Mika was sozzled enough to feast on this crap, true enough though it was.

I was watching and listening to it all from a dark corner.  His Lordship wanted me on call as a soother just in case Mika started acting up. I was in New York anyway to see Melania. He also promised to signal when he wanted me to call our limousine. In return, I was getting tuna, halibut, red snapper, and octopus, to die for.  Besides, the reporter in me wanted to spy on him and Mika.

When Lord Caligula motioned for his limousine, I fetched it to the front door of Le Bernardin.  The driver was an exquisite coed from Columbia taking a graduate degree in Art History.  Her specialty was western erotic art.  A good thing too given how she earned money.  The rear sister in the limo was a fornicator’s room on wheels. 

As the night wore down, I noticed the more Mika drank, the more his Lordship took liberties with his hands.  Mika would protest while giggling.  It didn’t seem to be an effective strategy against his Lordship’s advances.  He pressed for friendship with benefits.  As Mika slid into the backseat, she complained he was worse than the boys at Williams College, a claim I assigned a very low probability.  I stay low in the front seat and used my time to make biscuits on the driver’s exquisite, firm tummy.  The noises in the backseat alarmed me.  I had no idea Mika was such a loud, inarticulate bossy woman.  My driver kept using the rearview mirror to observe the doings in the backseat.  It made her smirk again and again.  She was ignoring me.  She was, it was clear, a voyeur with contempt for sexual actors.  Like most art histories, she liked to look.  I didn’t.  And I’ve got bad vision anyway.

Once Mika was back home, I got a ride back to Trump Tower.  As I scampered out of the car, Lord Caligula’s gloating, flushed face amused me.  I also suspected he had designs on my driver, but I’ll never know.  I hurried back to spend time with Melania.