“I see what you mean,” Harding said. “I can’t argue with the importance of objectivity of guardian angels.” Then he got another idea. He asked, “Will I be able to meet you at other places? I think that maybe you two could give me some winners at the track. Do you ever go to Del Mar?” It seemed like a reasonable question, until he saw their reactions. John looked at him for a wink of a moment and then just rolled his eyes. Bart, on the other hand, was as usual more demonstrative. He was laughing so hard he nearly fell over. After he settled down a bit he explained. “It is very important for you to understand that we cannot see the future, contrary to what you may have heard or read. Nor can we read animal’s minds. So we can’t just give you can’t miss winners whenever you want.” But John seemed to think that the idea had some merit, because he said, “We do like to play the horses, though, and Del Mar is a beautiful race track. We are thousands of years old, you know, so we do have a great deal more experience than the other bettors. Have you ever heard the saying ‘Don’t bet against the old guy’? Well, we are the old guys.” Then he said to Bart, “We should take him with us one time. Maybe we can learn something from him.” Bart did not seem to believe the part about learning something from Harding.
And then Bart abruptly changed the subject. He wanted to talk about his new assignment, Monica Lewinski. At that time she was a very boring person to look after, just a White House intern, trying to get ahead a little. She was having an affair with the President, though, and that bothered him. “I want to put a stop to her fooling around with the President. Like many girls her age, she doesn’t realize that it is a dead end street, but of course it is. I really want to get her out of this situation, because I think she has a lot of potential, but the rule about meddling is holding me back. Do you have any ideas?”
John thought for a moment. “Maybe we can use this guy,” he said, pointing at Harding. “Just because we aren’t supposed to interfere, doesn’t mean he can’t. Heck, he could probably hatch the plan himself, if we let him.”
They both looked at him the way people do when they know that an answer is not forthcoming, but they still want to hear it admitted. I would love to write here that Harding proved them wrong and suggested a plan of action right out of the blue, but that would be lying. On the other hand, Bart seemed to have an idea right away, but he couldn’t tell it to Harding directly. So he hinted. He looked down at the table, and while he played with the salt cellar, he asked, “Do you know anybody at a newspaper?”
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