What to wear to an FBI raid

The reports of my death were widely exaggerated. Yes, I traveled abroad extensively, and when I came back didn’t answer the phone for a few years, and then I exiled myself to my fortress of a home on a hill where the wind always moves my hair like I’m in a Mexican telenovela.

I’m writing about what to wear to an FBI raid at City Hall.

When you are stuck under the hot green laminas of the County’s bus kiosko at Victoria and Flores watching a carousel of gawkers in cars circling City Hall for a glimpse of some FBI action, it is best to be cool. I suggest some lightweight twill capris, a sleeveless cotton madras top, a solid color coordinated scarf, and a pair of Soludos Dali espadrilles. If you’re going incognito, don’t forget the oversized Blue Maize shades.

I gave my frosty “hey, hello, how are” to other members of the media who were trying to track down the veracity of rumours that, what’s her name, Marla Hooch, the one with the unfortunate hair cut, had been taken away by paddy wagon with the sartorial oily-haired commissioner in unfashionable zip tie handcuffs when some metal Smith and Wesson cuffs would have been more dramatically appropriate.

I kept seeing in my peripheral vision the gray-haired commissioner Juan Laylo in a handsome salmon shaded fishing shirt lurking from stately oak to stately oak on the courthouse grounds like a squirrel with a big nut until he found a friendly camera to voice his disgust over the unfolding alleged corruption.

I pretended to be a department administrator and walked officiously into the City Hall lobby but was asked to leave halfway up the stairs by a young female agent in a Navy blue tee shirt emblazoned with the three letters that inspire fear in this part of town, khakis, and Bates Delta II tactical boots.

I guess the Alexander McQueen scarf and the shades tipped her off.

I went back to my kiosko to wait for my housekeeper to bring a sandwich of cream cheese and sunflower sprouts, and a cold drink and olives in a Yeti cup.

The parade of cars began to look familiar, like a toys orbiting on a track, slowing sometimes so that I could discern that some of the drivers and passengers were the former mayor, the former city manager, a former commissioner, a former city council member. One of them was a former elected county official, now buff and sporting a new haircut and a Just for Judges hair color rinse.

The rumours persisted through the early afternoon — that some named on the warrant had fled to Mexico, thereby causing the closing of all international bridges, that a city council member had been removed from City Hall through a metal side door, kicking and issuing epithets as he was taken away and Mirandized.

I circled City Hall muy disimuladamente, taking pictures with my iphone from the cover of the rubber trees on the corner of Victoria and Convent until a DPS Trooper came up behind me and ordered me to “move along, mam,” which of course I did slowly with a little chocante in my step.

And then I spotted him on an upper branch deep in the supple foliage, Water Boy Bag Man, El Despapaye, the dim, inarticulate, petite, jockey of a man who has moved from public office to public office like a lingering malaise, a siphon of taxpayer money, the operator of a County water plant whose alleged negligence and falsified records poisoned innocent people. And then I remembered that though diminutive, he could hurl frozen turkeys like Joe Namath.

He eyed me nervously, and I picked up my step, speed dialing my housekeeper. When I got back to my kiosko, my boss was on her phone waving papers and talking excitedly about an A list of Targeted Subjects in the raid. Her back was to me. I heard the names on the A list. She read it twice, and I realized that more than a handful of names were missing.

Had they turned state’s evidence to save themselves, were they seeking the safety of the witless protection program?

My boss heard me crunching on an olive and turned to face me, startled.

She took in my outfit with a bit of disdain as I eyed her trademark rumpled look.

My housekeeper pulled up and I walked quickly to the curb.