I was leaning against the wrought-iron fence at P.E.O. International’s Headquarters on Grand Avenue, admiring the new circular steel sculpture by the University of Northern Iowa’s Tom Stancliffe when a familiar voice spoke. 

“It’s not really that difficult,” said my old friend K.C.

“Actually,” I said, “the artist put a lot of time and thought into that piece. I’m not sure what it’s supposed to be, but it is interesting.

“It’s women helping women,” K.C. said. “That’s what all the unfinished circles represent. No one circle is complete, but together they build things up and push each other forward,” he said.

“But that’s not what I meant,” he added.

“What did you mean?” I asked. “The trade war? President Trump thinks it will be a slam dunk.”

“Heavens, no,” K.C. said. “Trade is very complicated. Only a fool would think trade issues are easy. Trump has made almost as many dumb statements about trade as he has about women. If he’s not careful, he’ll sink the entire economy.

“The thing I’m talking about, the thing that’s not difficult to figure out, is why Trump is so obsequious to Vladimir Putin,” K.C. said.

“TV commentators keep suggesting it’s because Putin has a secret tape of Trump with Russian prostitutes,” he said. “I suppose that’s possible, but that’s not why Putin is able to jerk Trump around like a trained monkey on a leash.

“Did you see the video of them in Helsinki?” K.C. said. “Whenever Trump was in Putin’s presence our commander-in-chief acted like a 13-year-old caught smoking behind the school.”

“It was embarrassing,” I agreed. “People compared it with Neville Chamberlain and Hitler at Munich in 1938.”

“It was more like Benedict Arnold,” K.C. said. “Only instead of handing over West Point to the British, Trump turned over the keys to our democracy to our worst enemy.  

“Trump’s activities in recent weeks make it clear to anyone with half a brain that Putin owns him,” K.C. said.

“How can that be?” I said.

“It’s simple,” he said. “Do you remember back in the 1970s when Trump tried to go into the casino business and went bankrupt?”

“Sure,” I said. “It looked like the end of the Trump empire. Nobody would loan him money, and his type of real estate deals don’t work without huge financial leverage.”

“That’s when Trump started going to Russia,” K.C. said. “And the Russians started loaning him money. Only it wasn’t loans so much as it was a way to launder the profits of Russian oligarchs, including Putin.

“It’s all in Craig Unger’s new book, ‘House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia.’ Unger is the journalist who exposed the ties between the Bush and Saudi families after 9/11, and he’s done it again with Trump and Putin.

“Unger says that Trump’s loyalty to Putin was bought and paid for years ago. He even goes so far as to suggest that the Russians now have an asset in the White House.”

“Wow,” I said. “Are you sure you haven’t been smoking something?”

“I wish I had,” K.C. said. “You know how people wondered what Trump and Putin talked about during their two-hour private conversation in Helsinki?

“My guess is they were renegotiating the terms of Trump’s loans,” he said. “Trump treats democracy like it is some kind of real estate deal, and he’ll probably trade it to Putin for the right to build a golf course outside the Kremlin.

“It’s taken a while, but smart Republicans like Chuck Grassley are beginning to see the light and have started backing away from Trump,” K.C. said as he turned and walked away.