Free Bagmen (A Victor Carl Novel) by William Lashner Page A

biggest contributors, but the Congressman would like to speak to you personally, Victor.”
    “Will there be dessert?”
    Mitchum tilted his head quizzically.
    “Something sweet yet tart would nicely set off the shrimp.”
    “Thank you, Tom,” said Melanie. “Unfortunately, I have an event across town, but Victor will be there. He so looks forward to meeting the Congressman.”
    “I do?”
    “He does,” said Melanie.
    “Splendid,” said Mitchum. “I’ll tell him to expect you, Victor.”
    “You’re not coming?” I said after Mitchum had left us to grab DeMathis’s arm.
    “An appearance is all they really want from me,” said Melanie. “Just enough to show I care, not enough for anyone to wonder why I’m hanging around. You’ll do fine on your own.”
    “I don’t think Mitchum likes me.”
    “Tom doesn’t have a sense of humor.”
    “Boy, did he ever pick the wrong career.”
    “Politics can be amusing in an absurdist way, true. But don’t ever forget, Victor, that no matter how ludicrous the whole thing seems from afar, these people take themselves quite seriously. It helps if they think that you take them seriously, too. And it’s safer, to boot. Now wipe the grease from your mouth and grab a stiff drink; you’re about to meet the Congressman.”
    “I’m all atwitter.”
    “We want him reelected. Do what you can to make that happen, dearheart. But don’t ever forget who you work for.”
    “And who’s that, Melanie?”
    She smiled like a cat. “Enjoy yourself, Victor, just not too much.”

CHAPTER 12
    THE STARE
    I was in a fine hotel suite, drinking a sherry way too good for me, chatting as an equal with a clot of the upper crust and, remarkably, I felt not one whit out of place. It was as if these were my people, with their dandruff, their locked-jaw self-satisfactions, their dry-to-the-point-of-drought senses of humor. Hadn’t I struggled all my life to be in just such a room, to drink just such a wine, to chat uncomfortably about nothing with just these good and ripely bejeweled folk, to laugh at exactly that bad joke and nod at that not-so-sly insinuation? And wasn’t my obsession to join their ranks what created their ranks in the first place? In the midst of it all, as one dowager was complaining about the type of people at Mount Desert Island these days, I had the urge to spread my arms wide and shout out, “Lucy, I’m home!”
    “It’s about time we had someone to stand up and tell the truth,” said one desiccated old woman, her throat a chicken’s neck strangling in pearls. She was bent like a wire hanger at the waist, but her hair was dark brown without a speck of gray and she smiled with a strange sexual certainty, her bright dentures stained red with lipstick. “That’s why we love Pete so much—he’s our truth teller.”
    “Hear, hear,” I said. “And it helps that he’s not too bad-looking either.”
    “I should say not,” said the woman. Her lips twitched as if her medicine had just kicked in. “He is a magnificent animal.”
    “And it’s not just his position on taxes that makes him such an attractive politician, yes,” said the hunched, fleshy-faced man with shiny skin and beady eyes. His voice was slow, his tan was deep, he wore a red plaid jacket, and his shirt collar was open to reveal a thick golden chain.
    “What is his position on taxes?” I said.
    “Against,” said the man.
    “Hear, hear,” I said again.
    “But it’s also that the Congressman recognizes that government regulations are strangling us all.”
    “You’re right, Norton,” said the woman. “You’re so right.”
    “Why, in our bank,” said a rotund man in a three-piece suit, his face so soft and round he resembled a constipated baby, “we have divisions of clerks toiling all day just to keep us from running afoul of their silly regulations.”
    “It’s a crime,” I said.
    “We know what we’re doing,” said the beady-eyed man. “They just need to leave us alone