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

and let us do it. Unleash us all and hear us roar.”
    “Growl,” I said.
    The woman with the pearls laughed and put her hand on my forearm. “Don’t be naughty,” she said with her naughtiest smile. “I’m Connie.”
    “Victor.”
    “Do you dance, Victor?”
    “Not very well.”
    “Well, who cares about that?”
    And here is the mystery of the whole event. I agreed with each and every one of them about everything, and not just out of my normal sycophantic politeness to the wildly wealthy, but wholeheartedly and emphatically. When they complained about their taxes, in my heart I complained too, even though I paid less in taxes than Connie paid for pedicures. When they mocked those on the public dole, I too mocked away, even though the bulk of my income last year was paid by the state for my court-appointed cases. I might not be the one percent (well, the upper one percent) but, by God, I aspired, and in that room, among those people, I let my deepest aspirations guide me.
    “Mr. Carl, what a pleasant surprise,” came a soft voice from behind. When I turned and saw her, my heart lurched. It was the thin wide-eyed woman from the courtroom at Colin’s hearing, pale and serene, wearing a soft blue dress that fell from her narrow shoulders and over her breasts like a gentle waterfall.
    “A last-minute invite,” I said.
    “Do you really like sherry?”
    “Who doesn’t adore a good sherry?”
    “Come along and I’ll get you a real drink,” she said, softly placing her hand on my forearm.
    I excused myself from my new best friends with some false intimacy, a mild quip, and an embarrassing bark of a laugh, before I let the woman lead me to the little bar in the corner, where she ordered me up something with vodka.
    “I was in the courtroom for Colin Frost’s hearing,” she said. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you how impressive you were.”
    “Sometimes the law works as it’s supposed to.”
    “But sometimes it’s the lawyer, and I think that was one of those times. You were wonderful. I told my brother all about it.”
    “Your brother?”
    “Pete. The Congressman. I’m Ossana DeMathis.”
    “The Congressman’s sister,” I said, nodding, like it all made sense. “I thought you were somehow related to Colin.”
    “He’s just a friend. He’s doing well in rehab, actually, if you’re interested. I don’t have much experience in these things. Does it ever work? I mean really, or is an addict always an addict?”
    “An addict is always an addict, but rehab can get him off the drugs and save his life. I’ve seen it work and I’ve seen it fail. It usually depends on what the patient has waiting for him on the outside.”
    “Oh,” she said flatly, as if she meant Poor Colin.
    Oh, I thought with a pleasing sense of possibility. Poor Colin.
    She took a sip of her drink and looked around. “Don’t you just hate these things?”
    “Free food, free drink, all these swell people?”
    She laughed, which was both gratifying and strange, because I wasn’t trying to be funny.
    “You’re not giving my brother gobs of money like the rest of them, are you?”
    “I make it a point never to give money to politicians.”
    “Oh? And why is that?”
    “They’ll just spend it to buy my vote. I figure it pays to avoid the middleman.”
    “In a room like this, keep such impeccable logic to yourself. You can’t imagine the carnage if that idea spread. See that man over there in the terrible plaid jacket? Norton Grosset. He made his money in drugs, or finance, or something.”
    “Does it matter?”
    “Never. What matters is how much he has. It is astounding.”
    The hunched old man seemed to morph in front of my eyes; he grew taller, stronger, smarter, younger, his hair grew thicker, his soul washed clean. Astounding indeed.
    “Norton is one of my brother’s biggest supporters. He alone pays for every other commercial we put on the air. Apparently, he owns everything.”
    “Including your