On Saturday morning, the family was slouching around the breakfast table, a stack of flapjacks on each plate. Mahatma’s whiskers glistened with syrup. I was morosely fashioning an pattern of syrup around my three pats of butter when Mom asked, “Mike, what happened with your friend Lance?”
Half-asleep, Janet continued nibbling from her stack while Pop studied the Sports Section.
“I haven’t seen much of him these past days,” I admitted, giving up on creating syrup art.
“I’m concerned about him,” Mom said. “He has a topsy-turvy aura. I’m afraid he’s facing millennia on Samsara before he achieves rebirth in the Western Paradise of Amitabha.”
“His prospects are dreadful,” I agreed, humoring Mom. “Lance is having difficulties accepting reality.”
Pop was intrigued enough to lower the paper. “What’s that mean?”
“He’s afraid of his natural homosexual feelings,” I clarified.
Janet’s head shot up, and an Ann Coulteresque gleam twinkled in her eye. She looked ready to make another snide comment so I continued quickly.
“First he comes out of the closet, then he goes back into the closet, and now he’s nailed the closet door shut.”
“I’m sorry, dear,” Mom said.
Snapping fully out of her Saturday morning torpor, Janet snorted. “Tinker Bell’s found the cure.”
“Cure for what?” Pop asked, encouraging her.
Ann Coulter
Despite her awkward and frequently incoherent writing style, Ann Coulter is an intelligent individual, and at some point in the future, she is certain to emerge as an outspoken liberal.
“Whatever guy Tinker Bell falls for ends up cashing in his slinky underpants and turning straight.”
Lance had looked so good in his butt-hugging green striped briefs. Green. Stripes. Tiger. Tiger stripes. Green tiger!
“Sigmund Freud,” I said, staring at Janet.
“Mom, Tinker Bell’s lost it,” Janet said. “He just said ‘Sigmund Freud.’”
“You did say ‘Sigmund Freud,’ dear,” Mom said, acting somewhat alarmed. “Are you all right? Is losing your job preying on your mind?”
“No,” I snapped before she could recommend a chant to aid my psychological recovery. “Sorry, Mom.”
Mom promptly excused my rudeness. “Your edginess is understandable, dear.” She gave Janet a direct look. “Your sister’s mockery must be exasperating.”
“Is ‘Sigmund Freud’ some kinda insult?” Janet demanded, her chin jutting aggressively.
“Forget it, Janet, I was saying ‘Sigmund Freud’ to myself. I just achieved enlightenment.”
Mom regarded me intently, but I didn’t explain. My dreams had been filled with the green tiger. The green tiger had whispered his secrets again but I couldn’t make out his words. However, Janet’s thoughtless comment had revealed the tiger’s meaning.
In my mind’s eye, I pictured Lance’s enticing green underpants, the tiger enclosure at the zoo, and a casual remark Lance let fall. “You should see the mayor’s underpants.”
My conscious mind had skipped over, “you should see the mayor’s underpants,” so my subconscious had hit me with a green tiger. Did the hypocrite mayor, who called Kim Flanders a namby-pamby pantywaist in scanty panties, wear sexy underpants himself? “Holy shit.”
“Mike Dodger! Those aren’t the words of enlightenment. Do you believe the Buddha woke up and glorified excrement?”
“Excuse me, Mom.”
The family was regarding me like I’d taken leave of my senses. Mahatma whined. Only Janet looked happy over my supposed breakdown. Ignoring the family, I thought furiously. If Albee wore a butt thong, how could I confirm it? And even if I could confirm the mayor’s underpants, what could I do? I was damaged goods: disgraced, fired, and exposed.
As my fork sliced my flapjacks into an obscene glob, I needed to talk with Lance more than ever. However, my lost love wasn’t returning my phone calls.
“That’s gross,” Janet said, pointing at my plate. “Look what Tinker Bell’s doing to his food.”
“Don’t play with your food, Mike,” Pop said, returning as in the throes of early senility to his young fatherhood.
Mom gave Pop a funny look. She gently took my hand. “What’s going on, dear? Would you like some fresh flapjacks?”
“I’m okay,” I said. “I said ‘Sigmund Freud’ because I realized my subconscious had been trying to send me a message. I can’t talk about it yet.”
After breakfast, I piled into blue jeans, long-sleeved flannel shirt, jacket, sneakers, and baseball cap. Thus garbed to blend with a lesbian household, I drove to the home Lisa shared with Lou only to find the house empty and Lou’s pick-up truck gone. I called Lisa’s cell, but she’d turned it off—or she’d bolted for territory cell towers couldn’t reach.
Frustrated in that enterprise, I drove to my mailbox. No police officers, sleeping or otherwise, were around, but the box held nothing of interest. I’d already secured all 804 ballots, delivered them to Charles and Larry, and received them back with the correct signatures. I was involved in the tedious chore of bubbling in the candidates of my choice, but at my leisure since I wouldn’t turn them in until Election Day. Not only would lugging them to a collection box save $337.68 in postage, but last-minute ballots were less apt to get scrutinized by a bored clerk.
The mailbox contained sufficient direct mail candidate advertisements and advertising circulars to fill two canvas sacks. Demonstrating my good citizenship, I carried the sacks to a recycling box and emptied them.
I dearly wanted to swing past campaign headquarters and check out the action, but Lisa and I were banned from the premises. Bunny and the Buckaroo were busy with their own assignments so I called Lizzie Dykeman to see if she’d dug up any dirt on the mayor. Lizzie reported that she’d come up with nothing. With less than a week before Election Day, I considered taking her off the case. However, Kim Flanders campaign coffers were full, the campaign had no debts, and I was authorized to spend whatever it took. In spite of outward appearances, I was still working for the campaign.
Lacking any better occupation, I drove home for lunch. Pop had stopped by the house, and he was sitting at the kitchen table eating a sliced turkey sandwich and drinking a cream soda (his secret vice) in his Post Office uniform. Pop had turned on the portable television that Mom sometimes watched while she was cooking, so he could catch the noon news. I was building a sandwich for myself with half-an-eye on the TV, when the station broke for commercials. The first commercial up was a hard-hitting attack ad on Mayor Albee, painting him as a divisive boob who’d done great damage to Portland’s sense of community. The announcer spoke over a picture of Albee staring stupidly ahead, slightly pop-eyed and a hint of drool about to leak from his mouth. It was the photograph I’d snapped during the pancake breakfast.
After Albee’s gruesome visage disappeared from the screen, we were treated to a view of Kim Flanders surrounded by Portlanders of all races, sexual orientations, and national origins. Kim seemed to be speaking to the police officer standing beaming beside him as he stated, “I’m Kim Flanders, and I approved this ad.”
A second later my cell played its tune. Neil was calling. “Did you see it?”
“Yeah. Was that the first time it ran?”
Neil giggled. He sounded like Janet. “Yes. Bill practically had to hold Kim down while we twisted his arms to make him do it.”
“That I can believe,” I said dropping a slab of turkey into Mahatma’s waiting mouth.
“Do you think it’ll help?”
“It can’t hurt. It’s going to rattle the opposition; that’s for damn sure.” I wondered whether Lance had seen the ad. I told Neil that I was having lunch with my pop, and I’d talk with him later.
“Wait,” he said. “Have you seen Lisa?”
His tone gave me a sudden chill. “No.”
“Damn,” Neil said. “Nobody’s seen her or Lou for days. That worries me.”
“Neil, Lisa’s probably pissed because she thinks I got her into trouble. I’m sure Lou wants to kill me.” I shuddered. “They probably went off somewhere.”
“I hope she’s okay,” he commented ominously.
“Get a grip, Neil. Lisa may be a maniac and a warbitch, but she’s not a virgin preparing to throw herself into the fiery cauldron of St. Helens because of a minor humiliation.”
After lunch, I drove through driving rain past Lou and Lisa’s house again. Lou’s truck wasn’t sitting in the driveway and no one responded to the doorbell, so I proceeded to the Rainbow Club, where I swam and worked out with weights. Naturally, three Nosy Parkers asked what had happened to my partner. All three were hoping to move in on Lance if I’d thrown him over.
“He’s having problems at work” was my response. In a way, my words were even true. After I’d showered and changed into my street clothes, I decided to work off another batch of ballots. Though the rain had stopped, the sky had turned nearly dark as night while I was exercising. In contrast to the ominous sky, three brilliant rainbows, stacked, the colors of the middle bow more intense than neon, decorated the horizon toward Mt. Hood. When I drove past Lisa and Lou’s house—my third pass that day—I was rewarded by finding them unloading Lou’s pick-up truck.
“You cocksucking bastard,” Lou howled as she saw me walking up her driveway. “I’m going to cut your balls off.”
“Oh, hi, Mike,” Lisa said. “Did you notice the fuckin’ rainbows?”
“Where have you been?” I demanded, backing around the truck as Lou advanced. “I’ve been calling you for two days.”
“Lou and I hiked around friggin’ Mt. Hood,” Lisa said, pointing toward her Tom Bihn backpack. “I had to get away.”
I glanced at the backpack as I continued circling the truck. The tag with the washing instructions had a message printed in French; “Nous sommes désolés que notre president soit un idiot. Nous n’avons pas vote pour lui.”
I nearly spent too long translating and had to hustle. Lou was moving faster. “Would you mind telling your partner that I had nothing to do with you losing your job.”
“I told her it was your fault,” Lisa said as Lou grabbed for me. I scrambled into the truck bed. “You made me join your fuckin’ Stink Tank.”
Translation: “We are sorry that our president is an idiot. We did not vote for him.” The Tom Bihn company placed these labels on tote bags it was selling in France.
“Made you, my ass! When did anybody ever make you do anything, Lisa Shaw?” I gasped, scrambling over the top of the truck and jumping off the hood.
Lisa didn’t answer, but Lou was either tiring or she was also interested in Lisa’s answer. Lisa wisely kept her mouth shut.
“You got in trouble because you tore down Albee’s poster, and that was your own doing. I didn’t suggest you jump into Albee’s trap.”
“You influenced me,” Lisa claimed weakly. Lou had stopped circling the truck and was eyeballing her little girlfriend.
“You realize that Kim and Bill didn’t really fire us. We’re just not working for them on paper. We’re still working with the campaign.”
“Yeah, but I liked going to the office every day,” Lisa said, wiping her eyes of pretended tears. “I enjoyed calling the fuckin’ voters.”
The rainbows had faded and a patch of blue broke through the clouds. It seemed like a hopeful sign. I said, “You can still call voters.”
“And tell them lies,” Lisa said, wrinkling her nose.
“So what else is new?” I opined ironically. Lisa tried to look miffed, but a mischievous smile played across Lou’s face. I continued with, “You want to put up signs tonight?”
“You mean stick signs in the yards of fuckin’ people who didn’t ask for them so they sick their dogs on us?”
“Yeah that. Lou, you can come along if you want.”
“Me?” Lou snorted. “I’ll see your faggot ass impaled on my shovel handle before I’ll go politicking.”
“Don’t pay any attention to Lou, Mike,” Lisa said, her eyes shining. “”She wouldn’t let you sit on her shovel even if you wanted. Sure, I’ll help with the signs.”
“You’re both nuts,” Lou growled. “You not even getting paid.”
“We still want Kim Flanders to win,” Lisa said.
“Yeah, Lou,” I agreed. “What do you want: a mayor who’s a raving homophobe or a nice gayboy?”
“What other choices are you offering?” Lou grumbled. She was hopeless, but Lisa had assured me that when it came to the crunch, Lou would vote for the gay candidate.
After arranging to pick up Lisa around ten, I told her to call Neil right away. “He’s worried about you.”
“Worried?”
“He thinks you ran off to commit suicide.”
Leaving Lisa looking puzzled and Lou whooping with laughter, I climbed into my Honda and drove homeward.
After a gratifying spate of dirty tricks, we regrouped in a bar. I’d made the mistake of letting Lisa pick the bar, and she promptly chose Smackers, an underground girl-girl bar where Bunny, the Buckaroo, Neil, and I didn’t belong. Though I’d always thought lesbians cool, not all appreciated our male presence in their bar. Hardboiled babes glared, and one drug-store, truck-driving bitch shoved the Buckaroo off his chair. Lisa assured the Buckaroo that the woman hadn’t meant anything by it. She was just having a little fun with the hayseed, Lisa opined.
“Are you sure we should be here?” Neil asked nervously.
“Try not to be an asshole, Neil,” Lisa suggested. “These babes aren’t coming after your fuckin’ painted fingernails or boyish ass.” Her eyes hungrily followed a slim, bobbed-haired woman in faded jeans who dinged my gaydar as heartily as Dick Cheney’s daughter had John Kerry’s.
“I heard the Elections Division is using a scanner that produces an image of the voter’s registration signature so the worker can compare it with the signature on the absentee envelope,” Neil said, tossing me a worried glance. I winked back at him and shrugged. As long as Larry and Charles got the same child who signed the registration card to sign the envelope, we were home free.
Mary Cheney and her partner
Just as we were ordering two pitchers of Deschutes Brewery Cinder Cone Red Ale and a platter of snacks, I felt a looming presence. Expecting the worst, I whirled and confronted Stacy Sawyer and Satoko, both decked out in the obligatory tight black jeans and checked shirts and casting vibrations that no out-and-about lesbian would miss.
“How’s your dick hanging, Dodger?” Sawyer asked like she’d been talking that way her entire life.
“How’s yours, Stacy?” Lisa demanded.
“Have you seen Lance lately?” I blurted before I could stop myself.
Satoko shook her head. “We haven’t seen him, Mike. We haven’t been back to City Hall since Albee sacked us.”
Bunny rose and pulled out chairs for Stacy and Satoko. They regarded him like he was something they’d discovered on their boots. “Did Bill call you?” Lisa asked. Bunny sat down. Stacy and Satoko exchanged glances.
“Yeah,” Sawyer said. “I’ve put the word out that I’m supporting Flanders now.” She pulled out a chair, turned it around, and sat with her legs straddling the back. Satoko took one of the chairs Bunny had offered.
“Bill put you on the fuckin’ payroll?” Lisa asked with a funny catch in her voice. I told the server to double our Red Ale order.
“Yes,” Satoko admitted, glancing sidelong at Stacy. She cleared her throat and looked at me.
“Might as well spit it, Satoko,” Stacy Sawyer said. “They’re going to find out.” She held Lisa’s eye as she spoke softly, a foreign note of sorrow in her voice. “Bill St. John hired Satoko and me to replace you and Mike, Lisa. We’ve got your jobs.”
Though I’d sensed that some such news was coming, it still rocked me to hear it and Lisa puddled up totally.
“Don’t start caterwauling, Lisa,” I demanded. “What’d you expect Bill to do?”
The word “caterwauling” was more effective than I’d intended. Lisa’s eyes flamed, and she rose to her full five foot, one-and-a-quarter inches. “How’d you like a fuckin’ pitcher shoved down your throat, Mike Dodger?”
“I’d rather drink it,” I said, coolly topping off my glass. Bunny and the Buckaroo chuckled, and even Neil realized that I’d defused the situation.
Looking a little foolish, Lisa sat back in her chair. “I guess Bill had to hire somebody,” Lisa admitted. “I’d rather he picked you guys than total strangers, even if you were working for the fuckin’ enemy a few days ago.”
“Who has the mayor hired to replace you?” I asked Sawyer.
“That’s why we’re here,” Satoko said. “We heard Albee hired the meanest bastard in the state.”
“Jack Fasco?”
“Yeah, the guy they call Dirty Jack.”
“Ain’t he also knowed as Jack the Knife?” the Buckaroo asked. Satoko and Stacy appeared surprised to discover a redneck hick in a girl-girl bar.
“Isn’t he the guy that implied that an opposing candidate was gay, and then laughed when the candidate’s kids got beat up by bullies at school?” Neil asked.
“That’s the charmer,” I confirmed.
“Yeah,” Satoko said, swilling ale. “I’ve heard that he’s already got his men scouring the neighborhoods to help people vote. These bastards target the elderly, infirm, low-income, and non-English-speaking, and frighten and intimidate them into voting for Jack’s candidate.’’
“Those sons of whores!” Lisa said.
“And if they refuse?” Neil asked.
“Jack’s men offer to carry their ballot to the elections office, but ballots against Albee end up in the river.”
“I’ll bet that’s what those bastards were doing tonight,” Lisa volunteered, referring to two men who’d been working a list in one neighborhood while we’d been planting signs. “They were filling out the ballots for those poor old people.”
Sawyer didn’t need to know about our activities. Lisa was too open-faced for undercover operations. I kicked her shin under the table. “Fuckin’ hell, Mike,” Lisa screeched. “Quit kicking me.”
Stacy Sawyer laughed outright, while Satoko giggled behind her hand. “Up to no good, as usual, Mike?” Sawyer inquired. I didn’t dignify her snide characterization with an answer.
“I thought Dirty Jack got sent to prison after he was caught whiting out ballots from a old folk’s home,” Lisa said.
“The official that was investigating him got fired,” Satoko said. “How’s that for political corruption?”
“I can hardly believe there’s so much criminality in politics,” Lisa moaned—this from one who’d spent hours erecting unsolicited lawn signs—not-to-mention the two-dozen Albee signs she’d wrenched from the ground and hidden in my trunk.
Sawyer agreed, adding what Wesley Clark Jr. told reporters after he urged his father to abandon the presidential race if he lost in Oklahoma. ‘‘It’s really been disillusioning,” Clark’s son said. “You go out and see the way politics really works. It is a dirty business filled with a lot of people pretending to be a lot of things they are not.’’
“Deliver us from these callow do-gooders,” I pled.
Wesley Clark Jr.
“We need candid, honest politicians,” Lisa declared. “Our politics are too dirty.”
Stacy Sawyer and I exchanged knowing smirks. “Politics have always been dirty.”
“How can people vote for candidates who win with lies, phoniness, hypocrisy, and trickery?” Neil asked, tipsy already from the Red Ale.
“Listen, you nattering nabobs of negativism,” I shouted. Suddenly, I had the floor because everyone was looking at me. I wet my throat with a sip of ale. “One night a representative in the Texas Legislature died. However, the next morning he continued voting on bills, until halfway through the day’s business somebody notified the Speaker. Some members were upset that a dead representative’s votes were being recorded so the Speaker blithely assured the State House that he’d have the voting record changed.”
“Didn’t the Speaker even have the gumption to be red-faced?”
“Why should he? If a representative isn’t sitting at his desk when the vote roll gets called, somebody else is sure to vote for him.”
Regarding other references in this novel, speaking in San Diego in 1970, Vice President Spiro Agnew described academics and intellectuals who cen-sured the administration as “nattering nabobs of negativism,” thus character-izing them as self-important nagging busybodies.
Mike is reading Spiro T. Agnew’s Frankly Speaking, and runs around quoting Spiro Agnew (to annoy his friends), but he seems unaware the the Agnew quotes, notably "nattering nabobs of negativism" were written by the speechwriter William Safire.
Sawyer asked, “I heard that a dead senator voted for Bush over Gore in 2000.”
“These snarky politics are gonna make me puke,” Lisa said, gulping down more ale.
Thursday afternoon, five days before Election Day, found me admiring my ass in the locker room mirror at the Rainbow Club. In spite of the memories of loss the club inspired, I’d been working out faithfully. That day I completed three sets of squats and additional lower body exercises. Then I went into the locker room, showered off the sweat, and pulled on my rainbow bikini.
As I turned to head for the green-tiled pool, my reflection caught me unexpectedly. My breath hitched in my throat, so amazed was I at what I beheld. I was developing a heart-shaped ass. The clinging swimsuit showed off my protruding curves, and I examined my derrière until I attracted a crowd of merry spectators.
Abashed, I ran to the pool, jumped into the water made greenish by the tile, and swam fast laps. As I began my tenth, an exquisite shape shimmered across the surface. A few seconds later, I heard someone dive behind me, generally considered a discourteous intrusion. The knowledge that someone had invaded my lane ruined my stroke so I floundered as I reached the end.
No sooner had my flailing hands griped the ledge, the intruder caught me and gently touched my ass. “You have a ravishing rump, Mike,” he breathed.
I yelped at the familiar voice, and would certainly have drowned had he not prevented my slipping beneath the surface. As I twisted, certain that I was dreaming or that some evildoer had dumped hallucinogens into the pool water, I found myself held in the arms of my lost love, Lance Hancock. Moved beyond thinking, besotted beyond questioning, and horny beyond belief, I pressed my lips to his burning mouth and our tongues warred with darts of fire.
“I’m sorry, Mike,” Lance gasped when our deep soul-kiss ended.
“Never apologize, Lance,” I groaned and kissed him again. “As long as you’re with me, you never have to explain.”
He gazed searchingly into my eyes, his own deep with fear, regret, and desire. “I betrayed you,” he said. “I betrayed our love. I betrayed myself.”
Other swimmers had paused to observe our reunion. “I don’t believe you did it on purpose,” I said.
“You’re an angel,” Lance declared, the only person ever to suggest I’d hailed from a heavenly sphere. Candid observers usually swore that I’d risen up from a different locale.
“I always believed you’d come back, Lance,” I gushed. Two gay boys in silver bikinis sighed audibly at our syrupy soap opera.
“Denial made me act that way, not deliberation,” Lance said. “When I left you in the hospital, I intended to come out to the mayor. But he misunderstood me, and then Sawyer jumped into the picture, and I chickened out. After that, I blabbed all kinds of stuff. Out of fear, Mike. I was afraid of the truth. I was afraid of what I am.”
“Shut up,” I said, grabbing his ears and kissing him again.
Lance was heedless of our growing audience. “You’ve got to know one thing,” he said. “I didn’t give any information about you to the newspaper. That was Dirty Jack. The bastard searched my desk, found the photo of you at the zoo, and passed it to Sharon Hobbs. When I found out, I called the editor and threatened to sue if they published the picture.”
We climbed out of the pool and ran into the locker room. “My place or yours?” Lance asked, helping towel me off.
I was in heaven. “Either one.”
“Yours then,” he said, as we stepped into our pants. His were the bottoms of an expensive silk suit while mine were ragged jeans.
Lance and I drove to Ladd’s Addition and thundered down the cellar steps. Once secured in my room, we yanked off our clothes and jumped into my bed. Like a man consuming a colossal lollipop, Lance fell to licking my body from head to toe and stem to stern.
“Oh, Lance,” I moaned. “What’s got into you?”
“Love,” he breathed into the goblet of my navel. “I know who I am.”
The day closed in rapture, and a soft, misty darkness fell around the house. As the red and golden leaves dropped from the trees, from my bed rose soft sounds, whimpers, moans, and the strange mutter of lust. After a time, sated, we slept in each other’s arms.
In the evening, we arose and slipped wordlessly into my shower, soaping, rinsing, and toweling the bodies we loved. Then clean and dry, we slipped into soft cotton briefs and sat side by side on my bed.
“I’m going to help you elect Kim Flanders,” Lance vowed.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “You know that I’m not officially with the campaign anymore. I’m not getting paid.”
“I know,” Lance said, laughing over some private jest. “I also know that Stacy Sawyer and Satoko are working with Flanders.”
“They’ve changed since they came out,” I said.
“I can believe it. Tomorrow morning I’ll be out to the whole world as well. No more secrets, Mike.” He reached for his briefcase, which he had mysteriously carried into my bedroom.
“My last official act working for Albee,” he said, producing a check with a flourish and handing it to me.
My eyes crossed as I looked at the numbers. “This is for $20,000,” I said. “Drawn on Justin T. Albee’s campaign account. For Campaign Communications.”
“The mayor is paying you for spreading the word that he invented pancakes.”
“Holy shit,” I said. This was campaign chicanery far above my level.
“That’s not all,” Lance said, removing a second check from his briefcase. “Lisa Shaw suffered too, so I made one payable to her. Same amount.”
The checks were beautiful, but Lance was more beautiful. “You’re sucking forty grand out of the mayor’s account five days before the election.” Lance beamed with pride. I kissed him passionately. “Lance, I never knew you had it in you.”
“You realize,” Lance said, “that Jack the Knife is gonna go snicker-snack.”
Mom, Pop, and Janet had finished supper, but I led Lance upstairs so he could show himself to my parents. Both Mom and Mahatma seemed especially happy to see him. Pop shook his hand, and Janet rolled her eyes.
“There’s half a ham and some mashed potatoes left over,” Mom said. “I could fix you a salad. And I made a chocolate cake.”
Lance and I ate with considerable gusto after our intense lovemaking session. After we stuffed ourselves, we climbed into Lance’s Saturn and drove to the house where Lisa and Lou lived. Lou answered the door clad only in men’s jockey briefs, but even that repulsive vision couldn’t ruin such a perfect day. A few seconds later, Lisa arrived with a white terrycloth bathrobe covering her nakedness.
Lance handed over her $20,000 check. “If anybody asks, the mayor hired you to work as an undercover agent,” I suggested.
The evil suggestion made Lance guffaw with near irrepressible hilarity. When he recovered himself, he pointed to the address of Albee’s bank. “Take it directly to the bank the second it opens tomorrow—before Dirty Jack finds out and stops payment.”
Lisa didn’t reply. She stared dumbfounded at the sudden windfall.
“This money isn’t illegal?” Lou demanded.
“No,” Lance assured her. “Paying you for tarring the mayor may be snaky politics, but I have full authority. Once you’ve cashed this check, there’s nothing that either Justin T. Albee or his henchmen can do.”
Lisa was still staring at the numbers on the check. “What the fuck,” she finally admitted. “I’m gaining some friggin’ appreciation for filthy campaign tricks.”
