Friday morning, Lisa was moody—as usual. To cheer her, I spun a charming anecdote: “Once when Earl Long was running for reelection as Governor of Louisiana, he promised the voters that he’d let them elect their own sheriffs. As expected, Long won the election. However, he continued appointing his hand-picked sheriffs and some voters came to Baton Rouge to demand their rights.”
“Mike, can’t you see I’ve got work to do,” Lisa complained, interrupting my story.
Earl Kemp Long
Undeterred, I glanced at the impotent Letter to the Editor she was writing. “You’re not doing anything important,” I assured her. “People will know it’s the candidate’s friends tooting his horn. Anyway, when the voters showed up at the Governor’s office, Earl Long told his aide, ‘I don’t want to see ‘em—you see ‘em.’
“‘What’ll I tell ‘em?’ the aide demanded.
“‘Tell ‘em I lied.’”
“There speaks an honest politician,” Kim Flanders announced. I hadn’t realized that he was standing behind me.
“Not-to-mention, a fine Southern liberal.” I added.
Kim laughed. “Mike, How about I take you to lunch today?”
“Shouldn’t you be lunching with a contributor?” I asked. “You’ve already got my vote, and I sure don’t have any money.”
“We’ll walk to that little restaurant your mom’s friend Nancy owns,” Kim suggested, ignoring my objection.
Our candidate obviously had something up his sleeve besides his arms, so I played along.
“Okay, but I'm bringing a handful of campaign material. Bill will expect you to work the room.”
Kim laughed again, acting for all the world like he’d already won the election. “I’ve already discussed this lunch with Bill. You guessed it; his only condition was that I work the room.”
“Okay,” I agreed.
“Bill told me that you’re going to drive a load of flyers to the post office. By the time you get back we should be hungry.”
Rounding up Spencer, Kathy, Bruce, and Rebecca, whose meaningless lives left them time to work for free in the campaign office, I told them to load campaign flyers in my car. That day’s flyers were all a glossy single fold with PRSRT STD U.S. POSTAGE printed in place of a postage stamp and a computer generated address beginning with ECRLOT C026.
The front of my Honda rose higher and higher as volunteers filled the trunk and back seat. I directed the packing until Kathy asked, “Aren’t you going to carry out any bundles, Mike?”
“Give me a break, Kathy. I have to lug them into the post office.”
I kept a small space in the back seat free, and when my car was loaded, I told Spencer Underwood, a diminutive intern, to sit in it. After ordering Rebecca Fakler, a powerfully constructed volunteer, to sit in the front seat, I drove to the post office and parked in the unloading zone. A sign posted after the terrorist attacks warned that the driver must remain in the vehicle at all times.
I pointed at the sign. “Looks like I’ll have to stay in the car. You two can carry everything in. Unload the trunk first.”
Spencer and Rebecca grumbled about the way things had worked out, but they couldn’t deny the Patriot Act signage. It took the pair of them a long time to unload the entire car, but they got the job done at last and prepared to climb back in for the ride back to the office.
“You’re both sweating,” I protested. “I don’t want you stinking up my car seats.”
“Up yours, Mike,” Rebecca shouted. She had a muscular ass, like that of a professional football player, which she plopped down on the passenger seat so hard that the car springs bonged. Spencer had a svelte, boyish butt, like two hard grapefruit, which he planted it demurely into the rear seat.
“Why did we have to carry these flyers in one trip?” Spencer griped.
“The elections office is mailing the voter’s pamphlets today,” I said. “We’re timing these flyers to hit people’s mailboxes about the same time.”
The television news had predicted dry weather for the afternoon, so rain was likely. Nevertheless, I left the Honda’s windows down in hopes that the sweat would evaporate from the seats. Rebecca in particular had left a big, wet stain. The sight of it turned my stomach. Why any man would want to share a bed with one of those sweaty babes was beyond my imagining—especially in a world that had guys that looked like Lance in it.
Nancy’s Lunchbox was packed with the lunchtime crowd, attracted by the name, no doubt. Kim Flanders dutifully shook hands with every patron, the waitresses, the cook, and the unregistered Mexican who operated the dishwasher. I followed Kim with campaign flyers for the adults and balloons for the kids.
When Nancy seated us at the table she’d been holding, Kim spoke quietly. “Bill doesn’t want to work for the city after the election. He’s starting his own campaign consulting business.”
“Yeah, he’s been building a reputation for political acumen,” I agreed, taking the menu from Nancy’s hand. “Someday he’ll be ushering presidents into the White House.”
“Bill suggested that I hire you as my Chief-of-Staff,” Kim said, ignoring my praise of Bill. “Frankly, Mike, I told him that you have a reputation for shirking work, but he argued you’d be a good choice.”
I was pleased that Kim had offered, and though I was tempted by the power, I didn’t like the idea of sitting on the firing line. “Kim, you and I don’t think alike,” I replied frankly. “You need a forthright Chief-of-Staff who could deliver blunt messages to the voters.”
Kim’s jaw dropped. “You’d never have to tell the voters I lied—unlike Earl Long’s aide.”
“No, I’d have to stand up in the face of hard truths. That would be worse.”
Kim shook his head with amazement. “Bill recommended you, Mike. He said you’d delegate all the work you didn’t want to do, but you’d be politically brilliant.”
I beamed at the compliment, however misplaced, and turned to the waitress Nancy had sent to our table. “I’ll have the country fried steak and an iced tea.”
The waitress smacked her chewing gum. “Aren’t you Mike Dodger?”
“Yeah.”
“I know your sister. Friend of mine.”
Kim examined our waitress. Following the same fashion trend as the girl Lance and I’d seen at the Japanese garden, she wore tight, low-slung denim with a strip of red thong panties rising above the waistband—sufficient to put any self-respecting homosexual off his lunch.
“This is a weekday,” Kim insisted, revving up his educational agenda. “Why aren’t you in school”
“I’m on work study,” she said, flirting with him. “Fridays I spend in the real world.”
“It’s a shame that education is only a fantasy,” Kim muttered ironically. The waitress gaped stupidly at his comment, so he ordered. “I’ll have the same thing Mike’s having.”
Kim waited until the waitress was out of earshot. “Real world,” he complained.
“Kim, never mind trying to educate her. She’ll be waiting tables thirty years from now. Let’s get back to business. This is going to sound weird, but you should keep the present Chief-of-Staff.”
Kim’s voice dropped low. “Lance Hancock? Why? Because you’re sleeping with him?”
“What better reason?” I quipped, and tittered until I noticed that Kim Flanders wasn’t amused. “Seriously, Kim, have you been listening to the vicious gossip circulating the campaign office?”
“I certainly have,” he said. “The fact that it’s gossip doesn’t make it any less true.”
“Okay, but Lance already knows the ropes. Keeping him on could give you the smoothest transition any mayor’s ever had.”
“He’s campaigning for the other side,” the candidate protested. “I hope you don’t forget that Lance’s ear is the same as Justin T. Albee’s ear when you’re cuddled up with him.”
“Who Lance represents is always at the front of my mind,” I lied outrageously. I continued somewhat more truthfully, “I want to get Albee out of office, and I’m not about to jeopardize your chances. However, Lance is breaking out of his conformist shell. When he realizes the mayor’s views are against his own interests, he’ll turn against him.”
“Is that the only reason you’re sleeping with him?” Kim asked, somewhat sadly.
“Of course not.” I blushed.
“You’re falling for him, Mike?”
I gulped from the water glass Nancy had given us. Up to that point, our waitress hadn’t even delivered our tea. “Yeah. But I’m playing it close.” I dropped my voice to the merest whisper. “I’ve given Lance a taste of gay sex, and he liked it. But he doesn’t think like a gayboy yet. One day while he’s listening to the mayor’s bigoted, cruel, homophobic pronouncements, he’ll realize that Albee is bashing him.”
“You think he’ll publicly leap out of the closet and denounce Justin T. Albee?” Kim sounded skeptical.
“That’s a real possibility. Unlike me, Lance is an idealist, and he’d agree with Edmund Burke who said, ‘All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.’”
Kim held his mouth while the waitress set our plastic glasses of iced tea in front of us. After she departed, he said, “That's a great quotation, Mike. It's a shame that Edmund Burke never said it.”
“One of my professors used to start every class with that quote,” I sputtered. “I've been applying it to myself my whole political career.”
All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing. The attribution of this quotation to Edmund Burke is one of the most common false attributions. There is no documentation that Burke ever said or wrote it.
“You believe you’re a good man, Mike?” Kim actually sounded dubious, and how he expected me to answer such a loaded question, I couldn’t imagine.
I drew a deep breath and blew it out slowly, having already covered this ground with Kim. “Kim, I fight dirty, but that’s politics. How many elections have been won with the gun, the knife, and the club? I simply outwit the other side’s tricksters; unlike them, I don’t commit physical harm.”
“Physically beating up the opponent doesn’t happen anymore, Mike. We have laws. I can’t imagine Albee ordering a thug to batter or kill a political rival.”
I stared at him until he was shifting uncomfortably in his chair. When I opened my mouth, the truth spilled out. I described how I’d been lured to Peninsula Park and what had transpired in the old bandstand.
An expression of rank horror painted Kim Flanders’ face while I spoke. “I can hardly believe it,” he gasped.
“I’ll show you the videotape,” I offered.
“Yes, I want to see it.” Kim made a face like he’d tasted something bad. “You don’t think Lance set you up?”
“I hated myself for considering the possibility, but I had to give it some thought. I’ve concluded that he doesn’t know anything about it.”
“For your sake, I hope not,” Kim mused. “My god. When I’m elected, I’ll clean up the police department. There’s going to be real accountability to the citizens, and we’re going to stamp out this bunker mentality the police have developed.”
“Good luck on that,” I said, the irony leaking from my words. “It was a dark day for America when the cops started sticking together closer than the crooks.”
The waitress returned with our plates. Both contained the traditional fried patties, fresh out of the grease, and covered with white gravy; mashed potatoes; and green beans that looked like they’d been stewing since Labor Day.
“Bon appetite,” the waitress said. “Save room for dessert. There’s gooseberry pie today.”
Despite the overcooked green beans, the food wasn’t too bad, similar to my mom’s cooking. Kim and I ate, discussing the political environment and the projects he hoped to accomplish, like connecting bicycle lanes that vanish at critical intersections, funding the art museum, establishing community policing, and coping with the homeless and the panhandlers.
We were sampling the gooseberry pie, a flaky crust with sweet, bubbling green berries, when Neil burst through the door. “Mike. Kim,” he gasped, barely able to deliver a message. “The goons are back.”
Neil delivered his message with such great presence that patrons of Nancy’s Lunchbox dropped their silverware, several dived under their tables, and two bolted out the door without stopping to pay.
“What goons?” Kim asked, casting his eye over the near pandemonium Neil had wrought.
“Bill says you should take care of them, Mike, and Kim should hide out here until they’re gone.”
The candidate’s eyes bugged out. “Hide out? I’m not hiding out. Who are these goons?”
I was quicker on the uptake. “I think he means Hatchet Face and Short & Hairy, the phony inspectors who harassed us last Saturday.”
“Yeah,” Neil blurted, flashing his pink polished fingernails. “You take care of ‘em, Mike. Bill said to.”
“What does he expect Mike to do, Neil?” Kim demanded, showing considerable exasperation. “Flatten their tires?”
“Those assholes are pretending to be cockroach inspectors. They claim we got bugs the size of Chihuahuas.” Three more disturbed diners leaped from their seats as Neil spread his hands to demonstrate.
Inspiration struck me. “Kim, stay here like Bill suggests. Show your leadership skills by calming Nancy’s customers. The campaign should pay for everybody’s lunch. I’ll get rid of Hatchet Face and Short & Hairy.”
As I dashed from Nancy’s Lunchbox and down the street, Neil jumped into his car and pulled along side. “Hop in.”
“Okay, just run me down to Jingo’s Joint.”
“All right.” Neil waved a fifty dollar bill in my face. “Bill told me to give you this.”
Neil jumped the traffic light, and we whipped around the corner. After telling Neil to keep circling the block, I hopped out in front of the Jingo’s immense used equipment and hardware store.
Jingo’s Joint is a tribute to free enterprise. Virtually any used piece of equipment can be found there. Without bothering to look around, I laid sudden hands upon a passing clerk. “That pest control company that used to send their guys out in goofy bug helmets. They went out of business about ten years ago. You still have any of their stuff?”
“Loads, man. Nobody’s wanted it.”
“Show me.”
I selected a silvery helmet with large protruding feelers and attached goggles that looked like bug’s eyes. Near the helmets, I saw shiny silver coveralls that looked like they’d shield me from a nuclear explosion. After selecting the appropriate size, I dragged the coveralls over my suit. Next I grabbed up a powerful hand sprayer. Laughing, the clerk showed me the bathroom where I could load the sprayer with water and hand detergent. I quickly paid for my purchases, fending off the clerk’s questions, and waited on the sidewalk for Neil. He nearly drove past me, only stopping when I whistled and shouted his name.
“Freakin’ fannies, Mike, what is that get-up?”
“I’m going into the pest control business, Neil. A couple of lousy pests are going to get controlled.”
When Neil parked down the street from campaign headquarters, I climbed out of his car, placed my helmet on my head, and pulled the goggles over my eyes. The world assumed a bluish, insectoid glow.
Hatchet Face was filling out a form and Short & Hairy was preparing to padlock campaign headquarters when I burst through the door, my cockroach sprayer at the ready.
“Holy fuckin’ shit,” Lisa shrieked, and two interns dived beneath a table.
“I will slay the gigantic cockroaches,” I intoned, drenching Hatchet Face’s paperwork with soapy water. “Everyone hold your breath,” I demanded. “This spray is deadly.” I squirted Hatchet Face full in the face as I spoke.
“What the hell is this?” Short & Hairy screamed. “There aren’t any bugs here.”
“You’ll sign a paper to that effect?” Bill asked.
“Help, I’m dying,” Hatchet Face wailed. “That poison went right in my mouth.”
“Wash out your mouth with gasoline,” I recommended. “You might stand a chance of survival.” As I spoke, I gave Short & Hairy a sudden squirt in the eye. “Watch yourself; it’s a barking spider.”
“Oh, it burns,” Short & Hairy howled. (Of course the suds of an industrial hand detergent burned the eyes.)
A bit of soap foam appeared around Hatchet Face’s mouth as he shrieked, “Let’s get out of here.” He grabbed Short & Hairy, half blinded by the detergent, and dragged him onto the sidewalk. I watched them stumble into their car and haul ass toward East Burnside.
When they were out of sight, I stripped off the helmet and goggles and unzipped the silver suit. “Here’s your change, Bill,” I said, handing him a pair of twenties and a quarter. “I got all this stuff for $9.75.”
“Worth every penny,” Bill gasped amid whoops of laughter.
“Haw. Haw. It is to laugh,” Lisa griped. “I damn near piddled when you burst through the door in that fuckin’ outfit.”
“What did you do to them, Mike?” Kim demanded, tripping lightly across the doorsill.
“Pure genius,” Neil said.
I shook my head. “Not so brilliant. My acting was pretty lame, but we got lucky. They might have reacted differently. However, it was the best I could come up with on short notice.”
When the office had quieted down, Kim popped a couple of antacids.
“Maybe you should take the rest of the day off, Kim,” Bill suggested, an offer nearly unheard of during campaign season. “I don’t want this campaign to give you ulcers.”
“I’m okay,” Kim said reassuringly. “I shouldn’t have eaten Nancy’s pie.”
“Whose pie?” Lisa demanded.
The green tiger was seductive, fascinating, and incomprehensible. He crouched behind me and I couldn’t catch a good look at him.
“You want me,” the tiger teased. “But you can’t find me.”
I moaned and twisted in my bed. My pillow was hot and wrinkled and soaked with sweat.
“Stop teasing,” I pleaded.
“I will bring you joy,” the tiger promised and faded into a single beam of early morning sunlight cast through the narrow cellar window.
I showered, pulled on striped bikini underpants, and a white tee shirt. So attired, I made my way up the stairs to breakfast. Pop was sitting at the table in off-white BVDs that should have found their way into the trash years earlier. Mom was wearing a midriff-bearing cotton shirt and blue panties. Mom glanced at me and laughed and Pop pulled a face. As a family, we could put a brace of hyenas off their feed. Mahatma, wearing a disreputable cast-off from Pop’s underwear drawer with his tail projecting through a hole Mom had cut, turned his golden head to one side and twinkled his eyes.
When Janet came downstairs, attired as usual, she stopped and gaped at the assembled crew. “Oh, yuck,” she exclaimed. “Pop, there’s a hole in your underwear, and the whole world can see the shape of the Tinker Bell’s cock and balls. Mom, that underwear is too young for you.” Then she noticed the dog, and speech failed her.
“There’s a message for you, Janet,” Mom exclaimed, considerably nettled by the failure of her scheme.
“Yeah, the whole family’s trying to make me heave.”
Mom gnashed her teeth with frustration. “We’re dressing the way you dress for breakfast, Janet.”
Janet’s eyes bugged out as she helped Mahatma out of his briefs. “Hey, I look good. I’ve got the body to dress this way. The rest of you don’t.”
Freed from the confines of his underpants, Mahatma huffed and retired to his cushion in the corner. Pop hurried upstairs for his pants. Janet plopped into her chair and flashed me obscenely. Her hopes dashed, Mom chanted a Buddhist prayer while she dished up the bacon and dropped round dollops of cornmeal batter onto the skillet. The contradiction of Buddhism and bacon escaped Mom as fully as the significance of our lesson had escaped Janet.
After breakfast, I pounded down the steps for my packed gym bag. Leaving through the cellar door, I walked into the front yard and stood beneath the big maple trees. The trees were golden with fall leaves, the morning air was crisp and dry, and the neighborhood smelled of wood smoke from nearby chimneys. After I’d waited a couple of minutes, Lance’s burgundy Saturn pulled up to the curb. I climbed into the passenger seat, and he let me give him a quick kiss.
We spent two hours at the Rainbow Club, swimming and lifting weights. When the hands on the wall clock approached 11:00 a.m., we showered, dressed in casual slacks and shirts, and drove to Laurelhurst Park where the mayor was holding a campaign cookout and rally.
“I’m nervous,” Lance confessed as he parallel parked along the curb.
“No need,” I reassured him. “I’ll be discreet. The only danger is that Albee will recognize me.”
Lance barked a laugh that sounded a tad derisive of his boss. “No chance of that. I’m surprised when he recognizes Sawyer and me.”
“Sawyer won’t be here, will she?”
“Mike, I wouldn’t be bringing you if she didn’t have to be somewhere else. She’d out us instantly if she saw you here with me.”
Laurelhurst Park sits bordered by Stark Street and 39th in Southeast Portland. It backs up on the Laurelhurst neighborhood, a ritzy section of town—the governor’s private home is there. The park winds around a lake with a central island, home to ducks, herons, and turtles. Ancient redwoods, spruce, and fir surround the lake and the winding asphalt paths lead walkers and bicyclists past many flowering bushes.
Lance had reserved Picnic Pavilion #3 and his crew had spent the morning festooning it with flags and bunting. However, as we strolled side by side toward the pavilion, Lance abruptly halted in dismay. “Sweltering Satan,” he whispered, aghast.
“What’s the matter?”
“What’s the matter?” Lance laughed rather hysterically. It didn’t sound good, like the laughter of a man losing his grip. “You can see what’s the matter. There’re maybe thirty-five people here.”
“What did you expect?”
“A thousand.” Lance’s face had turned yellowish. The hue didn’t become him. “I promised Albee that we’d draw a thousand. He’s going to shit.”
A fuming figure separated itself from the other figures under the pavilion and made for us like a determined tornado. Had small nimbus clouds and miniature lightning bolts been whirling around his head, Mayor Albee couldn’t have appeared angrier. I wanted to grasp Lance’s hand to show my support, but I figured hand-holding wouldn’t relieve Lance.
“Nobody’s here. You screwed up,” the mayor raged before Lance could get a word in. Justin T. Albee’s eyes raked across me, hard, cold, furious, but without a shred of recognition. To him, I was merely a cipher.
Lance consulted his watch: ten minutes before the mayor’s speech. Shaken, Lance croaked, “I don’t know what to say. We sent news releases, e-mails to every precinct-committee-person in the Republican Party, reminder phone calls on our phone banks. Moses showed me a list of guaranteed confirmations, with 350 names listed.”
“Moses.” The mayor spat on the ground. “That old Jew probably sabotaged us.”
Lance’s face shifted from yellow to red. Had he really imagined that Albee would make a good impression on me? If so, his pathetic fantasy was in tatters.
“Look on the bright side,” Lance suggested. “If nobody’s here, then there are no reporters to . . .” His voice trailed off as he caught a glimpse of the mayor’s darkening face.
“That little blonde with the nice ass showed up,” the mayor said. “The brainless twit who put the words ‘I’m the inventor of the pancake’ in my mouth. I’ll tell you, that one got hired for what she’s sitting on, which is nice, nice, nice, because it sure wasn’t for her brain. I explained to her that Ross Parr made that mistake, but she swears that she heard me say it.”
“Her name’s Sharon Hobbs,” I contributed.
“I know that,” Albee snarled. “Didn’t I call the editor of The Portland Bee and save her job when they were about to can her? And what gratitude has she shown for that?”
“Maybe we’d better concentrate on the problem at hand,” Lance whispered. Several other people were walking our way, including the reporter.
“What should we do?”
“Cancel the cookout, and send everybody home,” I suggested. “Pressing ahead will make you look soft.”
Lance’s elbow dug sharply into my ribs. “Your Honor, you make your speech. Whether it be to one person or a thousand. Make your speech and don’t forget to thank them for coming.”
“Yes,” said the mayor. He pointed at me. “Where’d you dig up this guy? He hasn’t been much use that I can see. Up till now, he’s been more help to the other side.” Little did he know how right he was. If he only knew where Lance’s dick had been.
“You hear that,” Lance said, nudging me repeatedly. “Do you want to keep your job?”
“Sorry, Mr. Mayor,” I gulped, nearly spewing up my words.
About ten hours earlier Bunny had ushered Neil into Moses Cohen’s office. They pulled off a Watergate-style political burglary with minimal risk. Moses Cohen maintained his accounting office on the second floor of an old building on Northeast Sandy, the same building where my private investigator Lizzie Dykeman shared an office with her partner. The doors were early twentieth century style wood and glass with transoms above. Afterward, Bunny bragged that the doors opened faster than a cubicle in a gay bathhouse.
I slouched behind the wheel of the getaway car while the Buckaroo stood lookout in the shadows. Neil had it easy; the computer had been left on, with a shortcut to the mayor’s e-mail list on the desktop. Neil sent out a quick message, advising the mayor’s intended crowd that the rally had been moved to Unthank Park—where drug deals went down all day, and gang related shootings were a regular event. The entire break-in and sabotage occupied less than fifteen minutes.
Justin T. Albee observed me with growing suspicion. He couldn’t put his finger on whatever was bothering him, but he suspected that he didn’t trust me. When I gazed angelically into his face, batting my eyes in a softly seductive manner, Albee’s face relaxed and an offensive vein on his temple throbbed less violently. Apparently, he viewed my flirtatious expression as evidence of contrition.
Suddenly, I witnessed an apparition that shot thrills through my body as though a rogue cop had zapped me with a taser. I stiffened and a sharp gasp slipped through my teeth before I could bite it off. Approaching us along the path was a big yellow dog in a red neckerchief pulling a bitch on rollerblades.
Janet was decked out in a studded leather jacket while her jeans adhered to her curves and rose low over her hips. My turning aside was pointless because if my sister hadn’t spotted me, Mahatma certainly had. The dog quickened his pace, and Janet was hard pressed to keep him on the asphalt and herself upright.
Mayor Albee regarded Janet with way too much interest for my comfort, and he greeted her with far more enthusiasm than a middle-aged man should bestow on a sixteen-year-old high school student.
“Well, hello there, young lady,” he effused, slapping a “Keep Albee Mayor” sticker onto her jacket—directly over her left boob, which he certainly must’ve cupped. Mahatma growled low in his throat, as he does when he meets people who give off bad vibes—so Mom describes it. Janet studied the mayor, she studied Lance, and then she studied me, and a wicked grin widened her face as she comprehended the situation. She had me by the balls, and she was going to squeeze.
Rendered dumbfounded, I scratched behind Mahatma’s ears and waited to see what disasters would transpire. Janet balanced on her rollerblades, swaying her ass suggestively as she kept her trim. She knew exactly what she was doing to Albee, and as I watched her work the old lecher, I gained an appreciation for my sister that I’d never felt before.
“Is my brother doing a good job for you, Mr. Mayor?” she asked.
“He’s your brother?” The mayor gulped, glancing sidelong at me. “Oh, he’s doing a fine job.” Albee groped his memory for my name and couldn’t come up with it. Finally, he trailed on with, “ . . . best workers in the city.”
“Mayor Albee, may I present my sister Janet.” I most definitely did not present her surname. I didn’t know whether he’d be familiar with the Dodger family name, but I was taking no chances.
“Ah, Janet,” said the mayor, recovering his aplomb. “Perhaps you’d care to ride back to City Hall in my car. I’ll be pleased to show you my office.” He hesitated after that cheesy line. “Of course, Lance and, and, er, your brother can ride along.”
“I’d be honored to view the seat of power,” Janet assured him, laying the mustard on thick, “but alas, I must exercise the family pet.” The mayor offered his hand to her again, and Mahatma responded with another warning growl.
“Tink . . . er, brother, dear, may I converse with you briefly?” Janet said, freeing her hand from the mayor’s grasp before he could tuck it away in his pocket.
“Yeah,” I agreed, hauling ass a dozen steps down the path. Mahatma followed, pulling Janet like a toy.
Janet looked me directly in the eye. “Bend over and take it, Tinker Bell," she whispered triumphantly. "Now I own your queer ass.” She flashed me an evil smirk before urging Mahatma toward the lake.
Pond and Island at Laurelhurst Park (Photo by the author)
“Be careful he doesn’t chase the ducks,” I called after her, half admiring her aplomb, and half hoping Mahatma would drag her butt into the lake.
Since the mayor’s eye was on me and I dared not screw-up Lance’s gig, I occupied my time sipping lemonade and eating hamburgers cooked over charcoal, baked beans, potato salad, and cole slaw. The mayor made his speech, which was a mild one. I don’t know what I’d have done if he’d started his shirtlifter diatribe.
After Albee worked the crowd and gathered a few insignificant contributions, he drew Lance aside. Pretending I’d been summoned as well, I joined their confab. “I need you downtown this afternoon,” the mayor told Lance. Then he noticed that I was among the present. The mayor tried to dredge his memory for my name again, but failed mightily so he contented himself with, “He can go home.”
“I’m his ride,” Lance said.
Albee grimaced. “I’m sure he can call a cab while you follow me back to City Hall.”
“No problem, Lance,” I said. “I’ll find my own way home.” I shook hands with him in a manly way and slapped the mayor on the back with more enthusiasm than he could’ve appreciated. “Good luck on November third, Mr. Mayor.”
“November second, young man. Election Day is November second.”
“Uh, yeah,” I said, wondering if Lance had grasped that I’d meant good luck finding a new job on the third.
Since the mayor had Lance under his thumb, I didn’t get to kiss him goodbye. I walked across the park, hoping to spot Mahatma, Janet, or her little clunker car, but I ended up catching a city bus and walking from the stop to Ladd’s Addition.
The shadows of the day were lengthening as I climbed into my Honda for the drive to my rural mailbox. As I’d expected the box was stuffed with Oregon Voters Pamphlets. I collected the lot, tore off the mailing labels, and dropped the unidentifiable pamphlets into a newspaper recycling box miles from the mailbox.
A west wind was blowing, and I zipped up my jacket before driving to campaign headquarters. The lights were burning, and I saw Bill, Lisa, volunteers, and interns working the phone banks while Neil busily entered data into the computer. I meandered inside, glanced at the remains of pizza boxes and two-liter bottles of Pepsi and orange pop, and dumped the mailing labels onto Neil’s desk.
His eyes bleary, Neil stared at the labels with total incomprehension. After a few seconds the some daylight must’ve crept into his brain for he paled and furtively swept the labels into his desk drawer.
“You brought those here?” he gasped. “They’re evidence.”
“Stop acting like you committed a crime,” I cautioned.
“We did commit a crime,” he whispered. “Several crimes.”
“Nobody’s going to wonder about mailing labels in a campaign office,” I said.
Neil let out his breath slowly and grinned at the absurdity. “That’s true, Mike. So that plan is working? How’d the cookout go?”
“Strangely enough, Neil, only thirty-five people showed up. The mayor was displeased.”
Neil grinned impishly over Justin T. Albee’s disappointment. “I wonder how things went in Unthank Park today.”
Lisa slammed down her receiver. “Where the hell have you been, Mike? Why can’t you work like the rest of us?”
“I was working, Lisa.” My voice sounded defensive even to my own ears
“Yeah, bullshit. Doing what?” She wasn’t really mad at me. She was tired and just going through the motions of acting out.
“I attended the mayor’s cookout. I attacked his campaign finance balance by eating all I could.”
Lisa put her head down on her desk and cried in exasperation. “What fuckin’ good does that do us?” she demanded through her tears. I put my arm around her until she stopped crying. Then I told her how only thirty-five people showed up when Albee was expecting a thousand. When she finally laughed, I moved to my own desk, checked my phone for messages, and read my e-mail. I e-mailed Lizzie Dykeman, asking her to research public records for any hint of Justin T. Albee’s close contacts with teenage girls. As I shut down my computer, I dialed Bunny and the Buckaroo.
When Bunny answered, I didn’t bother to identify myself. “I need to see you cowpokes. As soon as possible.”
“Right this here night?”
“Yeah.” I cradled the receiver, stood, and slipped into my jacket.
“You’re not leaving?” Lisa gasped, outraged again. “Sit your ass down and work the phones like the rest of us.”
Bill hung up his phone. “Are you really doing something important, Mike?” Bill asked.
I jerked my thumb toward the door, so he followed me outside. Ignoring Lisa’s scandalized protests drifting through the window glass, I told Bill about Albee’s behavior in the park.
“Kim isn’t going to want you tarring the mayor with a sex scandal.”
I rolled my eyes. “After Albee tried to make a sex scandal out of our natural lives? Anyway, Kim may not have a choice. A sex scandal could break in the news media without Kim being involved at all.”
Twenty-five minutes later, I was ordering a pitcher of Golden Brigade Blonde Ale in Shove It. I’d just received it when I felt a hand on my ass. For a second I thought Bunny or the Buckaroo was trying to summon me, but it turned out to be a guy who’d swallowed way too many shots of tequila. Shaking off the creep, I pushed toward the back and found the cowboys holding a table.
“What the Sam Hill’s up?” Bunny demanded.
“The mayor’s dick,” I answered. “Way up and twisted to the right.”
“Yummy,” some droopy guy commented.
“That feller’s a ring tailed eagle if they ever was one,” said the Buckaroo.
“You boys pegged him too fast, Buckaroo. You checked him off as a straight-arrow, but he’s got a hard Jones for teen-age girls. You should’ve heard the old bugger hitting on my little sister.”
Bunny and the Buckaroo exchanged an amazed glance. “Ya-hoo,” the Buckaroo confessed. “Fact is we ain’t got a spare word to spare. Maybe we should’ve paid a mite more attention the night Albee drove the babysitter home.”
“Did the babysitter have a cute ass?”
Bunny and the Buckaroo shrugged. The girl’s rump was the last thing a pair of gay cowpokes would’ve noticed.
I described Albee’s behavior in the park. “You should have heard him talking about that blonde reporter, the twenty-two-year-old one. He went on and on about her rear end. Then he tried to get Janet to ride back to his office.”
“Hot diggity-damn,” the Buckaroo exclaimed. “Yore sure he ain’t just flappin’ his gums?”
“All I’m saying, boys, is that anybody with a craving like his might have a past. Somewhere along the line, he could’ve gotten lucky. If he did, he thinks it can’t come back on him now, but I’ll bet his dirty little secret isn’t buried all that deep. A private detective will be sifting through the public records, so you cowboys gotta dig in with your spurs.”
My cell phone warbled its tune, so I put it to my ear though I could barely hear over the din. “I finally got away from Albee,” Lance was saying. “Where are you?”
“In the sleaziest gay bar in town,” I shouted. A man who’d been rubbing a pool cue up his crack gave me an offended look.
“Tell me where,” Lance said. “I’m on my way.”
Bellowing into my cell phone, I directed the City Hall Chief-of-Staff to the most degraded, degenerate, and despicable gay bar in Oregon.
