Bagmen (A Victor Carl Novel) Read online

  Also by William Lashner

  The Barkeep

  The Accounting

  Blood and Bone

  The Victor Carl novels:

  A Killer’s Kiss

  Marked Man

  Falls the Shadow

  Past Due

  Fatal Flaw

  Bitter Truth (Veritas)

  Hostile Witness

  Writing as Tyler Knox:

  Kockroach

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2014 William Lashner

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  Cover and book design by Stewart A. Williams

  ISBN-13: 9781477822838

  ISBN-10: 1477822836

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2013922352

  For Barry, who, like an old stick shift with a rust-ridden chassis, always comes through in the clutch.

  CONTENTS

  START READING

  CHAPTER 1 PARTY SHOES

  CHAPTER 2 STATE FLOWERS

  CHAPTER 3 RED CARPET

  CHAPTER 4 MEET THE PRESS

  CHAPTER 5 MELANIE BROOKS

  CHAPTER 6 SELMA

  CHAPTER 7 TROOPERGATE

  CHAPTER 8 WINNER, WINNER, CHICKEN DINNER

  CHAPTER 9 THE OPERATIVE

  CHAPTER 10 SHAKE AND KISS

  CHAPTER 11 THE CONDOM THIEF

  CHAPTER 12 THE STARE

  CHAPTER 13 THE BAG

  CHAPTER 14 THE PAYOFF

  CHAPTER 15 COVER BOY

  CHAPTER 16 STONY MULRONEY

  CHAPTER 17 THE POLITICS OF HATE

  CHAPTER 18 UNEXPECTED GUEST

  CHAPTER 19 BLIND AMBITION

  CHAPTER 20 SMEAR JOB

  CHAPTER 21 ROSEN’S

  CHAPTER 22 BOOTY CALL

  CHAPTER 23 HAMMER TIME

  CHAPTER 24 MONKEY’S PAW

  CHAPTER 25 THE MANNEKEN PIS

  CHAPTER 26 PARTY HAT

  CHAPTER 27 THE BRIGGS MULRONEY RULES FOR ASPIRING BAGMEN

  CHAPTER 28 POLITICAL FAVORS

  CHAPTER 29 POLLS

  CHAPTER 30 THE GOODS

  CHAPTER 31 PRESS CONFERENCE

  CHAPTER 32 TEXTUS INTERRUPTUS

  CHAPTER 33 UNION TRANSFER

  CHAPTER 34 REDHEAD

  CHAPTER 35 THE BAD WIFE

  CHAPTER 36 MORNING TOAST

  CHAPTER 37 OBLIGATORY DINER VISIT

  CHAPTER 38 DEAD PRESIDENT

  CHAPTER 39 THE OPPOSITION

  CHAPTER 40 PARTY CRASHER

  CHAPTER 41 A BAGMAN’S CANTATA

  CHAPTER 42 LIKE HOFFA

  CHAPTER 43 THE COMEBACK KID

  CHAPTER 44 PUBLIC POLICY

  CHAPTER 45 RUNNING MATES

  CHAPTER 46 AIR FORCE NONE

  CHAPTER 47 NIETZSCHE’S SISTER

  CHAPTER 48 TROPHY

  CHAPTER 49 NO EXIT

  CHAPTER 50 ATTICA

  CHAPTER 51 THE BROTHERHOOD

  CHAPTER 52 THE BIG BUTTER

  CHAPTER 53 HAYM SOLOMON

  CHAPTER 54 PETER PARKER

  CHAPTER 55 THE RED DRESS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Every time I hear a political speech or read those of one of our leaders, I am horrified at having, for years, heard nothing that sounded human.

  —Albert Camus

  August 1937

  CHAPTER 1

  PARTY SHOES

  Politics, stripped of its masquerade of policy, is an exercise in pure personal ambition. Right up my stinking alley, you would think. But the shoes gave me pause.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

  “I never kid, Victor, about five-hundred-dollar shoes.”

  “Five hundred? For a pair of slippers? I’d sooner go barefoot.”

  “You might as well, if you intend to wear those . . . those clodhoppers you came in with.”

  “They’re my normal work shoes.”

  “What kind of work, Victor, exterminating? Because I’ve no doubt they’re lethal on cockroaches, but they just won’t do with a tuxedo. Now this fine pair of Guccis would be just perfect.”

  “They have bows on them, Timothy.”

  “You’ll be the belle of the ball.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  I was seated in the shoe department of Boyds, the finest clothing store in Philadelphia if price is any indication, and isn’t price always an indication? Amidst the rustle of fine fabric and the whispered ejaculations of the staff—Oh, yes, that’s perfect. Oh, no, that just won’t do—I was buying myself a tuxedo with all the accoutrements, pronounced in the French manner because this was Boyds. In the past, on those rarest of occasions when I had needed a tux, I rented the thing, picked old prom tickets out of the inside pocket, and looked snazzy enough. But a political opportunity had fallen into my lap and I was running with it. Suddenly I had impressive people to impress and impressive places to go to, including a formal ball that would be packed with everyone who was anyone in Philadelphia politics. A rental tux would no longer do.

  And, get this: I was on an expense account.

  “Look at the lines, Victor,” said Timothy, now caressing the shoe as if it were some shiny body part sensitive to the touch. “Look at the taper of the toe. One could say, if one were being naughty, that it is quite louche.”

  “It looks like it was made for a ballerina.”

  “With that heel? No, this is a piece of pure masculine elegance. You will be noticed, I promise you.”

  “I’m not sure I want to be noticed in a ballet slipper.”

  Timothy looked down at me with lips pursed and shook his head in sad disapproval. Timothy was one of those people you meet in this world with a brilliant piece of specialized knowledge. Tall and emaciated, with pale skin and a wary, toothy smile, he knew how the upper crust dressed and how those of us in the soggy bottom layers might best pretend to fit in. I had let him pick my tuxedo, my ruffled shirt, my gold-and-onyx studs, but I was balking at the shoes.

  “Tell me, Victor,” he said. “Where are you going?”

  “To a black-tie ball with a bunch of political hyenas.”

  “I don’t mean your little party. I mean in the big picture of your life. Where are you going?”

  I thought for a bit. This was the second of three questions that Timothy, like the troll beneath a bridge, would posit during my political adventure, each more insoluble than the next. Where was I going?

  “Anyplace,” I said, “so long as it’s not where I am now.”

  “And that is why you are here at Boyds, correct?”

  “I’m here because of a misguided notion as to a link between price and style.”

  “And that is why you have asked for my help.”

  “I didn’t quite ask; the moment I walked through the door, you glommed on to me like I was a walking sack of money.”

  “Oh, Victor, you can buy
a tuxedo anywhere. You can pick one up at Men’s Wearhouse, or even, and I shudder to think of it, on Craigslist. But you have come to me, at Boyds, because you want to go someplace new and bright and full of rakish promise.”

  “I do?”

  “I don’t believe clothes make the man, but they are a signifier of where that man intends to travel in his life. You can wear your lawyer shoes and look like every other lawyer at the party, and everyone will know exactly where you are going—to the island of pickpockets. Or you can wear the Guccis with the bows so that others, noticing the details of your dressage, will see you as a pirate, swashbuckling his way to virgin lands.”

  “I always wanted to be a pirate.”

  “The men will beckon to know your investment strategies. The serving persons will hand you goblets of champagne without your having to ask. The women will have the urge to take you into the broom closet and bite your chest. You will end up in places you never before imagined, and only you will know the reason why.”

  “The shoes.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Wrap them up, Timothy.”

  He bowed his head submissively. “If you insist.”

  “I’m lucky you don’t sell insurance.”

  “I did. This pays better. Now, may I show you something you simply must have in hosiery?”

  All of which serves to explain why two days later I was wearing a pair of the daintiest little patent-leather slippers with neat black bows in the crowded ballroom of the Bellevue in Philadelphia, and why, surprisingly, they instilled in me a strange and wondrous confidence. As I made my way through the dollops of influence floating across the ballroom floor, as I was jostled by this congressman and that councilwoman, as I smiled at the pretty young aides and watched with surprise as they smiled back, I was certain I was headed someplace splendiferous. The world of politics and power was a tasty little oyster, and these ludicrous shoes would be my shucking knife.

  Just the tools I needed to survive the horror of the Governor’s Ball.

  CHAPTER 2

  STATE FLOWERS

  Oh, the ball, the Governor’s Ball, mounted by some political action committee in honor of our governor, as if being governor wasn’t honor enough for a hack from Allegheny County. How to describe its exquisite awfulness?

  The band on the stage was swinging brassy and manic; vodka from some second-rate Scandinavian country was flowing out of a fountain made of ice; there were rivers of balloons, and clouds of sequins, and, scattered across the scattered tables, meadows of mountain laurels, our lovely state flower, each beautiful branch slaughtered in midbloom just for this event. Men were dressed like waiters, and waiters were dressed like concert pianists, and spilling out of the designer frocks of emaciated wives were great sets of bountiful breasts, seemingly there to be sampled like the hot hors d’oeuvres wending through the crowd on silver salvers.

  Can I tempt you with a little something? Oh, yes, absolutely.

  And all about the room were little electromagnetic fields of power and money, for that was what kept this whole intricate dance spinning, the sparks that tingled your flesh as the chosen, with their snapping auras, brushed you by. That billionaire options trader, that cut-rate city councilman, that blonde aide who was nightly flinging her long tan legs over the shoulders of that gouty state senator, all of them trailing licks of power that could be felt in the bone.

  And there I was, humble little Victor Carl—legal lemur, low man on anyone’s totem pole, the pride of, well, nothing and no one—sipping champagne amidst this gaudy display, wearing my ruby slippers painted black, with an inexplicable force field of my very own.

  “The mayor just toddled in,” said Melanie Brooks, leaning close and speaking right into my ear so that I could hear her over the horn section that sounded like a murder of crows. “I’ve been told he wants to meet you.”

  “Me?” I said. “Why would he want to meet me?”

  “All the good things he’s heard.”

  “Have you been pimping me out again, Melanie?”

  “That’s what I do, dearheart. Oh, look, there’s Simpson,” she said, indicating a squat, jowly man with a shining pate. “He wanted to meet you, too.”

  “I’m suddenly so popular.”

  “You’re now a man with skills. Come along, hip hop. We mustn’t leave the senior partner waiting.”

  Melanie was dressed to kill in something tight and red. That was her color, fingernail red, from her delicious lips to her shiny spiked heels. I’ll tell you about Melanie’s stunning transformation later, but for now it is enough to know she was strikingly beautiful without exuding any sexual heat whatsoever. It was Melanie who had snagged my invite to the ball, who had handed me an American Express card to purchase my tuxedo, and who now clucked in my ear like a mother hen as she clutched my arm and steered me about the room.

  “Victor Carl, let me introduce you to our senior partner, Simpson McCall,” said Melanie.

  “The McCall of Ronin and McCall,” I said.

  “Someone has to balance out Ronin’s sharp edges,” said Simpson McCall, a Pillsbury Doughboy in a bespoke blue suit. “I used to be on the front lines, like you and Melanie, and I loved every minute of it, but those days are past. Now I just have lunch with rich people.”

  “Client development,” said Melanie.

  “It must be done. I think I single-handedly keep the Union League in business. But I miss the excitement.”

  “No, you don’t, you old fraud,” said Melanie.

  “Oh, yes, I do. The intrigue, the battle of wits with everything on the line. Those were the days.”

  “You like your lunches too much, Simpson.”

  “True. And the Union League makes a wonderful salad.”

  “You should try it sometime,” said Melanie.

  “Part of my job is appearing well fed. Are you a member of the club, Victor?”

  “My gosh, no,” I said. “Even the Union League has standards.”

  “Is that Norton Grosset over there?” said Melanie.

  I turned to spot a hunched, fleshy-faced man laughing, his arm around a girl young enough to be his daughter’s daughter. “Yes, I think that’s his name,” I said. “I met him at one of the Congressman’s fund-raisers.”

  “Look at the beady eyes set in that fat face,” said McCall. “They give me such a shiver. He’s a vicious animal, absolutely heartless, but he’s richer than Croesus and he pays his bills on time. The perfect client. Grosset has plans to privatize the state’s prison system. He says it’s finally time to put the profit back in crime. We can make it work for him, if only we can get the right people on board.”

  “Which means you’re looking to buy a politician or two.”

  “Do you know anyone in this room who isn’t?” said Melanie.

  The three of us laughed and laughed.

  “I like you, Victor,” said McCall. “Your future in the business is undoubtedly bright. You know what you’ve got? The common touch.”

  “I come by it honestly.”

  “Just the kind of man we’re looking for at Ronin and McCall. Phone my secretary and we’ll nail down a luncheon date. Now I must be off. There is always work.” And then he was gone, waddling after his client, ever ready to glad-hand.

  Melanie leaned close. “You impressed him,” she said.

  “He liked my common touch.”

  “Grew up in a log cabin, did you?”

  “I was jealous of the kids in log cabins. They had dirt floors, all we had was dirt.”

  As the band played on, exhibitionist couples flashing dentures made spectacles of themselves cheek to cheek on the dance floor. Kisses were airmailed and hands were enthusiastically shaken and sly smiles were flashed and false laughter fell like tinsel from an aluminum Christmas tree. And above us all, presiding over everything, were two great chandeliers, p
erfectly round, with thick aureoles of light surrounding protruding crystal nipples, the fixtures like symbols of the great public teats that financed all the strut and merriment.

  “Oh, there you are, Victor,” said still another woman, taking hold of my other arm, so that I was flanked now by beautiful politically connected women. This second woman was Ossana DeMathis, sister to Congressman DeMathis of the Thirteenth Congressional District. “Our new miracle worker. Are you enjoying yourself?”

  “Does anyone enjoy these things?” I said.

  “That’s not what they’re for,” said Melanie.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Ossana. “Sometimes they have a little spark to them.” She gave my arm a slight squeeze. “Like now. I’ve been looking for you.”

  “Me?”

  “Do you dance?”

  “God, no. And I’m not sure this is the place for it anyway.”

  “There’s a band,” she said. “There’s a dance floor.”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  Ossana DeMathis was tall and whippet-thin, with eyes so wide apart they gave her features a fetching hint of derangement. Derangement, I have found, is a deceptively attractive quality in women. We say we want soft and sweet, we say we want grounded, and then derangement walks in the door. Normally, Ossana was as washed-out and cold as a ghost, yet now here she was holding on tight to my arm with a flush to her cheek, a rising of temperature—I could feel the heat of her through the woolen fabric of my tuxedo—and was I crazy to think I knew why? I tapped my toe, and the skin on my chest twitched.

  “May I interrupt?” said a tall, drawn man, who looked like a mortician in his tuxedo. Ossana and Melanie each let go of an arm.

  “The mayor wanted to meet Victor,” said Melanie.

  “That can wait,” said the man. “I need a moment, Victor.”

  “Go on,” said Ossana. “The master calls.”

  I gave a wink for only her to see before I walked away with the mortician to find a more private spot to talk. Tom Mitchum was Congressman DeMathis’s chief of staff. DeMathis had a seat on the House Ways and Means Committee; if you wanted to talk to DeMathis—and what lobbyist didn’t?—you had to first talk with Mitchum. He was one of the most powerful gatekeepers in the capital. Somehow I had been taken up by these people.