“Charlie’s keeping you to himself these days.”
I had to play the role of the cautious confidant to Cimino, so I just said, “He’s a good man.”
“Sure. Sure.”
Sure. Greg didn’t seem too happy about my arrangement with Charlie. Charlie had mentioned it could be a problem, should Connolly run to the governor to complain. I didn’t really care if that happened. My reason for proposing the new and improved scheme to Charlie was to gain leverage and get Shauna off the hook. I’d already accomplished that. Shauna would now be free.
Free to come visit me in prison.
Unless I pulled a rabbit out of my hat. I was still working on that.
“Maybe there’s a way we could keep doing business?” he said to me. It was in the form of a question. I wasn’t sure if he had an idea or was looking for one.
I smiled. “You’re asking the wrong guy, Greg.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” He patted my shoulder. “I think you have Charlie’s ear like nobody else.”
I wondered if that was true. I’d only known Charlie for a short time. But he didn’t seem to have a lot of people close to him, and I’d hatched a plan that was accomplishing his twin goals of enriching himself and getting the governor reelected, the latter purpose having the ultimate goal of enriching himself, too. I mean, it was all about money in the end. I was making him richer and more important to the governor, which in turn would make him richer still.
The governor ended up standing on a dais in the middle of the room that allowed him to see into and over the crowd. I didn’t recall ever hearing him speak, though I must have, at some point, over the last year that he had served as governor.
“Thank you, everyone. Thank you. I don’t want to-thank you. If I could just-I love you, too. Thank you.”
It took the man a while to calm the crowd, to snap them out of their feigned adoration. He started and stopped a few times, as people shouted sweet nothings to him. Actually, he didn’t try very hard to stop them. He was basking in the glow, standing in his crisp tuxedo, holding a microphone with one hand and raising a steadying hand to the crowd with the other like the pontiff in Rome.
“You go back with him,” I said to Greg Connolly.
“Oh, sure. Grew up with him on George Street. Took every class together from kindergarten to graduating from State.”
It sounded like a line Connolly had recited many times in the last year, his connection to the governor. This guy was a hanger-on if I ever saw one.
“I went to State, too,” I said.
“Yeah? When did you-” He stopped on that. It dawned on him and he looked over at me. “Jason Kolarich. Wide receiver?”
I nodded.
“Huh. I remember you. And you, uh-you broke that guy-Karmeier, right?”
I nodded.
“Broke his nose, right?”
“Jaw,” I said. “But he started it.”
“Jeez.” He chuckled. “He played a few years with the Steelers, y’know.”
I knew. Tony Karmeier missed the rest of his senior year after our altercation in the locker room. But he still went in the second round of the NFL draft and made millions, while I was kicked off the team, lost my scholarship, and narrowly avoided expulsion from the university. All in all, I think Tony had the last laugh.
“We’ve done some good things,” said Governor Carlton Snow to the crowd. “We’ve expanded health care for children. We’ve put a thousand more cops on the streets. And we’re not done. We’re just getting started. And that’s why what you’re doing tonight is so important.”
“I think there’s still a role for me,” said Connolly, leaning in to me close. “You can figure something out, right?”
I shrugged my shoulders. It wasn’t my problem. But all things being equal, I wasn’t looking to draw more people into the federal government’s spiderweb. Or, in Connolly’s case, more than he already was. “Talk to Charlie,” I said.
I was bored. I was going around in circles with a guy who, unbeknownst to him, was trying very hard to get himself into more trouble with the feds. And I had only come here at the behest of Charlie, who wasn’t anywhere to be found and, anyway, why the hell did I need to see him? I saw him all the time. It was time to leave, I decided.
“Hey,” said Connolly, “you want to meet some people?”
And then it got more interesting.
43
The party went on another two hours. I drained several martinis and did the dreaded small-talk dance. Turned out, I knew some of the lawyers in the room, and a couple others knew of me from the Almundo trial. Greg Connolly stayed pretty close to me, which was sort of creepy. He’d promised me a meet with the governor when the place cleared out some, not that I had requested the meeting or even looked forward to it. In fact, I realized that I was probably the only person in the room who didn’t want to meet Carlton Snow. But Connolly seemed to think it was a tantalizing prospect and he kept sight of me as the night drew on, as if to reassure me.
Greg was trying to curry my favor. He really seemed to think that I was pulling the strings. I didn’t know enough about the players involved-Charlie included, who still, in many ways, remained a stranger to me-to know why Greg would think that, but I had been elevated to a prominent status in his mind.
I looked over the shoulder of one of the lawyers in our conversation circle and saw a woman standing with Connolly. I didn’t recognize her, but she caught my attention. Greg eagerly waved me over and I excused myself.
“Jason Kolarich, Madison Koehler. Maddie’s the governor’s chief of staff.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said to me.
I extended a hand. “All of it good, I hope.”
“All of it,” she said. Her hand was warm. Hot, in fact.
Madison Koehler was well-packaged in a form-fitting cocktail dress, bleached-blond hair, and a healthy dose of makeup. I put her at a little north of forty, but she was clearly doing the best she could to keep her age a mystery. Her eyes were large, brown, and predatory; there was a severity to her overall look that told me two things-she didn’t take any prisoners and she was good in bed. Take a photo of her and she wouldn’t win too many contests. But there was something about her up close and personal, a confident, aggressive style that oozed sensuality.
Or maybe it was just that I hadn’t been laid in a year. I was beginning to have romantic feelings for my mailbox.
“All of it,” she repeated, keeping her eyes on me. Well, then.
“Maddie here directs the traffic, I like to say.” Connolly was still talking. He kept on doing that and we both listened, but I was feeling something and I wasn’t sure how to handle it. I hadn’t been with a woman since Talia. I hadn’t thought about a woman since Talia. I decided not to analyze it at all. I just listened to Greg Connolly sputter on about this woman’s resume while I followed the outline of that sequined cocktail dress and wondered what was under it. My eyes moved up until they made contact with hers. She didn’t react, save a small fluttering of her eyebrows. She was telling me that she didn’t mind the tour my eyes had taken.
“I told him I’d introduce him to Carl,” said Connolly.
“The governor,” she said. I took that as an admonishment for his informality. “Greg, I’d like a moment with Jason,” she said, her eyes squarely on me.
“Sure, sure.”
As Connolly excused himself, applause erupted again throughout the place. I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t care why.
“The governor’s leaving,” Madison said to me. Over her shoulder, I could see Governor Snow waving to the crowd. But not out the main exit. An exit that led further into the hotel’s interior.
“Where to now?” I asked.
“We have a suite of rooms here. For more private discussions, away from the hordes.”
Our eyes remained on each other.
“I wasn’t talking about the governor,” I said.
Her expression eased ever so subtly. “Neither was I.”
I followed her through the room, fully charged, a loaded weapon. She said she wanted to use the ladies’ room and left me in the main lobby with about a hundred people and my imagination. The governor and his state police entourage were nowhere to be found. Most of the people were filtering out.