He put his palm out to Brent, and they did the shake and slap. “Just so you know, I plan on having an urgent stationhouse call in thirty-five minutes.”
“Shocker.” Brent straightened his tie. “So Graham Perry came and found me. The mayor wants to see us.”
“Now? What about her dog and pony show to the masses.”
“It’s the cocktail hour. There’s time. Come on, the greenroom is over here.”
Tom fell into step with the other guy. “Why do I get the feeling I’m being set up?”
“Because you’re paranoid.”
Tom nodded at a pair of lobbyists, but didn’t slow down as they started to roundabout. “Tell me something, how old are you?”
“Excuse me?”
“How old?”
“Thirty-five.”
They entered a carpeted hallway that was nothing but brass-plaqued double doors and poster ads for theater shows, high-end restaurants, and jewelers. The air smelled like steak, which suggested the hotel had ventilation issues, and he wondered when the last time its management had done a fire drill for the staff.
Brent looked over. “Why’d you ask me my age?”
“Because you look a little old to be this naive.”
“I don’t know what your problem with Catherine is—”
“Oh, so now we’re on a first-name basis, are we. What’s next? Netflix and chill?”
“—a good mayor, a better person, and she gets us. Her father was a firefighter.”
Tom shook his head. “Politicians do one thing with reliability and that’s look out for themselves. You’re going to learn this the hard way, but that evolution is not my problem.”
“You don’t know her.” Brent stopped in front of something called the Salisbury Room. “And you’re too young to be this cynical.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Brent opened the way in, and talk about standing room only. There were a good fifty people crammed in around a boardroom table long enough to bowl on, everyone talking loud enough so they could be heard over the very din they were creating.
“There you are.” The mayor’s right-hand guy came over, porcelain caps flashing as he smiled. “Thanks for stopping by, Chief.”
Graham Perry was the kind of sharp, useless, egoist in a Brooks Brothers suit who made Tom scratch. He’d had to deal with them all his life, Ivy League golden boys with Greco-Roman playbooks, all kinds of Et tu, Brute? pole marks on his ass. If this was who the mayor thought she needed at her side? She was either a bad judge of character, or she shared Perry’s opinion that people would fall for a faker.
Brent cleared his throat and elbowed Tom in the ribs. But he was not shaking that greasy palm.
Perry retracted the offending item and smiled some more. “Well. We just wanted you to know how much we appreciate your department’s support in this election.”
“I haven’t given it to you.”
As Perry looked at Brent, there was an awkward pause.
“Are you kidding me,” Tom muttered. “Seriously, did you—”
The warm bodies in the room parted like the Red Sea and he knew without a proper look that there was only one person who could get that kind of effect.
Mayor Catherine Mahoney was wearing red, the dress totally modest, the body it was covering absolutely not. Tom kept his eyes on her face, but his peripheral vision filled in all kinds of details about her that he really could have done without.
He wasn’t going to be Brent, damn it.
“Tom,” she said in her smooth voice, “I’m glad you came. Thank you so much for your support. It’s going to make a big difference in the election. Barrington is going to be a tough opponent.”
“I didn’t give you anything.” He turned to Brent. “I thought I made myself clear. I’m not endorsing anyone.”
The flush that rode up the guy’s face made Tom want to bitch-slap him.
Perry spoke up. “Mayor Mahoney is very pro-union, and I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but her father—”
“Was a firefighter,” Tom muttered. “Yeah, I’ve heard. What you two don’t mention is that it was for six months on a volunteer basis to build his application for B-school. I doubt those skills held up much over the last thirty years as he’s run Mahoney Technologies. Now if the bunch of you will excuse me, I’m going back to work. It’s clear you don’t need me.”
He hit the door and strode off, his molars locked, his throat loaded with all kinds of fuck-you-Brent. Unbelievable. The guy had a hard-on for that woman and was willing to sell the futures of three hundred New Brunswick firefighters down the river just to get into that red dress—
“Tom.”
As a female voice called out his name, he cursed and almost kept going, but he wanted to yell at someone—and clearly, Mayor Mahoney was willing to put a target around her neck. Turning around, he tried not to notice how those long legs of hers were eating up the carpet between them.
“I gather that was a surprise.” As she halted in front of him, he was surprised to find she was tall enough to meet him right in the eye. “It was my understanding that Brent had discussed the endorsement with you.”
Her security detail discreetly parked it about fifteen feet away, the man with the earpiece and the hidden gun staring off into the otherwise empty corridor.
“Oh, we talked about it.” Tom crossed his arms over chest. “I didn’t agree with the endorsement.”
Hazel eyes. She had hazel eyes that matched her brunette hair. The latter was shoulder length and curled at the bottom. Not a lot of makeup; the lipstick neutral; the lashes real, not fake. She smelled like clean air for some reason.
“I’d welcome the opportunity to change your mind.”
“Is this the part where you remind me your father’s a firefighter?”
“No, it’s where I tell you that if Barrington gets this job, he’s going to shrink your workforce by ten percent to fund a new arena. He wants his NBA team, no matter what it does to this city.”
“People have been talking about that for a decade.”
“Barrington will do it. On the backs of the firefighters, the cops, and teachers.”
“Fearmongering.”
“What’s your email address?”
“You can find it on the website.”
“You don’t have a card?”
“What are you going to send me?”
“The truth. And then maybe you and I can meet and talk.”
Tom narrowed his stare and wondered just exactly they would do at the “meeting.” It wasn’t ego that made him look for signs she was propositioning him: He was not ugly. He had a little positional power in the city. And it wouldn’t be the first time an elected official had headed down a dirty road for reelection.
How far had she gone with Brent?
“I’m a straight shooter,” she maintained. “There are good reasons to support me. I’ve only had nine months to do this job. I want four years so I can really make a difference.”
“Look, I don’t know you—”
“I want to change that.”
“—and I don’t need to know you. My department has been struggling for a decade. As we are chronically underfunded, we spend half our downtime repairing our equipment, our pay base is lower than the national average for a city of this size, and our facilities are in desperate need of renovation. And you’re going to stand in front of me and maintain you can magically change all that? Bullshit. I’ve been in the service for the last fifteen years and every single politician has said that and done nothing. I work around people like you and I never put my faith in elect-me rhetoric—and as for the four years you want? When Greenfield died, your father paid the Metro Council to get you elected to finish out the term. You are a rich girl playing with the city I happened to give a shit about, so please don’t tell me about how well suited you are for this position or how much you want to change things.”
“You’ve got me wrong. I am different.”
“The other politicians—who had a leg up on you when it comes to relevant experience—all said that, too. And pardon me for not taking you seriously. It’s not like your father wants to make you mayor so he can get tax breaks for that new division he wants to set up down by the wharf.”