Gideon and I went in the back door. The banquet room was already packed like a slave ship and the salad course hadn’t even been served yet. Upstairs several rows of elegant and pricey silent auction prizes had been laid out. Mexican and Alaskan cruises, a guitar played by Neil Young, spa treatments, and a chance to throw the first ball at a Salt Lake Bees game. I’d been considering getting Oaklyn a spa treatment. I could picture her lounging back in a tub of mud, getting a facial, having her nails done or whatever they did at spas.
Now, as I squeezed myself between two rotund Elks who already seemed rip-roaring drunk, I caught sight of her. She’d worn a sparkly sweater for this December event. Her eyes caught the glint of her Christmas-colored necklace as she leaned across the long table to shout at Mahalia. I had to pause to marvel I made her come. I made her scream out my name. I made her beg for release. Knowing she was a BDSM virgin made it all the more exciting.
She was a scrawny, lithe thing, but that was the way she was built. Touching her was like manipulating a ballet dancer. She might not have the curves of most women, but she had sass, fire, and explosive sexuality. I’d honestly never seen a woman come that powerfully. Maybe ten percent of my clients at Liberty Temple were women, and almost all of them ordered a whopping climax as part of the package. Some faked it. Some came in dribs and drabs, like they were in a raft plunging over a Class II waterfall. Only a few were ever close to the atomic level of an Oaklyn orgasm, and I couldn’t wait to try it again, with a different scene.
Oaklyn caught my eye. I motioned to her I’d be right there. I had business to attend to. Elbowing my way through the crowded bathroom, I waited for a stall so I could crush some of the pills. The bottle said to give 500 milligrams to alcoholics, so I crushed 1500 inside the bottle with my knife blade.
“John?”
The bartender immediately looked at me. He was the one. He looked about like your average Elk—in other words, like your father—but he nodded slightly when he glanced at my cut.
“Gideon said to give you this.”
“Gotcha.” John palmed the white bottle, then gave me an eye wave that directed my gaze toward a particularly rowdy table of men. They were setting up for their feast by melting butter in little warmers with candles under them. Some of them had practically brought their own picnic, with champagne glasses, their own silverware, and crab crackers. Shumway was among them. Looked like he had one of the red cups John was handing out booze in.
“Thanks.” When I turned around, I smashed right into Deloy.
“I’m getting a Coke!” he protested, hands in the air.
I frowned. Whatever. I’d been worried that Deloy might’ve seen the gossip column referring to him, but he hadn’t said anything about it. “Good. Come sit at our table when you’re done.”
We did the mirror shuffle, both stepping to the same side at the same time. I finally broke free in frustration by grabbing Deloy’s shoulder and shoving him toward the bar. I only had eyes for Shumway—the mayor was sitting farther down on the same side. Strangely, Shumway chose this time to get up. I still don’t know if it was chance or what, but we met face to face at the end of the table. We were packed so close I almost could not reach up and grab his stupid shirtfront without anyone noticing anything amiss. Logic told me I shouldn’t have, but emotions got the better of me.
“You’re a fucking dead man for trying to poison my dog,” I snarled.
“What are you talking about?” Shumway shrieked in a high woman’s voice. “Get your hands off me.”
“You fucking well know what I’m talking about. You gave mints with fake sugar to my dog on fucking purpose, you scumbag.”
He snarled back, his face darkened under the brim of his ten gallon hat. “You keep making false accusations like that, you’re never getting a business license.”
I kneed him in the balls for good measure. He folded like a jackknife, but the guy he fell into shoved him back, sending him crashing into the long tables with the melted butter. It was a great dramatic effect, the little cups of melted yellow oil flying through the air, soaking people’s shirts and splashing their faces. I reserved my dirtiest look for Ladell Pratt, whose mouth was an O as he gazed at the buttery destruction. But when he saw me he smiled like a lizard. He had something up his sleeve.
Sledgehammer was standing on the bench making a rip-roaring fist pump at the sight of my little tussle. “That’s it, Levon! Stick it to The Man!”
I wasn’t exactly making a statement on the downtrodden dilemma of the working class in Utah or anything, but now that Sledgehammer mentioned it, maybe I was. I had to thread my way past several bikers to reach Oaklyn, all of them slapping me on the back so heartily I almost pitched into the table heavy with salad fixings. We were as bad as the others. Bikers had brought their own bottles of salad dressing and wine, everyone celebrating the launch of Maximus’ political career.
In a fittingly Roman bid for power, Maximus would be our next mayor. He’d already been well-known around town riding with his Lazzat Un Nisa club. The Assassins had culled him from there as the coolest, most desirable guy with his flowing silver hair. He ran the new barber shop, another plus on his side. And he was retired from an engineering job with the County, so he already knew lots of people.