hands. The inner gloves will protect them.”
“It’s just going to cause embarrassment, right?” said Edna. “I mean, he’s not going to get hurt or anything.”
“All my pranks are completely safe,” said Serge. “Everyone ready?”
Elevators opened on the convention floor. A spiffy Serge stepped out with Edith on his arm, followed by the rest of the G-Unit.
A bustle of activity greeted them at the entrance of the largest conference hall. Reporters, TV cameras, hotel staff wheeling carts of water carafes. Enthusiastic applause roared out the doors.
Edith tugged Serge’s arm. “You sure they’re going to let us in?”
“Positive.”
“But what if we get caught? None of us has any shares in the company.”
“That’s the beauty of stockholder meetings. Just dress appropriately. At this financial level, the last thing they want to do is insult investors with something bourgeois like asking for ID. And they
Just as Serge predicted, they strolled right in unquestioned.
Riles Highpockets was already up on the elevated dais. The hall remained extra dark except for the podium spotlight and a Jumbo-Tron on each side of the stage, filled with his sweaty jowls.
Each time the tycoon bellowed another glowing financial number into the microphone, rolling ovations swept across a thousand padded folding chairs.
“What do we do now?” asked Edith.
Serge gestured toward the right of the stage. “That’s the cable news people for the post-speech interview. We need to start working our way over. No chance he’ll snub my charming grandmother’s request in front of a national audience.”
Another wave of wild applause. Riles reached his climactic conclusion. “
A thundering standing O erupted as Riles made his way down stage steps toward the cable networks. Camera lights came out. A boom microphone dipped over the baron’s head.
The interview had just begun when Serge stepped up. “Excuse me, Mr. Highpockets, but my grandmother has wanted to meet you for years.”
“Sir,” said a TV correspondent. “We’re in the middle of a segment.”
Highpockets held up a hand. “It’s okay. There’s always time to respect our elders.”
“You’re a great man,” said Edith. “America needs more like you. Could I possibly get your autograph on this dollar?”
Riles glanced toward the camera with a grin, thinking, my PR people couldn’t have planned this any better. “Why it would be my pleasure.”
He took the bill and a pen, scribbling a large signature. Then another practiced smile. “There you go.”
Edith held open a plastic bag. “Just drop it in there. Wouldn’t want it to smudge or anything before I get it framed.”
The interview resumed.
Serge and the G-Unit watched from behind the news people. “What happens now?” asked Edna. Serge rubbed his palms. “Wait for the fun to begin.” Three minutes later, a handler interrupted and whispered in Riles’s ear.
“Sorry,” said Highpockets, “but they have me on a tight schedule.” He gave a big wave to the crowd before being ushered out the side door to a waiting stretch.
The correspondent turned toward her camera. “Another busy day for one of the country’s richest oilmen, who will now be flown by private jet helicopter to a drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico, where he will personally thank his corporation’s hardworking blue-collar employees…”
“What the hell?” said Serge.
“I didn’t see any embarrassment,” said Edna.
“Not enough time to take effect. Crap.”
“All this for nothing?” said Edith.
“We might get lucky and see something later on TV.” Serge took her by the arm and strolled out of the hall. “My guess is there’ll be a camera crew on that helicopter for carefully choreographed photo ops of him mixing with the common man at the drilling platform. No way he’s just doing it for the good and welfare.”
ROD AND REEL PIER
Mahoney accidentally caught a fish.
He cranked it in, removed the hook and threw it back. “Be free. Have a long and productive life…”
A pelican waiting below caught it on the fly and gulped it down. “Isn’t that always the case…”
The agent stared off at a distant tanker making its way up the ship channel. A gut feeling had been nagging him ever since Serge’s name came up. That business in Panama City just wasn’t his guy. He threw a toothpick in the water.
“Something’s not jake.”
Mahoney cast his line again, set it in a rod holder and dialed his cell.
“Agent Ramirez here.”
“It’s Mahoney. What’s the name of the kid?”
“That’s confidential.”
“One hand washes the other.”
“What’s this about?”
“If Serge is your man, there may be a connection. And nobody knows Serge like me.”
“It violates about ten rules.”
“Who got you those files? I scratch your back, you scratch mine.”
“I guess you’re right. Andrew McKenna.”
“Consider us even.”
Mahoney knew people, and he knew Ramirez was too by-the-book for his tastes. But Mahoney held markers from people all over the state. He dialed again. An old friend at the bureau.
“… Should be under Andrew McKenna,” said Mahoney.
“But the protection program files are confidential.”
“Just bring me up to speed on background.”
“I don’t know.”
“Who got you out of that scrape in Lantana?”
“I was innocent. You try to be nice and give a stripper a ride home, and she pays you back by smoking ten joints in the car when you’re not there and leaving all the roaches in the ashtray.”
“I’m waiting.”
“Call you back…”
He did, giving Mahoney chapter and verse, right up until “his mother shot herself and we had to move them again out of Michigan.”
“Shot herself?”
“That’s what it says.”
“One more thing: I need a trace on his credit card.”
“I’ve already stuck my neck out.”
“
“That’s the thing about strippers: No good deed goes unpunished.”
“So you’ll do it?”
“I got your number.”
“Thanks, Bugsy.”
“It’s Harold.”
GILLY’S PUB 44
