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or fowl?”

      “Sorry.”

      “No offense, but aren’t you supposed to be a trained observer?”

      “I’ve got a blind spot when it comes to people wishing me harm. Which is why I hired you.”

      “Smart move,” I said, doubtfully.

      THE CLARMONT SITS JUST south of Sycamore, where the Brewery District with its nice restaurants and well-heeled brick office buildings starts to peter out and the grittier South End begins. “Seafood & Steak,” its red-lettered sign advertised. The parking lot was nearly full when we pulled in.

      As Hershey held the door for me, I nearly collided with a woman rushing out, head bowed over her phone.

      “Excuse me,” she said, without looking up.

      “Watch yourself, Lauren,” Hershey said. “This guy might flag you for an illegal tackle.”

      She glanced at Hershey and frowned. “What are you doing here?”

      “Warning people not to text and walk. Anything good in there?”

      He pointed at the thick blue three-ring binder she was holding in her left hand. “Fair Funding Focus,” it said on the cover.

      “You tell me,” she said. “You seem to know all about it.” She had short, honey-blond hair, blue eyes that searched and then dismissed me a little too quickly, like a dog groomer snubbing a mutt, and a hint of a southern accent; I was guessing Georgia, or maybe east Texas.

      “I’ve only scratched the surface,” Hershey said. “Have you persuaded them to deep-six the charter school amendments yet?”

      “Oh, very funny.”

      “Just a question.”

      “A dumb one, as usual,” she said, and brushed past us.

      “Friend of yours?” I said, as we went inside.

      “Frenemy, like most of the people I know around here.”

      “Who is she?”

      “Her name’s Lauren Atkinson. She’s head of the state teachers’ union. She came up the hard way, fighting skinflint school boards that insisted on four assistant football coaches but screamed bloody murder if the teachers asked for an extra planning period once a week. We ever meet with her, you’re going to need reinforcements.”

      “Her binder said ‘Fair Funding Focus.’ Didn’t you say they realized their mistake and changed the name?”

      He laughed, a deep, rich sound that, annoyingly, made you want to laugh right along with him.

      “They changed their minds back again after I reported how much it was going to cost taxpayers to reprint all the binders. C’mon.”

      After we found a couple of seats at the bar, Hershey ordered his vodka and tonic, and on impulse I ordered the most expensive beer they had, a twenty-ounce bottle of Belgian ale I knew I wouldn’t like but which I would enjoy watching Hershey pay for. My passive-aggressive way of tweaking him for charming Anne with all that sci-fi talk. I’m a tough guy, like that. Hershey was chatting up the bartender and I was scanning the crowd for dagger-wielding killers when a woman walked up, stopped, and tapped Hershey on the shoulder.

      “Hey, asshole,” she said.

      He turned. “Hello, Kerri. What do you know?”

      “I know I’m thirsty as hell.”

      “Plus ça change . . .” Hershey said with that smile of his, and nodded at the bartender. A moment later a glass of white wine materialized, and Hershey handed it to the woman. They clinked glasses, and Hershey turned to me.

      “Kerri MacKenzie, Andy Hayes.”

      “And you are?” she said.

      “He’s a hired hand making sure people like you don’t beat me up,” Hershey said, as I handed her my card.

      “Bodyguard, huh?” she said. “You’d take a bullet for this guy?”

      “Maybe a small one,” I said. “If it asked nicely.”

      She laughed. Hershey said, “Kerri works for the Senate Democrats. She’s a ‘Senior Democratic Caucus policy analyst,’” he said, making exaggerated air quotes.

      “Sounds fancy.”

      “Not really,” Hershey said, winking at MacKenzie. “What it means, since you didn’t ask, is donkey blood runs through her veins, she can spell ‘Adlai Stevenson’ without peeking, and she knows where even more bodies are buried than me, which if I do say so myself is rather impressive.”

      “And someday one of them will be yours,” MacKenzie said, saluting Hershey with a punch in the shoulder with one hand, followed by a toast with the other. But I could tell by her eyes she had enjoyed the compliment.

      “Tillman’s mad as hell at you,” she said.

      “Tell me something I don’t know. What’s his beef this time?”

      “As if. Your story about Midwest Testing.”

      “What about it?”

      “They’ve contributed heavily to his campaign. Big whoop.”

      “They’re the third-biggest school testing company in the country. Tillman’s the Senate education chairman. It smells.”

      “They have a right to let him know how much they value his hard work,” she said. She had short, dark hair and a pleasant face with lines around her eyes that looked like she’d earned them the hard way. Midthirties, if I had to guess. No wedding ring.

      “I just got here and you’ve already exceeded my nightly capacity for bullshit,” Hershey said. “If Triple F passes,” he said, turning to me, “Midwest will be at the front of the line when they start handing out contracts for all the new exams the legislation will mandate. We’re talking so much money, they’ll have to build new vaults just to hold it.”

      “Enough with the Triple F. It’s ‘A Better Collaboration,’ now,” MacKenzie corrected.

      “Spare me,” Hershey said.

      “So, Midwest,” I said, interrupting. “They’re greasing the skids with Tillman?”

      “Gold star,” Hershey said, raising his hand to ward off an objection from MacKenzie. “The distinguished state senator Edmund Tillman. Some donations here, some donations there, an all-expenses-paid trip to Vegas to attend the National Association of Assessment Agencies’ winter ‘conference.’ You get the idea.”

      “Tillman’s pissed because you said he didn’t report that trip,” MacKenzie said. “But he did.”

      “Once I started asking questions, he produced back-dated forms that kept him clear of an ethics board investigation by this much.” Hershey pinched his thumb and forefinger together.

      “And which one of our Republican brethren tipped you to that little find?”

      “What makes you think it wasn’t some GOP sistren?”

      “Answer the question.”

      “As I’ve been suggesting to Andy here, the names of my sources are between me and my God.”

      “You’re an atheist.”

      “I’m a Catholic atheist. There’s a difference.”

      “Still love to know who,” she said.

      “Bet you would.”

      “But in the meantime,” she said, and leaned toward him. He listened, giving me the universal head gesture to shove off for a second. Since every seat was occupied, I stood up and moved to the outer edge of the drinking scrum. I sipped my beer,

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