“So when a Mayor makes some news by saying the Governor can go fuck himself, maybe the best thing to do is ignore it and not make a mountain out of a mole hill, hm?” I ask him with a smile.
Carter’s face stiffens. “That’s different."
“How?” I ask, smiling. I know I’m not listening to my own advice I gave myself in the car. I was supposed to come in here and steamroll over him. But I’m having fun instead.
“Liam Jeffries is an undisciplined, arrogant, sonofabitch, and he’s never cared about authority or rules in his entire goddamn life,” Carter says matter-of-factly. “And I can’t sacrifice the future of this state just so he can be seen as the hero by his drinking buddies up in New Kingston.”
“You don’t mess with jobs,” I tell Carter.
“Jobs won’t be worth a damn when everyone has asthma and their drinking water is poisoned,” Carter shoots back at me.
“But you need to consider that maybe you just let him burn out then,” I reply back. “You’ll still be here, but let him vent. And move on. Kill the factories with red tape.”
Carter pauses for a moment. “Have you ever met Liam Jeffries?” he asks me.
I shake my head. I’ve never even bothered. He’s a mayor of a small town that’s a suburb of New York City. The population of New Kingston is around 45,000. Fifty minutes from a city of 8 million. My office didn’t even have a file for him.
“I’ve never met him nor dealt with him,” I tell Carter.
“Well, then,” Carter says pointing behind me toward the wall. “This is who you’re dealing with.”
I turn around toward the television.
And for the second time that night, I gasp.
Tall, rugged, handsome, with a smirk that tells me he’s gotten his hands dirty too many times to count is a man that the headline says is Liam Jeffries.
I can see the vague trace of a tattoo on his right and left shoulder and one peeking up from his chest.
He’s speaking. The volume is lowered since there’s a party, but I can still hear.
“These factory jobs are coming to New Kingston,” Liam says. “I don’t care what kind of environmental legislation they’ve passed up in Albany, but I can tell you this, that shit doesn’t mean a damn when you don’t have a job. And I’m bringing jobs.”
I’m transfixed. I’m mesmerized. By his face. His eyes. His intensity.
“And I know I’m not supposed to curse on live television, but if the Governor is going to get his panties in a bunch over helping good people, then I’m going to keep saying what I said yesterday,” Liam says to the camera. “He can go fuck himself. Or he can stop crying and suck a fat fucking dick.”#p#分页标题#e#
“You see now what I mean?” Carter says to me, as if this should explain everything. “The man is a goddamn child. Not to mention he probably just cost the network $500,000 in broadcast fines for his cursing.”
I’m listening. I’m thinking maybe I should pay a visit to New Kingston myself, you know?
Maybe understand the situation a bit more.
Because I need to get to the bottom of this. I need to get the facts and help them make a reasonable compromise.
It’s going to be hard because right now I want to do only one thing in the world.
Fuck.
70
Liam
“On the house, Mayor,” the bartender tells me, pushing a giant mug of beer in my direction. I’ve already drunk a few glasses of whisky, but what the fuck, you don’t say no to your citizens. Specially when they’re slender brunettes with perfect breasts.
“Cheers,” I thank her, taking the mug to my lips and drinking a long gulp. The beer goes down my throat softly, settling in over the whisky pretty easily. I already have a fucking buzz going on, but I’m not too shitfaced—exactly the way I like it. “Oh, come on,” I yell at the TV, my voice joining a chorus of annoyed jeers. The fucking Jet’s QB just got sacked, and we’re already down by fourteen points. Sometimes I think I should have become a fucking football player and won the goddamn Super Bowl; I mean, I’d like to see the Jets win a fucking championship during my lifetime.
Everyone has their eyes glued to the TV, watching as the team struggles to reach the playoffs. This is why I love my city, New Kingston. I might be the fucking mayor and all that, but I can still hang out by the bar and be treated like a fucking regular human being. Yes, that’s right, I go to the same places the regular Joe goes to. Despite what all those gossip magazines tell you about me, I have my feet firmly planted on the ground; I’m not a snake in a suit, like the politicians New York presents us with. Sure, I’m fond of hard liquor and pretty women, but that doesn’t make me a fucking lunatic.