Henry Dreeson pursed his lips and wished for the nine hundred ninety-ninth time in the past five hours—which was how long this county board meeting had been dragging on—that sixteen fewer people had voted for Tino Nobili. Or seventeen more people had come to the polls and voted for Orval McIntire. Or some combination of the above that would have kept Tino out of office.
Henry was still the mayor, but it wasn't a city council, any more. It was a county board, now. When the SoTF went to the county system, they'd decided that the make-do of a slightly expanded Grantville city council being the governing body of the whole RoF circle plus everything it had annexed since 1631 had to be scrapped. So they'd scrapped it and turned the whole area into an urban county. He was still the mayor. Partly because he'd been the mayor to start with. Partly because the down-timers had a good grasp on what a mayor did and hanging on to the familiar, when you could, wasn't a bad idea. So instead of mayor/council or chairman/board, they had a mayor/board system now.
For which Tino ran. And won. And just at this moment sat in a chair at the other end of the table. Bringing as many complications with him as the vain little Maizie bird in Dr. Seuss had stuck artificial feathers in her tail to make herself prettier. Till she had so many that they overbalanced her.
The time when Tino's pretensions overbalanced him and he fell flat on his face couldn't come too soon. Right now . . . Well, it got complicated. What happened to having a world in which you could tell your players if you did have a scorecard. It was getting to the point that a man needed a cat's cradle with diagrams on it to figure out the way things worked.
Some ways, Tino was a good guy. A family man. Hospitable. The daughter of that Italian artist woman who'd come into town with Simon Jones and the Stone boys had been staying with them for quite a while, and the girl was going to marry Pete McDougal's son.
Pete was Fourth of July Party, of course. Good friend of Mike Stearns. Which you'd think might tilt things one way.
But politically, on the board, Tino had hooked up with Hartmuth Frisch, who was running for mayor.
Now Frisch, you'd think, wouldn't be running on the other ticket. Not in a logical world. He came from the Palatinate—the one over by the Rhine, not the one over by Bohemia. A pretty reasonable man. He'd come into town at the end of a long, long, trip that had taken him all over the northern half of Germany, following the trail of his dead brother and trying to track his kids. Found them here, adopted by Orval and Karin McIntire a couple years before he caught up with them. Hadn't made a fuss—Orv and Karin were Presbyterian, Calvinists like Frisch was, and the kids were happy. A lot happier than they would have been spending those years in an orphanage, somewhere. Frisch was a widower; he was happy just to be an uncle. He'd taken a job as a factor for Count August von Sommersburg's slate quarries. Good businessman. Ed's friend Cavriani had brought his daughter Idelette to town; she was living with Enoch and Inez Wiley and working for the guy.
Sommersburg was Mike's ally; Orv was Mike's ally; Cavriani . . . well, he was friends with Ed Piazza and Ronnie liked him fine.
So you'd think maybe that Frisch would join the Fourth of July Party.
Naaaah!
Frisch didn't usually say much, himself. He didn't need to. He had Tino, who was willing to say it all. Tino was a really conservative sort of Catholic. He thought that what Henry had done when he baptized Thea's baby was an awful thing. Frisch was a really conservative sort of Calvinist. He thought that what Henry had done when he baptized Nicol's baby was an awful thing.
It was the same baby, of course. They seemed to forget that, from time to time.
The only thing that ever shut Tino up was an emergency at the pharmacy. Then he forgot all about strutting in his artificial peacock plumage and dashed off to do what he did best.
That was probably why Henry hadn't ever strangled him.
Chapter 32
Grantville
"So that's what we did, Daddy," Denise said.
Buster looked at her, twisting his thin reddish beard around in his fingers.
"Keenan Murphy, you said?"
"He was one of them. Egging the rest of them on, for the first part of it."
"I thought ol' Keenan had been playing the hero lately. Chasing down Francis when he shot at Dennis Stull. Chasing after Noelle when those guys grabbed her."
"He's not a hero, Daddy. He's not a villain, either. Mostly he's just dumb. He chased down Francis because his grandma told him to and chased after Noelle because they have the same mother. But he's dumb. Most of his friends are even dumber."
"Who else was with him? Names?"
"Mitchell Kovacs. Bubba."