Page 35 of Brewbies
Good for him. Good forfuckingMcGarvey and his laid-back voice that was as smooth as his Bic’d head and southwestern patois.
“She flirts with everyone,” Ethan muttered.
“Yeah?” McGarvey’s eyebrows went up. “Well, hate to tell you that she had one of these Kiki Forrester signs front and center in her parking lot this morning, and had a few…spicy things to say about you when she saw me in uniform.”
“You’re not wearing a uniform,” Ethan pointed out blandly.
McGarvey puffed out his cheeks and averted his eyes. “Yeah, but I was every other morning I stopped by this week.”
Ethan had opened his mouth to launch into a full on anti-Brewbies tirade, when a weasel pushing a wheelbarrow arrested his attention.
“Hold down the fort,” he said, placing the handle of his shovel into McGarvey’s palm before stalking toward his prey.
“What fort?” McGarvey called after him. “It’s a botanical garden!”
Ethan handed out five and a half disingenuous greetings to various shop owners and residents before catching up with Mayor Stewart and his wheelbarrow empty of garden implements.
And full of KIKI FORRESTER FOR SHERIFF signs.
“What the actual fuck, Stewart,” Ethan growled under his breath as he crowded the man out of the walkway and into a break between the trees and gas lamps that lined the boardwalk. “Does Caryn know you’re putting these signs downtown?”
“Your mother doesn’t tell me what to do, sheriff.” Mayor Stewart carried his egg-shaped skull tucked low between thoroughly average shoulders made wider by the lies his suit jacket was tailored to tell. His title was the only thing that distinguished him from the legions of invisibles that climbed over each other in the homogenizing presses of small-town politics. He was as fine as anybody, in no way memorable, and perfectly devoid of loyalty.
Or a soul.
Beady eyes beneath comically curled eyebrows flicked from side to side, as if he were wary of a secret being drawn out.
“My mother tells everyone what to do, Stew,” Ethan drawled. “What it looks like you’re doing is renting out your henchman skills out of town because no one here buys your bullshit anymore.”
The mayor lifted himself as tall as his tight-ankled khakis would allow, which still only brought him eye to Adam’s apple with Ethan. “You can’t be surprised that the town would be searching for a new favorite son.” Mayor Stewart adopted an expression of faux sympathy. “After all, your father was an adulterer and your mother a criminal, though she hasn’t been arrested…”
Letting that insinuation hang in the air like a rotten cabbage fart, Stewart bent his knees to take up the wheelbarrow again. “I’ll be on my—”
“No one pressed charges against Caryn, Stewart, and you know it. Don’t be hinting that I didn’t arrest my mother after what she did because of nepotism.”
“I wouldnever.” Stewart placed his hand over his heart as if it’d been pierced. “But not everyone is as attuned to nuance as I am. Caryn was a woman scorned, after all. And you know what they say about fury and hell…”
“That it’s where you’re going to burn when you die of the terminal condition of being a little bitch?” Ethan snarled.
Mayor Stewart blanched a little at Ethan’s uncharacteristic intimidation. “An exact example of why Ms. Forrester is a superior candidate to you in every way. She’s well educated. Well spoken. A classy woman with a first-rate vocabulary and endless wells of professionalism.”
“You want to hear more of my vocabulary, Stewart?” Before he could think better of it, Ethan stepped closer.
The man dropped the wheelbarrow handles and jumped back. “Touch me and your career is over!” he squealed in the range of the young Asian girl from before.
“Oh, I’m not going to lay a hand on you,” Ethan said, his voice dropping dangerously low. “But I am going to make sure everyone knows what a worm-tongued liar you are.”
“That’s rich,” the mayor scoffed. “You think anyone will listen to your slander after who your father was and what he’s done? Your family used to mean something in this town, but now you’re just a joke.”
Ethan’s temper flared from some place deeper than his restraint could reach. “You keep my family’s name out of your mouth, you son of a bitch.”
“Or what?” the mayor asked, his bravado only buttressed by the handful of passersby watching their exchange with interest. “Tell me one thing you could do that wouldn’t see you canceled faster than reruns ofThe Cosby Show.”
It would almost be worth it just to wipe the smarmy expression from the mayor’s face with his fist.
“How the fuck did you get to working for Forrester, anyhow? You voted against the tribe in the Snake River Dam case. You’re the reason they are having problems with their water supply.”
The mayor shrugged as if he weren’t shaking in his boots. Which he was. Visibly. “The enemy of my enemy and all that.”
