Chapter 16

I arrived back at the office after a full day of wasted time in the Capital.

I had just enough time to go over my evening schedule with Pat before I had to leave for the first of what would be 16 fundraisers this evening.

“Looks like you have 13 events tonight Leathers starting at 6pm at the Fort Lemon Club for Senator Volmer”

“Nope I added 3 more while I was at the capital, all 3 are at the Fort Lemon, one for that Assemblywomen from upstate Gigglebrand or Gildersleeve I can’t remember, then Washington has his first event this week, I bought two tables and I told Squabble I’d go to his rave whatever the fuck that is”

“You’re going to Squabble’s rave? Do you plan to visit the VIP room?”

“Probably, if it’s VIP I should be there”

Pat giggled like a little school girl.

“Well before you go into the VIP room take these”

She handed me two small vials that looked like smelling salts.

“What are they and what do I do with them?”

“Amyl Nitrate just pop them and sniff it like smelling salts”

“Why would I take these?”

“Leathers if you end up in the VIP room you might be catching not pitching and these will help”

“How would you know?”

“Been there done that, I went to a lot of fundraisers when I was with the angels”

“These look illegal where did you get them”

“Danny gave them to me the last time we had dinner”

“Danny huh? Did you ever . . .”

“Did I ever what?”

“Never mind.  What’s the rest of the fundraiser schedule look like?”

“Of the 13 events 8 are at the Lemon, 3 are at the University Club in Saratoga”

“Saratoga? It’s not even track season why is anyone going up there?”

“The casino, they give heavily discounted event packages so a lot of the Assembly fundraisers for the Republicans are held there, you get the room and catering for $100 and 100 rolls of quarter tokens for the slot machines.”

“Send Murray to Saratoga where are the last two”

“One at the Grove and one in Senator O’Flahraty’s office at the Legislative Office Building”

“A fundraiser in his Senate office?  Is he crazy?  Even our local District Attorney can figure out that’s a felony”

“Well first he had no choice, the Lemon was fully booked this evening and second The DA is going to be up in Saratoga, he loves free slot play”

“Okay send the new intern Amanda to O’Flahratys’ and make sure you tell her not to fuck any staff person below the Deputy level”

“Leathers be nice she is Mclowey’s sisters husbands best friends daughter”

“Fine then she can fuck whomever she wants tonight but remind her if she wanted to fuck state workers she should have gotten a job as a secretary in the Legislature not as an intern for a lobbyist.  We give jobs to legislator’s family members in return for passing legislation not to get them laid”

“Wow you are in a bad mood, may I remind you if it weren’t for interns you might have been celibate for the vast majority of your time working in the legislature”

“You may not.  Who has the Grove fundraiser?”

“Ping Pong, he has started an exploratory committee to run for Mayor in New York”

“He wants to be Mayor of New York City but he holds his first fundraiser in Albany?  What’s the table price and who is going?”

“That’s the weird thing, he specifically said no lobbyists or their clients are invited”

“That’s just more bullshit good government window dressing, how much does he want if you don’t attend?”

“He says he is not accepting donations from lobbyists or their clients’ period”

“So who is invited?”

“Elected members of the Senate and Assembly only”

“That fucking guy is a genius so the only people that can send him money are the ones he is threatening to put in jail?  My god he has raised the bar on pay to play.  He turned fundraising into pay or pray.  Didn’t Rice do something similar when he ran for reelection as Attorney General?”

“Kind of but he would fund raise from targets of his investigations along with everyone else, Ping is refining his fundraising message it’s very clear if you don’t donate you will be indicted”

“I have news for you Pat I think even if you do donate this guy will indict you, he thinks he is on a mission from God.  How did we get an invite?”

“We didn’t but I got us a seat at Hibert’s table in return for donating enough money to Hibert to buy the table.  I was told he did the same thing with 9 other lobbyists and their clients for a ten person table.  So it ends up being you, Hibert and eight other swinging dicks at the Grove. . . so here’s two more poppers enjoy.”

“Who are the other eight?”

“I wasn’t able to get the full list but Richard, Danny, Bobby, Jennifer and some guy named Lev Behuna for sure.  And I heard former Senator Nicky Spanko has been released from prison and is now lobbying with that new group Momentum Associates, he is supposed to be there”

“Okay I’ll do all the Lemon events and then hit the Grove last.  Anything else important?”

“Yes Karp delivered a package for you and said to call him.  Have fun Mort and relax let the Amyl Nitrate do its job you may even find you like it”

“I’m not taking it up the ass Pat, I’ll leave that to Danny and former Governor Mazzone”

“I think you will find Danny is far more open minded about his body than you are Mort, grow up”

When Pat left I opened Karp’s package to find a new recording device.

I called Karp.

“Why do I need a new recorder?”

“Leathers we want you to record the event at the Grove tonight”

“But why a new recorder?”

“It’s an app based recorder that works off of cell phone signals it will allow us to listen to conversations from everyone’s cell phones within 20 feet of it”

“It looks like the FBI is moving up in the technology world huh?”

“Not really one of our agents picked it up as a free sample at Radio Shack.  Do you see the frequency setting on the side?”

“Yes”

“Select frequency 3”

“Why 3?”

“Because Ping Pong is using 1 for his table bugs and Spanko will be recording on 2”

“Spanko is working for you guys?”

“How do you think he got out of jail so quick I’ll see you at Eggy’s tomorrow for breakfast”

What was going to be a light night of fundraisers by Albany standards just got very busy.