Truth Like the Sun by Jim Lynch Page A

married women a good time is something he doesn’t like to admit, even to himself.
    Teddy corners him to suggest that he have a chat with the senator about the U.S. attorney’s ridiculous gambling inquiry, an opinion that he hasn’t softened even after Roger shared a bit of what he’d seen on his late-night forays. “You must’ve gone to the biggest joints on their busiest nights,” Teddy had grumbled.
    “Tell him the timing stinks,” he says now. “It’s not just the fair we’re worried about. We’ve got all these relocations hanging, right? Tell him about that. And remind him that grand juries are unpredictable as hell. There’s just a U.S. attorney telling jurors to charge people with crimes. A good one could indict Jesus.”
    “Why don’t you tell him?”
    “You’re his boy.” He winks. “Plus it’s
your
night, not mine.”
    Minutes later, waiting for the senator to finish a conversation, Roger overhears his mother lying about where he’d grown up and things he’d said and done as a child. Across the room, Malcolm Turner is chatting with the police chief, and apparently he feels the scrutiny because he suddenly turns and salutes him.
    Then the senator pivots and smiles. “Hell of an impromptu speech you fired off there.” He clinks his glass against Roger’s. “Been meaning to ask what you made of LBJ.”
    “He farts like a bugle.”
    Caught off-guard, the senator spittle-mists the air between them with laughter.
    Roger resists mopping his face, then says, “Do you know anything about the new U.S. attorney here, Senator?”
    “Stockton? He’s a go-getter.” He smiles, dabbing at the corners of his mouth with a hanky. “Kind of like you.”
    Roger rephrases Teddy’s concern that gambling headlines could cost the city its wholesome reputation at the worst possible time. The senator studies him, having no doubt heard every direct and obtuse pitch and plea a thousand times by now. He tilts his glass until iceclanks against his teeth, then mutters something about blue laws creating more problems than they solve.
    “Maybe there’s someone in that office who could at least keep me posted,” Roger ventures, his voice tightening. “Just until the fair closes.”
    The senator’s head bobs so slightly it could be an affirmation or just the jostling of his pulse before they’re interrupted by the tipsy governor.
    Roger accepts another whiskey and watches these successful men interact woodenly, as if they’re still developing skills he himself never had to learn. And with this revelation comes the notion that perhaps running for mayor is thinking too small. Sidestepping away now, he finds the fair’s arts director blocking his path with a hand on her hip.
    “Tuesday nights, at six,” she says, “right after closing, you could get some quiet time with the mods.” There’s nothing in Meredith Stein’s voice or face beyond a collegial friendliness, but in Roger’s mind it’s provocative nonetheless, especially with his fiancée cackling nearby. Meredith arches her neck, causing her breasts to lift beneath the satin. She’s just stretching, but she might as well have been pressing up against him.
    “I’ll definitely keep that in mind,” he says.
    “I bet you will,” she says. He blinks first.
    “Go easy,” Teddy whispers as he and Judith interrupt to say good night. “Pace yourself.”
    Roger nods, his nose deep in Judith’s hair with her long, lovely arms around his neck. “As always,” he whispers for her amusement.
    He walks Linda to the curb half an hour later, her anger with his growing evasiveness still mercifully suspended. Obviously tired, she resembles her mother around the eyes, which always makes him uneasy. But it’s not her looks that concern him, rather a lack of curiosity or insight that he fears might also be genetic. He has to stay to the bitter end, he explains, but promises he’ll get to her apartment as soon as he can. He kisses her once on the forehead,