Used and Abused by the Mob

Chapter 1 - Doug

Chapter 1 - Doug

I looked around my little office with a self-satisfied smile. It wasn’t much, as offices go. Mine was in an old construction trailer parked in the lot next to the municipal building, because what I did wasn’t considered important enough to squeeze me into the overcrowded structure next door.

The trailer’s thin old aluminum door didn’t close properly, the linoleum on the floor was cracked and faded, and I sat at an old steel desk with a peeling laminate top. The desk probably dated from the 1930’s. It didn’t matter that the lower left drawer didn’t close right – the desk and the office were mine. I’d never had a desk of my own before, and now I had a title and an office. Not bad for a guy with a high school education who had been cleaning storm drains for the city not long before.

I don’t know how I’d caught the eye of the mayor the first time. Later he invited me to join him at his regular booth as he ate breakfast and regaled his hangers-on with stories that showcased his brilliance.

I had difficulty fitting in across from him. The mayor’s large belly pushed the table hard against me, making it difficult to breathe.

After our fifth or sixth breakfast I’d become a regular. I always showed enthusiasm for his stories, even after the sixth telling. One day he asked me to join him in his office.

“Doug, do you know how to read a contract?” he asked.

“No, sir.”

“Good, you’re the perfect man for the job. We’ve got a lawyer who knows all about contracts, but he doesn’t work for me. He’s not loyal, and you gotta have people who are loyal to you when you’re the mayor. Are you loyal, Doug?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You remember to always put me and my family first and I’ll take care of you.”

That’s how I got the job. The sign outside the aluminum door that wouldn’t close properly read:

Contracting Department

The truth was, we had very little say in any contracts. We, being my assistant Mary Beth and me. Every contract the city entered into, and there were a lot, came through us for initial checking before going to the city attorney. Each of the finalized contracts were on our computers, and the executed copies were in our files.

My job was simple: I was there to protect the mayor. He’d even sent me to school to learn about contracts, and after reading so many of them that my eyes felt like they might bleed, I’d gotten pretty good at it.

Then he’d sent me to a second, tougher school, on how to protect the boss and make him look good. This school was taught by an old man who sounded like a gangster, because he was one.

Despite all my training, most days were routine and boring. Just the way I like it.

The most important things weren’t spelled out in the contracts. His honor wasn’t driving a top-of-the-line luxury car to his lavish mansion on the mayor’s salary alone.

The mayor learned to trust me enough to give me what amounted to final say on a few agreements. The city attorney didn’t care, he was just collecting a city check and waiting for his retirement.

The particular contract I was holding should have been simple. It was for five years of city trash hauling, solid waste pickup and disposal. The contract was for a small population on the other side of the river, an area we administratively shared with an adjacent county.

There had been three trash hauling companies but two had merged, under suspicious circumstances, and now there was a big company and a small competitor.

I had the renewal proposal from our current waste hauler, the small operation run by a guy named Abraham. Normally I’d just approve it, and whatever his arrangement was with the mayor, but things weren’t normal just then.

In the last election, the city council had been taken over by a reform group wanting more council control and transparency. The mayor hated them.

“Look Doug. We’ve got to appear to be going along. Here’s what I want you to do: get a quote from those other fellas and make a recommendation to me. For some reason those assholes on the council trust you, so I’ll just sign off on whatever you recommend.” The mayor pushed his dirty breakfast dishes to one side. “This way I can’t be accused of anything. I’ll just leave it in your hands. But, Doug, don’t f**k it up for me.”

“Abraham’s done a good job though, hasn’t he?” I was fishing for the mayor to give a direction. We waited for Marjory to refill our coffee cups. The usual gang had all left for their cushy city jobs.

Marjory and his honor eyed each other. I didn’t want to know what was going on between the two of them, but the mayor told me anyway. “Ol’ Marjory and I used to be an item. Before I gained these last fifty pounds and before her t**s hung to her knees.”

Marjory gave him the finger. “More like a hundred pounds.”

“Anyway, Abraham’s done well, I guess. Of course, this is a small deal since he doesn’t do the city; just this one contract he’s had forever. It doesn’t matter enough to me.” I should have caught his wink.

What I heard was: Abraham wasn’t kicking back enough to make a difference. The decision was mine to make, maybe along with whatever the kickback amounted to.

I had my feet on my desk basking in the ambiance of my semi-private office. The wall hangings were things nobody else wanted, as were the old fashion file cabinets. Mary Beth walked in surrounded in a cloud of sweet perfume, as usual.

Mary Beth was a small, bleach blonde, lusty woman wearing too much make up. Her clothing emphasized her enormous breasts and her legs, displaying them almost to her center.

“I thought you’d be home tapping Candy,” my assistant had a thing about my wife’s s*x life. I wondered, not for the first time, what that was about.

My wife was, in some ways, Mary Beth’s opposite. Candy was tall and had shiny dark hair, and her breasts were scaled more to human size. Still, my wife boobs were just the right shape, curve and softness. She was perfectly proportioned to her frame and her body seemed to be saying: “Come, touch me all over and f**k me. You know it will be wonderful.”

Most importantly, Candy was rather innocent and naïve in her demeanor, although she was shyly fascinated by anything having to do with s*x. I suspected Candy’s body was alive for her, sexually. I think she was hungering for something, although she wasn’t sure what that something was. Maybe it was because we were both approaching our thirtieth birthdays and if women peaked at thirty, then Candy was beginning to peak.

Candy had never liked her name, she thought it made her sound like a stripper or a ‘70’s p**n star. While she’d have looked fantastic taking her clothes off in public, I couldn’t imagine a more inappropriate name for my rather strait-laced wife.

We’d been near virgins when we’d first met. I was a city employee and Candy taught music. My crew had been working on a clogged drain on the street in front of her apartment building. It had been a Saturday when the temperature was near 100 degrees, with humidity to match.

Candy, wearing a tight tee shirt and shorts that gave just a hint of camel toe, brought out glasses of lemonade for us, and the rest is history. She confessed later she’d been watching me and had decided we should meet. I was just too good-looking, sweating in my tight shirt. She was a dream walking across the yard, her n*****s faintly visible with those glasses of cold lemonade.

We dated and fell in love. I mean seriously in love. I don’t think I could live without Candy. She means everything to me, and I think she feels the same way about me.

The first time we’d made love had been a rushed unsatisfying affair for both of us. But the second time had been magical. We’d been looking into each other’s eyes when we came simultaneously. We both said, “I love you,” at the same time, too.

Our one disappointment has been the lack of children. We’ve never been tested, but it had never happened, either. So, we just had each other.

“Nope, got work to do today. That waste hauling contract is expiring in six months and the mayor wants it wrapped up,” I answered Mary Beth.

“Did we get the bid from Abraham yet?”

“Just came in, but I’ve got to ask for a competitive offer from Vlad – whatever his last name is – I can’t pronounce it.”

Mary Beth tried to teach me how to say Vlad’s tongue twisting Russian last name. It didn’t help. I’d just call him Vlad or Vladimir.