My mouth twisted in an involuntary grimace. “When I was with the PD, Coleman and the state’s attorney—Karl Swevel, it was then—fell over each other to see who could line up the most support for the local Dems. Who we defended and how we did it, that took a far distant backseat to licking local asses. Nobody minded then, and nobody seems to care much now.”

I saw that my neighbor was looking seriously aggrieved—as much at my choice of words as what I was saying—and patted his arm consolingly. “Let’s find the kid. We need to prove to her that we showed up.”

We worked our way through the press of people until we stumbled on Petra near one of the bars. She was talking to an assorted collection of lobbyists and legislators, who all had the round shiny faces of people who’ve spent too many years with their heads in the public trough.

Petra squealed with delight and flung her arms around Mr. Contreras. “Uncle Sal, you made it! Look at you with all your decorations! And, Vic, you’re so splendiferous! I wondered for a second who Uncle Sal’s gorgeous date was.”

She gave a peal of laughter, and the group she’d been talking to, jaded old party hacks though they were, joined in. Mr. Contreras brightened instantly. Petra herself was wearing a chiffon flower-child dress over shimmery tights. In her spiky heels, she towered over almost everyone around her, including me.

“I have to find the senator, I mean Mr. Krumas—I keep forgetting we have to elect him first!—I know he’ll want a picture with Uncle Sal,” she explained to her group, adding to Mr. Contreras, “I’m going to take you to Uncle Harvey’s table so I know just where to find you.”

She linked her arm through Mr. Contreras’s and started to steer him through the crowd. I followed meekly in their wake. Twenty-three years old and she was already a pro, tapping shoulders, laughing, stooping to hear what an old woman with a hearing aid was shouting up at her.

About a dozen numbered tables, festooned with red, white, and blue balloons and giant RESERVED signs, stood near the band and a podium. Pretty soon, we’d get to hear a bunch of soul-stirring rhetoric. The tables were set aside for the people who had really come through for Krumas. According to the program, they cost a hundred fifty grand, fifteen grand a chair. Which just proves that adage about real-estate prices being all about location; the chairs were the same metal folding kind you can pick up at any church rummage sale.