After I consumed two chocolate martinis Johnny went from being insufferable to being vaguely annoying.

      I had been hoping that Rick would switch to alcohol at some point, since I needed his lips loose, but he and Mary Ann steadfastly stuck to soda. He did seem a little drunk, though, but it was Mary Ann that was causing the intoxication. When one of the singing waiters (all the waiters at Max’s Opera Café sing, thus the name) approached the mike in order to perform a rendition of a Broadway show tune, Rick would turn his eyes to them politely, but the rest of the time he kept his focus on my friend as she devoured Max’s signature Meaty Lasagna. I had hoped to discreetly control the conversation so that I could get everyone talking about Eugene without having to ask pointed questions. I realized that discretion would not be mine when we got to the point of ordering dessert without a single word about Eugene.

      I waited for Mary Ann to finish telling us all about the features, advantages and benefits of Lancôme’s Juicy Tubes before asking pointed question number one. “How long ago did you two first meet Eugene?”

      “Huh?” Rick was preoccupied with Mary Ann’s juicy lips. “I’ve known him most of my life. He worked with my father when they were in the FBI.”

      “I didn’t meet him until I got the job with Fitzgerald,” Johnny said. “He was always nice to everyone on Fitzgerald’s team, just a really swell guy.” He laughed. “Did you hear that? I just used the word swell. Does anyone use that word anymore? Well, I guess I do, don’t I? Let’s see if I can use it again. These bread sticks sure are swell.”

      It took everything in me not to use one of the swell bread sticks to whack him on the head. “What did he do between leaving the FBI and joining Fitzgerald’s team?” I asked, angling my body away from Johnny and toward Rick.

      Rick fiddled with his fork. “Aren’t you friends with Melanie?”

      “We’re like family,” I confirmed.

      “Then how come she never told you any of this?”

      A damn good question. “When I say family I mean she’s like a favorite aunt. I love her to death but I don’t see her all the time. For the most part Melanie and I have been out of touch since she moved and married Eugene. I never got the full scoop and asking her now feels a bit insensitive.”

      “Poor Melanie,” Johnny sighed. “I think she just wants some company. She’s such a nice lady. Kind of reminds me of my mom.”

      “I bet she’d like your mom,” Rick mused. “They’re both religious and passionate about reading. Maybe you should introduce them.”

      “Great idea! I take my mom out to lunch all the time,” Johnny explained. “I think I’ll ask Melanie if she wants to come with us next time. She could probably use some more friends. Don’t you think so, Sophie?”

      “Yeah, sure, great idea.” I tried to imagine the kind of parents that would have produced a man like Johnny. No, better not go there. I turned back to Rick. “So, anyway, you were telling me about Eugene’s work.”

      “Yes.” Rick f lashed Johnny a sympathetic smile. I think it was pretty obvious that he was striking out. “Eugene worked on a lot of political campaigns,” he explained. “He had so many areas of expertise, but I personally think his greatest strength lay in his research ability.” He smiled fondly. “The man should have been a librarian.”

      “Wait a minute. What kind of research?” I sat back in my chair as a new realization hit me. “He dug up the dirt.”

      “Excuse me?” Rick dropped his eyes to his food. Johnny just looked confused.

      “Fitzgerald hired him to be an operative of sorts,” I said, “to get the goods on the competition. In this case the competition would be Anne Brooke.”

      “Eugene and everyone else working for Fitzgerald have the same basic job,” Rick said a bit too sharply. “To convince the voters to put their faith in our candidate…no, more than that, our job is to make them love Fitzgerald. Tearing down the opposing candidate isn’t going to do that.”

      “Are you telling me that Fitzgerald didn’t hire Eugene to dig up dirt?” I asked incredulously. “Because while dissing Brooke may not, in and of itself, score Fitzgerald enough votes to win, it does seem to be enough to keep things in a dead heat.”

      “Eugene may have stumbled onto a few details regarding Brooke’s personal life,” Rick hedged, “but I don’t think any of Brooke’s past indiscretions are important enough to seriously affect the polls. Fitzgerald is managing to give Brooke a run for her money because of his proposed policies and positions on the issues. I know that people in San Francisco see him as a conservative extremist, but you have to remember that people in Contra Costa County see San Francisco as a beacon of liberal extremism. Fitzgerald’s family-values platform strikes a chord with the folks he wants to represent.”

      “Fitzgerald really does have a lot of great things to say about family,” Johnny piped in. “He knows God and family are the most important things, but he’s not one of those dowdy politicians who thinks the only way to have fun is to take the wife to a church picnic in the beige family Oldsmobile. He drives her there in a green Sportrac! It’s like he’s the cool evangelical husband who knows how to live it up!”

      “Give me a break,” I scoffed. “Brooke’s personal reputation is so bad it’s even made the San Francisco papers. If voters liked Fitzgerald so much he’d have a huge lead on Brooke, but as it stands now he’s never been ahead by more than three points, which is within the margin of error for most of those polls. Brooke may be more liberal than what the people of Contra Costa are used to, but they’re more comfortable with her love of labor unions than they are with Fitzgerald’s hatred of contraceptives. Based on his positions he should be losing this race. The only way he’s going to win is if Brooke self-destructs, which she seems to be doing,”

      “I wouldn’t go so far as to say she’s self-destructing,” Rick mumbled.

      “I would,” Johnny said. “You’d have to be pretty self-destructive to marry that broccoli guy! You do know she’s married to the guy who wrote Broccoli for Life. Can you imagine how much gas he must have? I know, I know, it’s a gross thing to think about, but it’s funny since—”

      “She was arrested for drunk driving at seventeen,” I said, completely ignoring Johnny and holding up my fingers to count off Brooke’s faux pas. “When pressed, she admitted to taking all sorts of drugs in college, she had an abortion at the tail end of her first trimester when she was in her early thirties, and a former coworker from her private-sector days is claiming that she slept with her boss in exchange for promotions and raises. Furthermore, we know that she cheated on her previous husband at least two times. This woman makes Clinton look like a poster boy for moral behavior. And now there are accusations that she cheated on her taxes and broke one of the fifty million rules regarding campaign fund-raising. But no one knew any of that stuff before she announced her run for Congress. Now, look me in the eye and tell me that Fitzgerald didn’t hire Eugene to dig that information up so it could be leaked to the media.”

      Rick swallowed hard and evaded my obvious attempts at eye contact. “Brooke’s problems have helped our camp,” he said begrudgingly, “but that has nothing to do with Eugene or what he did for the campaign.”

      Just then a large group of waiters materialized carrying a huge piece of chocolate cake and singing a perfectly harmonized version of “Happy Birthday.”

      “You guys did this for me?” Johnny asked. “This is great! Isn’t this great?”

      No, it wasn’t great. Rick was lying to me; I was sure of it, which meant that I was right about the dirt-digging stuff. Some of the accusations floating around about Brooke were so bad that if anyone was able to prove them she would most likely lose her freedom right along with the election. If Eugene had been able