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R

ichard Touhy III was the mayor of Smiths Hollow, like his father Richard before him and his father Richard before

him. In fact, Richard Touhy III could trace an unbroken line of mayors named Touhy all the way back to the first mayor of Smiths Hollow, a man appointed by the Chicago baron who’d either saved the town from ruin or built it from the ground up, depending on who you talked to.

At the moment he very much wished that his father and his father before him had worked at the canned chili factory like everyone else in town. It would be a blessing to worry about nothing more complicated than the mortgage and his union dues and whether his wife was boffing the postman.

He was pretty certain, as a matter of fact, that his wife, Crystal, was boffing someone while he sat in his