This Friday my rich guy is going to take me and a few other friends to our new rich guy strip club here in town, supposed to be quite remarkable in its degeneracy. Now before you say, "Like a rich guy would know degenerate compared to you" remember, this is Russia -- these rich guys here have had some adventures that would make Patrick Bateman blanche.
The vice-mayor of Vodkaberg almost got assassinated a few months ago -- somebody rigged up a grenade with a trip wire next to his parking space. I was of course interested in the techinical details of this -- apparently the trip wire was operated manually by somebody standing on the other side of the parking lot out of sight. Not exactly the high-tech wonder somebody who watches too much television would expect, but there you go. He wasn't killed, but riddled with shrapnel -- one leg is badly injured.
My rich guy said this probably came about as a result of being double-crossed by our inept, greedy, and moody Mayor. They make most of their money from bribes related to construction contracts -- as I mentioned a hell of a lot of construction going on now -- and the Mayor will occasionally take bribes from one group for something, then accept a large bribe from someone else for the same thing, and if the first group kicks up a fuss, he says, "Oh, that was the Vice Mayor, he forged my signature on something, it's not my fault."
Needless to say the Vice Mayor has decided to get out of politics, and is taking a healthy rest in Israel, where there are a lot of specialists in treating shrapnel wounds.