Hold it!" Mina cried as they headed to the gate. "D. Vito! Stop!"

"For dis palooka?" D. Vito asked raising his eyebrows. "If I do recall, he instilled da Taxi Tax of 2001 where 15% of our wages went to funding his private golf course! It's good he got a taste of his own bankruptcy!"

"Still," Mina said, trying to hush her irate cabbie. "I just want to know what happened to him."

"Sure ting bub!"

D. Vito steered the car to the curb where the ex mayor sat. The man's stocky, middle-aged body was already barrel-shaped, but now he had a legitimate barrel encircling his naked frame to complete the ensemble. His toupee was noticably missing on his bald head.

When Mina rolled down the window, he looked up excitedly. Upon seeing who it was, he sighed. "Oh ith you," he lisped, crestfallen. "I guess, I should be thankful. It could have been another group of tourists coming to point and laugh at me."

"What happened to you?" Mina asked, curiously. "Other than getting absolutely decimated in the election!"

"Gah!" Banks exclaimed. "You have come to rub it in! I already knew you weren't gonna vote for me, considering your checkered voting history!"

"Uh…" Mina blinked twice. "You know, I only turned legal enough to vote this year right? Besides, I didn't vote for anyone…my candidate was brutally murdered…remember?"

"Yeth…" Monty Banks sighed again. "Greta is the only one on this holiday doing worse off than me. God, rest her soul."

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Mina paused, his surprisingly kind words shocking her into silence. She placed her hand on the window sill of the car. "Well, spit it out," she said, playing tough. "How did you get in this sad state?"

Monty Banks gazed forlornly towards Hotel Security. "If you must know, kid, after losing my election to a third party, losing my mayoral mansion and finding out my hot young girlfriend was actually a murderous axe wife, I moved into this hotel."

Banks faced Mina, surprisingly clear eyed for the first time ever. "I was only planning on staying for a little while, but the allures of the casino enraptured me. Soon, I had a handle in my hand, a showgirl around my arm, and tons of alcohol in my stomach. And before I knew it, I lost in a game of strip poker. But it wasn't just clothes I lost, I was stripped of all my assets!"

"Er…uh…" Mina asked, pointing at the barrel. "How did you get that?"

"Oh, this?" Monty asked. "It's my complimentary loser barrel, they give everyone who loses the shirt off their back. Plus,"--the ex mayor added–"Nobody wanted to see my portly personhood anyway!"

Mina nodded. She too was lucky she didn't have to have her innocent eyes imprinted with that wretched image.

"Well then," Monty said, his third sigh in a row. "Guess it's time for me to become a certified bum. I cheated my way to the top of the world, and now, the almighty dog of karma has lifted its leg over me and…"

"Get in the taxi!" Mina ordered him.

"Whuh?"

"Get in the taxi, you crook!" Mina growled. "It's the holidays and nobody deserves to be out in the rain and cold."

"But I, uh–" Monty Banks stammered. "What did I do to deserve this?"

"Nothing," Mina answered, her anger turning to a kind smile. "You're a really crooked person, but, I respect what you said about Greta. Especially since you two despised each other."

Monty Banks's eyes glimmered with tears. His mouth twitched, searching for the proper words. "I don't know what to thay," he lisped in his deep voice.

"Merry Christmas, you old felon!" Mina smirked. "You're coming to the Christmas party too!"