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55

Tuesday, October 22, two weeks before Election Day, the standings looked like this:

COZZANO 59%

PRESIDENT 8%

MCLANE 18%

UNDECIDED 10%

OTHER 5%

An obscure Washington D.C.-based organization called the American Association of Physicians, Surgeons, and Osteopaths staged a press conference at which a videotape was shown to the press and then disseminated to all of the networks. The videotape was a series of outtakes from Cozzano's campaign, a blooper film if you will. It started out with some excerpts from an interview in which he was still suffering from some speech impediments. From there it moved onward through the campaign, showing Cozzano during commercial breaks, bantering with reporters on airport runways, walking down the aisle of his campaign plane to the bathroom, doing sound checks before debates, and so on. The one thing that all of these takes had in common was that, in each of them, Cozzano did something wrong: slurred some words or tripped over his own feet. One particularly striking clip showed Cozzano working a crowd at a rally in Newark. A woman handed her baby to Cozzano for a kiss and he nearly dropped it, seemingly overcome by a temporary seizure. "I-I-I-I'm sorry," he stuttered, and handed it back to her. The conclusion reached by the experts of the American Association of Physicians, Surgeons, and Osteopaths was that Cozzano was still suffering from "severe neurological deficits" and was not fit to be president.

Excerpts from the videotape were broadcast repeatedly on virtually every television news program in the United States, in many cases as the evening's top story.

Wednesday, October 23:

COZZANO 51%

PRESIDENT 10%

MCLANE 21%

UNDECIDED 13%

OTHER 5%

In Chicago, a press conference was held by Tommy Markovich, a venerable Chicago sportscaster who had been well known to sports fans in that city during the late sixties and early seventies. He had retired in 1980. Markovich said that his conscience had been troubling him about something. He showed an excerpt of a Bears-Vikings game from the year 1972. Late in the game, the Vikings were leading by ten points and the Bears were driving from their own thirty with only one minute left in the game. William A. Cozzano, who was a tight end, went out on a screen pass, caught the ball, and found himself out in the open with nothing between him and the goal line except for hard-frozen turf. He ran unobstructed all the way to the Viking ten, where, inexplicably, the ball squirted loose from his arms and dribbled back upfield for a few yards, where a pursuing Viking fell on it. It had been a famous gaffe at the time, not so much because it was significant to the outcome of the game (it wasn't), but because Cozzano was known for being a steady and reliable sort of player who didn't make mental mistakes.

Now, a couple of decades later, the shriveled old man who had called that game on TV wanted to point something out: the Vikings had been favored to win that game by ten points. By dropping the ball, Cozzano had preserved the point spread.

Thursday, October 24:

COZZANO 45%

PRESIDENT 12%

MCLANE 25%

UNDECIDED 14%

OTHER 4%

In an exclusive interview with CBS Sports, a noted author of books on the Mob said that Nicodemo ("Nicky Freckles") Costanza, an important Chicago Mob figure who ran a huge illegal sports betting operation during the sixties and seventies, had made something like twenty million dollars off the 1972 Bears-Vikings game - money he would have forfeited if William A. Cozzano had simply held on to the ball long enough to reach the goal line.

A local TV reporter for one of the network affiliates in Chicago released the results of a two-month investigation into connections between the Cozzano family and the Mafia. The centerpiece was a vast family tree - actually, several family trees intertwined into a thicket - so big that it had been drawn, in minute letters and lines, on a four-by-eight foot sheet of plywood. The extended Cozzano family was shown in blue. Mob families were shown in red. The family trees went all the way back to the twelfth-century Genoa and showed that William A. Cozzano, John Gotti, Al Capone, and Benito Mussolini were all distantly related.

The Cozzano campaign issued a press release stating that the American Association of Physicians, Surgeons, and Osteopaths had not existed until some two weeks previously, and appeared to have a membership of three, all of whom had shown up at the press conference two days ago as experts urging Cozzano to withdraw from the race. One of these three was a former Army doctor who had been discharged under other than honourable circumstances. One of them no longer practiced because he could no longer obtain malpractice insurance. The third had declared bankruptcy after fifty of his patients filed a class-action suit against him complaining of botched breast implants.

The Cozzano campaign also issued a blooper reel of its own, showing the incumbent President and Tip McLane tripping over their shoelaces and slurring words, and suggested that these two might want to have neurological exams of their own.

Finally, a video expert was trotted out to state that the videotape of Cozzano nearly dropping the baby in Newark had evidently been doctored; other videotapes made of the same event did not show him doing anything unusual.

Friday, October 25:

COZZANO 40%

PRESIDENT 14%

MCLANE 29%

UNDECIDED 13%

OTHER 4%

Acting on an anonymous tip, a reporter for a Chicago network affiliate tracked down Alberto ("Stitches") Barone, ninety-six years of age, who was living in a dingy convalescent home on Chicago's south side. Stitches agreed to have the nurses unbutton his shirt so that he could display the numerous scars that he had received during an epochal knife duel with John Cozzano, William's father, some sixty years earlier, for the hand of the fair Francesca Domenici. Over time, the scars had contracted and become even more grotesque than they had been to begin with. Stitches Barone, fortified with a few injections, managed to sit up in bed and deliver an unrehearsed, four-hour statement to the TV cameras, telling the entire story of his ten-decade life and times. Of these four hours, one hour was devoted to his childhood in Italy, one hour to his heyday in the Al Capone organization, one hour to his physical ailments, and one hour to recounting the antics of his favorite dog, Bozo, who had died of vehicular trauma in 1953. The reporter took the videotape home and culled the one sentence devoted to the subject of John Cozzano: "he was a vicious man who would stop at nothing to get what he wanted, and I was afraid of him."

William A. Cozzano appeared at a press conference in New York with a number of leading Italian-Americans, including the daughter of Nicodemo ("Nicky Freckles") Costanza. The Italian-American leaders blasted the media for defaming Cozzano, and Costanza's daughter, in particular, stated that there had never been any connection between her father and Cozzano. A family tree was brought out to show that Cozzano was also related to Leonardo da Vinci and Joe Dimaggio. Saturday, October 26:

COZZANO 36%

PRESIDENT 14%

MCLANE 31%

UNDECIDED 14%

OTHER 5%

Campaigning in the state of Washington, William A. Cozzano visited Seattle's Pike Place Market, where a number of Southeast Asian immigrants had been able to set up thriving businesses selling produce that they raised on truck farms outside the city. Making his way down the center of the market, surrounded by a high cloud of media, Cozzano stopped at one stand and bought an apple from the attractive young Laotian-American woman on the other side of the counter.

Just as he was biting into the apple, he was assaulted, and nearly knocked down, by a tiny, rabid, screaming person who had charged in underneath the radar of the Secret Service men. It was an old woman, not much more than four feet tall, wearing a conical hat, screaming hysterically in Vietnamese, pummeling and clawing at Cozzano with both hands.

By the time the Secret Service dragged her off of the shocked Cozzano, roughly a hundred dollars' worth of assorted produce had been destroyed by the feet of video cameramen and still photographers who leapt up on to the high ground as soon as they heard trouble, running back and forth along the tables looking for a camera angle, churning the opulent displays of fresh strawberries, asparagus, basil, chanterelles, blackberries, and sweet corn into succotash. Most of them just barely had time to zero their cameras in on the contorted face of the old Vietnamese woman before she began to scream, in English: "You killed my baby! You killed my baby! You are an evil man!" Sunday, October 27:

COZZANO 35%

PRESIDENT 15%

MCLANE 34%

UNDECIDED 12%

OTHER 4%

A front-page exclusive in the Sunday editions of The Dallas Morning News told an interesting story of about Cozzano's son, James. James Cozzano had spent most of the spring and summer following the primary campaigns as part of a research project for his doctoral dissertation. During this period he had made contacts with Lawrence Barnes, a wealthy Dallas businessman who was a big supporter of the candidacy of the Reverend Doctor William Joseph Sweigel. After Sweigel's loss to Tip McLane, Lawrence Barnes had approached James Cozzano and offered him a position on the board of directors of an import-export business, based in Houston, in which Barnes held a majority interest. The business dealt mostly in equipment related to oil exploration and drilling.

It was now revealed that this company did most of its business with Iraq and Libya, and that minority interests were owned by shady offshore companies that were known to be controlled by the governments of those countries.

Monday, October 28:

COZZANO 32%

PRESIDENT 16%

MCLANE 34%

UNDECIDED 13%

OTHER 5%

Fifty newspapers across the United States ran the same photo­graph on the front page, a wire service photo taken on a small lake a few miles south of Tuscola, Illinois. The photo showed a local farmer out on a little rowboat, examining the surface of the lake, which was covered with dead fish. The farmer said that the fish kill was almost certainly caused by a spill of toxic waste originating from the CBAP plant in Tuscola - the economic foundation of the Cozzano fortune.

The Cozzano campaign held a press conference in Seattle, in which leaders of the local Vietnamese-American community stated that no one had ever seen, or heard of, the little Vietnamese lady who had accused Cozzano of war crimes. The woman herself had gone into seclusion after having been released by the police, and was no longer speaking to the press; but her family insisted that Cozzano had rolled a hand grenade into their hut in Vietnam and blown up three small children.

Tuesday, October 29:

COZZANO 30%

PRESIDENT 17%

MCLANE 38%

UNDECIDED 11%

OTHER 4%

A retired nurse who had once been hired to work in the Cozzano home, during the prolonged illness of Christina Cozzano, said that during the last few weeks of her life, Cozzano's late wife had become addicted to painkilling drugs.

The wife of Tip McLane's vice-presidential candidate, during a speech to a conservative Christian group, stated that Eleanor Richmond's overbearing and "unusually aggressive" personality had played a significant role in driving her husband to suicide.

James Cozzano resigned from the board of directors of the import-export company in Texas and stated that he had been taken for a ride.

Wednesday, October 30:

COZZANO 29%

PRESIDENT 18%

MCLANE 38%

UNDECIDED 12%

OTHER 3%

The farmer who had accused CBAP of polluting the water and killing the fish retracted his statement, saying it had been based upon information given to him by an unknown "expert" who had since disappeared. Chemical analysis of the bodies of the fish showed that they had been killed by a common agricultural pesticide, which was available at any farm supply business, and which was not produced at CBAP.

The retired nurse who had told the story about Christina Cozzano's drug addiction was found dead in her garage in Peoria; she had committed suicide by breathing car exhaust.

The wife of Tip McLane's running mate stated in an interview that she had not meant, in any way, to say negative things about Eleanor Richmond.

William A. Cozzano canceled all of his campaign appearances for the rest of the week, saying that he needed to prepare for the big debate on Friday night.

Nimrod T. ("Tip") McLane, in an informal interview with Markene Caldicott on his campaign plane, deplored the way the presidential campaign had gone negative.

The President of the United States, addressing a Boy Scout jamboree in Arizona, said that he didn't blame young people for sometimes losing faith in politics, and promised that, when reelected, he would appoint a presidential commission to look into the state of America's elections.

The anchorman of the CBS Evening News, in a rare editorial, said that the presidential campaign had reached new depths this year, and stated that his organization was taking steps to make sure that it would not happen again.

At the private hotel that serves as Jeremiah Freel's headquarters, security remained tight. The elevators were turned off except when someone very important was expected, or three times a day when room service was brought up from the kitchen.

For the fourth morning in a row, the waitress named Louella brought Jeremiah Freel his dish of stewed prunes. This did not go unnoticed by Freel. Louella was a hard woman not to notice. It was almost inconceivable that any woman, clad in the dowdy uniform of a hotel waitress, could appear sexy. But Louella managed. She must have taken her uniform home and modified it somehow, dropped the neckline, raised the hem. Every day, she was showing a little more cleavage, and every day, when she placed the breakfast tray on the table in front Jeremiah Freel, she bent down a little bit lower, gave him a longer and deeper look down into the front of her dress.

Today he could no longer restrain himself. His hand darted down into her blouse, quick as a striking cobra, and caught her nipple. Not hard enough to hurt. But hard enough to keep her where she was.

"Mr. Freel," said one of his minders. One of the hated men in suits who surrounded him at all times.

"Shut up, asswipe!" Freel said.

Louella was staring straight into Freel's eyes. She wasn't angry at all. She was almost amused. She was interested. She licked her lips and said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Freel, but fresh fruit isn't on today's menu." Her face was about four inches from Freel's. She was wearing a lot of perfume and Freel could smell it wafting up from the middle of her hot cleavage.

"Then what do I have here?" Freel said, squeezing her nipple.

"You don't have a damn thing," Louella said, "unless you can get us a little bit of privacy." She looked around accusingly at all of the men in suits: four of them in this room alone.

"Get the fuck out!" Freel shouted.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Freel, you know we can't allow that!" said the head honcho, a guy who would only identify himself as Al. Al was clearly getting a little nervous. "Ma'am," he said to Louella, "I'm afraid you'll have to leave."

"But I can't," Louella said, "until Mr. Freel lets go of me. And I can tell you he's not the kind of man who lets go until he gets what he wants."

"Get the fuck out," Freel said, "or this whole campaign goes up in flames. Can't you see I need to get laid?"

This appeal to simple, basic human needs got through to Al. He broke eye contact and thought about it for a second. "Well, okay," he finally said. "Come on guys, let's leave them alone."

All of Freel's minders got up and backed out of the room staring fixedly at Louella's backside. Louella turned around and yelled at them on their way out. "And I don't want you standing outside the door listening, either. You get back to your own rooms and watch TV of something."

Al, and the rest of the minders, left the room and closed the door.

They were still standing there, nervously, a minute later, when Louella stuck her head out the door. "I knew it!" she said. "You guys are all perverts. Get back to your rooms!"

Al posted one of his men by the elevators, just down the hall, and then the rest of the men retreated to their rooms, leaving the doors open.

A minute later, the guard by the elevators heard the little bell chime. The down arrow lit up. The elevator door opened to reveal a pair of brawny men, both wearing gas masks and ear protectors, who were just in the perfectly timed act of bursting out the doors; one of them grabbed the guard by the collar and jammed a thick wad of cloth over his mouth as the other reached out with a small but dense blunt object and took it upside of his head.

Louella emerged from Freel's room, stark naked, pursued closely by Freel himself. She was laughing and screaming; he was shouting, "You dirty bitch! Get back here!"

Louella made for the elevator. She reached it, and hit the lobby button, just as Al and the rest of Freel's guards were emerging into the corridor. They saw nothing but Jeremiah Freel diving into the elevator, and two large, unfamiliar men strewing stun grenades up and down the length of the hallway.

Twenty seconds later, staff and guests in the lobby were treated to the sight of Louella, a former Miss April, sprinting out of the elevator doors stark naked, still laughing and giggling, and running toward the front entrance, pursued the entire way by an old man with his erect penis sticking out of his fly.

A doorman, reflexes honed by years of practice, cleared the way. Louella ran through the open door, into the horseshoe drive, and jumped into the back of a windowless van. The door slammed shut, the van burned rubber and shot forward out of the drive, revealing something that had been hiding on the other side of it: Cyrus Rutherford Ogle, flanked by two dozen TV cameramen and still photographers, all of whom were busily recording the quickly changing facial expressions of Jeremiah Freel, and his vanishing penis.

"Come back to lose another election, Jeremiah?" Ogle said.

Freel's mouth dropped open and his nose wrinkled into a snarl. His eyes jumped back and forth between Ogle and the cameraman.

Then he charged.

Cy Ogle stood his ground, hands in the pockets of his trench coat.

Freel dove the last six feet, wrapped his arms around Ogle's thighs, and bent his head back, mouth open to bite into Ogle's genitals.

Ogle took his hand from his pocket, holding a small cylindrical object. His index finger twitched and fired a long stream of Mace directly into Freel's open mouth. Freel went into violent convul­sions and fell to the horseshoe drive, thrashing, foaming, and howling like a wounded animal.

"Welcome to public relations hell," Ogle said, and then climbed into a waiting car. As it drove away, he was able to look back and watch Freel convulsing on the drive in front of the hotel, surrounded now by photographers and cameramen who were all aiming their lenses downward.