Thursday, November 2, 2023

The Ratfuck Bastard Conspiracy, Part Twenty-Six

     Westchester County, the Blade Mansion, a sunny southern exposure breakfast room, Gainsborough portrait of a married couple on the wall.  Cassandra Hartliss Blade and her guest, Heartland Rocker Goose Blankenstein, eat quiche and scones with butter and rhubarb jam, drink mimosas, and reminisce about the disappointing but bold 2016 Blade Campaign.

     Cassandra Blade: As you know, Goose, I was born to run this country.  
     Goose: Many are called, few are chosen.
     Blade: As you did, generously, in 2015 and the year following, can I count on you to give to my campaign, CASSIE TWO-FOUR SIS-BOOM-BAH!
     Goose: How about you listen to the campaign song I wrote for you (reaches down and picks up a Gibson six string acoustic guitar, the finish rubbed off in spots, a workingman's guitar played by a man worth 650 million dollars).  It goes like this, it's called, "Crazy For Cassie"

     Strums.

     Cassie Blade is a goin home
     Unless she wins the throne.
     Cassie, she don't know how to lose
     So she blames and tells us how to choose.
     
     We can't stand her!
     She makes us sick!
     With her demands for cash!  Our hard-earned cash!
     We work our tails off for hard-earned cash!
     HARD! EARNED! CASH!
     
     She wants our hard-earned cash!
     She wants our hard-earned cash yeah!
     She wants everybody's hard-earned, hard-earned cash!

     (Instrumental break)

     So whatcha gonna do?
     Gonna keep your cash?
     You need your cash!  Gotta pay the bills!
     Cassie don't pay no bills.
     Like me she don't pay no bills.
     But your rent's comin due
     Cash!
     Cassie don't drive, doesn't have to buy gas
     Cash!
     And Cassie?  Oh Cassie,
     Not even Versailles was safe
     Crash!

     Goose grins.  She frowns, then cackles.  

     Cassie: Reverse psychology, huh?  Make me out to be a horrible person, like the Wicked Witch of Foggy Bottom.  
     Goose: Ooh, I like that! (Strums a few minor chords) Make of it what you will, Cass.  I'll donate to your campaign, but I'm also donating to another.
     Cassie: Playing the field?  Who's my rival?
     Goose: A type of drum.
     Cassie: Senator Obadiah Conga?
     Goose: No.
     Cassie: Surely not Ambassador Tom Bass?
     Goose: You're getting warmer.
     Cassie: Congresswoman Lynette "Spunky" Snare?
     Goose: She's not old enough to be president.
     Cassie: Oh Christ!  You support Gaby Bongo!
     Goose: (singing) Gaby!  
                                 Your limo's here
                                 It'll take you to a place of
                                 Your hand on a Bible and
                                 A lifted hand. 
     
     Cassie: Not if I have anything to do with it!  Sorry, Goose, I don't want to use your campaign song.  My secretary and companion Velvet Harpoon will send you a ten-thousand dollar check to contribute to the charity of your choice.
     Goose: Fuck charity!  I want that money!
     Cassie: Very well.  But publicize this not.  On the surface we're still friends.
     Goose: We are friends, Cassie.  I've changed my mind about your chances of winning the presidency, that's all.  You're too old.
     Cassie: I'm not old!
     Goose: Sure, seventies is the new forty.  I wish.
     Cassie: I de-age with the blood of youth.
     Goose: What?
     Cassie: I've knocked four years off so far.  I'm taking it all the way to thirty, but I'll need a lot of blood transfusions.  I drink it, too.  My doctor, Patrick Ghoul--he's a fan of your music--he told me that drinking it doesn't contribute to de-aging.  It just gives you blood breath--well I like it!  You develop a taste for something, it becomes a part of you.  
     Goose: You're part teenager, then.  Somewhat below the age group that worships me for some reason.  
     Cassie: My age group and yours, and the younger Boomers, Goose.  I don't drink their blood or have it injected into my veins.  Generation X blood is permanently damaged by THC and LSD, an unhealthy generation altogether.  But they gave birth to Y and Z.  Their blood works just fine.
     Goose: Does Gaby Bongo drink blood?
     Cassie: You'll have to ask her that.  I doubt it, though.
     Goose: I have a verse about her principles.
     Cassie: Don't sing it.  I cannot abide more talk or verse about Mrs. Bongo.
     Goose: Moe Lieden and President Parris compete with you, too.
     Cassie: Moe's turning into a cartoon right before our eyes.  Dinah Parris will be felled by her hubris.
     Goose: Some say that's what happened to you in 2016.
     Cassie: It's been nice knowing you.
     Goose: Hey, if you win the big show next year how about making me White House Minstrel?
     Cassie: A troubadour?  No, I now know you would satirize me.  You pig!  I counted on at least a hundred thousand from you as a first donation!
     Goose: Just a sow, lickin up the slop, dirty--
     Cassie: Unkind!  Take that back!
     Goose: Dirty, dirty little piggy, you want my money, you want my song.  Okay, I'll say something nice. You're the best chance we've got.  Your experience means a lot!  Presto, you'll outfox our giggling Prez. 
     Cassie: Dinah, that traitor!  She turned against me in front of others in the Oval Office.  Decorum ranked at zero!
     Goose: I'll write a real campaign song for you, but you pay me what we agreed on and then you won't hear from my lawyer, Abram Abrams.  
     Cassie: While also writing a song for and donating to Gaby's campaign?  False friend. Talented punk.  Sexy-in-just-a-tee-shirt-and-jeans rock and roller.  
     Goose: (breaks into his famous aww-shucks-I'm-just-a-regular-guy-from-Jersey smile) I'm the Supervisor.

     Maui.  President Parris and her entourage of some fifty in-the-way, useless-to-the-situation at hand Beltway denizens and security detail, arrive to survey and address the fire, the huge loss of life, the obliteration of property and homes.

     Parris: (before a crowd of firefighters, cops, and citizens who lost their homes and family members, pets and whatever tiny scrap of faith they may have had in the federal and state governments) This is a big tragedy.  A very big tragedy.  When flying over the island I got a real up close and personal sense of how vast, how big problem this is.  Such a big problem.  How true that is.  
     I've seen war zones.  I've caused war zones.  
     This looks like a designed fire, a massive screwing by Big Real Estate.  I mean, fortunately all those big beautiful millionaires' and billionaires' houses were spared.  Jim Carrey's house, untouched!  Maybe he was Bruce Almighty for a day?  Have you seen that one? (Laughs) He gets to be God for a while.  God could spare Jim Carrey's house if He wanted to, let's face it, especially if he were Jim Carrey!  (Laughs)  And Oprah!  Her house, not a burn mark on it, and thank God!  Thank Bruce!  Thank Jim! (laughs)           But seriously, this is a big deal, a really big deal.  It reminds me of the destruction of Pompeii.  I visited Pompeii.  High school trip.  Boy, those Pompeiians didn't have any time to flee before the ash from the volcano hit them.  Maybe if they'd had a warning system with sirens?  We can only speculate.  
     I brought my husband Doug with me.  Doug, come up here and say a few words to these brave sad Mauians.
     
     "The First Gentleman's Theme Song", composed by film composer Hans Zimmer, plays while Doug, wearing a lei he purchased in Washington, mounts the stage, tries to kiss the President on the mouth but she turns her head towards the audience, smiling and laughing.  Doug tries again, fails, goes to the podium.

     Doug Gard: Good afternoon, people of Hawaii!  I saw footage of the fire, the smoke, the people fleeing in their cars but turned back by the police.  It took bravery on their part, the police officers I mean, to turn back people from their survival.  Imagine how tedious that task would be!  Our nation's police officers are the best in the world, that's a given.  And you people of Maui are number one in my book!  It's a book I might write someday called Doug's Favorite People.  Chapter One, Maui!  Mr. Mayor of that town that no longer exists?  I salute you!  I hope you get re-elected!  (Boos from some in the crowd, a shouted "Fuck off" and "Go back to Washington you fucking pieces of shit!")  Oh, don't fear.  We'll go away soon.  In truth, my wife and I don't want to be here.  I'm reminded of the scene in The Lord of the Rings where Frodo, having lost his finger to Gollum, is reduced to a bleeding little person, a midget if you will.  He no longer has in his possession the greatest Ring of Power.  You people are like that.  You used to have a beautiful place to live, but now you're clinging to the side of a volcano, watching Mordor fall apart.
     Parris: (coming forward, grinning, clapping) Thank you, Doug.
     Doug: (between the two of them) I'm not done.
     Parris: You're done.  There's food over there set up for the recently made homeless.  Get something to eat.
     Doug: I never turn down free food. (Waves at the audience, heads for a disaster relief tent set up by volunteers; entirely community-based, not helped one bit by the government chiefly represented by the Hawaiian shirt-motif pants-suited woman on stage).
     Parris: I'm here to tell all of you that we are here.  We're not there, back in Washington.  No.  We're with you right here.  Our thoughts.  Our prayers.  You live in a beautiful place.  Maui.  When I was a little girl, the cutest little thing this side of Shirley Temple, I learned the names of the states of America.  I knew Alabama is the top state, alphabetically.  I knew my alphabet.  I ate alphabet soup and I liked it.  I watched HR Pufnstuff, didn't get the reference until college.  My roommate Liz and I were smoking some smooth grass, listening to Stanley Clarke's Modern Man album.  We got to talking about Saturday morning shows when we were kids.  HR Pufnstuff came up because we were high, puffin in our dorm room.  I miss getting high!  I'm too scatterbrained when I get to puffin that stuff!  (Laughs)  If I'm high I might be thinking about India's moon landing one moment and then I'm remembering how there was a time when red dye in red M&M's was supposed to cause cancer, so they pulled the red M&Ms.  You youngsters in the audience might ask, "Wow, Madame President, did that really happen?  They thought red M&Ms cause cancer?"
     Yes, the scientists really believed it, so we believed it.  The red M&Ms came back, though, and so will Maui!
     You're probably wanting to know what the government will do for your stricken communities.  Well, there's a process to go through, but the urgency is there, don't worry, because you see, the aid for Maui is tied to aid for Ukraine.  (Derisive shouts and cursing)  I know, you think we're treating it as a political game.  We send vast amounts of aid, weapons and cash to Ukraine.  Some of it, maybe a lot, disappears, but how can one account for things?  It's war, people!  Ukraine needs our help!  Like Senator Graham Cracker says, it's our best future investment.  The Ukrainian people will get their weapons, the continuation of their war, their billions, their human and material sacrifices to NATO's strategies, but Maui will also receive what she needs: seven-hundred bucks per household!!!

     Lieden Campaign Headquarters, Scranton, Pennsylvania.  Former President Moe Lieden returns to his desk from a Culligan water machine, spilling water on the floor from his paper cup.  His son Happy Lieden and General Beak, chief campaign advisor, watch the man they wish to reinstall into the Oval Office, each wishing the man's brain the best health possible.

     Lieden: I wish they'd make these cups heavier.
     Happy Lieden: You could use the World's Greatest Dad mug I made for you in fifth grade ceramics.
     Moe Lieden: (Laughs derisively) That thing?  I broke it years ago.  Anyway, it wasn't much of a mug.  Misshapen, asymmetrical, like a ten year old with shaky cocaine fingers made it.
     Happy Lieden: I was not using at that age!
     Moe: Okay okay, so it was the best you could do without being on drugs.
     Happy: I was ten!
     Moe: But now you're a painter commanding six figures per canvas.  I'm sure some of those masterworks are Louvre-bound! (Laughs at his son).
     General Beak: Mr. President, let's not ridicule a campaign income stream, i.e. Happy's paintings and the access they provide to art buyers who also wish to lunch with you or perhaps slip you an extra bribe in order to ensure their interests will be represented in a version two point oh Lieden administration.
     Moe: You had me at "bribe".  Sorry son.  It's just that I've seen your paintings.  You're trying to be Kandinsky with your colors and especially your shapes.  How about imitating a painter who isn't Russian?
     Happy: I don't know who Kandinsky is, Dad.  I paint from my heart.
     Moe: Sure you do, and you lie from it, too.
     General Beak: Let's change the subject, shall we?  We've seen how the people of Maui--
     Moe: Those poor surfers.
     General Beak: --have reacted to President Parris's visit.  Consoler-in-Chief she is not.  
     Happy: I think she looked great!
     General Beak: A local news broadcast featured a resident who referred to President Parris as a "demon."
     Moe: Maybe the one who said that is a Jesus freak?
     General Beak: I believe he used the word metaphorically.  My point is, we need to emphasize President Parris's lack of leadership in the Maui matter.  In the next debate--
     Moe: I know, I'll crush that point, I'll make Dinah look like a heartless monster, that is, if I can remember to do that.  I get confused on the debate stage and if I shit my pants I won't be able to say anything non-toilet-related.
     Happy: Dad, go to the bathroom before the debate!
     Moe: What a great idea!  I never thought of that, Kandinsky!  Good thing I've got my family embarrassment of a son making obvious suggestions.
     Happy: Dad, I'll go if you don't want me here.  I can work for the campaign in other ways, grease some wheels in Washington.  I know a Romanian five star hotelier who wants to meet with you.
     General Beak: NO!  Not while you're under investigation for other such pay to play shenanigans, Happy!
     Happy: That U.S. Attorney is really just interested in the gun I left in a garbage can.
     Moe: Why did you do that, Happy?
     Happy: I didn't want it on me in case I got arrested.  
     Moe: Look son, you can be a gangster in your heart, you don't have to look like some moviegoer's idea of one.
     Happy: I know, Dad.  When I was a kid I believed myself to be a Jedi Knight but Biff broke my light saber.
     Moe: It was a stick, and your brother Biff was just doing his duty as an asshole annoyance of an older brother.  
     Happy: When he broke my light saber I started to cry, then I told myself, "I'm a Jedi Knight, darn it!  The Force is with me.  I don't need sticks, I have the Force!"
     General Beak: Nobody has the Force.
     Happy: I had it in my heart, and a big heart it was, and still is!  
     Moe: Did you leave any other bags of cocaine in the White House, son?
     Happy: Not that I recall.  It is a possibility.
     Moe: I guess that's not really a problem like we thought it might be.
     General Beak: If another candidate on the debate stage in Houston next Thursday brings up Issue Cocaine you must address it.  Don't smile when you answer, don't seem smug or condescending, or give the moderator the Moe Lieden "What gives with asking me this question?" look.  
     Moe: I have such a look?
     General Beak: Yes, your eyebrows go up, your eyes widen as you look around.
     Happy: Yeah Dad.  You look like Scrooge when he sees the ghost of Bob Marley.
     General Beak: That's Jacob Marley, Happy.
     Happy: I'm pretty sure it's Bob Marley.
     Moe: It's Bob Marley, Beak.
     General: No!  I minored in nineteenth century English literature!  I've read A Christmas Carol!  I've seen films based on that book!  His name is Jacob Marley!
     Moe: Gosh Beak, I never pegged you for a book nerd.

     Hot News on cable station TV9.  Hostess Ashley Corbeau, a forty-three year old pleasant-looking brunette worth five million dollars, has on Republican presidential candidate Konrad Mantis, current Governor of Florida, former NAVY JAG officer, assigned in the past to Guantanamo Bay and Fallujah, Iraq.

     Corbeau: Now, live from Tallahassee, Florida, we welcome to Hot News Governor Konrad Mantis.
     Mantis: Thank you for having me on, Ashley.  You know, America is at a crossroads.  We can either continue on a path of destruction or a path of renewal.  I intend to choose the path of destruction.  President Parris, though she supports Ukraine and Israel, proposing in this new package something in the vicinity of a hundred billion dollars for those two countries alone, I nevertheless aver she's not going far enough.  As president, I would double that amount for Israel alone.  I would turn Israel into one gigantic gun aimed at everyone who refuses to acknowledge her right to exist.  
     Corbeau: Governor, I think it can be said that President Parris supports Israel wholeheartedly.
     Mantis: But not enough, Ashley.  Look.  Printing money is easy.  Just print the money.  Send it to Ukraine.  Send it to Israel.  Send it to anywhere but America. 
     Corbeau: Anywhere?
     Mantis: Well, not to Russia or China, or Iran, or Cuba, or Syria, or Mexico, or--
     Corbeau: Or to any U.S. adversary, obviously.
     Mantis: Right on the button, Ashley.  When I'm president, no one will doubt America's moral authority.  There are doubters out there, but there are doubters internally, like parasites taking up residence inside our American intestines.  We must seek out and neutralize these parasites.  When I'm president, a new virus targeting anti-patriotic scum will be unleashed, mysteriously originating from the vicinity of Fort Detrick.  
     Corbeau: You have foreknowledge of this?
     Mantis: I know everything about everything in connection with the deep dark shinola I can't discuss because if I were to do so, I'd be disappeared.  Like, who had John F. Kennedy killed?  I could tell you right now.  I know the answer, but if I told you and all of your viewers I wouldn't get to be president, because I'd be disappeared.
     Corbeau: Turning to the Middle East.  How would you, as president, handle the current emergency in the Gaza Strip?
     Mantis: Israel has the right to defend herself.  
     Corbeau: The civilian casualties inflicted by Hamas on October seventh amount to far less than the civilian casualties inflicted by the Israeli Defense Forces.
     Mantis: Look, what would you have Israel do?  Send them boxes of chocolate?  Allow food, water, fuel, electricity to the Palestinians?  Israel is under no obligation to help them.  This is war.  I've been in war.  I witnessed torture sessions at Guantanamo Bay.  I'm a psychopath.  Do you want a president who isn't willing to annihilate thousands of people?  Millions?  How about billions?  Yeah, I'm your man.

     White House, Oval Office.  President Dinah Parris, Secretary of Defense Roy Holroyd, Secretary of State Arthur Sneffen, and, via Skype, Israeli Defense Minister Hammerfist Crunchowsky.

     Sneffen: Fist?  How goes the war?
     Crunchowsky: Lots of bombing going on.  We're making rubble.  We will prevail.
     Parris: (Laughs) With our moral and material support, I daresay.
     Crunchowsky: That's a given, Madame President.  If you want AIPAC in your corner in 2024 you will support our endeavors.  Do you deny Hamas started this?
     Parris: I didn't say that, Fist.
     Crunchowsky: We have the right to defend ourselves.
     Parris: Amen.
     Crunchowsky: Tent cities in the Sinai Peninsula would be an ideal location for the human animals, better than living in rubble, but we will clear away the rubble.  No more rubble after we're done.  We will reclaim the land that is rightfully ours.  
     Parris: It reminds me of The Ten Commandments when Charlton Heston points out the land of Canaan to Joshua and Yvonne De Carlo.
     Roy Holroyd: She played Lily Munster.
     Parris: Was she supposed to be a vampire?
     Crunchowsky: Zipporah was not a vampire!
     Parris: (Laughs) Relax, honey, I'm talking about Lily Munster, from The Munsters.
     Holroyd: I just Googled it, Madame President.  Lily Munster is a vampire.
     Parris: Weird.  We never see her drinking blood.
     Sneffen: On the other hand, when do we see her in direct sunlight?
     Crunchowsky: What are you talking about?!!!
     Parris: Oh, just an old TV show, blast from the past.
     Crunchowsky: The blasts of the present are what I'm interested in!
     Parris: Of course.  Don't worry, we here are all in agreement that your country needs to blast the you know what out of those pesky so and so's occupying your Arab-filled concentration camp.
     Holroyd: That's right, Fist.  As far as the Gaza Strip is concerned, you don't need gas chambers because you've got American-made weapons.

     Sam Spade, the fictional detective from Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, mysteriously manifested into 2020s Washington D.C., shows up during the President's meeting described above, insists on seeing "Madame President."

     President Parris: (Through the intercom) Who's that, Beulah?  Sam's here?  Well send him in! (Laughs) We know Sam, don't we?  Come on in, Sam!  Make yourself comfortable right here in this armchair.  Roy, you know Sam, right?
     Holroyd: (shakes hands) I've heard of him.  You don't look like Humphrey Bogart.
     Spade: No.  More like Warren William, I think.
     Holroyd: Who?
     Spade: Actor chap, he'll play me in 1936 in a picture called Satan Met a Lady.
     Hammerfist Crunchowsky: Who is this man?  Does he have a security clearance?
     Parris: This is Sam Spade, Fist.  Sam, meet Defense Minister Crunchowsky.  
     Spade: (Sitting down) How do you do.
     Parris: Sam, is there something you need to tell me in private?  I can hustle these bozos out of here and end the call with Mr. Crunchowsky.
     Spade: I do have something to tell you, Madame President, but it can wait until after this meeting ends.
     Crunchowsky: Madame President, you would end this important briefing just like that?!
     Parris: Is your underwear too tight on your testicles, Fist?  
     Crunchowsky: My underwear is not a terrorist or an anti-Semite!
     Holroyd: (Laughs) Dinah, I think the Defense Minister needs to wrap up his business so he can get back to work annihilating Gaza.  
     Spade: Pardon me, Minister, but are you one of those responsible for bombing all those people?
     Crunchowsky: Of course I am!  
     Spade: A grim business.  How do you sleep at night?
     Crunchowsky: I never sleep!  And I will not until our objective is achieved!  
     Spade: And that is to relocate some two million people--
     Crunchowsky: They're not people!
     Spade: I beg to differ.  At any rate, relocate them to Egypt and take their land?  One would think the Palestinians are Canaanites, or, from my recent study of twentieth century European history, Jews.
     Crunchowsky: Madame President, who is this man?! 
     Parris: (Laughing gently) He doesn't understand the political necessities we must deal with.  
     Spade: As a big city private detective I understand murder.  
     Crunchowsky: Madame President, you will remove him to your outer office until this call is ended!
     Parris: Sam, it's best you go out there and check on Beulah, make sure she's working.  I think I may've hired another dud.  
     Spade: (Standing) Very well.  (To Holroyd and Sneffen) Gentlemen.  (Puts thumb to his nose and flutters his fingers at Crunchowsky's image) It's been a real pleasure, Killer.  (Exits).
     Holroyd: Oh ho, he got you, Fist!
     Crunchowsky: I demand that your FBI investigate that man!  
     Parris: Oh stop it, he works for me.

     Forty-five minutes later, Sam Spade sits with the Commander in Chief on the couch before the fireplace in President Parris's jungle-theme office.

     Sam Spade: Really Dinah, you know some deeply disturbed gents.
     Parris: You mean Fist?  Oh, he's a puppy when you get to know him.  
     Spade: A rabid German Shepard more like.
     Parris: Like Cujo?  No, he's a Saint Bernard.
     Spade: I don't understand the reference.
     Parris: Well, it's a book.  I read it in high school.  Stephen King.  He's a popular writer, Sam.  Anyway, Cujo has rabies.  He menaces a mom and her little boy trapped inside her car.  It's quite terrifying.
     Spade: I doubt that your Minister Fist has rabies.  What's his excuse for being so vicious?
     Parris: He hates Palestinians, honey.
     Spade: Why?
     Parris: They're in the way of Greater Israel.
     Spade: I see.  A colonizing project.
     Parris: They want to get the Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip so they can settle there.
     Spade: Do you approve of this forcible removal?
     Parris: I must say that I do.
     Spade: Do you approve of the relentless bombing?
     Parris: A country's self-defense comes in many flavors.
     Spade: Heartwarming.  Switching subjects, I can report that your Democratic opponents for next year's nomination don't have much of a chance against you, although there's rising nostalgic support for Moe Lieden.
     Parris: He's below me in the polls.
     Spade: It's a well-organized campaign, though.  The addition of his son Happy as an advisor has boosted the old man's chances.
     Parris: Happy Lieden?  That dimwit?  
     Spade: He plays the stupid role, but really, he's a genius.
     Parris: Who leaves a bag of cocaine in the White House Library?  Happy Lieden, that's who.  
     Spade: You've heard of playing the fool?
     Parris: Tell me about Moe's state of mind.  Bear in mind, I have another source of information, so I can cross reference.
     Spade: (Smiles, touches her hand) Clever woman.  You must be referring to Samwise Gamgee, the halfling.  
     Parris: How do you know that?
     Spade: All I had to do was look down (Chuckles to himself).  Gamgee is a double agent working now for the Lieden Campaign. 
     Parris: What?!  And I trusted that little fucker!
     Spade: If I were you I'd be wary, too, of Gamgee's friend, Frodo Baggins.
     Parris: Oh Jesus Christ!  Next thing, you're gonna tell me I can't trust the Israeli government!
     Spade: As Jesus said, "By their deeds you will know them.  Does a man gather grapes from thorns or figs from briars?"
     Parris: I'm gonna say no.  Am I right?
     Spade: (Kisses the back of her hand, smiles) Yes, Madame President.
     Parris: What shall I do about Baggins and Gamgee?  
     Spade: Turn them both to your cause with bribes.  I understand they bunk in the janitor's closet on the first floor of this "whited sepulcher," to use Joseph Conrad's phrase.
     Parris: It's their bedroom.  It's comfortable for them.  I had it remodeled for eighty-thousand dollars, taxpayers' cash.  
     Spade: Give them a townhouse in Georgetown.  Have it remodeled to fit their size.  I understand that they live in Hobbit habitations, with low ceilings.  They like comfort and good food, plenty of it.  Seduce them with the lure of ease.  Spare no expense.
     Parris: I'll get on it right away. (Smiles) Sam, you are one useful motherfucker to have around.
     Spade: Meanwhile, if Samwise Gamgee tells you something about the Lieden Campaign, believe the opposite.  In fact, don't trust anyone.  Not your husband, and not those two creeps who were in here earlier--
     Parris: Believe me, I don't trust Arthur Sneffen!  He's (makes air quotes) secretly supporting the Gabrielle Bongo Campaign.  
     Spade: Then give him the boot.  Don't look shocked.  Fire the bastard.  
     Parris: This is a delicate time, Sam.  Israel--
     Spade: The time will always be delicate.  There is no right time.  
     Parris: I'll think about it.  I'm pretty sure he was planning on leaving my administration next year anyway.
     Spade: Be decisive.  Remove the infected limb before it causes more harm to you.  He's a diseased rat.
     Parris: You're very persuasive.  
     Spade: (Standing) I'm a good observer, and as always, your loyal ally.
     Parris: (Standing) Thanks for the scuttlebutt.  I'm glad you're on my side.
     Spade: I have a weakness for women who aren't afraid to exert their authority, and a weakness for beauty. (Bows, kisses her hand, exits smiling, holding in a laugh).



To be continued...

Vic Neptune
     
     
     
        
     
     
         
      
     
     
         

       
     
       
     

       
       
     

     

    

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