Stephen Cannell - The Plan

There was a knock on the door. He opened it and let his "first circle" in. They spread out in the small room, all of them wearing big smiles. It was fun being on a winning team. The purpose of this meeting was to look past Super Tuesday and start thinking about the Republican Vice President who had been running pretty much unopposed. Vice President James "F'udge" Anderson had been basically selling the regular Republican agenda, not sure whether to take on Skatina, who had started looking like the man to beat, or to shift his focus to Haze.

After the New Hampshire win tonight, and after the latest tracking poll in the Super Tuesday states, A. J. knew the Republicans were going to be looking for ways to knock Haze around, and he had to get some strategy going for that.

"Okay, kids, we've got ponies coming out our ass and that's great," he started. "But we gotta start looking ahead. All winning campaigns communicate optimism, and we've been doing that. Americans are optimistic about Haze, optimistic about the message, but the Republicans are gonna start throwing mud. We've been riding a media wave recently, but we gotta get ready for some white water. Vidal, what have you got for next week?"

"I just got off the phone. We booked Haze on the Hour of the Living Dead," Vidal said, referring to what insiders called Washington Week in Review. "We aren't gonna do Letterman or Leno, or any of the entertainment shows yet. They're calling, but I said wait till after Super Tuesday. We're going to stay with a hard news look. Besides Night-line, we'll do a Sixty Minutes piece. We're still arguing over the correspondent. . I want Lesley Stahl to help with our gender gap. Haze knows her and feels comfortable, but they want Bradley. They're probably gonna fold if we give them an exclusive three-day window. That would keep us off Nightline till Wednesday. I think with all the free press, I can live with that," he said. "We're also booked on Larry King Live for some call-in segments. The way the polls are running, we should do great in that venue," he said, finishing his update.

"Okay, we'll have a separate meeting on campaign spots after this one," A. J. said. "Ven, I need a new two-sentence policy on all the key issues to deal with what the Republicans are gonna throw at us. I also want spotlight teams to work on world affairs. We need Haze to look good on foreign policy 'cause that's Pudge Anderson's strong suit."

The door opened and Susan Winter put her head in. "What's going on in here?" she asked, smiling at them and brushing her auburn hair off her forehead.

"Little strategy meeting," A. J. said.

"Shouldn't Haze be included? Does he know you're meeting?"

"Look, Susan, Haze needs his rest. Today is one of the few days he can just take it easy."

"I don't think he wants to take it easy, A. J. I think he wants to be in all the strategy sessions. If I were you, I'd call him." She gave them a snotty smile. " 'Bye," she said and closed the door.

Ten minutes later, Haze was pounding on the door. A. J. let him in the room.

"I didn't think you'd want to be in on a preliminary strategy meeting, Haze," A. J. apologized. "I was going to capsulize it for you while we watched the returns tonight."

Haze didn't answer A. J. He moved past him, into the room, walked to the window, and looked out. Finally he turned.

"I wanna do Letterman now," he said to Vidal. "Can you get me on? I thought I could do some stuff there to show 'em I'm just a regular guy. . Susan thought maybe I should play my guitar."

"Sure, babe, anything you want."

A. J. let the stupid suggestion stand. He knew they were going to win the nomination and he didn't want to get thrown off the bus before it pulled into Washington.

Lucinda had never gone to sleep. She sat up, holding Ryan's hand all night. Kaz had begun to think Ryan was going to be no use to him. The leg was a goner as fa r a s Kaz could see. He wasn't going to get anywhere dragging a cripple around. He told Lucinda that she should take Ryan away, someplace where he'd be safe, maybe back t o t he sun in California. She nodded her agreement. He hope d t hat Bolt would listen.

Kaz left the motel and drove out of the parking lot to the rail yard, two blocks away, where Cole Harris had elected to park his van and sleep. He said he was used to sleeping in the bus, so that's what he'd done. Cole had a mattress and battery heaters in the back of the VW.

Kaz pulled up as Cole Harris was folding his laundry on a portable table he had set up. He was putting his clean bed linen in plastic bags. Kaz had noticed the night before that everything in the van was spotless; everything fit into neat compartments. There was even a built-in computer with a portable work station. He got out of his car and moved toward Cole, who had one corner of a bedsheet tucked under his chin, pulling the far end up to meet it. He checked the edges to make sure they were exactly even before making the fold.

"How's Bolt?"

"On injured reserve. How 'bout breakfast? I'll buy. I'm going batshit watching all this compulsive behavior."

They got in Kaz's rented Chevelle and stopped at a Winchell's for coffee and doughnuts to go. Kaz bought a paper. The front page showed the smiling face of Haze Richards. The headline screamed:

PROVIDENCE COMES TO NEW HAMPSHIRE

The subhead read:

HAZE RICHARDS SCORES KO

WINS RECORD 68 PERCENT

Kaz got on the Jersey Turnpike, heading toward New York City. Then he said, "Bolt says this guy is a mob pawn." A light rain started falling so he turned on the wipers and waited while Cole bit carefully on a sugar doughnut.

"You wanna kick in anything or are you just gonna perform oral surgery on that doughnut?"

"Okay, here's what I got so far. . I think UBC is hooked to the mob. I'm not sure how high up it goes, whether it's just Steve Israel in the news division or if it goes all the way up to C. Wallace Litman. When they killed my story on the Alos in Atlantic City, I got to wondering if maybe there was something going on between the mob and UBC. I went back and looked at their news coverage on organized crime. They've killed every single story about the Alos, specifically, and the East Coast crime syndicates, in general. I find that very disturbing."

"Where's that take us?" Kaz asked.

"I'm digging around in the Justice Department, using old contacts, but it's pretty damn hard when you don't have any network clout behind you. I figured I'd start at the top, with C. Wallace Litman. So far, I haven't go t m uch that's solid, but one thing seems funny. . " "What?"

"Back in the sixties, he was just this little accounts manager for an investment portfolio company in Florida. He was making twenty-five to thirty thousand a year, and then he quits. Nobody in that firm can remember why. He resurfaced in New York a few years later, and he owned, of all things, two parking lots in downtown Manhattan, and I'm thinking, what a strange investment for this little Yiddish accountant from Fort Lauderdale. 'Course, it's not so strange when you realize the mob is big on Manhattan parking lots and all other cash businesses. Then he parlays the parking lots into some real estate and, ten years later, he tacks that 'C' on the front of his name and he's a big Wall Street gazoonie, buying media companies. I can't prove any of it, but my bullshit meter is in the red."

Cole amputated a piece of his sugar doughnut with his lateral incisors, managing not to get any powder on his clean, blue shirt and matching tie. "By the way, where are we going? I thought we were just gonna get breakfast and have a talk."

"I thought we should go back and have another look at Brenton Spencer. He's in NYC County. Ryan got me thinking, it's very strange Brenton walked off that stage in Iowa."