Badger game, a dishonest trick in which a person is lured into a compromising situation and then surprised and blackmailed - Oxford American Dictionary
Hot
on the heels of the latest presidential news comes this hilarious account of the
Presidential election as it might have been. Best-selling nonfiction writer
William Norris, (The Man Who Fell from the Sky, Snowbird, Willful
Misconduct, etc.) turns his hand to comedy with a Mafia boss trying
every trick in the book to seize the Presidency of the United States. The story
is set - where else? - in Florida. Which just goes to show that authors can
sometimes be more prescient than they realize.
Can you say
kidnap? Dopplegänger? Just who is the Vice President anyway? Does the future of
a nation rest on one man's birthmark?
In this
entertaining story, William Norris has brought together a colorful cast of
characters and mixed them together. The result? A cocktail of sometimes lethal,
always funny, episodes laced with wit and humor to keep you laughing until the
end. William's timing is impeccable and his humorous writing is at times
reminiscent of the good old British farce.
Here are two short excerpts from Chapter 1.
CHAPTER 1
Gregory
Bartlett stared vacantly ahead as he nosed his shiny black Chrysler New Yorker
through the narrow entrance to the campus.
A respectful salute from the pretty young college work-student on duty in
the security gatehouse went unacknowledged.
“Up yours,
then.” She leaned
forward and extended an unlady-like finger in the direction of the receding
sedan. Bartlett, happening to glance in his mirror at
that moment, saw the gesture and tightened his lips.
Damn students. No
respect for authority. No
respect for anything, these days.
He’d have to talk to the Dean about that one.
The road curved past a palm-fringed pond, herons and wood
storks sunning themselves gravely along the banks, a solitary pelican circling
above in search of lunch. In
the branches of an overhanging bush, a cormorant stood with outstretched wings,
drying them off before its next plunge beneath the smooth surface.
Bartlett registered the idyllic scene without a flicker of
emotion. Once, long ago, the
ambience of the Fulford campus had entranced him.
The rampant greenery, the immaculate lawns, the abundant wild-life which
thrived oblivious to the swarming students;
all these had seemed to him the epitome of a liberal arts college. Food for the soul to accompany a diet of higher
learning. How
long had it been since the gloss had worn away?
Ten years? Fifteen? It
seemed an age since he had first driven through those gates for his interview
with the college trustees for the post of President.
Back then, Bartlett had been a thrusting young
administrator in his mid-thirties. A
solid Ph.D. in political science on his résumé, a few years of teaching at a
prestigious Ivy League university, followed by a dean-ship at a respectable
liberal arts college in Oklahoma. The
trustees, mostly prosperous businessmen with a scattering of clergy and lawyers,
had been looking for a dynamic President to revive the flagging fortunes of
Fulford - a college too young to have acquired a decent endowment, but old
enough to be in serious need of renewal. In
Bartlett, they decided, they had found him.
Nor had he let them down.
No one could accuse him of failure in those early days. Not that the
bastards remembered that now, Bartlett thought glumly as he swung carelessly
into his parking space and almost annihilated an oleander bush.
He had raised the profile of the college, solicited funds from every
philanthropist within a hundred mile radius, increased the enrolment, and even
produced a modest improvement in academic standards.
Now, all they could think of was their stupid budget deficit.
Two million dollars and climbing, and none of it his fault, God damn it!
He slammed shut the door of the New Yorker with unnecessary
force and strode the few paces to the door of the Fitzwalter Administrative
Building, named after a long-dead benefactor who had been in urgent need of a
tax write-off at the time.
Bartlett had been good at finding such people.
The campus was littered with endowed classrooms and laboratories, bearing
names that meant less than nothing to faculty and students.
The place sometimes reminded him of a graveyard with extra-large
tombstones. All
those pathetic efforts to translate ill-gotten gains into some form of lasting
posterity, and all forgotten almost before the commemorative plaques had been
affixed. Not
that he was ungrateful. But
for those donors, Fulford College would have sunk into oblivion long since, and
his $150,000 salary would have followed it down the tubes.
Bartlett pushed open the front door and welcomed the blast
of cold air that struck his face.
Even the short walk from his air-conditioned car had made him sweat
inside his habitual blue suit and his throat-strangling collar and tie. He envied the students and the casual young
members of faculty who could dress in ways more appropriate for the Florida
sunshine and humidity, but appearances had to be maintained.
Bartlett was adamant about appearances.
His personal assistant, Melissa Blunt, looked up from her
word-processor as Bartlett clumped towards his office.
She began to smile a polite greeting, tossing back
blonde hair which framed a face fighting the years with gratifying
success, then dropped her eyes. One look at Bartlett’s body language had
convinced her that she would be wasting her time.
Her boss was not in a good mood.
But then he seldom was, these days.
---------
---------
Bartlett fumed.
He had always considered the Pensioners to be one of the more brilliant
strokes of his administration, conceived in a flash of genius more than ten
years before. The
elements of the idea had been simple: since Florida attracted vast numbers of
elderly retirees every year, and since many of them were stinking rich, why not
offer them something more constructive to do in their declining years than play
golf and drink themselves to death?
“Intergenerational learning,” that was the key phrase.
Convince the old folks that by coming on to campus and associating with
the young they could recapture some of their own youth.
Let them help out in the classrooms, passing on the dubious wisdom of
their years, while letting the ebullience of the students rub off on them like
an elixir.
The more Bartlett had thought about it, the stronger his
enthusiasm had grown. The
group would have to be exclusive - he would demand some extravagant
qualification for membership such as ‘distinguished professional achievement
in the arts, business or sciences.’
But as long as they had the money something could always be arranged.
There would be a four-figure fee for entry and fairly hefty annual dues,
but for that (and he giggled at the thought) they would have the privilege of
working as unpaid tutors.
Even better, once they had become firmly bonded to the college, he was
certain they could be persuaded to make generous contributions to the annual
fund and, better yet, to remember Fulford in their wills.
Bartlett knew a potential cash cow when he saw one, and he
had seen one then. Of
course, he had realized that there might be minor problems with faculty.
Those damned prima donnas were forever guarding the sanctity of their
classrooms, and it seemed unlikely that they would welcome assistance from old
dodderers who might, in some cases, know more about the subject under discussion
than they did. They
might even, since the Pensioners would be unpaid volunteers, regard them as a
threat to their jobs if the college ever came under financial stress.
As for the students, the chance that they would want anything to do with
a bunch of septuagenarians was slim to none.
But they could like it or lump it.
And so, to the accompaniment of much fanfare, the Fulford
College Universal Pensioners had been born.
In the educational press, and even on television, Fulford was hailed as
one of the ten most innovative colleges in the land. What a splendid idea: to bring old and
young together in the context of common learning.
Bartlett had basked in the praise.
Parents who came shopping for the safest place to put their fragile
offspring were duly impressed that here was a campus with built-in grandparents,
who would surely help to keep them on the straight-and-narrow. They enrolled them in droves. Under the pressure of demand, tuition fees
rose steadily.
As for the Pensioners themselves, their numbers grew and
grew until they far outstripped the size of the faculty itself. Bartlett never ceased to be amazed at their
endless generosity and selfless sense of service.
He had provided something to fill the gap in their otherwise empty lives,
and for that they were prepared to pay, and pay handsomely.
It had been, at least until today, a supremely symbiotic relationship. In fact, the only thing he regretted was
his choice of title for the organization.
(If you would like to read more, the rest of this book is
available on www.WordWrangler.com)
- Bill Norris