Gregg Hartmann's campaign manager, Charles Devaughn, had called with the suggestion that a little Hollywood charm might swing the uncommitted over to Gregg's camp. Jack, resigned by now, knew perfectly well what that meant. He made a few calls to some agents he knew. By the time the superdelegates arrived, the room had been stocked with bourbon, scotch, and genuine Georgia starlets, veterans of locally produced films with names like Chain Gang Women and Stock Car Carnage. When the party finally broke up about three in the morning and the last congressman from Missouri stumbled out with his arm around Miss Peachtree 1984, Jack figured he had put at least a couple more votes in Hartmann's pocket.

Sometimes it was easy. For some reason politicians often crumbled around celebrities-even, Jack thought, famous traitor aces and washed-up TV Tarzans like himself. Faded Hollywood charisma, combined with cheap sex, could sap the will of even the most hardened politico.

That, of course, combined with the unvoiced threat of blackmail. Devaughn, Jack knew, would be delighted.

A kettledrum boomed in Jack's hollow skull. He massaged his temples as he waited at a red light. The wild card's gift of enormous strength and eternal youth hadn't saved him from a hangover.

At least it hadn't been a Hollywood party. He would have had to provide a party bowl of cocaine.-

He reached into his Marks amp; Spencer bush jacket and got the first Camel Unfiltered of the day. As he bent over to shield the match in his big hands, he saw the Impala heading down the street toward him again, swastika flag fluttering. The flat caps of the storm troopers were silhouetted in the front window. The car increased speed as the light went yellow.

WHITE POWER. Bumper-sticker slogans. AUSLANDER RAUS!

Jack remembered, years ago, picking up a Mercedes staff car full of Peronistas and flipping it onto its top.

He remembered screaming