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"Then what's the problem?"

"Sanity," Susan said. "Even Jack needs a couple of hours' sleep every few days. So, Jack-over to you."

"Let's do it," he said. "I like it. What the hell."

"Okay," Daisy said. "Shoot, then sleep. Or sleep, then shoot?" "Shoot first," he said. "I ain't gonna be able to sleep in this madhouse. I'll sleep on the plane."

"It'll take an hour or two to script it, set it, rouse the crew," Daisy said.

"Okay. Three-forty-five at Universal," Brad said.

"Deal," Stanton said. "Anyone want to play some hearts?"

We called the spot "Click-Click." I don't know if it influenced many voters, but it certainly drove Lawrence Harris around the bend. We had it up by Sunday morning. Everyone in Florida who watched David Brinkley, Meet the Press or CBS Sunday Morning saw it. Everyone watching the NCAA basketball tournament that afternoon saw it. It was all over the news that night and the morning shows on Monday. Harris, a jump too slow, was stuck with his first "click" ad-which seemed prehistoric and self-righteous to anyone who'd see
n o
urs. Leon's postgame analysis showed that the numbers, which started breaking our way on Thursday, kept moving in the right direction through the weekend-"Click-Click" didn't start or stop anything. But then, it was hard to say what, if anything, worked in a campaign that came and went so quickly-it may have been nothing more complicated than the fact that we appeared to be confident, playing offense, and Harris was wobbly, on the defensive. It may have been that a stiff, chilly New Hampshire college professor just wasn't going to sell down South, period.

No debate was scheduled for Florida, but Harris was desperate to have at us. He made his move Monday afternoon-and a weird move it was. We were driving from Palm Beach to Miami in the Stanton Van South, trailed by two buses full of scorps, stopping to shake hands at malls along the way and doing radio call-in shows in between. It was a good day, an up day: we were winning. The sun was shining. Stanton was in a good mood. The scorps were lax and happy, taking it easy. After New Hampshire and the weeks of tarmac-hopping, the past few days in Florida had been an unexpected blessing for them, a vacation almost-and a nice story besides, with Stanton taking off the gloves and Harris slugging back. There wasn't much news left to report in Florida now and everyone knew this would be the last day of good weather for a while: we'd be heading back to Mammoth Falls, then up to Chicago to start Illinois-Michigan week, after an evening rally in Miami Beach.

So it was a lazy afternoon. We shook hands at a Winn-Dixie strip mall in Palm Beach, then started south. The first of the radio shows scheduled for the afternoon was the most obscure, but also the most fun-Izzy R
. O
senblatt's, which was broadcast out of a closet in West Palm. Stanton sat up in the front of the van with the phone, shoes off, sipping a Diet Coke; I listened in on my Walkman. We had arranged for the press buses to broadcast all three shows on their speaker systems, which probably doubled Rosenblatt's usual audience.

Izzy, who was eighty, had a sense of humor but not much of a following. His show was called the Israel Rosenblatt Hour, but he liked to call it "Shmooze for Jews"-and he kept it light, gossipy; no serious policy stuff for Izzy, mostly nostalgia and spritz. In fact, what he reall
y w
anted to know from Stanton was about Momma and where she liked to go in Vegas, who her favorite acts were and whether she took another card or stood pat when she was holding 16. Stanton was talking about how her favorite song was Kenny Rogers's "The Gambler" when Izzy interrupted him and said, "Funny thing, Governor, we've got Senator Harris on the phone . . . Well, this is an honor."

Stanton turned around and looked at me.

"Senator," Izzy said, "we were just talking about Governor Stan-ton's mother and how she just loves Vegas-does your mother have a favorite vacation spot?"

"My mother is dead."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"And Jack Stanton should be ashamed of the way he's scaring a lot of other elderly people down here."

"Scaring?" Izzy said.

"He's telling them that I'm going to cut their Social Security and-"

"Aw, c'mon, Larry," Stanton interrupted-but calmly, casually. "It's in your book. It's part of that 'classroom exercise' you were so all-fired huffy about up in New Hampshire."

"Jack, you let me-"

"GENTLEMEN!" Izzy said. Then laughed: "Hey, folks, it worked."

"Jack," Harris resumed, "everyone knows what you're doing down here, the sleazy politics you're playing."

"Izzy," Stanton said. "Okay if I get a word in here? I'd like to ask Senator Harris a question."

"Go ahead, Governor."

"Now, Larry, I'm looking at your campaign book, page eighteen-paragraph three." He wasn't looking at the book. He had memorized the passage. But it sounded good. "What exactly does it mean when you say you want to 'study' a freeze in cost-of-living adjustments?" "That's only one possibility," Harris said. "We might want to rework how COLAs are calculated."

"He isn't talking about soft drinks, Izzy," Stanton said. "A COLA is a cost-of-living adjustment. It means that we raise your Social Security to keep up with inflation. Senator Harris doesn't think that's such a good idea."

"Now wait a minute, I didn't say that," Harris said.

"Well, what do you mean, Larry? It's right here in your book." "I'm saying it has to be studied," Harris said. "Who knows? We might even want to raise COLAs."

"Raise them?" Stanton asked, feigning surprise. "But it says right here you want to study freezing them. Folks, I've told you what I'd do: I won't mess with your Social Security. Senator Harris can't seem to make up his mind."

"Jack, that's outrageous."

"Larry, you want to go on to Medicare, the Middle East-I'm happy to talk about all your problems."

Izzy wasn't. He wanted his show back. "Senator Harris, do you have a favorite comedian?"

"This whole campaign is a joke," Harris fumed. "It's a clear demonstration of why people are disgusted with politics and politicians, why it's so hard to have an honest discussion of the issues." "Larry, I'm telling them what my positions are," Stanton said, "You're the one who-"

"You're distorting my positions!"

"No," Stanton said. "You just can't defend your-"

"Not when you play these games- Folks, we just can't afford to keep spending money like this."

"But you just said you might want to spend more on COLAs," Stanton said. "Larry, I think you're confused."

"But I I. . . I . . ." Harris seemed to cough twice. "Excuse me," he said. "Unh," he said. "Listen," he said. "Excuse me." And the line went dead.

When the Izzy show was over, Stanton asked: "What happened? Did he hang up or what?"

I didn't know.

"You think he's okay?"

He was on the evening news. We watched it from the hotel suite we'd taken for a couple of hours, getting cleaned up for our last rall
y i
n Miami Beach. Richard and Susan had joined us. The four of us would fly to Mammoth Falls in a Beechcraft after the rally; the scorps would get a last night in Miami and meet us in Chicago on Tuesday. "Well, he looks all right," I said.

"That was a noon rally," Stanton said. "Look, there's Picker." Freddy Picker, in a plaid shirt once again, had an arm around Harris, who looked decidedly uncomfortable. Picker seemed tanned, healthy, confident-especially in contrast to poor Harris, who was clearly furious about everything that was happening to him.

"When this is over, we should talk to Picker," Stanton said. "I always liked Freddy. Smart guy."

"I saw him Saturday night," Richard said. "He did warm-up for Harris-big rally at the fairgrounds, and he wasn't half bad. He woke 'em up. Then Harris put 'em back to sleep again. You can't do a `classroom exercise' at a county fair."

"He rough on me? Picker?" Stanton asked.

"Rougher'n a bull on a sheep. He's got a responsive chorus goin': 'What does Stanton stand for?' He says, 'Y'know, Stanton says he wants to do this and this and this, but you can't do it, cause there's no money-and so, you gotta ask yourself, "What does Stanton stand for?" ' And so on. It was pretty good the-yater, gotta say."

"What's his story?" I asked. "Where's he been?"

"He got elected Watergate year," Stanton said, with some disdain, "and quit after one term. He just up and quit."

"Why?" I asked. "Did he screw up?"

"Not so far as anyone could tell," Richard said. "Had a weird scene at a press conference. What was it-you remember, Governor?" "He was going to announce for a second term," Stanton said. "And he surprised everyone. 'I changed my mind,' he said. `I'm goin' home.' It was real strange. I don't remember hearing much more about it. I was gearing up for my own run. But y'know, everyone thought Freddy was the real deal. It could've just as easily been him as Carter. More easily: He was the governor of Florida. Still looks pretty good, doesn't he?"

"Looks better, lost his baby fat," Richard said.

"I'll give him a call tomorrow," Stanton said. "Congratulate him on the campaign and see what gives."

We did our Miami rally, which went nicely. Stanton spent the ride to the plane on the phone with Leon, who had wall-to-wall good news. We were holding strong throughout the South.

I called Daisy with the news. "So what's with Harris?" she asked immediately.

"He can't be too happy," I said.

"No-you didn't hear?"

"What?"

"He didn't show for his evening rally in Lauderdale."

"No shit," I said. "Hold on a second. Hey, Governor, Harris blew off his Lauderdale rally. Daise, they say what it was?"

"Well, Picker was kind of mysterious. He told the crowd Harris was feeling under the weather-but when the scorps nailed him afterwards, he said he wasn't sure. He hadn't seen Harris. But Mrs. Harris said it was a serious case of the flu, or maybe food poisoning."

It was a massive heart attack, but we didn't find that out until about nine the next morning. CNN had the ambulance shot and Harris being rushed into a hospital, an oxygen mask over his face. I was back at our headquarters in Mammoth Falls, calling around, when the news came on. I called Marty Rosales, our Miami guy.

"Two heart attacks," he said. "A little one after the dustup with Jack on Izzy's show. He went back to the hotel, had a heart guy come in to see him-and then, baboons: the big one last night."

"How big? Anyone know?"

"Well, you know Shirley Herrera-she did some advance for us? Her sister is a nurse over at Lauderdale, and she heard he's in a coma." "Shit. CNN just said 'serious' condition."

"Well, a coma's serious," Marty said.

"Sit tight, Marty. You hear anything firm, call us at this number." I gave him the number at the Mansion, where Richard and I were scheduled to meet with Stanton to work up something for that night in Chicago. "And tonight we'll be at the Palmer House, okay?"

Richard was jiggling; I was freaked. It seemed cataclysmic, incalculable. "You ever had anything like this?" I asked.

"Nope," he said. "Dark side of the moon."

We were on our way over to the Mansion. It was chilly, a mid-March day, sun ducking in and out of fast-moving clouds. Richard was riding shotgun, jiggling his legs with his hands pressed between his thighs, a mildly obscene form of meditation. Usually, he thought out loud. But he wasn't saying anything now. He stared out the window. It was, without doubt, the strangest moment yet: Richard, speechless.

And then it got worse. I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts, trying to play it out, that I didn't quite grasp the significance of what I was seeing in the crescent driveway as we pulled up to the Mansion. There was Susan. She was walking with someone. She had her arm around a woman, a large woman. Their heads were down, close together. We pulled up and Susan looked up, her eyes red. The other woman kept moving forward, looking down. She was large and dark, wearing a church has and a navy blue sailor dress. She looked up at me as I got out of the car, rivulets down her cheeks-Amalee McCollister. I just went numb, staring at her. They moved on past us, and Susan glanced back at me-furious.

"What the fuck was that?" Richard said.

"Nothing," I said.

"Henri, I know nothing. That wasn't nothing. Who was that lady-I've seen her. Henri"-he grabbed use by the shoulders-"what the fuck is going on here?"

"Nothing, Richard. Nothing. You've gotta trust me on this. Please."

Richard eyed me. His natural opacity had evaporated. He was right on me. "Fuck this shit," he said, and walked on inside. "This campaign is just one long fucking blind date."

Stanton was in the study, his head in his hands. He looked up when we walked in. His eyes were red too. But about what?

"I didn't want it to happen this way," he said.

What? Richard and I just looked at him. He was in his wing chair. He had a blue suit and white shirt on, no tie; he was holding a redand-blue striped politician's tie in his left hand. He had selected i
t t
hinking, no doubt, that the American public would see hint for this first time that night as the probable Democratic nominee. From the way he was holding it, I could tell that he'd selected it before he'd learned about Lawrence Harris. He had already made the semiconscious calculation that he would have to go to a less aggressive tie. I knew him so well--parts of him.