by Nic Saint
Chapter 9
Chazz Falcone sat in his office on the top floor of Falcone Tower in the heart of Manhattan and was looking before him with a serious expression on his face. The real estate tycoon was not a handsome man, but what he lacked in sex appeal he made up for with the forcefulness of his personality, and of course the many billions he’d amassed. In his late fifties, his eyelids drooping like a St. Bernard’s, the corners of his mouth drooping like a boxer’s, and his three chins drooping like a bulldog’s, there was something distinctly canine about both his looks and his personality. Now, at an age where every great man starts thinking about his legacy, Chazz had decided to run for president.
And it was with this great goal in mind that he now took a long puff from his cigar. Even though both his personal physician and the US legislator had told him in no uncertain terms that smoking was strictly prohibited, both for his personal health (his doctor’s verdict)—and his co-workers (the legislator’s edict)—he didn’t care one bit. This was his office and he’d damn well smoke if he wanted to.
But it wasn’t the smoking laws that had produced the frown that now made his beetling brows slope precipitously downward, but the fact that his campaign to become the next most powerful man in the United States wasn’t exactly going as he’d anticipated. For one thing, candidates kept popping up like a sort of eczema, declaring they also wanted to run for president. And for another, he’d just gotten the bad news that his candidacy had been rejected not only by the Republican and Democratic Parties, but that even the Libertarian and the Green Parties—which he’d never heard of before—had declined his offer to be their frontman this fine election season. Apparently they were full up on nutty billionaires and didn’t need another one.
So he’d just decided to go it alone. It wasn’t as if he had a particular affiliation to any party. The only affiliation he had was to Chazz Falcone, and in his opinion he didn’t need a party, as he had all the billions he needed to make this happen on his own. He’d go it alone as a party of one, and he said as much to his campaign manager, the inimitable Jerry Vale, who sat staring at him as if dumbstruck, an expression that didn’t become the former crook.
“But, boss,” Jerry’s whiny voice repeated once again, his ratty face screwing up into an expression of extreme dismay, “you can’t go it alone. You need the party apparatus to make it to the top. And besides, this is a two-party system we’re dealing with. If you go up against both candidates you’re gonna lose. You’re gonna get crushed. You’re gonna get wiped out!”
“Are you telling me the system is flawed? That the game is rigged?!”
“You betcha, boss!”
“Nonsense. Ross Perot did it. He went up against all of them.”
“And he lost, boss! Twice!”
“Well, then I’ll just have to take a different tack.” He took another puff from his cigar, hoping its fine Cuban aroma—allegedly rolled on the thighs of fifty-year-old virgins—would provide him with the tack he needed to tackle this thing.
“I don’t think this cigar smoke is good for Spot 2, boss,” another voice piped up. It belonged to Johnny Carew, Chazz’s official dog handler. When he’d hired Jerry and Johnny, on the instigation of his son Rick, he’d known he wasn’t engaging the best and brightest, but he was a man who liked to surround himself with family, and Jerry and Johnny had been working for him for so long they instinctively knew where he was coming from even before he got there.
Back when he’d still been trying to make it in the world of real estate, both men had worked for him as enforcers, occasionally strong-arming this homeowner into parting with his property or knuckle-dusting that tenant into leaving his rent-controlled apartment so it could be torn down and make room for another one of Chazz’s high-rises. It had created a bond between the three men, and he almost considered them family now.
“Look, I’m gonna go this alone or I’m not gonna go there at all. I talked to the guys in charge of the Republican Party and the other one, the, um…”
“The Democratic Party, boss?” Jerry helpfully supplied.
“Could be,” Chazz admitted. “And they both told me the same thing: they’re full up on nutsos trying to run for president and don’t want me.”
“Well, they do have a full roster, boss,” Jerry agreed. “The Republicans have fifty-one candidates all competing against each other, one even loonier than the next, and the Democratic Party got themselves a whopping three.”
“Three?” asked Chazz with a frown. “Three’s nothing! Why don’t they make room for candidate number four?” He tapped his chest. “For me?!”
“I guess they don’t like too many candidates, boss.”
“The game is rigged,” Johnny muttered as he carefully tied a bright pink bow to Spot 2’s furry little head. It was a nice bow, as bows go, but Chazz hated it. Never one for keeping his opinions to himself, he now said as much.
“But it looks so nice on the little fella!” Johnny cried.
“It looks dumb. It makes him look like a frickin easter egg. He’s a dog, not an egg,” he pointed out, quite reasonably, he felt.
“Well, I know he’s not an egg,” said Johnny, staring at his handiwork with satisfaction. “But look at him loving it. Look it! Look at him smiling!”
“Dogs don’t smile, you moron,” Chazz grated out. “They don’t have the facial muscles to smile.”
“They do, too,” said Johnny, whose affection for the Pomeranian seemed to exceed his affection for humans. “Look it! He’s grinning from ear to ear!”
“In your dreams,” grumbled Chazz, though he didn’t really care all that much about that stupid little mutt right now. If he was going to become the next president, he needed to have some sort of strategy, and the guy in charge of devising this strategy wasn’t being very helpful right now. “Look, they don’t want me, all right? So either I’m out of the race, or I’m going it alone. And since I’m not giving up, it’s pretty obvious what I need to do. Is that so hard to get through that ivory skull of yours?”
“Not hard at all, boss,” said the ivory-skulled one, who didn’t seem fazed by Chazz’s vituperative. “You know? Maybe this isn’t such a bad thing. I mean, you got the money to spend, and while those other parties are rife with infighting and navel gazing, we can start our campaign right now already.”
“That’s the spirit,” he growled with a grin. He leaned back in his chair and described an arc through the air with his cigar-carrying hand, his eyes dreamy as he envisioned a bright political future. “Let’s make television spots to announce to the world that Chazz Falcone is gonna save this country from that bumbling bunch of bimbos up in Washington. That their next great leader has arrived and they don’t need to look any further. Let’s make sure that from now on it’s all Chazz Falcone all the time. Let’s fill the news cycle with Chazz Falcone and nothing but Chazz Falcone. Let’s teach the world to sing in perfect harmony: Chazz Falcone for president!”
“I like the sound of that, boss,” said Jerry appreciatively, his ratty face almost beautiful as he, too, was smirking from ear to ear. The guy couldn’t help it that he looked like a rat, Chazz thought, suddenly in an expansive mood, and neither could Johnny help it that he looked like the moron he was.
“This is gonna be our year, fellas! We’re going straight to the top!”
“Ya think blue would be better?” Johnny now asked, tilting his large head as he stared at the pink bow with a puzzled expression on his mug.
“Just get rid of it, you idiot!” Chazz yelled, his benevolence quickly reaching its limits. Then he picked up his copy of The New York Chronicle and tapped the front page. “We need to do something about this, boys.”
“About what, boss?” Jerry asked, curious.
“About my son writing these scathing pieces about me.”
“Is Ricky at it again?” Johnny chuckled, shaking his head.
“Yeah, he’s at it again. Against my strict instructions to get off my back for once in his life,” g
rumbled Chazz. He loved his son dearly, but this infernal habit he had of writing the truth all the time was something he should try to rise above. He’d told Ricky to write about the Dalai Lama or the latest crisis in Europe or something but he kept harping on about his dad’s shady business dealings. And that in an election year! “I’ll have to talk to Fee,” he now said. “She’ll make that young hound behave.”
“Just tell her to stop putting out as long as he doesn’t tow the party line,” suggested Jerry.
“Huh? Come again?” Chazz looked up, surprised that his campaign manager had come up with such a bright idea all of a sudden.
“I read a story about some women threatening their men they weren’t going to put out as long as they didn’t do as they were told,” he said with a look of disapproval on his face. His own wife had divorced him when he’d been sentenced to jail, a lack of spousal loyalty that obviously still rankled.
“I like the idea,” he said, picking up his phone. “I like it a lot. Lemme just run it by my future daughter-in-law for a moment. See what she says.”
“I’m sure Fee will play ball,” said Johnny, who was, along with Jerry and Chazz himself, a big fan of Fee Bell. Her bakery prowess had always greatly impressed those two goons, as had her hospitality in times of hardship. Especially for Jerry, who’d often recounted that when his own wife had forced him to go on a diet, Fee had been his saving grace and had invited him to join her at her richly laden table and had shared freely from her pantry.
“I’ll just tell her not to feed my son until he plays ball,” Chazz grumbled.
“Um, boss?” Jerry now interjected. “I don’t think that’s what these women meant when they said they weren’t going to put out. I think they meant they weren’t going to have any more… relations with their men, if you see what I mean.”
“Huh? What?” cried Chazz, greatly surprised. “You mean…”
Jerry nodded seriously. “That’s exactly what I mean, boss.”
Chazz’s face split into a grin, which only served to make him look more hideous than his regular expression already did. “That’s just brilliant!” But then his frown returned. “It also means there won’t be any grandchildren.”
“But that’s the beauty of the scheme, boss. The sooner Ricky gives in, the sooner you’ll have grandchildren dandling on your knee,” Jerry pointed out.
And his grin was back. “He won’t last a week!” he cried, and then was on the horn with Fee Bell herself, the woman who was going to save his campaign from that infernal reporter son of his.
Chapter 10
Fee didn’t take the news too well. She loved her future father-in-law dearly, but going on a sex strike? At a moment when Rick was already going to be fuming because she was interfering in his professional life? She didn’t think so. It would only serve to make him even more upset with her, and since they weren’t married yet, she didn’t know if this was such a good idea. Then her mother’s idea to organize dinner sounded a lot better.
“Why don’t I simply invite you and Rick over for dinner?” she suggested.
“Dinner? Dinner? Why dinner?”
It occurred to her to mention that it was a regular custom for human beings to sit down for dinner, and even more so when they were related, but instead she merely said, “So you two can talk things through, of course.”
“There’s no need to talk things through,” Chazz came back swinging. “We talk things through plenty and the boy simply won’t see the light. Insists on writing these hatchet pieces. This—this gutter journalism!”
“I still don’t feel…”
“Just tell him no sex until he sees the light, honey,” said Chazz, almost pleadingly now. “He’ll come round in no time, you’ll see.”
For some reason Fee found it a little peculiar to discuss such a private topic with Chazz, and she mentioned this now.
“How do you think I feel? I’m the one who’s the victim in this whole affair! I’m trying to become the next guy in the White House and already Ricky is sinking my chances with all that stuff he’s been writing about me.”
“But how bad can it be?” she now asked. “All that stuff Rick is writing is old news already, Chazz. People know your history. They know how you reached the top, and frankly I don’t think they mind that from time to time you were forced to use less than honorable ways and means to get there.”
“You think so?” he asked dubiously.
“I’m sure of it. In fact I think it’s going to boost your popularity. People love a charismatic crook like you. They adore a crafty guy. A self-made man who doesn’t take no for an answer and crawls and bites and kicks his way to the top. They’re going to admire you for it, mark my words.”
“I don’t know. Ricky knows a lot of stuff about me no one else knows. And what’s more, how’s it going to look if even my own flesh and blood won’t toe the line but instead insists on tearing his old man down? It’s now that we have to stand together, shoulder to shoulder, to fight for my candidacy.”
Chazz had spoken feelingly and he’d spoken well, and Felicity had to admit he had a point. If even his own son was against him, how was Chazz going to convince the rest of the population to give him their blessing?
So finally she said, “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Good girl,” Chazz grunted, and then promptly disconnected, always the busy businessman, and now even more so than usual.
She wiped her hands on her apron and stepped from behind the counter, to allow her aunt Bettina to take over her shift.
“You look worried, honey,” said Bettina, who had a keen eye for these things. A woman as full-figured as her sister Bianca, she also had the same remarkable hairdo, as the two women shared the same hairdresser. Her hair was a concrete gray, with streaks of asphalt black, and she seemed to like it.
“Yeah, I’ve got my share of trouble today,” she said, and told her aunt about what Mom had said about franchising Bell’s.
Bettina gave her a curious look. “She said that? That surprises me, hon. I thought she gave you a free hand in how to run Bell’s after she and Pete retire. She even told me not so long ago that she’s happy you’ll take over.”
“That’s what I thought, too, until she gave me this… gag order not to expand beyond the original store.”
“Do you want me to talk to her? Or better yet, I’ll ask Achilles.”
“Yes, please do. And I’ll ask Dad. If anyone knows about this clause that Bell’s can never be managed by anyone other than a Bell, he’ll know.”
She walked into the bakery, where Uncle Achilles was still baking up a storm. Usually he and Dad did all their work in the early morning, but with the online store being such a great hit, they’d decided to bake up a fresh batch of cookies and pastry to fulfill the new orders pouring in.
She found her dad out in the backyard, where he was enjoying a breather, and sat down on the bench next to him. The backyard wasn’t much of a yard, as neither Felicity’s mom or dad had ever taken the time to make it nice. One part of it was a veritable jungle, while the other part was where some leftover stuff from the bakery lay rusting in the dirt. Pete was supposed to haul it off to the junkyard one of these days but hadn’t gotten round to it yet.
“Dad, I need to ask you something,” she now said.
“Ask away, hon.” Then he frowned, his thin features morphing into their standard expression of dourness. “Unless it’s about that cybershop of yours. If I’d known that project was going to give us so much more work I’d have vetoed the whole thing. If this keeps up we’re going to have to bring in more hands.”
She laughed. “I thought you liked the store to be so successful? Isn’t that what being a small business owner is all about? Being all that you can be?”
“I think that’s the US Army, hon.”
“Whatever. I don’t see there has to be a rule against being successful? Trying to become the best version of yourself is what we’re all striving for, right? Why hold ourselves back
when we have the chance to prosper?”
Her dad frowned at her. “I have the impression this is about a lot more than the cyberstore. Am I right?”
She threw up her hands in a helpless gesture. Father and daughter were so different that people had often speculated someone other than Pete had fathered her, but Felicity knew better. She and her dad had a lot more in common than their physical difference indicated. “I told Mom about my plans to franchise Bell’s, and she vetoed me! She said no one but a Bell can run a Bell, and that I shouldn’t expand beyond the original store. She was really adamant about it, too, and even got mad when I told her she was just being old-fashioned.”
“I see,” said her father, tapping his lips and suddenly looking a little cagey.
“So what was that all about, Dad? I don’t understand. If we find some great people who want to run a Bell’s Bakery in another part of the country and give us a percentage of the profits, why not? It’s all money in the bank.”
“Yes, well, I see what you mean, of course, honey,” said her father, still tapping his lips and now looking decidedly shifty-eyed, like a woodland animal surprised by a forest fire and eagerly searching for the Exit sign.
She frowned. “Dad?” she asked. “What’s going on?”
Her dad cleared his throat noisily, continuing mysteriously.
“Just tell me,” she urged. “I don’t want to go against you or Mom, but I need to know why. I think I’ve earned that right, right?”
“Sure you do, hon. Sure you do,” he said, his face twisting into a rare smile. Then abruptly he rose from the bench and stretched awkwardly. “Look, um, can we discuss this later? I have to get back in there and, um, well, bake stuff.”