Chapter Thirty-Two

Orlando, Florida

The president is now back in Orlando where in 2019 he officially launched his 2020 campaign. The coming Republican convention—set to take place in Miami in July—will be merely a rubber stamp for his candidacy. He has no serious party challenge. Republicans Joe Walsh, Bill Weld, and Mark Sanford flirted with the idea of mounting primary challenges to the incumbent president, but the RNC quickly quashed those attempts when key Republican states announced that there would be no candidates other than The Bad King allowed on the ballot. Republicans are all in for the current occupant of the White House. He owns the Republican party. Polls show he has a ninety-percent approval rating among GOP voters, whose credo is now pure and simple MAGA politics—whatever that is at the given moment.

A New York journalist, E Jean Carroll, has just come forward with a charge that The Bad King raped her—claiming she was forced against a wall and brutally penetrated by him against her will—in a Bergdorf dressing room in New York City twenty years earlier. Friends have come forward to corroborate the woman’s charge. Surprisingly, however, MAGA supporters—those that Billy and Rosie observe flocking to his rallies—do not seem to care. Apparently, they are either immune or deaf to allegations of rape against their (savior) hero.

Revelations of sexual misconduct do not seem to matter for the thousands of Christian Evangelicals coming to see the former reality TV star. This is evidence of the strength of his support among his voters. For most of them, this kind of immoral deviant behavior is just the president being himself. “. . . you grab ‘em by the pussy, if you’re a star you can do anything you want.” The president, of course, denies the charge, attacks the lady’s character, and publicly impugns her integrity, claims it is all a lie—Fake News—manufactured by a woman trying to sell her new book.

The MAGA rallies now in 2020 are a pathetic and angry reprise of the 2016 campaign, and the bleachers are still populated by the same people, angry politically disillusioned and disaffected Americans who see in the candidate—however mistakenly—a champion for their grievance cause. These ever hopeful—but hopelessly gullible—people look up at the podium and see the always politically incorrect president, and it is their way of saying “Fuck You” to the establishment elites and their hated political correctness. The man who the Republican establishment first labeled as a joke—is now their champion. He talks like them. He is a self-professed billionaire, but they nevertheless identify with him and his patently phony populist policies. He is, for all his manifest faults and moral shortcomings, the answer to their aspirations—the American Dream. They believe him when he stands at the podium and says he is fighting for them, the real Americans—even when he stacks his cabinet with plutocratic, kleptocrat billionaires who, like himself, are just out to fleece the government and use their influence to simply just enrich themselves. The president’s family (The Court Jester, Princess Glam, and the Clown Prince) treat the presidency—in complete violation of the Emoluments Clause—as a family fiefdom, their own private enterprise, and run it in the same corrupt fashion as they do the hotel empire.

The rally crowds in 2020 are just as rowdy, and at every major event The Bad King has someone (a MAGA protester) forcibly ejected from the arena by the security guards and the Secret Service detail that follow the campaign to the various events. There are people in the crowd who believe that the president is going to reverse affirmative action and turn back the clock on what they see as racism against whites. There is still the anger and hatred characteristic of earlier MAGA rallies, but there is no longer the bonhomie—the carnival atmosphere. The strong economy that the president inherited from Obama has slowed since The Bad King first launched his 2016 campaign (the much-ballyhooed billionaire tax cuts clearly did not deliver the business investment and growth that he promised). Wages have stagnated for the average American, unemployment has ticked up, and the Dow is plummeting due to increased Mideast violence and an expanded war in Syria.

Turkey has moved troops into Syria after The Bad King peremptorily withdrew U.S. forces supporting the Kurd’s fight against ISIS, and Iran has closed the Straits of Hormuz due to the escalation of tensions brought by the war hawks (the now departed national security advisor, and the still eerily extant secretary of state) in the administration. Oil prices have skyrocketed to almost two-hundred dollars per barrel, threatening a world-wide recession, and U.S. gas prices are now over eight dollars a gallon. The crowds at some of the rallies have thinned because the MAGA hats can no longer afford the gas to drive their pickups to the rallies. Rosie senses that a weariness has settled in—even among the most die-hard supporters—about The Bad King and certain of his policies.

Ever since in 2019 when Americans first saw the horrific picture of an immigrant father and his two-year old daughter who tragically drowned trying to cross the Rio Grande River—the dad and his daughter lying face down on the river bank, the little girl’s arm around her father’s shoulders—The Bad King has been having more trouble convincing some of his most ardent supporters—namely suburban women—that all Mexicans (immigrants) are murderers and rapists. The small hope existed that the appalling sight of the drowned father and his daughter would (just maybe) shake an otherwise anesthetized public out of their collective torpor into some small appreciation of the heavy toll of grief and death being visited upon innocent and suffering people from Central America seeking legal asylum in America to escape the daily horrors (murder and rape) in their countries of origin.

Still, at every rally—from his vantage point in the press pen—Billy sees the people (the angry voters) who put The Bad King in the White House, the very people he will call upon—according to the Project Red Dragon file—to take to the streets and turn to violence if he loses the election. They are wearing MAGA T-shirts, and T-shirts imprinted with the Confederate flag or Swastikas. They are wearing MAGA hats, and some of them are carrying guns. Billy is sure that some among them are the Russian provocateurs—installed by the Russian president and affiliated hate groups like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys—that have infiltrated the country.

Shane has confirmed to Billy that the Russians are once again actively attempting to meddle in the election, and the president’s campaign team—just as it did in 2016—is willingly, actively colluding, accepting, and encouraging the Russian interference. He has told Billy that the president’s son, The Clown Prince, was knowingly used, as early as 2019, as a cut-out by the Russians to disseminate on social media a phony, racist, “birther” story (disinformation) on Kamala Harris, who is—with the Democrat convention approaching—one of the leading Democrat contenders, and one of his father’s principal challengers in the 2020 race.

It angers the CIA chief that The Bad King and his Republican backers in the Senate—led by leader McConnell—have done nothing in the three-and-one-half years The Bad King has been president to thwart the attacks. The special counsel in his testimony to the House Intel committee confirmed that Russian interference and election meddling happened in 2016 and is still active and ongoing in 2020. Shane makes a promise to Billy that his Russia House unit at the CIA will be carrying out an unprecedented covert action campaign against Russia for its current and past election meddling and intrusions into U.S. politics. Almost every day he passes along information from Elena to Rosie about ongoing Russian efforts to disrupt the coming 2020 election.

The Bad King starts every rally bragging about the size of the crowd. He reminds the assembled MAGA hats that it is all part of a plot by the Democrats to call into question the legitimacy of his 2016 election victory—the very legitimacy of his presidency. He still—after three and one-half years—loves to excoriate the media that remind him and the public, all too often, that he lost the 2016 election to Hillary Clinton by more than three million popular votes.

“Don’t believe them,” he rails from the podium. “It’s all Fake News. The Democrats are driven by hatred, anger, and rage. And they are jealous of our success,” he tells the cheering crowd, against a backdrop of MAGA banners and posters festooning the bleachers at his back. Then he repeats his now all too familiar mantra:

“No obstruction! No collusion!”

The president has repeatedly since his election called the Russia investigation a “hoax” and a “witch hunt.” Mueller in his 2019 testimony before the House Intel committee totally debunked The Bad King’s claim, was unequivocal that his report did not exonerate the president of obstruction, confirmed that the Russians interfered to help him in the 2016 election, warned that the interference would continue on the president’s behalf in 2020; and, in fact, insinuated that an FBI counterintelligence investigation into whether he is an active agent (useful idiot) for Russia would continue.

Rosie knows The Bad King’s stump spiel so well now that she no longer pays attention, sits perched on a stool in the press pen and works instead on an article based off information passed to her by Shane from Elena about the strategies and techniques that the Russians are using on social media to again influence the election. The racial and gender polarization in America has provided the Russian disinformation apparatus the perfect opportunity to politically divide the country.

Billy scans the crowd—keeping a watchful eye out for the Russian agents, white supremacists, alt-right extremists, and allied white nationalists that are now a feature at every MAGA rally—hears the angry, recurring, nativist white nationalist chant: “we want our country back” and the anti-Semitic cry “you will never replace us” remembered from Charlottesville where the young protester, Heather Heyer, was killed by an angry fascist demonstrator.

Seeing the hatred, the racist anger on the faces of the cheering and chanting MAGA supporters, Billy is appalled, objects to Rosie, “He’s a bigot and a racist. He stokes their fear, their anger and resentment with the lie that unless a wall is built on the Southern border, the country will—as they know it—cease to exist.” The Bad King is again echoing the politics of white-male grievance and ethno-nationalism that he used so effectively in 2016.

“He does it because he knows it works,” she replies.

Rosie is scheduled later that evening to do a TV hit with Chris Matthews on MSNBC. And she likewise will be on a call with Lester Holt on his The Nightly News segment.

Rosie and Billy are together now 24/7. They sleep together, travel together on Billy’s plane, eat together, and work together. And Rosie could not be happier, especially at night in bed. She loves the reassuring closeness of him next to her. Finally, Rosie now believes she has found her man.

Bridgeport, Connecticut

The Mercedes sedan is again parked just kitty corner across the street from the school bus stop. Belle is in the front seat with a small pair of binoculars. She pulls the bill of the baseball cap down to hide her face and discreetly raises the binoculars up to her eyes. Across the street the boy and the woman are standing waiting for the bus. The boy is wearing a school pack back, and the woman is holding a metal lunch box. Belle fights back the tears that just naturally come every time she witnesses this same scene. The bus pulls up and comes to a slow stop. Her view of the boy is blocked until he steps up onto the bus and goes back to find a seat. Then the bus driver brings in the stop-sign and the bus slowly pulls away from the curb while the woman on the sidewalk waits a second to wave goodbye before turning to leave.

Belle, too, waits and watches, tries to catch a glimpse of the boy on the bus as it passes by—now just twenty feet from the side of her car. She sniffles, dries her eyes, puts the binoculars away in the glove compartment, and turns the corner for the drive back to New York City.

New York City

With the success of her music career, Belle has left her small tenement flat in the Bronx and moved to a spacious condo in a fashionable East Side high-rise. Later that night she will return to her old neighborhood for dinner and a girl’s night out with her activist friend Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the controversial, progressive New York congresswoman from Belle’s old district.

First though, Belle is scheduled to have a noon meeting with her manager Robby Mock. Their relationship has been on a rocky footing since the return to New York after the last concert. That last night in Detroit, after the performance, and over the strong objections of Mock, Belle went out to dinner alone with the group’s new guitar player and back-up singer—even though it was the band’s usual custom to party together as a group. Belle had brought him into the band because she felt the handsome guitar player and back-up singer added a needed new dimension to the group’s music and broadened their appeal with their fan base—particularly younger women and girls.

Mock had objected, said the new guitar man brought nothing new to the group and only added to the payroll. Belle had overruled him.

Belle and the new guitar player had—up to that point—been discreet, indulging themselves in what on the surface appeared like just a harmless flirtation. When she did not return that night to the hotel room that she shared with Mock, there was—the next morning—an ugly scene, and almost a fist fight as the band loaded their equipment on the bus for the trip back to New York.

When Mock angrily demanded to know where she had spent the night, Belle was blunt, took him aside, and pointedly reminded him that he was her manager—not her keeper.

“You handle the bookings, the scheduling, the business affairs, and the travel—but what I do on stage and in my private life is none of your business!” It was a sharp and pointed rebuke.

“Besides,” she followed up with a rude sneer, “you’re the last person to condemn me. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” A year or so earlier, Belle had caught him in bed with one of her back-up singers. The girl is now gone from the band. The incident almost caused Belle to break permanently with her long-time manager—the always scheming, game-playing street hustler who had helped launch her career.

Mock called her a tramp and stormed off. He later came back to apologize, said that he’d lost his head, and was sorry. Belle had—for some time—wanted to end their relationship, both professionally and personally. That is why she left herself open to the new man’s advances. But she accepted the apology from Mock. She told him, however, in no uncertain terms, that if he could not accommodate himself to the change in their relationship then it might be better for them to make a clean break.

“You can be replaced, you know,” she reminded him pointedly. Belle knew it was cold what she had said, and maybe a bit ungrateful because he had been there at the start when she was just an unemployed cabaret singer in the karaoke bars in and around the Bronx and Queens. He had set up her first real paying gigs. But that was all history now.

Mock had talked himself back into her good graces for the time being—at least that is what he thought. Belle knew though that she could no longer trust him. He had cheated on her with another woman—what if he was stealing from her?

She knows from the experience of her hard scrabble life that the people you most need, the people you most trust and depend upon, are often the ones most likely to betray you. And Belle does now, in fact, worry about the money. In her mind, she is at the height of her success. Her concerts regularly draw thirty to forty-thousand devoted fans. Prime tickets go for $300 – $400 dollars apiece. There are T-shirts and concert souvenirs sold at every event. CD sales of her recordings are soaring. Her top selling “Pillar of Fire” recording, distributed as a single through on-line vendors, is at the top of the weekly music charts. She is doing appearances on the late-night talk shows.

Belle and Mock have not spoken to one another in more than a week, and she is anxious about the coming meeting. He is already there, inside her new condo waiting for her, when she arrives home that morning from her Connecticut trip. In the balmier days of their relationship, she had given him a key to her new place after her move from the Bronx. She makes a mental note to herself to get the key back. She also makes a promise to herself to find a reputable accountant/business manager with experience in the music business to manage her business affairs, and most particularly—look after her money.

NEXT CHAPTER