Edward St. Boniface, author of Political Magnicide, lives and works in London UK. He has previously published his work in Murderous Ink Press and Siren Call Press among others and writes in a variety of genres and settings.
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Given political homicide established as a commercial baseline enterprise, the next logical accountancy step in enhancing the service to maximum cost-efficiency would necessarily be Political Magnicide.
Excerpted from epilogue to the essay and graduation term paper, withdrawn, The Practical Economics And Methodology Of Political Homicide by Gary Banomena (all rights reserved).
From company confidential archives, Special Operations, file designation X-80. Highest security classification, Company President and Archivist eyes only. See Appendix 7 for full list and profiles including police records of other candidates currently under consideration for X-80 and possible future similar operations. Recording made with briefcase-concealed microminiaturised tape recorder device replicated from a design originally patented and operated by the Central Intelligence Agency. Dialogue takes place during (date and time strictly redacted from official record) in Presidential Suite Two at the Vanderfeller Hotel, Park Avenue, Upper Manhattan, New York City.
(Conversation already in progress as company president invites prospective freelance chief executive officer removal operative candidate John Warnock Hinckley, Jr to expound on various subjects including the speculated target of Operation X-80 as indicated. Both are availing themselves of a buffet on a mobile room service tray delivered just prior to the beginning of the recording, beginning with company president tipping the waiter handsomely. Murmured courteous thanks and the closing of a door, sounds of leisurely consumption of buffet contents and the pouring of refreshments.)
GARY BANOMENA (Redacted Company Alias For Operation X-80): “Check it out Johnny, there’s also a fully stocked bar over there. Fridge under the counter is full of snacks and limes and stuff. Call Room Service anytime and they’ll even send someone up to mix cocktails.”
JOHN WARNOCK HINCKLEY Jr: “Do they do a good Double Hangman Special? Y’know, like with that Old Kentucky Hangman bourbon? I love them.”
Call Room Service anytime and they’ll even send someone up to mix cocktails.
GB (RCAX-80): “Hang loose around here for a few days and you’re bound to find out.”
(John Warnock Hinckley Jr laughs.)
JWHjr: “Wow, it’s just like a movie. The view up Park Avenue with all the Christmas lights on is real pretty. Like nothing I’ve ever seen. Never stayed in a penthouse suite before. You should see the crummy hellholes I have to stay in most of the time. Roach Motel city. You know, like that weird commercial. My parents back home in Evergreen are rich like old Croesus, but they give me nothing.”
GB (RCAX-80): “I’ve booked it for a week. Relax and enjoy everything here. Then you can fly over to wherever you were headed. Here’s the ticket I promised, it’s open for any airport destination in the continental USA for the next month.”
(Brief rustling as a ticket pack is placed on a table, JWHjr leafs through it.)
JWHjr: “Haven’t decided where to go yet. Denver maybe, or Tucson. Maybe I’ll try Los Angeles again ‘cos I haven’t given up on the songwriting. Is the ticket two-way?”
GB (RCAX-80): “Yep. And there are some interstate bus vouchers in the pack if you need them.”
JWHjr: “You guys at The Alternative-Alternative Apolitical Group sure are generous.”
(ARCHIVIST’S NOTE: Invented cover political organisation left un-redacted for operational clarity reasons.)
GB (RCAX-80): “Encouraging genuine lasting positive change in America’s current political and ideological culture requires a lot of investment.”
JWHjr: “Gotta be honest with you here, (RCAX-80), I was definitely in two or three minds about meeting you the first time when I got your message.”
GB (RCAX-80): “How so?”
JWHjr: “Thought you were the freak-out Federales. Nashville state cops and an FBI goon squad grilled me for hours when I got picked up at NAX. It was the goddam Inquisition but with denim and Brooks Brothers. They even used sodium pentothal on me. Or I think they did, ‘cos I can’t remember everything too straight. They really sweated me out while they had me there. Never should have tried to carry guns onto that passenger jet. Forgot about all those metal detectors. Only the FBI and NPD knew about me getting nabbed, though. How’d you guys get to hear about it?”
GB (RCAX-80): “We have our sources.”
JWHjr: “Hokay; mystery man. Like the clandestine vibe. Smart touch too, sending the first meet up invite all official-looking to my home address like that. My parents thought it was a real job offer. Told ‘em it was a legit interview in New York, and let them read it for themselves. So they gave me some money on top even though you sent that train ticket.”
GB (RCAX-80): “It’s hard to find sincere candidates and we think you’re the best we’ve seen.”
JWHjr: “So are you dudes a committee, or corporate, or what?”
GB (RCAX-80): “Small but growing, Johnny. We’re based here in New York but we do our…activism all over the country. Targeted political homicide is something you keep quiet about.”
JWHjr: “Love that term. So we’ve both got the federal fascists after us.”
GB (RCAX-80): “Well, so far our activist group has mainly avoided that wrong kind of attention. But we do necessarily have to work in the shadows. Against the mainstream flow; so to speak.”
JWHjr: “Yeah, you cain’t exactly advertise for Caesar’s Avengers in the Saturday Evening Post. But the other reason I was reluctant, being honest, is that you’re not the first outfit to approach me.”
GB (RCAX-80) (short pause): “Who, exactly?”
JWHjr: “Funny thing, it happened earlier this year while I was at Yale. I went to a Young Republicans meeting. Made a big ruckus about the Reagan campaign. Rich frat boys from The Tomb didn’t like it ‘cos all their daddies have a lot riding on that jester getting into the Oval Office. So they slung me out. Well, somebody must’ve been there who also wasn’t a Young American Imperialist Hog in disguise. Next day someone sent a note to where I was staying, giving a telephone number. When I called it and said yes they sent me a train ticket just like you did. I had to go to Los Angeles.”
GB (RCAX-80): “Think I’ve heard of these people.”
JWHjr: “Fancy big building right in the heart of town. Serious money behind it, you could tell. Place was like some kind of futuristic Xanadu from Citizen Kane or Metropolis or something. Anyway, they made me watch this crazy political indoctrination movie all by myself. Sat in this big chair with reaction tester pads and stuff in this huge spooky auditorium. Right away I saw it was brainwashing stuff and I lost interest. Definitely wasn’t the Agency, though. You know them?”
GB (RCAX-80): “We know them.”
JWHjr: “Tight-fisted corporate creeps put me up in this sleazy motel called the Siesta Six. What a dive; more like the Deep Six And Seven-Eighths. Yet another Roach Motel city scenario. I felt like the goddam roach, or they were telling me that’s exactly how they saw me. Pikers didn’t even give me an extra day to see the sights. Like a rerun with my parents. After all that just twenty lousy bucks. Not even enough for lunch and a taxi back. In the end I cleared out early. Blew them off in a phone booth call from Union Station just before I caught my train back to New Haven. That showed ‘em.”
GB (RCAX-80): “Wisest course, Johnny. Those people have a bad reputation.”
JWHjr: “Whereas you guys go for the personal touch. You really look after someone who comes to you. Sure didn’t expect something like this, or being shown around town so well. It’s a really caring attitude. I admire your professionalism.”
GB (RCAX-80): “Much appreciated. We prefer to be business-like and principled at the same time.”
JWHjr: “And thanks for the guns in the nifty briefcase fitted for that beautiful new typewriter.”
GB (RCAX-80): “You should be able to get through any airport security now with the typewriter as cover.”
JWHjr: “Never had a machine that light before, it’s amazing. Like a typewriter to do my written stuff best. At the same time I hate lugging around a heavy Remington or an Imperial everywhere. Those are the only other good makes. Completely wipes me out.”
GB (RCAX-80): “This one is an imported German model. It’s entirely made of aluminium and reinforced carbon, but strong and durable. Better than stainless steel in fact, and as you can tell a whole lot less weight. Great consistent key-impact on the page, even for the italics and punctuations. I use one myself. Made by a company called Holzuckermann who also manufacture recording equipment and other electronics. Yours is called the Also Sprach Zwei, their latest model. It came out only a couple of months ago in Europe. But they’re available in America through the manufacturer’s office which is based in Jersey City. That’s your cover story for how you got it.”
JWHjr: “Lighter typewriter balances out the weight of the hidden revolvers so the case ain’t suspect?”
GB (RCAX-80): “Yeah. And the revolver compartments are laced with lead so they’ll fool even a good X-ray or fluoroscope by distortion. If airport Security make you take it out of the briefcase for any reason, act possessive, but not too possessive. Try not to let them handle it if you can avoid. It’s expensive and new and your most precious possession, right?”
JWHjr: “Right. And I get at the guns and ammo how?”
GB (RCAX-80): “Using the Anderson key from the repair kit in the side pocket. All the screws in the typewriter are designed for it by the manufacturer. There’s a hidden black-painted screw at each end of the concealed lids. We put them in there. Anderson key also works on those. Screws are designed to just look like part of the interior stitching. Four revolvers, two hidden on each side in their own custom-designed niches. Slotted ammunition box between keeps the bullets from rattling. Sized exactly for those calibre bullets. Guns are necessarily small but powerful, and they’ll do the job.”
JWHjr: “So what if I need something bigger?”
GB (RCAX-80): “Get yourself an army surplus Panzer tank and stash your shotguns in there.”
JWHjr (laughing hilariously): “I betcha you could get me one of them too. You’re my own personal Steven Prince, (RCAX-80)!”
GB (RCAX-80) (short pause): “Gunrunner and drug dealer from Taxi Driver, right?”
JWHjr (humorously): “You got it. Can you get me some horseblow and a Cadillac with the pink slip and everything too?”
GB (RCAX-80) (matching JWHjr’s tone): “Would you like the upholstery in snazzy snakeskin or lurid leopard spots or my favourite pied crazy-chequers?”
JWHjr: “Har, har! Saw Taxi Driver this morning for the twenty-first time at The Little Rialto over on Seventh Avenue. That movie house you showed me in passing when we first met on Monday at Grand Central? It stuck in my mind. Then you took me over to the Cosmo-Salamander Cineaste’s Cineplex in Bedford Stuyvesant. I haven’t been to many repertories, mostly porno houses. We saw that thriller The Conversation.”
GB (RCAX-80): “Personal favourite of mine.”
JWHjr: “Didn’t know Coppola made that one, it was seriously eerie and clever. What you think is happening ain’t. Then you surprised me by bringing me here afterwards. I thought it was just for dinner and instead you brought me right up to the suite here. What a nice surprise. I got a paper delivered even and looked up the movie listings. So I just walked over to Seventh this morning to see it before you came up here for Thirteen O’clock, as you put it. New York City’s great for flicks, you can see anything new or old. I could watch Taxi Driver a hundred times back to back.”
GB (RCAX-80): “Didn’t know it was playing. Sorry I missed that.”
JWHjr: “Morning double feature with an early DeNiro called Hi, Mom! 1970. One of Brian de Palma’s. Him and Sidney Lumet after Serpico are Hollywood’s unholy trinity with Martin Scorsese, the way I see it. Although Frankenheimer’s one of the greats too. He hasn’t done anything I like lately, though.”
GB (RCAX-80): “I’m heavy into The Manchurian Candidate and Seven Days in May. First class thrillers. Seconds is surprisingly underrated, but I think it may well be his best so far. Roman Polanski is very good too, if you’ve seen Knife In The Water and Chinatown.”
JWHjr: “I only like a few movies. I’ll go to anything with Jodie in it, of course. I have to say though that a lot of them are hard to sit through, even for her. Freaky Friday was excruciating, although it was a fun idea. Foxes was a lot better, but Taxi Driver and The Little Girl Who Lives Down The Lane are where she’s at her very best. Iris the child prostitute in Taxi was a part just written for her alone. Vulnerable tough-but-sweet character you just want to love and protect, y’know? Better than Tallulah in Bugsy Malone, that’s too brassy and not the real her. I couldn’t believe she did nudity in The Little Girl at such a young age.”
GB (RCAX-80): “I think that was a body double.”
JWHjr: “No, that was all Jodie; I could tell. They just said that to keep her image clean for the censor people and Disney. Mind you, The Mouse also hired that beautiful English girl Jenny Agutter for The Railway Children and that was after she did this crazy far-out movie Walkabout. She does the full Lady Godiva in that one, let me tell you, it had an X-rating. Saw it at a Yale film club screening.”
GB (RCAX-80): “Guess that’s the kind of thing a pretty girl has to do to get on in the pictures business.”
JWHjr: “It’s Jodie’s mother. The woman made her do those magazine pictures too, the naked ones by the pool. She’s so young. I like them sure, but once Jodie and me are together she’s never going to have to prostitute herself again.”
GB (RCAX-80): “Been in touch with her lately?”
JWHjr: “Know she’s still at Yale. Tried to get in touch by phone and sent her some letters but she’s nervous. Understandable, I guess. Need some time to get her to like me and then maybe we can go out regularly. Tried enrolling on a writing course there but it didn’t go like I’d hoped. In the end they wouldn’t let me stay. Bunch of establishment creeps. Just like my parents.”
GB (RCAX-80): “One of the best universities in the country. In the world. She’s a smart girl.”
JWHjr: “Still don’t know if I’m worthy of her, but I’m determined to try. Pure love finds a way.”
GB (RCAX-80): “Take her to a good movie.”
JWHjr (long pause): “Yeah. Wonder if she’d go to Love Story with me. Or Goodbye Columbus, that’s a great one, Richard Benjamin and Ali McGraw get the feuding lovers chemistry just right, but I don’t want Jodie to get the wrong message.”
GB (RCAX-80) (playfully): “Howabout The Stepford Wives?”
JWHjr: “Ha, ha! If only you really could reprogram android girls like that. I’d buy me ten Jodies. Maybe an Angie Dickinson and a couple of Raquel Welches. Jaclyn Smith and Farah Fawcett and Susan Anton too. Maybe Cheryl Tiegs and a few centrefold girls like Shannon Tweed. I’d probably make the copies all wear different wigs for the variety.”
GB (RCAX-80): “Sounds like a fun harem.”
JWHjr: “I’d make Heston Huner eat his heart out, all right. Jodie’s the only girl for me though, really. I’ll never let Heston Huner or any of those other pervy freaks get her for one of those Sheik Magazine centrefolds, even though I’d kind of like to see that. Maybe we’ll take some pictures like that together, but for just the two of us to groove on alone.”
GB (RCAX-80): “Sometimes you feel that really strong bond with someone you can’t explain.”
JWHjr: “Absolutely yeah. In fact I’d seen Jodie in loads of things before she broke into movies big time. She did lots of stuff on TV. I’d always seen there was something special with her, not like other child actors. Most of them you can tell they’re just saying prompted lines. But in Taxi Driver she puts her whole body and soul into the part of Iris. Later I started to notice you see girls like Iris everywhere. Children who should be in school but have no one to protect them. Sharks catch and gobble them up like prey, just like you see Harvey Keitel as ‘Sport’ doing. Jodie’s in an even more rancid shark’s world. That Hollywood scene wants to gobble her up too. So I decided since I’ve got this empathy connection I’ll protect her from it.”
GB (RCAX-80): “Paul Schrader was living in that kind of world at the time, I read. Marriage broke up and his girlfriend left him. No money and no apparent future. So angry at what he saw around him that he put it all down as honestly as he could.”
JWHjr: “No movie is like Taxi Driver. It’s not about the corruption of New York really, it’s about corruption everywhere. Eating everything up like a cancer so that we’re all diseased from it. I mean, I was never a Vietnam veteran like Travis in the movie, but all my life I’ve felt like a refugee too. Ugliness all around me in society just drives me totally nuts.”
GB (RCAX-80): “I saw some papers on the writing table when I came in. You working on something while you’re in New York?”
JWHjr: “Poetry for Jodie, mainly. Trying to get the tone right. Been working on a few letters to her coming up to Christmas. Some are quite long, and I haven’t decided whether to send them yet. Also been trying some song lyrics for when I go back to LA. But between you and me, I’ve been thinking of trying my hand at a novel. My life story but with stuff added. You read a lot?”
GB (RCAX-80): “Reading’s my favourite leisure, apart from cinema.”
JWHjr: “What kind of books sell best?”
GB (RCAX-80): “Crime fiction and autobiographical confessions.”
JWHjr: “Walked past this all crime and spy-story bookstore the other day in Greenwich Village. It had this huge sign like Lichtenstein’s Smoking Gun picture; it shocked and thrilled me so I went in. Never dreamed how many crime writers there were, past and present. All those books about real killers and Anarchists and Bolsheviks and Mob hit men too. Maybe I could write something like that about my own life when I score my big message statement. I mean, I’m going for the Presidential level.”
GB (RCAX-80): “Why the President?”
JWHjr: “He’s the epitome. The intersection point for everything that’s most good and worst bad in America. Saw all that clear through Taxi Driver too. When Travis has that slimeball senator running for president in his taxi one night he tries to tell the guy the hard truth of life on the streets. Of course the creep doesn’t listen and just keeps on with his smiley lies to get into office. So Travis stalks him to give justice to the people. I’m gonna do that too, but on the biggest possible scale.”
GB (RCAX-80): “A shot that will be heard round the world.”
JWHjr: “That would be The Black Hand; right?”
GB (RCAX-80) (long pause): “Uh, how do you mean, Johnny?”
JWHjr (chuckling hysterically): “Hah; gotcha. You should’ve seen your face there. I didn’t do so bad at school as they make out. The Black Hand was the conspiracy outfit that put a bomb into Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s guts. He ruled their country and a whole empire, or he was going to. It started the First World War. The guy Gavrilo Princip who did it was a nationalist and a patriot and a poet too, like me. That’s really where I got the idea in the first place. Studied all the people in history who’ve zilched out kings and heads of state for years. They always end up famous like I will. If you wanna send a message to the world or just one person you love, it has to be apocalyptic.”
GB (RCAX-80): “Media noise makes it hard to get a real message across these days.”
JWHjr: “You got it. No one listens. And the action will be completely justified anyway once I do it and they all see why. Look at what the Presidency has fallen to, (RCAX-80). It’s even worse than those old time kingdoms and empires were. And its right in our faces today, they don’t even try to pretend they’re good men anymore. Lyndon Johnson drags us through the hell of Vietnam. Nixon drags us through the sewer of Watergate. He falls, but Ford just pardons him and buries the political toxic waste in the full light of day like it never happened. Then we get the Peanut Man Carter, who does absolutely nothing when all the terrorists go on the march. Now it’s Mr Teflon Elect, Ronald Reagan the B-movie president. He’s still playing Bonzo. Even calls himself The Gipper. On national television, no less. Christ; how did that happen? Since Kennedy the most important job in the world goes to a bunch of stupid circus clowns prat-falling. The whole world thinks we’re pinheads. America’s in freaking disgrace; man.”
GB (RCAX-80): “I agree. Nothing seems to stick to Reagan despite all his political gaffes in California. Not to mention the national stage. That’s why they gave him the Teflon nickname.”
JWHjr: “Boy, does that moniker fit. I cringe every time that joker comes on TV. His act is so see-through and yet everybody around him goes along with it. Pure gonzo Hollywood crap. Makes out he’s loveable Bozo but he’s actually Hop-Frog, if you know your Poe. I’m gonna be that guy’s Travis Bickle nemesis, but I’ll get through where the real Bickle didn’t.”
GB (RCAX-80): “How easy is it to get close enough?”
JWHjr: “Actually it’s amazing. At personal appearances they let select groups of supporters get practically next to the twerp. All you need is a Republican candidate support badge. Campaigners hand those out free on the day. Like they’ve all forgotten about Dallas and Lee Harvey Oswald. But I’ll remind them and most of all I’ll remind Gipper. With lead poisoning.”
GB (RCAX-80): “Eastern Bloc is kind of worried that détente may be on the way out with Reagan. Cronkite was doing a summing up of the political year last night.”
JWHjr: “Don’t think so much about the world scene, but yeah. Reagan and his so-called Christian Right pals talk up Mutually Assured Destruction like it was almost a good thing. International Commie Conspiracy is the Devil’s playground and all that. Book of Revelations as brought to us by Jerry Falwell. Commercial promo breaks in between for Day Of Discovery and The Lawrence Welk Show. My dad and his oil business buddies never stop going on about that stupid mixed-up stuff around the dinner table. There’s a lot of idiotic ignorant fanaticism in America just waiting to ride up Gipper’s back.”
GB (RCAX-80): “Someone has to put a stop to it. That’s what our organisation thinks.”
JWHjr: “Politics is a shooting gallery, (RCAX-80). You gotta stand up for your principles. You are looking at one man who refused to give up. And what he does he’ll do to protect the one he loves. Jodie is all the best of America to me.”
GB (RCAX-80): “Some women are hard to impress, but bagging a President would impress anyone.”
JWHjr: “Let’s do it. I’ll make that Sacramento snake into gipperburgers.”
GB (RCAX-80): “That’s the spirit.”
JWHjr: “Schrader will write a movie about my life afterwards. I’d bet on it. That would be the most, man. And someone somewhere will write a novel. Better than Catcher In The Rye; even. So it’ll be there on the bestseller shelves right alongside my own novel about me. People can compare them. It’s like Schrader wrote Taxi Driver about me, and then he really will write about the real me. Betcha it’ll be so good they’ll have to give him the Academy Award for whatever year it comes out.”
GB (RCAX-80): “Scorsese could direct it. Or de Palma. Or Lumet. Or Pakula.”
JWHjr: “Mebbe they could even get John Frankenheimer?”
GB (RCAX-80): “You’ll be Son Of The Manchurian Candidate; Johnny.”
GB (RCAX-80) & JWHjr (long pause, then simultaneously): “Oh; yeah!”
(Uproarious laughter from both participants and enthusiastic clinking of glasses in an apparent toast.)
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