The Hooligan

By Teddy Bart

Barney Pepper was Albert Packard’s closest advisor when Packard was a Governor and after he became President. Now, thirty years later, Pepper is down on his luck. Reluctantly, he accepts an offer to organize a symposium to explore the long covered up secret of the Packard administration. What is revealed is an enigmatic plot that could have rocked the world. The Hooligan is a clandestine tale of international conspiracy and political intrigue—clashing the worldly values of pragmatism and cunning against the spiritual realm of the uncanny and supernatural.
* What is the nefarious secret plan President Albert Packard intends to unleash at the upcoming Summit with the Soviet premier?
*Who is the obscure, mystical Soviet dissident, Yuri Belov?
*What has caused the ratings of the new late night talk show, The Bernie Frank Show to plummet?
*What is the secret agreement between the President's duplicitous National Security Advisor and his Soviet counterpart?
* What does Yuri Belov say during his television interview with Bernie Frank that could rock the world?
It’s a time before Letterman and Leno, when the cold war was hot, when Albert F. Packard was President. Keeping his religious fanaticism secret from even his closest advisors, President Packard has a nefarious plan he intends to unleash at the upcoming summit with the Soviet Premier. As a goodwill gesture prior to the summit, the Soviets release a seemingly inconsequential dissident named Yuri Belov. The U.S. intelligence agencies have no information on Belov. Meanwhile, Millard Hampton, legendary producer of The Bernie Frank Show discovers some startling information about Belov. Hampton arranges for Bernie Frank to tape an interview with Belov in Israel. What Belov says would shock the world. Neither the U.S., the Soviets nor the Israelis want the interview to air. The Hooligan clashes the worldly values of political pragmatism against the mystical realm of the supernatural.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Teddy Bart
• Release date: Sep 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301485079

Teddy Bart

I consider myself living proof of the Law of Attraction. As a child I envisioned myself as a radio and television broadcaster. My path from the dream to reality manifested through the music business. After several years on the road, I brought my piano bar act to Nashville's Printer's Alley in the early '60s. Performing by night, writing songs by day, I had songs recorded by such legendary artists as Brenda Lee, Johnny Mathis and Al Hirt among others. But the broadcasting dream remained an unsettled calling. A fortuitous introduction to the program director of WSM radio in Nashville led to various apprenticeship duties. For ten years I lived on Woody Allen’s advice that eighty percent of success in show business is simply showing up. It worked! Eventually, I persuaded station radio officials to let me host its first call-in talk show in 1969. A year later I assumed the host role of Nashville television’s most prestigious television program, “The Noon Show.” Then three years later, WSM radio named me host of it’s popular “Waking Crew.” Both programs were Mid-South traditions. Eleven years later, Nashville's ABC network affiliate made me an offer I should have refused as its prime time news anchor. I soon found that telling “what” as a news anchor was not as fulfilling to me as asking “why” as an interviewer. So I returned to my first love—talk radio—and introduced “Teddy Bart's Round Table” to the airwaves on both radio and television. It aired for over twenty years. Driven by my lifelong fascination and curiosity for the spiritual, paranormal and metaphysical, I launched a talk show called “Beyond Reason” in 1987. Today “Beyond Reason” is heard as a web cast through www.beyondreason.com. As an published author, “Inside Music City USA,” was my first book followed by “The Mensh. In 2009 I published “A Particle of God," a novel that explores the fairness of success. This was followed by "Shadow Seduction" in 2011 that asks: Why decent people do shameful things?. In 2012 I published an ebook titled "The Hooligan"--a tale of political intrigue wrapped in a supernatural plot. I am extremely proud to have been voted Nashville's Best Talk Show Host five years running. In 2003, my peers in the Nashville Broadcaster’s Association honored me with their Lifetime Achievement award. When not on the air or writing, I spend my down time reading or walking the land of the farm where my wife, Jana, and I live in Coffee County, Tennessee. For more information, please visit my web site www.teddybart.com

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The Hooligan

Teddy Bart

****

Smashwords edition

Copyright ©2005, 2012 by Teddy Bart

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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

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…A time will come, wherein the soul shall be

From all superfluous matter wholly free:

When the light body, agile as a fawn’s,

Shall sport with grace along the velvet lawns.

Nature’s most delicate and final birth,

Mankind perfected shall possess the earth.

But ah, not yet! For still the giants race,

Huge, though diminished, tramps the Earth’s fair face;

Gross and repulsive, yet perversely proud, Men of their imperfections boast aloud.

Vain of their bulk, of all they still retain

Of giant ugliness absurdly vain;

At all that’s small they point their stupid scorn And, monsters, think themselves divinely born.

Sad is the Fate of those, ah, sad indeed,

The rare precursors of the nobler breed!

Who come man’s golden glory to foretell,

But pointing Heavenwards live themselves in Hell.

"Sir Hercules: from Crome Yellow"

…Aldous Huxley

Prologue

Barney Pepper reached into the breast pocket of his sport coat and removed an envelope. It had been sent to him by an anonymous source along with a note saying, This might come in handy. He removed a single sheet of paper from the envelope, delicately unfolded the document as if it is a newly discovered Dead Sea Scroll, laid it on his desk, and read the text:

On the night of September 22, 1976, at 11:53 PM, Mrs. Henrietta Packard summoned me to the bedroom of her husband, Albert F. Packard, The President of the United States. I found the President sitting in a chair staring at the fire in fireplace. He was chanting words that I could not understand. When I tried to get his attention he did not respond. He seemed oblivious to my presence and to that of his wife. His eyes remained fixed on the fire while muttering the unintelligible words. I phoned the President’s physician, Dr. Leonard Greenberg. Dr. Greenberg arrived within ten minutes of my call and attempted to get the attention of the President. The President remained in what seemed to be a catatonic trance. After taking the President’s pulse and examining his eyes—to which the President did not show any sign of awareness—Dr Greenberg made a telephone call. Within minutes medical personal arrived and placed the President on a gurney and took him to a waiting ambulance. I boarded the ambulance with the President, his physician and some medical personal. The President continued to speak strange words during the ride to the hospital. At 12:19 AM we arrived at Georgetown Hospital where the President was examined by a team of doctors. Several of the President’s advisors began arriving and they gathered in a nearby waiting room. I remained positioned outside the President’s examining room until I received a phone call from my superior notifying me that the President would be transported from to another location, and that I was relieved from further duty with the President. I was not made aware of the location to which the President was to be transported. I never saw President Packard after that night.

William F. Bennifeld

Chief Special Agent in Charge

U.S. Secret Service at The While House

May 1973-September 22, 1978

It has been two weeks since Barney Pepper grudgingly said yes to an offer from the Jefferson Institute in Nashville as Scholar in Residence. The Jefferson Institute is a think tank endowed with mega millions. The founder and CEO is a former Nashville newspaper editor whom Pepper respected.

At first Pepper had a hard time accepting the offer. Dining on the dole of a tax exempt foundation run by an old acquaintence seemed to him as sleazy as the cushy patronage jobs he used to line up for high roller campaign contributors. But the reality is that Barney Pepper is sixty-seven years old, out of work, unhealthy, nearly broke, and oddly, unemployable.

Having been Special Advisor to a President—especially one as controversial as Albert Packard—should have been his ticket to TV talking-head fame and lecture circuit fortune. But his voice has a garbled, guttural sound—similar to that of a cow birthing a calf—that strains one’s ability to comprehend what he is saying; he looks like a Sharpie wearing a suit and tie; he freezes like a space walker with a torn suit when he is in front of a camera; and, most noticeable, Barney’s left eyelid droops nearly closed. Once powerful by proxy, Barney Pepper is now the answer to a trivia question.

Then the Jefferson Institute’s life-saving offer beckoned. Pepper’s assignment is to organize a symposium on what the media is now calling Zombiegate.

In the late ‘70’s, President Albert F. Packard had resigned the Presidency after—according to a White House statement—a routine physical examination disclosed an abnormality in his lower abdomen. The press had poked around the story, came up with nothing, and fell in love with the new President, and forgot about Albert Packard. Within weeks, President Albert Packard faded into oblivion.

Nearly thirty years later, the National Inquirer ran a cover story under the headline, Albert Packard…The Shocking Facts. The piece had virtually no facts; just a brief interview with a nurse who had cared for the former President. He exists in a zombie state, she was quoted as saying,

The tabloid had attempted unsuccessfully to get a comment from all the key players in the Packard administration including Barney Pepper, who told the reporter that the only zombie state I’m aware of is Alabama. Most of it still dry.

But the zombie byte took, and the story was picked up by Hard Copy. CNN then got some former low-level Packard staffers to come on camera and talk about some of Packard’s alleged eccentricities. 20/20 rounded up the same group plus a few more to speculate about what may have happened. Other talk shows followed which whet the growing public appetite for more Packard gossip.

Since none of the principals in the enigma would grant interviews, Packard lore took on a mythical life of its own. Web sites, blogs and chat rooms spread rumors like kudzu. Albert Packard, the man and the mystery, captivated the media and the public.

Yet, the central question remained unanswered: What happened to former President Albert F. Packard?

Pepper’s Nashville benefactor had decided The Jefferson Institute was the appropriate laboratory in which to search for the truth, and that the man who was once so close to President Albert Packard that the Washington press corps referred to them as Peppard, was the person to lead the search for the truth.

As much as he needed a job, Pepper was skeptical about his ability to deliver the goods. Look, he told his old friend and new boss, "I don’t know all of it, for Christ’s sake. The goddamn thing was a riddle. As much as I’ve turned it around in my head over the years, I still come up with black holes. How can I search for answers when I don’t even know all the questions?

Look, Barney, just organize the damn symposium. You may not know the whole story, but you know a hell of a lot more than anyone else.

With an unlit King Edward cigar clenched between his teeth, Pepper stares out of his office window as afternoon traffic begins grid locking on West End Avenue. Maybe this would finally launch an investigation into the death of Freda Tucker? Maybe it will help reveal the truth about the disappearance of Yuri Belov. Or who he was.

Using a felt tip pen, Pepper starts to make a list of possible panelists on a yellow legal pad.

He prints MILLARD HAMPTON. What a coup if we could get Millard here! We’ll see. Who knows? He owes me one. Jesus H. Christ, does he owe me one! He printed LOCATE by Millard’s name.

Next, he prints BERNIE FRANK. Hell yes. Got to have Bernie. He prints MODERATOR beside BERNIE FRANK.

Then, he thinks of Andrew Jackson McKenna and prints his name. Bet he’s head of some god damn militia nuts in Idaho, he chortled, as he sketches an America flag beside his name.

Next on the list, he prints DAVID STRAUSS. You devious old son of a bitch, I wonder if even this place can afford you? Wonder how many secretaries I’ll have to go through to get to you?

Beside David Strauss’s name, he prints THE KEY and underlines it.

More names are added—journalists, historians, former secret service agents, others who had direct contact with President Packard.

Pepper sighs, looks at the Secret Service document on his desk, shakes his head and mumbles bullshit, and begins to mentally unpack the crate of crushing memories of a time before Letterman and Leno, before the web and cable news, when disco and Manilow were the rage, and the Cold War froze hearts and minds on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

Part One

Chapter 1

With the prescient mind of an acorn, young Barney Pepper divined his destiny. While his schoolmates listened to 45s of their favorite singers and watched American Bandstand after school and read movie magazines, he would sit riveted to Edward R. Murrow interviewing people on Person to Person and Jack Paar’s urbane wit on the Tonight Show; he’d study Walter Cronkite and David Brinkley and the craft with which James Reston, the Alsops, Drew Pearson and others assembled words in their newspaper columns.

Years later he would often recall a school field trip to a TV station and feeling a sense of purpose as he watched the producers and directors in the control room sitting behind the panels of lighted buttons and overhead monitors calling the shots viewers at home would see on their screen.

Sure of the life he wanted, young Barney Pepper began to create his reality. While other kids would wear tee shirts, dungarees and brown penny loafers with white socks, Pepper would show up everywhere wearing a wrinkled dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up twice, a sharpened pencil tucked behind his ear, and a tie hanging from his neck like a loose noose. The constant unlit cigar would come later. He even adopted reporteresque jargon—clipped, cynical and brash—like the dialogue of the actors in the drama, Front Page.

Constantly the butt of jokes from the other kids, Pepper would shrug it off. Having a quasi-family connection to the famous television producer Millard Hampton gave the young Barney Pepper a fantasy escape route from ridicule to imagination.

Before Barney was born, Millard Hampton had been married to his mother. She had told her son that Hampton divorced her shortly after he went overseas near the end of World War II. Examining court records some years later out of curiosity, Barney learned that the marriage had been annulled a month after their wedding.

Barney was the offspring of his mother’s second marriage. He recalled his mom and dad sharing some secret joke whenever Hampton’s name would appear on the credits of a TV show. Young Barney would fall asleep wishing Hampton had been his father. I’ll meet him one day, he kept promising himself.

Within weeks of entering college, Pepper was producing programs for the university radio station, and he volunteered at the local TV station. He became valued for his ability to handle any production chore.

One day a candidate running for Mayor of the college town came to the studio to film a spot for his campaign. Pepper, who was on hand to run the audio board, noticed something on the monitor he thought could be done more effectively—a missed smile or gesture opportunity—and he approached the candidate with the suggestion.

Son, I wish you were older, the candidate said, putting his arm around Pepper’s slouching shoulder, I’d hire you.

The incident piqued Pepper’s interest in the relationship between showmanship and politics. He became recognized and sought after for his ability to organize and strategize the campaigns of democrat as well as republican candidates for student government. As he would demonstrate later on, Barney was an ideological eunuch, politically unanchored and philosophically malleable. The process turned him on; not the policy. Like a captain of a chartered boat, his was the gift of navigation without interest in the beliefs of his passengers.

When he became editor of his college newspaper, he decided it was time to attempt to connect

Millard Hampton. Meticulously he composed a letter requesting that Hampton grant him an nterview for the publication. He had considered inviting Hampton to speak at the college, but opted for the print interview so that he could meet one-on-one with his hero.

Hampton, who was an executive producer with NBC news in Washington, wrote back and agreed to be interviewed, for no reason other than the samples of your work that you sent show some potential.

Pepper’s high got higher upon entering NBC. Shuffling down the narrow corridor leading to Hampton’s office, his head pivoted from side to side so that his good eye could catch glimpses of the people in small offices frantically finger pecking at their typewriters or talking on the telephone or both.

Like a baseball fan at Cooperstown, Pepper recognized all the stars. Hampton waved him in to his office and pointed to a chair while barking something to someone on the phone cradled between his shoulder and his ear. He was holding a pipe in one hand and a pencil in another. While everyone else Pepper saw seemed to be dressed in shirtsleeves, Hampton was wearing a tweed sport jacket over a crisp white shirt with a perfectly knotted polka dot tie nestled within an English tab collar. Although it was February, his face was tan.

After the interview ran in the paper, Hampton wrote a note to Pepper thanking him for getting most of it right, and invited him to look him up when he graduated. I may have something for you if you’re interested.

Pepper considered framing the letter but decided against it. Too sappy, he thought. Instead, hebegan a weekly ritual of writing to Hampton, often including an article he had written, tapes of radio and TV pieces he had produced and recognitions he had garnered. He kept his common ground with

Millard Hampton plowed, seeded, watered and fertilized.

After he had graduated, Hampton kept his promise and hired Pepper as an associate producer. For several years, Barney Pepper learned how to spot, secure, and deliver a story to television at the foot of the master. He worked the gamut of stories from human interest, entertainment, sports and politics—the latter of which he demonstrated a particular knack.

Hampton would caution his disciple against excess when producing a story about a public figure. Between the extremes of vice and virtue, he would say, flows a dense vapor of gray.

Hampton did not lecture or pontificate; he taught by example. His work product reflected his attitude, his approach, his special gift. Rather than going for the jugular, he deftly probed for a glimpse of the heart.

The association was strictly professional. No how you feeling, lad? or any indication of interest in Pepper’s state of being. Pepper was never invited to Hampton’s apartment socially or otherwise; but then, neither was anyone else on his staff. It puzzled Pepper that Hampton never inquired about his mom—Hampton’s ex wife. He tried to rationalize Hampton’s lack of interest in his mother as a quality of the consummate journalist. Still, Hampton’s lack of some curiosity about his mother disturbed him.

Hampton’s disinterest in Pepper’s well being changed on a frigid winter day in Iowa. Hampton and Pepper were working on a story about the candidates for president seeking the endorsement of the Iowa caucus. One of the delegates, a huge square-jawed businessman farmer, cornered Hampton during a break in the politicking, and said, I’m going to be running for Governor, Brother Hampton. How’s about joining the crusade?

Sorry, Al, Hampton said. King Richard left me with a bad taste for them.

It was a typical Hampton quip: dry and subtle. Packard didn’t get it. But then, Packard’s idea of dry and subtle was the Three Stooges.

However my protégé here, Hampton added, while uncharacteristically patting Pepper’s arm like a coach talking to a reporter about his quarterback, "he may be interested. Al, say hello to Barney Pepper.

How’s about it, Barney? Packard said. Want to join the crusade?"

Before Pepper could utter a word, Hampton told Packard to call him at his hotel in the morning, and he’d let him know if Barney will accept your offer to be your Administrative Assistant!

After Packard lumbered off, Pepper hooked his arm around Hampton’s elbow and dragged him outside. The frigid January wind was whipping up its usual late afternoon bluster as the two men stood in their shirtsleeves on the frozen steps of an Iowa schoolhouse.

For Christ sake, Millard, what in the hell are you doing with my life? You all but appointed me the administrative assistant to some guy I don’t know who says he’s running for Governor of I-o-fuckin’-wa!

Hampton’s blue eyes veered upward to the slate gray sky as if in search of something. When he found what he was looking for, he spoke:

Lad, there is a strange conflagration of forces developing in this land. It is an energy formula fed by fear and anger melded with social conservatism and fundamental religion. Never before have those volatile forces combined into a viable political entity in this country. I believe a time is coming very soon when they will collide and fuse into the damnedest political movement this nation has ever known. The only missing element necessary for it to erupt is a leader.

What the hell has that got to do with me, and what we’re up here to do, Millard? Pepper said, as he tried to rub some blood into his numbing arms.

Totally focused on the issue, Hampton seemed oblivious to the chilling wind.

Lad, that man, pointing to Albert Packard, that man could become that leader. He’s got the presence of a Billy Graham and the brain of a Billy goat! He is just charismatic enough and vapid enough to become the centerpiece of the coming political current.

"Great! Then why in the hell do you want me to go to work for him? Me, a fuckin’ agnostic! I’m happy doing what I’m doing. Why are you trying to get rid of me, Millard? Hell, you accept his offer! He asked you first anyway," Pepper said, while stomping his feet for warmth.

Wouldn’t work. They’d never buy me. I’m a known commodity. They would suspect something fishy, and move away from Packard. I’m part of the enemy to those folks, lad. No, it’s got to be you.

Pepper stopped stomping, and said, Who? Who wouldn’t buy you?

Them, the religious right. The ones who will coalesce with the social conservatives and rally ‘round that bumpkin over there, pointing to Packard, and use him to achieve their agenda.

Hampton put his arm around Pepper (another first) and guided him out of the freezing Iowa wind and back into the rear of the schoolhouse where a candidate was speaking to the caucus. While befuddled over the sudden sea change in his life, enough of his mentor had rubbed off on him so that Pepper instinctively knew that guiding him back into the warm schoolhouse was—like the pat on the arm in front of Packard—not an act of endearment, but a Hampton tactic. In this instance, Hampton needed to keep an eye on the video crew taping the candidate who was speaking.

He’s always working a couple angles at once, Pepper thought.

Positioning his body to Pepper’s so he could look him in the eyes while glancing at the progress of the taping, Hampton said, Mark my words, lad: Albert F. Packard will be the next Governor of Iowa. One day he could become the President of the United States.

Pepper nervously grinned his half grin and wiped his nose with his hand. Hampton handed him his linen handkerchief.

Then there is you, Barney. Setting aside the religious drivel, you are as perfectly fit to be Al Packard’s other self as Hopkins was to FDR. You love to engineer the train and you’re not concerned with what its carrying. You like to get the story out without caring what the story is. You love the art and the craft rather than the meaning or the merit. A facilitator, lad, is what you are.

Yes, but, Millard…

Ignoring Pepper’s attempted protestation, Hampton said, Assuming you are savvy enough to curb your irreverence at the appropriate time, you’ll come in under the radar with them…the religious crowd. And, who knows? If they derail him with, who knows what kind of crazy idea, you’ll be there to set the bloody thing on course again. It makes so much sense, lad.

He paused, and his countenance took on a softer, brotherly expression. Look, I don’t want to get rid of you, lad. I am shepherding you to a more fertile pasture. Signing on with Packard is your ticket to Pennsylvania Avenue with a seat to the right of the throne.

Pepper rubbed his droopy eyelid, and thought: So Millard wants a mole. He’s betting on a gut feeling about Albert Packard, and he wants an inside source if it pays off. Hell, he’s got them placed everywhere else. He cultivates sources like these turd-kickers out here grow soybeans. That stuff about advancing my career is unadulterated bullshit.

Look, lad, if he gets elected Governor, you’ll have a good job, one that uses your gifts, and away from the political throat slashing of broadcast bureaucracy and… maybe a future ride to the White House and back to Washington. If he loses, I’ll take you back.

Pepper thought, Jesus, how many times have I seen him do his number, saying what ever it takes to get a yes? The guy is astonishing! No wonder he’s a legend! He could sell shit to a pig!

I want to talk to Packard before I make a decision. And Millard, I want to talk with him alone.

Hampton nodded and patted Pepper on the cheek. Pepper’s response was Hamptoneese for a curious fish wanting to examine the bait.

The City Café in downtown Dubuque was bustling the next morning when Barney Pepper arrived. Aside from the apparel and mannerisms of the farmers from that of the visiting politicos, the distinction lay in the hands. The hands of the farmers looked like patches of parched earth. The politico’s hands looked like a surgeon’s after a scrub.

After looking around and not spotting Packard, Pepper sat down in a cracked vinyl covered booth. He had a newspaper with him, but he wasn’t in a mood to read it. Hampton had set the meeting for 8:00. The deadline disciplined Pepper got there on time and decided to give Packard ten