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THEY WERE DUE FOR an appearance at the Rhode Island Mall in Warwick at two o’clock. Knowing it would be mobbed on a Saturday afternoon, Berman planned to have Fiore walk around in his shirtsleeves, shaking hands with as many shoppers as possible. Karp headed toward I-95 as soon as they were all in the car.

“Drive back to the Biltmore, Lester, there’s been a change. Russell, get on the phone and leave a message with one of our coordinators at the mall that Fiore will be detained indefinitely.” Berman saw Walsh begin turning around toward him in his seat. “Don’t ask any questions now,” he said. “I’ll fill you in on what’s going on as soon as I can.”

In his suite, Berman followed the instructions he was given when first hired to manage the campaign. He dialed a number, identified himself to the man who answered and told him to tell Joe Gaudette where he was and that he wanted to speak to their good friend as soon as possible. “It’s an emergency,” he added.

Berman didn’t want Fiore in the room when he spoke with Sandy Tarantino. It was a time for the utmost candor. He didn’t want to have to pull any punches in order not to upset his protégé, and planned to ask Fiore to leave when Tarantino returned the call. But it wasn’t necessary. After ten minutes of painful silence between them, Doug got up and said he would join Walsh and Karp in the lounge. The call from Tarantino came about fifteen minutes later, and Berman told him everything that happened that day.

“Christ, I could kill the sonofabitch,” Sandy said. “How many times did we warn him?” He paused for a moment. “So what do you think, Cyril? Is there any alternative to him announcing his withdrawal?”

“Yeah, maybe we can convince him to do the same thing Tommy Arena did.” He waited for a chuckle or any sign that Sandy got the humor in his last remark, but there was only silence on the other end of the line. Berman had no reason to suspect the very tender nerve he struck.

“I’ll have to speak to my father about this. If he agrees there’s nothing else to do, will you be with Fiore at the press conference tomorrow morning?”

“I don’t think we should wait until then,” Berman said. “The Herald ’s endorsement of Singer will already be out. Doug’s withdrawal afterwards will look like sour grapes to a lot of people, no matter what reason he gives. They’ll figure he knew he didn’t have a chance of winning anyhow.”

“What are you recommending?”

“I’m in favor of getting him to a doctor this afternoon, Sandy. It fits in with the fact that he skipped his appearance at the Rhode Island Mall. Let him complain about feeling strong stomach and chest pains. He’ll have to be admitted to the hospital for tests. We’ll leak word that he’s in there, in a lot of distress. I’ll call a press conference tonight and meet with the media late, like at ten or eleven o’clock. That way they won’t have time to write a big story for Sunday’s paper.

“I’ll tell them there were consultations with Fiore’s doctors about the pain he’s been experiencing for the past several weeks. It’ll sound like three forms of cancer by the time I’m through. I’ll say that when Fiore learned a definitive diagnosis could take as much as ten more days and that his doctor warned the situation could be very serious, he decided it wouldn’t be fair to the voters for him to remain a candidate. He recognized that a major illness could prevent him from doing his job as governor. Then I’ll ask the Herald not to run its endorsement of Singer, under the circumstances. If it’s not too late to change the editorial page, there’s a chance they’ll go along with it.”

Tarantino listened to everything Berman suggested without interrupting him. “Stay where you are, Cyril. I’ll get back to you.” He called his father at home from the same pay phone and repeated the story. “I think we ought to figure out a place and meet with him right away, Pop.”

“What good will it do? He’s already dead in the water.”

“I want to hear exactly what happened and find out who the other woman was. I’d like to be close enough to push my hand in his face, depending on what he tells us. And maybe there’s still something we can do.”

Sal Tarantino was disgusted. “If I ever get my hands on your friend, Salvy, I’ll have one of the boys put his balls in a vise and turn the handle. But it don’t make no difference who else he had in bed with him. Even if it was Singer’s wife, who Berman told us he was dicking last year, it wouldn’t help. As soon as word got out, everyone in Rhode Island would feel bad for Singer and line up to vote for him. Forget it. I couldn’t have anything to do with that pervert now even if I thought we could figure a way out of this. We’ll just have to take our chances. What the hell is wrong with people these days? Tell Berman to get it over with tonight and unload that piece of shit. That means you and I will have to go in and make some calls from the office tomorrow.”

After Tarantino called back, Berman dialed the lounge and told the bartender he wanted to speak to Lester Karp. When Karp picked up the phone, Berman asked him to send Fiore upstairs right away.

“Here’s the scenario, Doug,” Cyril said, and laid it out for him. “Hopefully, your doctor’s not playing golf this afternoon. Tell him your chest and your stomach both hurt like hell, that it’s been happening a lot over the past month, but nothing as bad as this. You can say you’ve been having some dizzy spells too. If he asks questions, make up anything you want, just so it sounds like you’re in a lot of pain. Let him know where you are and say that I think we should call an ambulance.”

Berman hesitated a few seconds before sliding the telephone to the other side of the coffee table. Doug looked at him with glazed eyes, as if hoping for a miracle to happen before he dialed information to get his doctor’s number. Berman had no sympathy for him—actually despised him completely at that moment—but restrained himself when he spoke. “The campaign for governor is over, Doug. It’s down the drain. All we’re trying to do now is protect your family and keep you from going down as the biggest asshole in the State’s history. If that means anything to you, you’d better do a good acting job. The tests they do and the pictures they take at the hospital won’t show anything wrong with you, but they can’t tell you you’re not hurting if you say you are. My suggestion is that you keep hurting badly, at least through Tuesday.”