Last month I was contacted by a shadowy figure wanting to discuss my investigation into political fundraising (IRREVERENT, May 2004).  He said he was a "highly placed" government source who had "vital information" he wished to provide me.  This was hardly the first time something like this had happened.   Hardly a month goes by without some "well placed" source contacting me with "vital" information about something.  In general, they're harmless cranks desperate for someone to validate their fucked up psychopathology, but sometimes I will have to break out a restraining order.  In this case, however - call it the intuition developed after spending a decade dealing with comedy writers - I decided he was harmless and agreed to meet him a week later in an underground parking garage in St. Paul, Minnesota.  When we met, he said I should refer to him as "Linda Lovelace" for some strange reason.

He was smoking and wearing a raincoat, which I thought was an odd choice of clichés right away: first, it was too sunny out to really pull off the Columbo thing, and second, he coughed violently every time he took a drag, clearly not an experienced smoker.  Still, what the hell, I sipped my Starbucks and listened.

"There's more to this than you can dream," Linda said, coughing.  "Follow the money!"

"I did," I told him.  "The money went right into George Bush's reelection campaign.  It was a $1,000 a plate fundraiser," I explained, "but the plates were clearly only worth $40 or so."

"That's just the scenery, you're missing the overall," Linda coughed.  "And the overall is clearly what you should focus on."

"What the hell are you talking about?" I asked.

"Dammit," he hacked, "I can't give you everything.  But keep digging.  Start with Ed Johnson.  Work your way up."

Since it was better than doing actual work, I decided to take Linda's advice.  Edward H. Johnson, I learned, is the comptroller of President Bush's reelection campaign, the man quite literally in charge of the money.  Shockingly, it was not very difficult getting Mr. Johnson to agree to an interview.  In fact, he admitted, this was the only time anyone had ever wanted to interview him.

Johnson had worked at Ernst & Young as an auditor before joining the Republican National Committee in 2002.  Dick Cheney had tapped him personally to become comptroller of the reelection campaign in late 2003.  I was immediately suspicious.

First of all, Johnson wore a three-piece suit to the interview and expensive shoes, way too overdressed.  Then he agreed to meet me at "Chez Cheez," a trendy fondue bar just a stone's throw from Republican National Headquarters, which made him the only straight Republican ever to set foot in the place.  "Chez Cheez" features a wide range of melted cheeses and gourmet breadsticks.  We ordered and, sipping a chai, I asked him about Mr. Cheney's fundraisers in general.  I absolutely hate chai.

"Oh yeah," he said.  "He does 4 or 5 of those a week."

"I see," I said.

"Pretty standard stuff, you know.  Luncheon and the stump speech.  You know the drill."

"For $1,000 a plate," I added.

"Not always.  Some are $5,000 and up sometimes," he admitted.  "They donate $2,000 to the reelection and the rest to a favorable soft-money resource, like the Anti-Spotted Owl Society, the Taxpayer's Relief Organization, or MUFON."

"Do you think any plate is really worth that much?"  I asked.

"Well," he laughed, "you know the drill: he gives a speech and then hob-nobs with the nobodies, you know, says hi how are ya and tries to work the crowd for as much as they can afford to give," Johnson said.   "Everyone does it.  In fact, Kerry did one yesterday and plucked $50,000 off the Boston lawyers.  Well, we both pretty much hit the same crowd anyway, truth be told."

"But over $1,000 for a simple plate…"

"Yeah, but that's just a figure of speech, right," he said, looking amused but concerned.  "Right?  I mean, you're not really talking about the actual plates here, are you?  Literally selling the plates?  I mean… that's pretty insane, isn't it?"

Johnson was clearly getting nervous and fidgety.  Perhaps my questioning had provoked him, and he was looking for an excuse to blow the whistle, like hundreds before him.  So I backed off and let nature take its course.

But instead he just got up and left the table, sticking me with the check and two awful cups of chai.  I couldn't help but wonder what he was trying to hide.

Later that week, Linda called me on my cellphone.  He refused to discuss anything "on an open line," insisting that we meet in a heated underground parking facility this time.  I agreed, so long as it was in Milwaukee.  After complaining about gas prices, he reluctantly agreed.

The place he chose was dark and dank, even at 3:30 in the afternoon, the only time we could agree upon.  Again he wore his trenchcoat and smoked Marlboro Reds, which he vehemently insisted put him "in flavor country."

After a violent coughing fit - which expelled more disgusting shit than a Miller Stadium toilet bowl - he waved me closer.  Characteristically, he stood such that I could barely see his face.

"Questions?" he coughed.

"Johnson played dumb pretty well," I said.  "He claimed it was all 'standard operating procedure.'"

"He would wouldn't he?"  Linda tossed down his cigarette and lit another.  "What about the money?" he hacked.

"He confirmed that it all went into the reelection campaign fund and that he did in fact control disbursements," I said.  "End of story, I guess.  So it's back to the cracker factory for you, huh?"

"That's the problem with your generation," he hacked, "no commitment.  You can't give up now: you're so close to the overall."

"What fucking overall?"  I said.  This guy was starting to piss me off.

"I have to speak in vacant generalities to maintain an air of superior understanding," he coughed.  "Didn't you ever see The Matrix?"

"So what's your point?"

"I'm not sure, but I'm heading someplace here, bear with me," he said and almost instantly doubled over in an extremely violent coughing attack.  Just before passing out, he handed me a business card.  I took it - dripping with greenish, black speckled phlegm - and left.

Mundt is a local CEO in charge of a multinational industrial controls corporation, with numerous contracts with the U.S. government.  He'd started as a Nixon Republican and has consistently voted for The Elephant^TM 35 years running.  Starting around 1983, during Reagan's reelection campaign, Mundt has attended every  Republican fundraiser in town.  He estimates that over the years he's been to 40 or 50 so-called "luncheons," and spent upwards of $50,000.

Despite my appearance - clearly not a Rotary Republican, or even color coordinated, or very sober - he agreed to meet me, ironically, for lunch at the Pfister.  I showed up early to make sure the bartender could make a respectable Bloody Mary.  By the time Mundt arrived, I was thoroughly convinced.

He had brought a gym bag with him, which I thought was unusual because Mundt looked like he hadn't worked out since Ford was falling out Air Force One.  But when he opened the bag, it became clear.  At least as clear as I could see at the time.

He pulled out plate after plate from the bag, followed by glasses, coffee mugs, silverware, shot glasses, ice buckets, coasters, crystal champagne flutes, crystal highball glasses; a seemingly endless number of pens, tie-tacks, little elephant golf tees, and solid gold American flags.  When the table was full, he pulled out the final item: a "2004 Republican Fundraising Catalog."

The catalog was filled with items that started at $500 (100 little elephant tees) and went all the way up to a $590,000 solid gold elephant wearing a tiny hat decorated with rubies, emeralds and diamonds in the shape of an American flag.  In one of its hooves, it improbably held a copy of the "10 Commandments."

This was clearly the mother lode!  The tale Mundt went on to spin was riddled with more campaign finance slight of hand than McCain-Feingold: a tale of high priced common merchandise that loyal Republicans purchased despite knowing they were getting seriously reamed.  In some ways, it was a confession of faith from a man who'd given his party $50,000 and all he had to show for it was a Nike bag full of trinkets.  In another sense, it was humorous and pathetic, a combination that I, of all people, understood perfectly well.

"So what are you going to do now?" Mundt asked after his fourth martini and my Xth Bloody Mary.

"Throw up?"

"About what I told you?"

"File the story and blow it wide open," I slurred.  "But first I need to know how high this goes.  Did Georgie-porgy or Lon Cheney know about this?  Were they directing the scam?  And where was Liddy and Hunt and stuff?  And who the fuck were they bugging?"

"Well, good luck," Mundt said, paying for the round.  "I've got a 2 o'clock tee time." 

As he left, and just before I slipped into a familiar unconsciousness, I resolved to talk with Linda one more time to find out, once and for all, what was beneath that raincoat.

Somehow we arranged to meet the next day.  Since it was dark and raining out - which was all the better for the intense fucking hangover I was trying to drink my way out of - he agreed to meet in a dirty alleyway instead of an underground garage.  As usual, his face was in shadow and he was hacking up a lung.

"So," he hacked and coughed, "now you know."

"A political party scamming people isn't much of a story," I said, offering him my hip flask.  "Unless it's being directed from the top down."

"You'll have to find that out yourself," he wheezed and waved the flask way.  "I can't give you everything."

"Everything?  You've given me nothing!"

"Okay, okay," he coughed, wheezed, and hacked.  "Yeah, sure, Bush and Cheney knew everything.  Okay?"

I had expected a longer scene, but that's show biz.  "Okay.  Uhh, well, thanks," I said.

"We won't have contact again," Linda sputtered, spitting something disgusting onto the ground.  "I need to get back to Washington."

"Thanks," I said.  "Whoever you are."

He started crawling up the fire escape.  About half way up, he stopped.  "You can call me Colin."  And with that, he disappeared.