The game will get heavy sometimes. You don't want to go around putting the squeeze on people unless you're absolutely clean. No skeletons in the closet: no secret vices. . . because if your vote is important and your price is high, the Fixer-Man will have already checked you out by the time he offers to buy you a drink. If you bribed a traffic-court clerk two years ago to bury a drunk driving charge, the Fixer might suddenly confront you with a photostat of the citation you thought had been burned.

When that happens, you're fucked. Your price just went down to zero, and you are no longer an Uncommitted delegate.

There are several other versions of the Reverse-Squeeze: the fake hit-and-run; glassine bags found in your hotel room by a maid; grabbed off the street by phony cops for statutory rape of a teenage girl you never saw before. . .

Every once in a while you might hit on something with real style, like this one: On Monday afternoon, the first day of the convention, you -- the ambitious young lawyer from St. Louis with no skeletons in the closet and no secret vices worth worrying about -- are spending the afternoon by the pool at the Playboy Plaza, soaking up sun and gin/tonics when you hear somebody calling your name. You look up and see a smiling, rotund chap about thirty-five years old coming at you, ready to shake hands.

“Hi there, Virgil,” he says. “My name's J. D. Squane. I work for Senator Bilbo and we'd sure like to count on your vote. How about it?”

You smile, but say nothing -- waiting for Squane to continue. He will want to know your price.

But Squane is staring out to sea, squinting at something on the horizon. . . then he suddenly turns back to you and starts talking very fast about how he always wanted to be a riverboat pilot on the Mississippi, but politics got in the way. . . “And now, goddamnit, we must get these last few votes. . .”

You smile again, itching to get serious. But Squane suddenly yells at somebody across the pool, then turns back to you and says: “Jesus, Virgil, I'm really sorry about that, but I have to run. That guy over there is delivering my new Jensen Interceptor.” He grins and extends his hand again. Then: “Say, maybe we can talk later on, eh? What room are you in?”

“1909.”

He nods. “How about seven, for dinner? Are you free?”

“Sure.”

“Wonderful,” he replies. “We can take my new Jensen for a run up to Palm Beach. . . It's one of my favorite towns.”

“Mine too,” you say. “I've heard a lot about it.”

He nods. “I spent some time there last February. . . but we had a bad act, dropped about twenty-five grand.”

Jesus! Jensen Interceptor; twenty-five grand. . . Squane is definitely big-time.

“See you at seven,” he says, moving away. “”