Sure there was a national election going on, but I wasn't running for any office. Still, if it hadn't been for me the other candidate, who was a shoo-in, might have won. But there were a lot of things going on, too.

Like Polly Plonk, whom I first encountered all dressed up in her birthday suit in her psychiatrist's office. Or Johnny Troy, America's golden-voiced gift to females of all ages, who might have polled more votes than both presidential candidates if he hadn't fetched up dead. And, lastly, Ulysses Sebastian, whose talent agency was the biggest in the world until it started to "represent" some mighty peculiar clients. Such as Joe Rice, top man in the west coast Mafia, whose delightful little hirelings kept trying to kill me for reasons that were not all clear to anyone, least of all me, Shell Scott.