SPIES!!!

 

Chuck Cosimano loves nothing more than to be talked about.  He always says that if you are not being talked about you might as well be dead.  So his friends would often gather and when they did, he was always the main topic of conversation.

 

Not surprising when you think about it.  He has always been a mysterious, sort of shadowy person with a hint of crime about him.  We know he grew up in a family that had some mafia connections.  His grandfather was an official in the Teamsters Union and Uncle Chuckie once remarked that his father had had a Safety Patrol Boy killed when he was a child. 

 

Well, we were a pretty literate bunch and many times we would sit around trying to find fictional characters that Chuck Cosimano would be like.  The Professor, in Conrad’s Secret Agent was a favorite and one of the group once suggested Fritz Tegularius in Hesse’s Glass Bead Game.  From old comic books Lex Luthor was mentioned but usually rejected because Cosimano had a full head of hair would have been more likely to suborn Superman into being part of his schemes than to try to remove him.  Doctor Doom seemed to fit him better.  There was always an arrogance, an imperiousness around Cosimano that fit that role.  From movies, Darth Vader was obvious, even though Cosimano is much too short (though he now often compares himself to The Emperor) and naturally Rotwang from Metropolis was a favorite, though I shudder to think what the rebelling workers would have run into if HE had been advising Joh Fredersen.  I can just hear his quiet monotone whisper saying, “Release the nerve gas.”  (When his voice becomes a quiet monotone everyone becomes very very afraid.  That is when bad things happen.)

 

Actually, the closest anyone came was one person who suggested Haghi from Fritz Lang’s movie Spies.  Haghi was a financier who ran a spy ring and worked part-time as a cabaret clown to keep from being bored.  Cosimano made his living in the stock market, had tentacles in government that no one really likes to talk about (I once heard him pick up the phone and say, “Yes, Mr. President.”) and actually did do stand-up comedy and performance art!  And he has an old, super 8 copy of the movie! 

 

So my vote is for Haghi.  With Dr. Mabuse a close second.