The last few years have not been kind to Imelda Marcos. As if her failing health, legal troubles, and battles with the Philippine government weren't trouble enough, the kleptocratic dictator's shoe-collecting widow has had to put up with constant phone calls from Jack Abramoff.

The disgraced super-lobbyist's relationship with the former first lady of the Philippines is one of the revelations in Heist, a new book by National Journal correspondent Peter H. Stone. The book follows the larger-than-life career of Abramoff from his days as a B-movie producer, through his work on behalf of South Africa's apartheid government and his rise to being the go-to lobbyist for Tom DeLay and the Republican leadership, right up to his indictment on corruption charges last year.

According to Stone, Abramoff used to call Marcos for help in landing Philippine business clients, and she once helped him arrange a meeting with then-Philippine president Joseph Estrada, a former movie star who was impeached and charged with corruption in 2001. "There's no question that he was cultivating Mrs. Marcos because he thought he could get something out of it," one of Abramoff's associates told Stone.

Other tidbits from Heist:

• Abramoff and conservative rainmaker Grover Norquist embarrassed Ronald Reagan's daughter when they introduced her to some Orthodox rabbis in Brookline, MA, forgetting to tell her that shaking hands with the rabbis was verboten according to their beliefs. She proceeded to try glad-handing them, which left the Jewish crowd "perplexed and frazzled."

• When he chaired the College Republicans, Abramoff distributed 900 copies of Target America, a conspiracy-laden polemic arguing that the Soviet Union had infiltrated the American media with 4,000 journalist-agents pushing a "massive secret propaganda campaign."

• While filming Red Scorpion, starring Dolph Lundgren, in Namibia and Angola, Abramoff obtained logistical help from notorious Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi, infuriating his Marxist opponents, whose attacks interrupted filming on at least one occasion.

• Abramoff's charitable foundation, Capitol Athletic Foundation, once donated $140,000 to a sniper school in the West Bank town of Beitar Illit. The school used the funds to buy sniper scopes, thermal vision equipment, camouflage gear, and other security equipment. When an Abramoff client, Chippewa Indian sub-chief Bernie Sprague, found out that one of the lobbyist's business associates had been murdered, he voiced concern to other members of his tribe. Abramoff promptly threatened him with a libel suit and accused Sprague of saying that Abramoff was involved in the murder.

• Pastor Chris Geeslin says his public advocacy group, U.S. Family Network, was suckered by Abramoff into subsidizing the $149,000 cost of the lobbyist's skybox at the Verizon Center. Geeslin only found out when he went to an Orioles games and Abramoff thanked him for the financing.

• Abramoff relied on the handwriting analysis skills of Rabbi Daniel Lapin, an ally of conservative evangelicals, before making any hiring decisions at lobbying firm Preston Gates.

• Just two days before the Washington Post's front-page exposé on his illicit dealings, Abramoff was blase about the upcoming story, e-mailing Norquist, "Oh well, I guess I won't be welcome at the ACLU meetings any longer." After the story came out, he e-mailed friends and clients calling Post reporter Susan Schmidta "real racist and a bigot."