The Rift (6 page)

The President sat with his two closest friends in one of the private drawing rooms in the second floor of the White House. He had never been comfortable with the formal displays of antiques and old paintings so carefully arranged in much of the public White House— he felt uneasy living in a museum, and privately cursed Jacqueline Kennedy, who had found most of the antiques and furniture in storage and spread them throughout the house, so that every time he turned around he was in danger of knocking over a vase once owned by Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes, or a pot that James Monroe might have pissed in.

So he had filled his own apartments with far less distinguished furniture, comfortable pieces which, even if they might date from the Eisenhower Administration, were scarcely refined. Even Jacqueline Kennedy couldn’t reproach him for putting his feet up on
this
couch.

The President settled comfortably into his sofa and reached for his Pilsner Urquell. “So,” he said, “how do you stop Party members from bolting to Omar Paxton?”

“Discredit him,” Stan said.

The judge cocked an eye at the younger man. “Son,” he said, “we’re talkin’ ’bout
Louisiana.
Nothing makes the Louisiana voter happier than casting a ballot for someone he
knows
is a felon. If Jack the Ripper had been born in Plaquemines Parish, they’d have a statue to the son of a bitch in the statehouse in Baton Rouge.”

Stan was insistent. “There’s got to be
something
that’ll turn his people against him.”

“Maybe if you get a photo of Omar there in bed with Michael Jackson,” the judge said, then winked. “But I don’t guess he’s Michael’s type.”

“What part of Louisiana is he from, anyway?” Stan asked.

The President smiled. “The part where they name their children ‘Omar,’” he said.

It was one of the President’s rare free nights. Congress was in recess. Nobody in the world seemed to be dropping bombs on anybody else. There was little on the President’s schedule for the rest of the week other than a visit to an arts festival at the Kennedy Center. The First Lady was in Indiana making speeches against drunk drivers, a cause with which she had become identified— and a politically safe issue, as Stan had remarked, as there were very few voters who were actually
in favor
of drunk driving, and most of those were too inebriated to find a polling place on election day.

Since everything could change in an instant, the President reckoned he should take advantage of the opportunity to relax while it was offered.

It was characteristic of him, though, that his idea of relaxation consisted of spending an evening watching CNN, drinking Bohemian beer, and talking politics with two of his cronies.

The President removed a briefing book on economics that sat on his couch— the G8 economic summit in London was coming up in a few weeks— and then he put his feet up and raised his beer to his lips. “We can hope that Omar over there is just a fifteen-minute wonder,” he said. “He’s just some deputy lawman from the sticks, you know— he’s not used to this kind of scrutiny. He could self-destruct all on his own.”

Stan’s spectacles glittered. “So I suppose you won’t be discussing Sheriff Paxton when you have that meeting at Justice next week.”

“I don’t believe I said that.” The President smiled.

“Oh God, you’re not gonna
investigate
the boy, are you?” the judge interrupted. “You’ve already halfway made him a martyr.” He waved one arm. “What you want to do, hoss, is buy the next election for his opponent, even if the man belongs to the other party. Then Omar there will be a
loser.
That’ll tarnish his damn badge for him.”

The President looked at the Judge and smiled. Chivington was one of his oldest allies, the heir to an old Texas political family that had once controlled fifty thousand votes in the lower Rio Grande Valley— a hundred thousand, if you counted the voters in the cemeteries. He had spent ten terms in the House of Representatives, and then, having lost his seat in one of those vast political sea-changes that swept the country every dozen years or so— that in his case swept even the graveyards— he’d been a federal judge known for outspokenness on the bench, extravagant behavior off it, and the highest number of calls for impeachment since the glory days of Earl Warren. Since his retirement he’d joined a law firm in D.C. and become an advisor to the powerful—including the young telegenic fellow he’d helped to win the White House.

“I am keeping all my options open in regard to Sheriff Paxton,” the President said.

“That’s fine for now.” The judge nodded. “But you’ve got to take care of that problem before the next election. Trust me.”

The President nodded. “He’s on the agenda.”

Stan looked at the television again, at the picture of Omar Paxton taking the oath.
“Made
for television,” he said, and his voice was wistful.

*

“There’s a thousand reporters here,” Omar said later, addressing his deputies in the little high-ceilinged lounge the parish pretended was something called a “squad room.”

“Most of them are going to go home before long, but there’s still going to be a lot of attention placed on this parish.”

“So,” Merle said as he stood by the machine and poured himself coffee. “No incidents.”

“Particularly no incidents that could be described as racially motivated,” Omar said.

“We don’t get to have no fun at all?” Jedthus asked. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the air conditioner that rattled in the window. “We don’t even get to knock the heads of the niggers we’re
used
to knocking?”

“We live in a video world,” Omar said. “Let’s remember that half the people in this state have camcorders, and they’d just
love
a chance to earn ten grand selling the tabloids pictures of one of us whacking some coon upside the head. And then you’d be on network news, and we’d all be so surrounded by federal agents and judges and lawsuits we wouldn’t be able to do
anything.”

“Damn.” Merle grinned. “For ten grand,
I’d
sell pictures of y’all.”

Merle settled with his coffee onto the cheap sofa. Cracks in its orange plastic had been repaired with duct tape.

“Just take it easy for now,” Omar said.

“By the way,” said Merle, “I heard from D.R. at the Commissary. He was afraid that the election might scare all the little niggers away from the camp meetings this summer.”

“Awww.” Jedthus moaned with mock sympathy.

“Well,” Merle said defensively, “they bring a lot of money into this parish. And a lot of it gets spent at the Commissary. It ain’t like D.R.’s got that much money to spare.”

The Commissary was the general store in Shelburne City, and had retained its name from the time when it was the company store of the Shelburne Plantation, which had once occupied much of the parish. Now it was owned and run by D.R. Thompson, who had married Merle’s sister Cordelia. D.R. was all right, Omar figured. He had slipped Omar some under-the-table contributions during Omar’s campaign and was a prominent business leader, for all that his business was just a general store. So he deserved some reassurance.

Omar nodded. “Tell D.R. we’re not fixing to do anything to the tourists. In fact,” he added, “I’ll talk to him myself.”

“But Omar.” Jedthus looked pained. “When
are
we going to get to do something, you know, special?”

Omar fixed Jedthus with a steely eye. “Wait for the word,” he said. “We’ve got to get these bloodsucking reporters out of here first.”

“Churches and meeting halls burn up real nice,” Jedthus said.

“One damn church,” Omar scowled, “and we’d have the FBI moving in with us for the next five years.” It was one of his nightmares that someone— possibly someone he hardly knew— was going to get overenthusiastic and create what would literally be a federal case.

The whole point of the Klan, he knew, was violence. The Klan often gave itself the airs of a civic organization, interested in charities and betterment— but the truth was that if people wanted civic betterment, they’d join the Rotary.

You joined the Klan because you wanted to be a part of an organization that stomped its enemies into the black alluvial soil of the Mississippi Delta. And what Omar had to do now was restrain his followers from doing just that.

“Concentrate on lawbreakers,” Merle advised. “Just do your regular job.”

Jedthus scowled. Omar looked at his deputy and sucked his teeth in thought.

The problem was, he had been elected by people looking for
change.
And change wasn’t exactly in his power. He couldn’t change the last fifty years of history, he couldn’t repair the local economy, he couldn’t alter the power of the liberal media or the Jews or the federal government. He couldn’t change Supreme Court rulings, he couldn’t deny black people the welfare that guaranteed their independence from white control. Least of all, he couldn’t alter the situation by cracking heads. Cracking heads would only make the situation worse. Getting himself or one of his deputies thrown in jail wasn’t going to help anybody.

“Jedthus,” Omar said, “don’t do anything you don’t want to see on the six o’clock news. Remember Rodney King, for God’s sake. That’s all I’m saying.” He winked. “Things’ll change. Our time will come. You know that.”

“Reckon I do,” said Jedthus, still scowling. He cracked his big knuckles.

Omar looked at Merle with a look that said
You’ll speak to Jedthus about this little matter, won’t you?,
and Merle gave an assuring nod.

“I’ve got an interview with somebody from the
Los
Angeles Times,”
Omar said. “Guess I’ve kept the little prick waiting long enough.”

He left the squad room with a wave. “See you-all at the shrimp boil,” he said.

Omar lived in Hardee, twelve miles from Shelburne City, just north of the Bayou Bridge. The house he shared with Wilona was of the type called a “double shotgun,” two long, narrow shiplap homes that shared a single peaked roof. Early in his marriage, when Wilona had first got pregnant, he’d borrowed some money from his father and his in-laws, bought both halves of the house, knocked down some of the walls separating the two units, and created a spacious family home. They’d raised their son David here, and saved enough money to send him to LSU.

Though he and Wilona— chiefly Wilona— had created a pleasant little oasis on their property, with a lawn and garden and a pair of huge magnolias to shade it all in summertime, the rest of the neighborhood was less impressive. The asphalt roads were pitted and badly patched, with grass and weeds springing up here and there. The houses were a mixture of old shotgun homes and newer house trailers, with an occasional clapboard church. Cars and trucks stood on blocks in front yards. Some of the vehicles had been there so long they were covered by vines, and fire ants had piled conical mounds around the deflated tires. Cur dogs lolled in the shade, dozens of them. Laundry hung slack on lines. Old signs were still pegged on front lawns:
Omar Paxton for Law and Decency.
Confederate flags hung limp in the still air.

Omar waved to everyone as he drove slowly through the neighborhood in his chief’s cruiser. People waved back, shouted out congratulations.

These were the people who had turned out in droves to see him elected, who had overturned the local establishment and put him in office.

Maybe now,
he thought,
we can get the roads resurfaced.

He pulled into his carport and stepped from its air-conditioned interior into the Louisiana heat. The air was so sultry, and hung so listlessly in the still afternoon, that Omar thought he could absolutely feel the creases wilt on his uniform. He sagged.

People used to
work
in this heat, he thought. He himself had spent one whole day chopping cotton when he was a teenager, and by the end of the day, when he’d quit, he knew he’d better finish high school and get a job fit for a white man.

Sweat prickled his forehead as he walked the few paces from the carport to his front door. Inside, chill refrigerated air enveloped him, smelling of chopped onion and green pepper. He stopped inside the door and breathed it in.

“Is that potato salad I smell?” he said cheerfully. He took off his gun belt— damned heavy thing— and crossed the room to hang it from the rack that held his .30-’06, his shotgun, his Kalashnikov, and the Enfield his multi-great grandfather had carried in the War Between the States.

Wilona— who pronounced her name “Why-lona”— came from the kitchen, an apron over her housecoat. “Enough potato salad for twenty people,” she said. “There aren’t going to be more, are they?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t do the invitations.” He kissed her.

Wilona’s expression brightened. “Look!” She almost danced to the coffee table, where she picked up a cream-colored envelope. “Look what else we got!”

Omar saw the address engraved on the envelope and smiled. “I was wondering when this was going to come.”

“Mrs. Ashenden invited me to tea on Wednesday!” Wilona’s eyes sparkled. She was happy as a child at Christmas.

Omar took the envelope from her, slipped the card out of the envelope, opened it. Looked at the elegant handwriting. “Very nice,” he said. “Guess we’re among the quality now.”

“It’s so exciting!” Wilona said. “We finally got an invitation to Miz LaGrande’s! It’s just what we’ve wanted!”

What Omar wanted, actually, was for Mrs. LaGrande Davis Rildia Shelburne Ashenden to die, choke on one of her little color-coordinated petit fours maybe, and for her big white house, Clarendon, to burn to the ground. She was the last of the Shelburne family, and they’d been in charge of Spottswood Parish for too long.

“I’ll have to find a new frock,” Wilona said. “Thank God I have Aunt Clover’s pearls.”

“Your frocks are fine.” Omar put the invitation back into its envelope and frowned. “You’ll buy a new frock for old Miz LaGrande and you didn’t buy one for my swearing-in?”

She snatched the invitation from his hand. “But I’ll be going to Clarendon! Clarendon is different!”

“I wouldn’t buy a new frock for some old biddy who will never give us the vote,” Omar said. “Is there beer in the icebox?”