Gibbon's Decline and Fall (10 page)

Jagger's eyes narrowed as he thumbed mentally through his caseload. “I don't think there's anything useful pending. It's the usual mix. Drunk drivers, garden-variety murderers, gang killings, a bank robbery, one teenager who stuck her baby in a Dumpster—”

Head cocked, Keepe held up a finger. “That might be interesting.” He frowned, made a tiny chewing motion. “It has a kind of end-of-civilization ring to it, doesn't it? The fine, pure instincts of motherhood betrayed, a young mother corrupted by too much freedom. Was the baby dead?”

“Yes.”

“Born alive?”

“I don't know,” Jake said uncertainly. “I haven't looked at the autopsy report.”

Keepe took a small booklet from his pocket and made a brief note in it. “If I decide to use it, the autopsy report will say it was born alive. In any case, I'll take care of that, you stay out of it. What is she?”

“She?”

“The mother? Racially?”

“Oh, I don't know. Mixed, I suppose.”

“Welfare case?”

“I think so.”

“That makes the prosecution easier. It doesn't matter that much what color she is. Who's defending?”

“Whoever the judge appointed. There are half a dozen lawyers in town who do most of that kind of thing. Heaven knows they can't make a living any other way.”

“It doesn't matter. If we decide to use it, we'll make a national story out of it, panels and talk shows, the whole breakdown-of-the-family, end-of-civilization routine that's
worked well for us in the past. In general, you can just be relaxed and charming. Don't speak off the cuff. Don't rant and rave. Be low-key and humorous.” He handed Jagger an envelope. “Here are some general-purpose paragraphs to memorize; recite them every time you have a chance. Content isn't nearly as important as repetition. You can make people believe anything if you just say it often enough.” Keepe nodded once more, to himself as much as to Jagger, a checkoff nod, as though a final point had been tallied.

Jagger took a deep breath, but Webster had something else to say. “One more thing, my boy …”

My boy!

“In the past you've taken very good care of yourself. You've ‘fixed' things, from time to time.” Webster paused, as though awaiting a response.

Jagger didn't speak, merely kept his face blank, slightly questioning, though his stomach clenched agonizingly. Had he overstepped? Had he done something wrong?

Webster whispered, “All of that may have been appropriate then. Your mother's death? Your foster father's untimely but no doubt profitable demise? And after putting you through law school, too. Your sister-in-law's ‘suicide'? There were witnesses to that one, Jake. Guards at the jail.”

“Were,” murmured Keepe. “Aren't now.”

“The accident that killed your wife's parents?”

Jake swallowed painfully. He'd needed the money. He couldn't just … Surely Webster knew that he'd had to …

Webster went on gently. “There was nothing in your past we couldn't cover, but we wouldn't want something to crop up in the future that we might have difficulty explaining. From now on do
only
what we tell you to do.”

Unable to speak, Jagger nodded.

Webster went on. “You're politically clean. You don't have an unpaid parking ticket. Don't do anything to track in dirt. We have to keep that vision shiny.”

From some hidden reservoir of rebellion, words bubbled up, words that Jagger couldn't stop: “But if he wants to use a specific case, you'll want me to win it.…”

The temperature in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees in an instant.

Webster said clearly, each word like a drumbeat, “Don't ever presume to tell me what I want, Jake. If we want you to win, you'll win. If it would make better publicity, gain you
more sympathy to lose, you'll lose. The work of the Alliance is more important than winning or losing.”

Keepe interjected, “The case is merely a hook to hang an image on.…”

And Webster again, “Win or lose will be our decision. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.” The words were dragged out of his dry throat by pure willpower. He had never heard Webster use that tone before. He did not want him to use it again. Not to him.

When Webster raised his head, his face was calm and affectionate once more. “Don't talk about the millennium. Every member of the Alliance believes that when the end of the world comes, he will survive. Every single one thinks there'll be a miracle to benefit him. We need to keep all of them thinking so, right up to the last.” His mouth quirked strangely, as though this touched him in some particularly amusing way. “There will be a miracle, of course. My people—some of them—actually will survive. And we'll rule for a thousand years, Jake. You may depend upon that.”

“Of course,” said Jagger, dropping his eyes.

“Now we must go. I have other business tonight.”

The words brought Jake up from his chair as though someone had pushed his button, again without volition. A tiny spark of rebellion in him insisted that Webster hadn't needed to use his power on Jake. He, Jake Jagger, was loyal. He would do whatever was needed without being compelled. But, then, Webster was compelling! Of course he was! It was part of his manner not to be turned on and off. Learn from it, Jake told himself as he dredged up another all-purpose phrase and managed by pure willpower to bend his tongue around it.

“I'm very grateful for the chance to be of service.”

“Of course you are.” Webster leaned forward and patted Jake on the shoulder. “I knew you would be. Keepe will see that I'm informed of your progress.”

Standing in his graveled courtyard a few moments later, holding on to his physical composure with all his might, Jake raised his hand politely as he watched the car go off down the hill. His muscles wanted to let go, his skin was quivering, he had a sick looseness inside. It felt like nausea, fear, panic, imminent collapse, but it couldn't be any of those. It had to be overexcitement. The man himself had come there to meet with Jake. It was enough to awe anyone, but the proper attitude
was respect, not this strange helplessness. Too much excitement. That's what it was.

Though he'd been … well, surprised when Webster had mentioned Jake's mother. Jake had been twelve when she'd died. He'd heard a thump just as he was leaving for school one morning. From the bathroom door he'd seen the red stain on the edge of the tub, seen her slipping below the water, a skein of blood making a wavering line of scarlet across her face, sticky bubbles coming from her mouth, breaking on the surface of the water, each with a ha, a ha-ha. Until they stopped.

While those bubbles rose and burst, one after the other, there had been plenty of time for Jake to open the drain and let the water out. By age twelve he'd been a large, strong boy. If he'd wanted to, he could even have pulled her out of the tub. Certainly, he could have called for help. He had done none of those things. He had simply stood there, quite calmly, deciding not to do anything at all. He remembered the steamy, swampy smell of the room, her smell, the smell of blood and smoke. He had wondered if the smell would still be there when he got home from school.

Eventually, when there were no more bubbles, he had picked up his lunch, packed by himself, and gone. That night, when he'd returned home, he'd let out the water and called the police. The smell was still there, but the presence wasn't. Even though he had been only twelve, he had known enough not to tell the police what she really was. There was a conventional way to handle such things, the way the TV showed people doing it, and he'd handled it conventionally, weeping convincingly, as though he'd cared. He'd said she was fine when he'd left. The police had been sympathetic.

Jake had known for some time he would find better opportunities elsewhere. A couple of years after her death, he did, through the efforts of a generous foster father, Ralph French. Daddy Ralph had tutored him and sent him to college and law school. Daddy Ralph had died suddenly from a fall when Jagger was in his early twenties. Daddy Ralph had left Jagger quite well-off. There had been other opportunities in subsequent years. And, of course, more recently there'd been the trust fund Helen had inherited when her sister Greta had died. And Helen's parents' money, which had also come to Helen. All of which had come to Jagger, because he'd needed it.

Webster knew about Greta, and about Helen's family, and Webster hadn't objected to any of it. But had he really known about Jake's mother and Daddy Ralph? Or had he only been guessing, putting Jake on the spot? Likely he'd been guessing. There'd been no witnesses at all. He couldn't have actually known.

Jake set the worry aside and concentrated on breathing as he marched around the drive, past the garages, onto the high terrace and out again, past the house and to the garages once more, swinging his arms, taking longer steps than necessary, mentally reviewing the event, rating himself on his performance. He graded himself after every court appearance, every professional or private confrontation, testing himself on a private scale that did not admit to loss, only to the extent of victory over those who opposed him. So he rated himself now, though there had been no opposition. He had done well. He really had done well. He could allow himself a little reward for achievement.

At the rear of one of the garages, just past the glossy length of the black Lexus, a heavy metal door led into a concrete-fronted bunker gouged into the soft sandstone of the hill. On the house plans this construction had been labeled as a storage area. The men who built it had laughingly called it the dungeon. Jagger called it his game room. Heads of deer and elk and bear speckled the walls. Antlers made a frieze along the ceiling. Tanned hides were stacked in one corner. A shelf held Jake's favorite books, the ones he'd acquired in childhood. Hunting stories. Fishing stories. Mountain men. Adventurers. Shoot-'em-ups. Jake had belonged to a gun club in Illinois, but he had never actually hunted until he had come to New Mexico. The tracking and killing and butchering of animals had been a revelation to him. He loved it. It was far better than sex, for Jake enjoyed sex only when he was very angry.

In the capacious closet along the inside wall was a huge freezer stuffed with meat from the hunt, butchered by himself on the heavy butcher-block table, now covered with plastic. Cutting up the carcasses was satisfying, but the idea of actually eating the meat was vaguely disgusting to him, so every year he gave it to the people who put on the Thanksgiving Day feast for the homeless. It was good publicity and cost him nothing. His cleavers and heavy knives, individually wrapped, lay atop the cover. On the front wall hung a corkboard panel,
randomly covered with photographs and cards. The photographs were of Jagger beside the body of an elk, or a lop-tongued deer, or the furry bulk of a slaughtered bear, rifle proudly erect. Other pictures were of Jagger at the controls of his snowmobile or of his helicopter—the old one. He had no pictures of the new one, the one he'd just bought, ostensibly for hunting, but actually in anticipation of political campaigning. Among the photographs red cards stood out like a dozen bloodstains. They were lettered in Jake's hand with the names of opponents he had conquered. One of them had a judge's name on it.
Rombauer
. Rombauer was an old, pedophilic judge who hadn't known he was being photographed in the act until he had become wholly owned by Jake Jagger.

The room with its photographs and cards and mounted heads, the house itself and the woman who sat inside it so obediently, all these were Jagger's way of counting coup. Together they symbolized Jagger's status as a man. Though this room contained proof of many triumphs, none was as important as the one tonight. At most there would be six persons readied for the 2008 presidential election, and now it looked as though he would be one of them.

The triumph went onto a red card in firm black letters:
Jagger! Finalist!

He wanted to crow, howl, dance, brag to someone, anyone, but he couldn't do that. His joy could have only himself as celebrant, only himself to chant his war song in this buried room, hearing his own words booming back from the walls as from the inside of a drum: Jagger, Finalist, Jagger, Finalist, Clever, Clever Jagger!

After a time even this euphoria palled. He wiped his moist lips on the back of his hand before dancing out, curvetting, though he didn't realize it, like a skittish show horse, all wide eyes and prancy feet. Back in the quiet house he walked firmly down the wide hallway toward his own room, glancing in passing at his wife's door. She was sitting inside, of course, trying to stay awake. If he waited a bit, he might catch her napping.

Inside the room Helen was sitting as he imagined her, hands folded in her lap, still dressed. She had heard the car arrive. Peering through the blind, she had seen the men get out of it, glowing like fire, like blood, and had, instinctively, without thought, crossed herself. It could have been those sunset rays of fuchsia light that ensanguine the mountains, the
Sangre de Cristos. Still, when she saw the two visitors radiant in that bloody light, she had shuddered as at a vision of hell. She had felt eyes probing the walls and windows of the house as though seeking her out. She had moved back to escape those eyes, had gone to the dresser and dug out the familiar, now forbidden, rosary, clutching it as though it were a lifeline as she bent her head above the beads and removed herself in prayer from this place, this time, this company. She did not return from prayer until she heard the car leave once more.

It was all imagination, of course. Stress and abuse gradually destroying her mind. She knew that on one level, had even consented to it on one level. In her inmost soul she did not believe it and would never consent to it.

When the drone of the departing car dwindled away, she'd gone to the window again and seen her husband jittering about the courtyard like a crazy man. She'd seen him go into what she called his butcher shop, his game room, and remain there for a time. She didn't wonder what he was doing because she didn't want to know. When he returned to the drive, he was jumping like a goat, the way he did when he had done something dreadful and gotten away with it. He thought she didn't know how he did things. He thought she was too stupid to know how her sister Greta had died, how her parents had died. Let him go on believing so. If he thought she knew something about him, he was probably capable of killing her now instead of later. She didn't mind the thought of his killing her, rather wished he had already done so, except for the deep, buried conviction that she had a duty yet to perform.