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.