Dominion (24 page)

McCamman left the room as Clarence fought off images of Dani and Felicia in a hail of gunfire.

“So, where does this put us, Ollie?” Clarence asked.

“It’s a big break. We don’t have the murder weapon, but we know the kind of murder weapon. It’s uncommon, and that helps even more. Of course, maybe it was stolen that night to do the job. Maybe it was torn apart and buried. Maybe it’ll never reappear again. But at least we’ve got something. Between your boy Mookie and the HK53, we’ve finally got something.”

Clarence waited impatiently in the reception area outside Reggie Norcoast’s office. His ten o’clock interview was supposed to have begun twenty minutes ago.

He watched Sheila, the receptionist, warm and transparent, friendly to a fault. In stark contrast stood Jean, the office administrator. Stiff suit, rigid posture, icily efficient. Colder than Duluth in January. Jean marched around the office making sure everything was just so, launching periodic darting glances to restrain Sheila’s casual friendliness from its tendency toward dawdling.

Carson Gray walked into the room from his office. He gave out a series of rapid-fire orders to Jean and Sheila about calling people and canceling this and adding that and implying this was all the most important stuff since the dawn of time. Clarence noticed even the flowers outside Gray’s office were lined up perfectly, mute soldiers to do his bidding. Suddenly Gray saw Clarence out of the corner of his eye and froze for an instant, caught by surprise.

“Mr. Abernathy.” Gray didn’t move toward Clarence. “What are you doing here?”

“My tax dollars pay for this office. Just thought I’d come and see what you’re doing with them.”

“Sheila, why is he here?”

“Mr. Norcoast told him he’d meet with him,” Sheila said, cringing.

“Why wasn’t I informed?”

“Maybe because,” Clarence said, “you’re not in charge of the universe.”

“I don’t have to take your insults, Abernathy. I
am
in charge of the councilman’s schedule.”

A lap dog, Clarence thought. A Chihuahua in a parked car, barking his brains out at anyone getting too close to the master’s dominion. Clarence had seen his type before. Give him a little territory and he thinks he owns the world.

Clarence sat and stared icily as Gray and Sheila whispered, Gray expressing his displeasure in animated style. Jean stood in the background, her hands on her hips, posing for the female Carson Gray look-alike contest. If there was a not-a-happy-camper award to be given in this office, Carson and Jean were slugging it out for top honors.

Gray’s pale skin highlighted blue penciled veins. There was something animal about his profile, lean and hungry. The sharp eyes, the slightly pointed ears, the dilating nostrils. And the thin lips. They were most striking. Clarence still had a habit of naming adversaries, as they’d always done in the projects. He toyed with several labels, including Chihuahua, Rooster Man, and Wolverine, but tentatively settled on Skinny Lips.

Gray came over to Clarence, now extending his hand, not in the promiscuous way of a politician, but in a reserved, street-smart way. Gray’s forced grin detoured around a toothpick under his dark manicured mustache, revealing bad teeth that had been polished to make them appear normal to the undiscerning eye. The teeth and smile, infrequent and unattractive as it was, seemed sufficient to explain why this man was not a politician but his assistant.

Clarence didn’t extend his hand back and Gray took it as the insult he intended. His expression changed.

“I don’t know what your problem is, Abernathy. But you should know this. Reg Norcoast will tolerate you, but I won’t. In politics, there are fights, and there are winners and losers. I choose my fights carefully, and I win them.”

“I don’t know who you think you’re pushing around, Gray. I’m not Amos and I’m not Andy and I’m not here to entertain the plantation owner
or
his overseer. You got that?”

“I wonder what your publisher would think if he heard you talking like this.”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him?”

“Maybe I’ll suggest to Reg he talk with Raylon Jennings about you.”

“You do that, Gray.” Clarence bit his lip. “Take your best shot, Skinny Lips.” He said it before thinking.

Gray stared at him incredulously, then retreated to his office. As if on cue, Norcoast opened his door and drifted out of his own office, moving across the room swiftly and with dramatic flourish, like a woman dancing the tango.

“Clarence, Clarence, so good to see you. You’ve met my secretary, Sheila? And our administrator, Jean?”

Clarence nodded, noting Sheila’s smile and Jean’s glare. Norcoast shined his Norman Rockwell face, clean cut and ruddy, an Ozzie Nelson face from the fifties on a man otherwise born and bred for the nineties.

Despite making constant public photo-shoot appearances jogging and playing tennis, Norcoast was fifteen pounds overweight, five in the face and ten in his stomach, everything else being reasonably slender.

“Come on in,” he said, motioning with his long right arm. Norcoast thought he was taller than he was, Clarence noted, as he slightly ducked his head walking through the doorway. Clarence, three inches taller, made a point of not stooping.

Just as they walked in the room, Sheila buzzed Norcoast.

“Sorry, Clarence,” Norcoast said. “Real quick call here. No, you don’t need to leave. Take a look at my art gallery.” He gestured like a game show prize babe.

Clarence perused the wall. He saw Norcoast posing with the governor, senators, the president of the NAACP. Norcoast posing with children, teenagers, and adults in his own district. Norcoast with his foot on a shovel, breaking ground for a new community center. Norcoast with his arm on the shoulders of high school valedictorians, Norcoast holding children in his arms, Norcoast and his wife and his teenage daughter hobnobbing with North Portland families. Norcoast, Norcoast, Norcoast.

The great white savior. General MacArthur of the projects.

Clarence recognized several pictures he was certain came from the
Trib.
A few looked like they had to be Carp’s. Carp had her way with photos, cropping them just so. It was as distinctive as one columnist’s stylistic differences from another. She was the best. He respected her work. Too bad these ended up on Norcoast’s wall. Probably just asked his buddy Raylon, and he made sure these blowups got sent over.

Clarence came to one picture on the wall, shocked to see himself smiling and shaking hands with Norcoast. Of course. From the day of the rally. Carp’s quick shot. Norcoast and his off-center burgundy tie, smiling like a schoolboy at a carnival.

Reggie Norcoast, Clarence believed, was a doer and receiver of favors. A man who used other people’s money to endear himself to those who could further his ambitions. After serving a term as mayor, decades from now Norcoast would probably be one of those guys elected to his eighth term in Congress running on a platform of term limitations. To Clarence, anything short of drug dealing and grand theft auto would be a step up from politics. To Norcoast, everything else would be a step down.

Clarence took a seat as Norcoast got off the phone. He brushed aside the politician’s attempts at small talk.

“Mr. Norcoast,” Clarence began, “I want—”

“Please, Clarence. Call me Reg.”

“Mr. Norcoast, I’d like to hear your perspectives on crime and gang problems in your district.”

The councilman sighed. “Could you be a little more specific?”

“Okay, how about this? Is it true that in your last campaign you hired known gang members to pass out your literature, post signs, and take them down after the election?”

“Now wait a minute. That was legitimate work. I gave those boys a decent job, something good and constructive, an alternative to all the illegal stuff. They need jobs, Clarence. You know that.”

“But gangbangers?”

“The fact that they haven’t always made the best choices doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give them a chance. If they don’t have the experience of a decent job, how can we expect them to say no to the temptations? I’m proud of hiring these kids, of giving them a chance. I wear it as a badge of honor.”

“According to the records I’m looking at, you spent over twenty thousand dollars to put up and take down signs and pass out literature. Did most of this go to gangbangers?”

“I don’t know the exact breakdown. You’d have to talk to Carson Gray about that.”

“I don’t want to talk to Gray,” Clarence said. “I’m talking to you.”

“Is this an interview or an interrogation?”

“Don’t you think hiring gangbangers implies that gang life is okay? And isn’t there potential for intimidating the public? Like if someone found out you voted for another candidate, you might have to answer to a group of young thugs?”

“This is America,” Norcoast said. “We have secret ballots here, remember? People can vote however they want without fear of reprisal. There’s no intimidation. This isn’t Chicago, this is Portland, Oregon. You should know better than to even suggest that.”

“I’ve lived in Chicago, and I’ve lived in Portland. Both are in America. And there’s no problem in Chicago that can’t become a problem in Portland.”

“Clarence, please.” Norcoast’s voice turned into a plea, almost a whimper. “We’ve accomplished a great deal in this city. Your own sister was one of my supporters. I’ve always felt I could count on the
Trib
to show the positive side of my district.”

“Well, you’re right, Councilman, there has been a lot of positive press about your district, but this column isn’t about the positive. It’s about crime. Unless, of course, you can find a positive angle on gangs roaming the streets and people getting blown away in their own homes.”

“That’s a harsh and unbalanced perspective,” Norcoast said. “Don’t you think your own experience has clouded your ability to be objective?”

“You don’t seem worried about objectivity when the
Trib
does a puff piece on you. Or when it endorses you every time you run for office.”

“Now hold on, Clarence. Let’s not take an adversarial tone here. We’re both on the same side.”

“And what side is that, Mr. Norcoast?”

“
Please
call me Reg. We’re both on the side of progress. The progress of ideals, the promotion of diversity the battle against racism, the commitment to opportunity.”

“Well, I’m just on the side of reporting the truth and giving my opinion on it,” Clarence said. “I don’t care if it’s positive or negative. I just want a piece that’s accurate. I know politicians succeed in proportion to their skill at lying. You know better than to tell the truth to the press. But maybe today you could make an exception?”

Norcoast’s left cheek twitched. Clarence heard something and looked under his desk.

Councilman. You’re shuffling your feet like a four-year-old needing to go tinkle.

“Now, Clarence—”

“Please, Mr. Norcoast, just call me Mr. Abernathy.”

After returning to the Trib and getting back to a half-dozen phone calls, Clarence put his fingers on the keyboard and started the next day’s column. Like an extemporaneous speech that’s twenty years in the making, his column came from deep within, having been forged in the fires of many years’ thoughts and experiences:

The slaveowners were pro-choice. They said, “Those who don’t want to have slaves don’t have to, but don’t tell us we can’t choose to. It’s our right.” Those who wanted to make slaveholding illegal were accused of being anti-choice and anti-freedom, of trying to impose their morality on others.