The John Milton Series: Books 1-3 (80 page)

The group chimed back at him, “We think not.”

“‘They are being fulfilled among us—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialise if we work for them.’”

Peace.

Serenity.

We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.

We will not regret?

Milton doubted that could ever possibly come to pass. Not for him. His transgressions were different to those of the others. He hadn’t soiled himself in the office, slapped his wife, crashed his car. He had killed nearly one hundred and fifty men and women. He knew that he would always regret the past, every day for as long as he lived, and what was the point in even trying to shut the door on it? The room behind his door was stuffed full of bodies, stacked all the way up to the ceiling, one hundred and fifty corpses and gallons of blood, and the door wouldn’t begin to close.

They said the Lord’s Prayer and filed out. Milton put away the coffee and biscuits and started to clean up. The usual group of people were gathering in the lobby to go for their meal together, and Eva was with them, smoking a cigarette and waiting for him to finish up. Milton was turning the tea urn upside down in the sink when the door to the bathroom opened and Richie Grimes hobbled out.

Milton turned to Eva and mouthed that he would be five minutes. She nodded and went outside.

“You all right?” Milton asked Grimes.

“Yeah, man.”

Milton held up the plate that had held the biscuits; it was covered with crumbs and one solitary cookie. “Want it? Last one.”

“Sure.” He reached across and took it. “Thanks. It’s John, right?”

“Right.”

“Don’t think I’ve ever heard you share.”

“I’m more of a listener,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been ten rounds with Tyson.”

“But it was good to get it off your chest?”

“Sure. Getting rid of the problem’s another matter. I ain’t barely got a cent to my name. How am I gonna manage to find six large?”

“There’ll be a way.”

“I wish I shared your confidence. The only way I can think is to get another loan, but that’s just putting it off.” He gave him an underwhelming smile. “Time to run. See you next week?”

The man looked like a prisoner being led out to the gallows. Milton couldn’t let him go like that.

“This guy you owe the money to—who is he?”

“What good’s it gonna do, telling you that?”

“Try me. What’s his name?”

“Martinez.”

“Works down in the Mission District?”

“That’s right. You know him?”

Milton shrugged. “Heard the name.”

“I should never have gotten involved with him.”

“If it were me, Richie, I’d make sure I stayed in my place apart from when I was at work or at meetings. I wouldn’t put myself somewhere where I could get jumped again.”

“How am I gonna get the cash if I hide out at home?”

“Like I say,” Milton said, “there’ll be a way. That’s what they tell us, right—we put our faith in a power greater than ourselves.”

“I’ve been praying for six months, John. If there’s a power, it ain’t been listening.”

“Keep praying.”

ARLEN CRAWFORD WAS NERVOUS. The first debate was two weeks to the day before the primary. It was held in a converted hat factory that had been turned into a new media hub with start-ups suckling the teats of the angel investor who owned the building, offering space in exchange for a little equity. There was a large auditorium that had only recently been done out, still smelling of fresh plaster and polyethylene. There was a live audience, card-carrying local party members packed into the cramped seating like sardines in a tin. There was a row at the front—fitted with much more comfortable seating—that was reserved for the heavy-hitters from Washington, who had made the trip west to see the candidates in action for the first time.

Crawford looked down from the back of the room and onto the temporary stage, bathed in the glare of the harsh television lights. Each candidate had a lectern with a name card placed along the top. Governor Robinson’s was in the centre; that had been the prize following an hour’s horse-trading with the other candidates. The prime position would be fought over for the remaining two debates. Other bargaining chips included the speaking order, whether or not there would be opening and closing remarks, and a host of other ephemera that might have appeared trivial to the unenlightened observer. Crawford did not see them that way at all; to the politicos who were guiding the campaigns of the candidates, they were almost worth dying for. You lose the little battles and you better get ready to lose the war.

The negotiations before the debate had been exhausting. Crawford had had little sleep, and the evening had already taken on a surreal tinge that was accentuated by his fatigue. It was already a strange scene. The building wasn’t big enough to offer the candidates individual rooms before the debate, so a communal greenroom had been arranged, with each combatant ensconced in a corner with his or her spouse and seconds close at hand. Food had been laid on—platters of sandwiches—together with cans of soda and an urn of coffee. Robinson was the only candidate who looked totally at ease in the room, his monumental confidence sweeping out of him in great waves. He overwhelmed the room, or so it seemed. His backup team was as frantic as the others, making last minute calibrations to his opening statement and preparing a series of stock lines to fall back on should he need them. It was a little late for that, Crawford thought, but he understood the need to be busy with something if only as a distraction from the nerves.

Robinson moved among his rivals like a Mafia don, giving them his double-clasped handshake, clapping them on the shoulders, squeezing their biceps, all the while shining out his gleaming smile. He laughed at their jokes and made his own, the consummate professional. Crawford didn’t have that ease with people, and never had. It was an unctuousness that you had to possess if you were going to make it as a player on the national stage. That was fine. He was happy with his strengths, and he recognised his weaknesses. That kind of self-awareness, in itself, was something that was rare to find and valuable to possess. Robinson had amazing talents, but his instincts were off. Crawford’s instincts were feral, animal. He was a strategist, a street fighter, and you needed a whole different set of skills for that. Robinson was surface, but Crawford was detail. He devoured every tiny bit of public life. He hovered above things like a hawk, aware of the smallest nuances yet always conscious of the whole. He could see how one small change might affect things now or eleven moves down the line. It wasn’t a calculation he was aware of making; it was something that he processed, understood on a fundamental level.

One of the local party big shots came into the room and announced that it was time. Robinson, who was talking to the senator for New Mexico, wished everyone good luck and led the way to the door. Crawford waited at the back, absorbing the energy of the room and the confidence—or lack thereof—that he could see in other candidates. The retinues filtered into the auditorium. He hooked a doughnut from the refreshment table and followed them.

THE DEBATE COULDN’T have started any better. Robinson was totally in control, delivering his opening position with statesmanlike charm, so much so that Crawford found himself substituting the drab surroundings of the auditorium for what he imagined the General Assembly of the United Nations might look like with his boss before the lectern, or with the heavy blue drapes of the Oval Office closed behind him during an address to the nation. He was, Crawford thought with satisfaction, presidential. The first question was posed—something on healthcare reform—and Robinson stayed away from it, letting the rest tear strips out of one another. Crawford watched and could hardly believe their luck. It wasn’t hard. They were murdering themselves. Scott Martin tried to explain his very elaborate health-care scheme and got so bollixed up that he threw up his hands and said, “Well, this thing makes a lot more sense on paper.”

“Next question,” the moderator said.

“Delores Orpenshaw.” A shrew in a green dress and white pearls. “The way folk around here see it, this country is broken. My question for the candidates is simple: how would they fix it?”

“Governor Robinson?”

Crawford felt the momentary chill of electricity: nerves. Robinson looked the questioner right in the eye. “How would I fix it? Well, Delores, there are some pretty fundamental things that we need to do right away. We need to reverse the flood of Third World immigration. The Mexicans, the Puerto Ricans—we need to stop the flow, and we need to send back the ones who are here illegally. It’s only logical that the more a country gets a Third World population, the more it will suffer from Third World problems. We need to reverse globalisation to bring back real jobs to this great country. That will help bring back personal pride, and that helps restore pride in the community. We need to expose the climate change lies. That’s the constant claim of the technocrats, but not everyone agrees. As an army of global-warming zealots marches on Washington, the truth is that their Orwellian consensus is based not on scientific agreement, but on bullying, censorship and fraudulent statistics. We need to restore discipline in our schools and respect for others. We need to rebuild a sense of national unity and pride. Only if we do those things can we start to take back this great nation from the political elite in our nation’s capital.”

There was a smattering of applause that grew in intensity, triggering more applause and then more, and then, suddenly, it had become a wave as the audience—almost all of them—rose to their feet and anointed the governor with an ovation. The moderator struggled to make her voice heard as she asked the others for their views.

It went on for another hour in the same vein. Robinson picked his spots and was rewarded volubly every time he finished speaking. Eventually, the moderator brought the debate to an end. They all dashed to the spin room, another wide space that had been equipped with folding tables with trailing multi-plugs for laptops and cellphones. Crawford and the rest of his team split up and worked the room, button-holing the hacks from the nationals and talking up the points that Robinson had made that had gone down well, quietly de-emphasising the points that hadn’t found their marks. There was no need to spin things.

Crawford remembered the old political adage: losers spin, winners grin.

And they were winners.

MILTON TURNED THE KEY. The ignition fired, but the engine didn’t start. He paused, cranked it again, but still there was nothing. He had serviced the car himself a month ago, and it had all looked all right, but this didn’t sound good. He drummed his fingers against the wheel.

Eva paused at the door of her Porsche and looked over quizzically.

He put his fingers to the key and twisted it a final time. The ignition coughed, then spluttered, then choked off to a pitiful whine. The courtesy light dimmed as the battery drained from turning over the engine. He popped the hood, opened the door, and went around to take a look.

“Not good?” Eva said, coming over as he bent over the engine.

“Plugs, I think. They need changing.”

Eva had insisted they come back to Top Notch. Julius had never let him down, and the meal had been predictably good. The unease that Milton had felt after reading the Promises had quickly been forgotten in her company. He almost forgot the interview with the police. They had talked about the others at the meeting, slandering Smulders in particular; they agreed that he was well meaning, if a little supercilious, and she had suggested that he had form for coming onto the new, vulnerable, male members of the fellowship. She had cocked an eyebrow at him as she had said it. Milton couldn’t help but laugh at the suggestion. His troubles were quickly subsumed beneath the barrage of her wit as she took apart the other members of the group. The gossip wasn’t cruel, but nevertheless, he had wondered what she might say about him in private. He said that to her, feigning concern, and she had put a finger to her lips and winked with unmistakeable salaciousness. By the end of the main course Milton knew that he was attracted to her, and he knew that the feeling was mutual.

She watched now as he let the hood drop back into place.

“What are you going to do?”

“Walk, I guess.”

“Where’s your place?”

“Mission District.”

“That’s miles.”

That much was true. He wouldn’t be home much before midnight, and then he would have to come back out in the morning—via a garage—to change the plugs. He was a little concerned about his finances, too. He had been planning to go out and drive tonight. He needed the cash. That obviously wasn’t going to happen.

“Come on—I’ll give you a ride.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“You’re not walking,” she said with a determined conviction.

Milton was going to demur, but he thought of the time and the chance to get some sleep to prime him for the day tomorrow, and he realised that would have been foolish. “Thanks,” he conceded as he locked the Explorer and walked over to her Cayenne with her.

The car was new and smelt it. It wasn’t much of a guess to say that her job paid well—her wardrobe was as good a giveaway as anything—but as he settled back in the leather bucket seat, he thought that perhaps he had underestimated how well off she really was.

She must have noticed his appraising look as he took in the cabin. “I’ve got a thing for nice cars,” she said, a little apologetically.

“It’s better than nice.”

“Nice cars and nice clothes. It used to be Cristal and coke. The way I see it, if you’re going to have an addiction, it better be one that leaves you with something to show for it.”

She put on the new Jay-Z as she drove him across town. Milton guided her into the Mission District, picking the quickest way to his apartment. The area was in poor condition; plenty of the buildings were boarded up, others blackened from fire or degraded by squatters with no interest in maintaining them. The cheap rents attracted artists and students, and there was a bohemian atmosphere that was, in its own way, quite attractive. It felt even cheaper than usual tonight, and as he looked out of the window of the gleaming black Porsche, he felt inadequate. They shared a weakness for booze, but that was it; he started to worry that there was a distance between the way they lived their lives that would be difficult to bridge.