“That may be a subject for a larger discussion,” said Kilbrick with a patronizing frown. “Right now, Ms. Jackson, I’m asking a reasonable question raised by the senseless assassination of a community servant trying to maintain public safety at the BDA rally you organized. I’d like to know how you feel about the murder of that man.”
“That one man? You want me push aside hundreds, thousands, of young black men murdered by white men? You want me push them aside so I can fill up with regret about this one white boy? And then tell you all about that regret? And maybe how much I regret being responsible for a shooting I didn’t have nothing to do with? If that’s what you want, lady, I’ll tell you something—you have no idea what world we’re living in. And there’s something else I’ll tell you right here to your pretty face—you have no damn idea how damn crazy you are.”
Along with Stacey Kilbrick’s ongoing frown there was satisfaction in her eyes—perhaps the satisfaction of achieving the RAM goal of maximizing the controversy in every situation. She moved on with a brief smile. “Now, for a different perspective, Mr. Garson Pike. Sir, your viewpoint on the current events in White River?”
Pike responded with a shake of his head and a long-suffering smile. “P-perfectly predictable tragedy. Cause and effect. Chickens coming home to roost. It’s the p-price we all p-pay for years of liberal permissiveness. P-price for political correctness.” His accent was vaguely country. His gray-blue eyes blinked with each small stutter. “These jungle attacks on law and order are the p-price of cowardice.”
Kilbrick urged him on. “Could you elaborate on that?”
“Our nation has been on a p-path of reckless accommodation. Giving in again and again to the demands of every minority race—black, brown, yellow, red, you name it. Lying down like doormats for invading armies of mongrel freeloaders and terrorists. Giving in to the demands of the cultural saboteurs—the atheists, the abortionists, the sodomites. It’s the terrible truth, Stacey, that we live in a country where every vile p-perversion and every worthless segment of society has its champions in high places, its special legal protections. The more detestable the subject, the more protection we give it. The natural result of this surrender is chaos. A society turned upside down. The maintainers of order are attacked in the street, and their attackers pretend to be victims. The inmates, Stacey, have taken over the asylum. We’re supposed to be politically correct while all they do is complain about their minority disadvantages. Hell, like what? Like being p-put front of the line for jobs, promotions, special minority protections? And now they complain that they’re disproportionately represented in p-prisons. Simple reason is that they’re disproportionately committing the crimes that put them there. Eliminate black crime, and we’d have pretty much no crime in America at all.”
He concluded with an emphatic little nod and fell silent. The emotional momentum that had been increasing through his speech left little tics tugging at the corners of his mouth.
Kilbrick limited her reaction to a thoughtful pursing of her lips. “Ms. Jackson? We have about a minute left, if you’d care to offer a brief response.”
Blaze Lovely Jackson’s gaze had hardened. “Yeah, I’ll be brief. That Pike babble’s the same fascist crap you RAM folks been feeding all these years to your trailer-trash fans. I’ll tell you what it really is—what you’re doing is disrespectful. The white man is always making the black man feel small, feel like he’s got no power at all, feel like he’s no kind of man. You don’t give him any decent job, then you tell him he’s worthless cause he ain’t got a decent job. I tell you what that is. That’s the sin of disrespect. Hear me now, even if you don’t hear another thing. Disrespect is the mother of rage, and rage is the fire that’s going to burn this country down. Laxton Jones had no drug, no gun, no warrant. Hadn’t broken any law. Hadn’t done any crime. The man hadn’t done nothing to nobody. But he got shot anyway. Got shot dead in the face. How often do police do that to a white face? How often do they kill a white man who hasn’t done a crime? You want to understand the true place we’re at, you want to understand what BDA is all about, you think on that.”
Kilbrick’s eyes were alive with excitement. “Well, there you have it! Two sides of the White River crisis. In head-on collision. On Battleground Tonight. We move now to our cameras on location—your eyes on the tense streets of White River. I’m Stacey Kilbrick, on the watch for breaking news. Stay with us.”
The studio scene was replaced by an aerial shot of the city. Gurney could see smoke pouring from the roofs of three buildings. Orange flames shot up from one of them. On the main boulevard he noted a procession of police cars, a fire engine, and an ambulance. The aerial camera was picking up the sounds of sirens and bullhorns.
Gurney eased his chair back from the table, as if to distance himself from what he was seeing on his computer screen. The cynical conversion of misery, anger, and destruction into a kind of reality TV show sickened him. And it wasn’t just RAM. Media enterprises everywhere were engaged in the continual promotion and exaggeration of conflict, a business model based on a poisonous insight: dissension sells. Especially dissension along the fault line of race. It was an insight with an equally poisonous corollary: nothing builds loyalty like shared hatreds. It was clear RAM and its host of vile imitators had no qualms about nurturing those hatreds to build loyal audiences.
He realized, however, that it was time to put aside grievances about which he could do nothing and focus on questions that might have answers. For example, might Blaze Lovely Jackson’s rage at the police have been sufficient to involve her in actions beyond staging protests? Actions such as planning, abetting, or executing the sniper attack? And why hadn’t Kline gotten back to him? Had the query he’d left on the man’s voicemail concerning the missing ingredient in their conversation scared him off? Or was the potential answer sensitive enough to demand long consideration or perhaps even discussion with another player in the game?
That thought led by a crooked route to another question that had been in the back of his mind ever since Marv Gelter had abandoned his party to take a call from Dell Beckert. What sort of relationship did the racist billionaire have with the White River police chief?
“Do you know if the upstairs windows are closed?”
Madeleine’s voice startled him. He turned and saw her standing in her pajamas in the hallway that led to the bedroom.
“The windows?”
“It’s raining.”
“I’ll take a look.”
As he was about to shut down his computer, an announcement appeared on the screen in bold type:
CRISIS UPDATE
LIVE-STREAMING PRESS CONFERENCE—9:00 AM TOMORROW
WITH CHIEF BECKERT, MAYOR SHUCKER, DISTRICT ATTORNEY KLINE
He made a mental note of the time, hoping the event would be concluded before he had to leave for his meeting with Hardwick.
Upstairs he found only one window open, but it was enough to fill the room with the flowery aroma of the spring night. He stood there for a while breathing in the soft, sweet air.
His racing thoughts were replaced by a primitive sense of peace. A phrase came to mind, something he’d once read—just the phrase, emerging from an unrecalled context and attaching itself to the moment: a healing tranquility.