Everyone agreed that the outcome hung on the evangelical vote.
At the inaugural, Paul Plowright stood on the podium. He carried his own family Bible with him. When the time came, he passed it forward to the chief judge, and the governor elect placed his hand upon it as he took his oath of office.
22
The entire top floor of the tower was Plowright’s.
Part of it was an apartment, a circle within the circle, set off center, with windows facing north. It had a view that overlooked the college, then past it to the far peaks.
That left a large crescent, wrapping around the south side from east to west, as office space. His private elevator arrived directly inside, in the center. The public elevator, the one that I came up in, arrived in a small lobby created by a wall that chopped off the eastern tip of the arc.
Paul Plowright was there waiting for me, holding the office door open.
He was smiling and friendly.
So, what did he want?
He clasped my hand. Paul’s handshake is not some perfunctory up and down, quick as a nod. It is an embrace. It is also an act of domination, a friendly, paternal one, but still a way of establishing that he is setting the pace and the mood. “Welcome, Carl, my good friend. It’s been too long since we’ve had a moment to spend together. I regret that. Too much to do,” he added by way of explanation.
The outer wall is a vast sweep of glass. The inner wall is faced with polished granite, hung with a gallery of photographs of Paul in the company of the important and powerful. One of the larger ones showed him with the governor at the inaugural.
The first third of his office is furnished like a living room, with a couch, armchairs, and a coffee table, all arranged for comfortable viewing of a sixty-one-inch LCD flat-screen TV.
His desk is further down, sitting grandly in the center. Past that, there’s an area that looks like an ordinary office: two secretaries’ desks, tall filing cabinets, a copy machine, and the rest. None of his assistants were there. I was being treated to a completely private interview.
He asked after Gwen and Angie. I asked after his wife, Shirley.
“Off to Washington, then on a tour of military bases, leading prayer vigils.” She travels a lot these days, practically a roving ambassador for the church. “We have to support the troops. The liberals and the Democrats and the media, they’re undermining everything.”
With a cordial gesture, he indicated that I should sit on the couch. He settled himself into one of the armchairs. The screen had a live feed from outside that looked up toward where we sat. The sun and sky were reflected in the glass like a living painting. The hi-def made the video more vivid than reality.
“Coffee?” Paul asked. The low table was set for two, with cups and saucers, cream and sugar, small silver stirring spoons, and neatly folded napkins. There was also bottled water and a bowl of fruit. He picked up the thermos carafe. “From downstairs,” he said, meaning the Starbucks in the Cathedral’s food court. I said that was fine, and he poured.
“I hear you had a run in with Jeremiah yesterday,” he said as he passed me the cup and saucer.
“Nothing very important.”
“I think of you and Angie and Gwen as part of the church family.” He sounded very paternal. Like a loving father-in-law.
Gwen works for CTM five hours a day.
Women with children can only work from eight until two. That’s church policy. Family is what it’s all about. There is no family if both parents are out rat-racing from seven to seven. When a child comes home from school, one of his or her parents should be there.
During the summer, Gwen also works with the Cathedral’s Christian Adventure Camp, getting close to God through white-water rafting and building moral character by trekking through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in New Mexico.
Angie’s been going on those trips since Gwen and I got together.
I nodded. Yes, we’re part of the church family.
“I hate discord among my friends,” he said. He shook his head. “Jeremiah has a rough tongue. He will apologize to you . . . ” and before I could say anything, Paul assured me, “Oh, he’ll mean it,” which he wouldn’t. “He may not have liked your lawyer friend, but that’s not a reason to be disrespectful, of him or you.”
“I appreciate it, but I can deal with Jerry myself.”
“I’m sure you can. I don’t doubt it for a moment.” He leaned forward. “But I don’t want you two to ‘deal’ with each other.” He brought a verse to the situation, Matthew 5:23–24. “‘If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled with your brother.’ The answer is always in the Book.”
“Like I said, there wasn’t that much to it. We can let bygones be bygones.”
“Good,” he said.
He picked up the remote that was on the table and pressed a button. The view on the screen changed.
We were looking down at Angie’s school, Third Millennium Christian Academy. A phys ed class was out on the track. They looked very clean and wholesome.
Their motto is “Decidedly academic, distinctly Christian.”
They have real discipline. They don’t let the girls come to school with their navels uncovered, pierced and glittering like Salome’s, or wearing their pants so low below the curve of their bellies that they have to shave or depilate their pubic hair to keep it from curling over the top, clearly intent on letting everyone know it, so that teenage boys drool and middle-aged teachers get confused.
They don’t let the boys come to school as baby gangstas, with their pants below the cracks in their asses, with weed, meth, coke, guns, or knives, or even with attitude.
Lockers and backpacks are always open to adult inspection.
They believe in corporeal punishment. Measured and restrained, but enough to make sure there’s respect and obedience to the rules.
All well and good, but he was showing me things I knew. What was he trying to impress on me?
“Schools,” he said. “The center of secular power is in the schools. They grab our children in elementary school, and they teach them that the Bible is just another book, that Christianity is no different than Islam or godless Buddhism or witchcraft. They have posters on the wall that say it’s good to be gay, but it’s illegal to put up the Ten Commandments.
“That’s why we built our own schools.”
He pressed the remote, and the view changed again to a wider shot. It was five miles to the interstate, and the Cathedral owned all the land in between. The area closest to the highway, spreading out around the schools, had been developed into a full suburban subdivision : single-family homes on quarter-, half-, and full-acre plots, garden apartments, assisted-living quarters, and elder-care housing, all on pleasant curving streets and attractive cul-de-sacs. There’s a gas station and a convenience store.
“People want to live close to their schools. So close that their children can walk home. If it’s safe enough. So we built a community around our schools. We made it safe. And people want to live there.”
That was true. If there weren’t a four-year waiting list, we’d probably live there too. It would make Gwen and Angie happy. It’s overpriced, unless you count the intangibles of living in a Christian community. But the price of any real estate is about intangibles.
“What you see is just the beginning. There will be more schools. A bigger community. And everything that a community needs. Stores, recreational facilities, a bank. As it grows, businesses will locate here. What better resource is there than a real Christian workforce?”
He switched to another camera, one to the north, that looked down on Cathedral College. It’s fairly small, with seven hundred students and just five buildings, including two dormitories. It specializes in Bible studies, but also offers BA and BS degrees. It was recently accredited.
“They use the universities,” he said, anger s
lowly seeping into his voice from where it simmered on some back burner, over the steady flame of his sense that we were being betrayed, “to set the agenda of what we’re allowed to think. They get to say what science is, what human nature is, what history is, what law is—and then force it on the rest of us.
“The college that you see down there, that’s merely the seed.” From anger, to hope. He was, indeed, a man out to save the world. Though the question kept nagging, why was he working so hard to recruit a foot soldier like me? “Soon it will blossom into a university, a great university,” he said. “With a medical school, based on Christian ethics, and with a law school to develop Christian lawyers to fight the ACLU and the activist judges, lawyers who will fight for the rights of believers and free speech for Christians. We will have computer engineering and software design schools.” Then he added with a thin smile, “God has got to be able to make better software than Microsoft.”
I laughed at his punch line. “Those are impressive goals,” I said.
He looked at me, studying my face, as if to determine if he could trust me. Then he nodded slightly. “This is not yet for publication or even discussion. This is just between us.”
“I understand.”
“They’re not goals. They’re plans. Solid, concrete plans that will go into effect very soon. In fact, they’re even bigger than what I’ve already told you.” Now we had gotten to something new. He went on, “The only thing I worry about is having good people around me.
“You’re very good at what you do. As a husband and a father, as the provider for your family, I’m sure you have ambitions. To turn what you do into a real business, with employees and retainers and long-range contracts. Or you might want to be part of a company, an executive with a serious salary and benefits, so you don’t have to worry, month to month, if there’s money coming in. Those opportunities are here. Safety and security are essential requirements of a successful community. Great opportunities. I need people like you, Carl.”
“Thank you. I’m glad to hear it.”
“That’s why you don’t want to be on the wrong side of this thing.”
23
We had come to the crunch that I’d feared.
“Pastor,” I said respectfully, “I’m not on anyone’s side.”
“Do you agree that we’re in a War on Terror?” he asked, trying to box me in.
“Yes, of course we are.”
“And which side are you on?”
“I’m just in the information business,” I said, trying to stay out of the trap. “The prosecutors have the cops. So I work for defense attorneys. That means sometimes I’m working for the bad guys. That’s just the way it is. The lawyers present the information. Then a judge and jury sort it out. That’s the system.” I’d seen the expression on his face any number of times on irritable judges, impatient to overrule an objection they didn’t like. So I reached a little higher. “That’s the way it’s set up in the Constitution.”
“‘The Constitution is not a suicide pact,’” he snapped back. “Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, the Supreme Court, anyone with any sense understands, if we don’t survive, there is no Constitution. Survival comes first. This is war time.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” I said. “But look, I’ve met this kid . . . ”
“Kid?”
“Frankly, he seems like a scared college kid, hardly the type . . . ”
“Like the British doctors? They were hardly the type to set off car bombs in the middle of crowded airports. That’s how they play it. How can you be so damn naïve?” He stood up. “Come here,” he said, marching toward the middle of the room.
I followed as he’d demanded. His desk was about eight feet wide, custom cut from some exotic hardwood in a shape that mimicked the inner and outer arcs of the room. There was a flat-screen monitor, keyboard, and a printer on top, along with the books and papers he was currently working with. He picked up two pages that had been marked with yellow highlighter.
“This is from the Kuwait Times.” Emphasizing the source, he said, “An Arab newspaper. About how they indoctrinate children in their madrassas. It quotes from their textbooks and their teacher’s manuals.
“They teach them that Islam is the only true religion. All the rest of us are infidels. That Jews are monkeys and Christians are swine. A Muslim’s true loyalty, wherever he is, is only to other Muslims, no matter how far from home he is, like right here. And under Islamic law, it’s perfectly fine to kill infidels. Also adulterers and slaves. Yes, they believe in slavery. Fathers can kill members of their own family without penalty. Grandfathers too. Those are the savages that we’re dealing with.
“For them, the Crusades never ended, and their war on us, the swine, will continue until judgment day.
“That’s what their kids are indoctrinated into.”
He shoved the pages at me so I could look for myself. “The truth is,” I said, being conciliatory, “that I’ve been trying to get out of this, almost since I took it on. But Manny was a good client. And I can’t say to clients, ‘I’ll take this case, but not that.’”
“Well”—he figured he had me and calmed down—“then you have a way out,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. There’s power in his touch. I don’t know how or where it comes from, but it’s there. He lays his hands on people, and they come to Jesus. They throw down their crutches and throw off their sins. “With Mr. Goldfarb’s unfortunate death, your business obligation is effectively over.” The hand on my shoulder opened with a slight push, as if he had just released me from this new, pernicious bondage, the way he’d once released me from a life of sin.
With a contented nod, he added, “It’ll go to some court-appointed attorney. Let him sort it out.”
“I don’t know about the court-appointed,” I said, to let him know it might not go that way, but not mentioning that I had some obligation to Ahmad’s new council. “Obviously, he wants the best defense money can buy.”
“He doesn’t have any money.”
“Sure he does,” I said. “His family, and then there’s a group backing them up, helping them out.”
“I think you’re misinformed. Goldfarb was doing the case pro bono.”
“No,” I said, “I asked him and he said, no, he wasn’t, that there was plenty of money.”
“Feel free to check,” Plowright said. “But you’ll find that I’m right, and for some reason—who knows why—your ‘friend’ misinformed you.”
There’s faith certain, and there’s fact certain. Plowright was fact certain. It felt like the world was sliding out from under me.
“Who knows, maybe he had some other interest?” Plowright went on. “Maybe he was really working for the ACLU and was using your good name and good faith as a cover, a front. I happen to know that the ACLU wants this case to explode, to make a mess, to embarrass people, and to make it harder to fight the War on Terror.”
Did Manny have a hidden agenda?
“He certainly didn’t have your interests at heart when he involved you in defending a terrorist. You can only hurt yourself, which is a large part of why I’m talking to you. Hurt yourself and Gwen and Angie.
“Anyway, let whoever catches it, handle it. Nazami did it, he confessed, and he’s going to be convicted. If he’s smart, he’ll plead.”
“I have doubts about the confession,” I said, while I tried to think things through. “He said he was coerced. I don’t mean yelled at; I mean tortured.”
“Yes, I’ve heard the rumor,” he said. “And I was very, very concerned, because if it were true, it would be appalling. So I checked, and it looks like the only thing he was tortured by was guilt. People do have consciences. Even Islamics, I guess. Or maybe he wanted to take credit for it, so his family could be proud of him. He wandered into the Wolvern District precinct, ran into a police detective, and said he wanted to confess to a murder. Which he promptly did. The detective took it down. And put him under arrest.”
“Wh
ich detective?” I asked, since I still knew a lot people on the force, especially down in Wolvern.
Plowright shrugged that he didn’t know, and he went on, “When he said that he was commanded to commit the murder by the Koran, the detective figured it was a terrorism issue and called Homeland Security instead of the DA. Then it came in front of a judge who was drunk, so now it’s back in criminal court. Still, leave it alone. It will work out, and justice will be done. Too leniently, I’m sure, but at least they won’t get to make a circus out of it.” He sounded satisfied.
How had Plowright come to know so much? Things that I hadn’t been able to find out? Maybe he was right that Manny had hidden motives. Maybe I was all wrong. I was confused and still stuck.
Maybe he had the answer to the real question. Maybe he could figure it out.
“Pastor,” I said, “help me out here. I owe you. I owe you my life, and I want to do whatever you want. But here’s the problem. When Manny was dying, when I was holding him and calling for the ambulance and his blood was on my hands”—the moment still haunted me, and I could almost feel the wet heat of it on my palms—“he asked me to promise him that I would do this case. I gave my word. I gave my word to a man on his deathbed.”
“That’s how Satan works,” Plowright said, the anger that simmers deep inside starting to rise up. “He takes advantage of what’s good in us. We’re tolerant, and we believe in freedom. So what does he do? He gets people like those people at that university down there,” he pointed furiously out the window to USW, “to twist freedom around so that we’re not free to pray in public places. They churn out books, atheist books, to undermine us. Books that say that the way we respond to religion is mindless button pushing, like the way people respond to pornography.
“Oh, but when it comes to pornography, that’s something they love and protect. That’s what they want free speech for. So that they can produce endless streams of pornography, their new secret weapon.” The lid he kept over his rage at all these things had cracked. It was boiling out of him, faster and faster, with more and more force.
Salvation Boulevard Page 11