Reign in Hell

by William Diehl

  “Praise the Lord.”

  He struggled to a sitting position and shakily swung his legs over the side of the table onto the seat. Bile scorched the back of his throat and he leaned forward, almost falling off the table. She steadied him and he felt the warmth of her body against his.

  “May be sick,” he said, and put his head down. She held him until the nausea passed.

  He became aware of his surroundings, of the voices still singing in the worship tent, the rain falling through the trees, his own heart pounding in his ears.

  “How long did that last?” he asked.

  “An hour, maybe.”

  “Sometimes it takes all night.”

  With her help, he struggled off the table and stood in the wet grass. His legs were unsteady, and his knees began to shake.

  “Maybe you best lay back down.”

  “No. Help me inside.”

  Penny led him back into the tent and helped him to the platform. He was shivering and his legs were unsteady, but he moved up to the edge of the platform and took the microphone from Harmon Jasper.

  “God led me here tonight,” he said in a quivering voice. “God put me to the test and brought the rain and led me through the tunnel. Praise be the Lord in His wisdom, praise be the Lord for His bounty. Praise God!”

  The congregation moved toward him, shouting “Amen” and “Praise God” and “Hallelujah.” They reached out to touch him, their eyes glistening with tears of gratitude and adoration. They touched his soaked caftan and his outstretched hands.

  In the back of the tent Shrack, Granger, and the young sergeant watched the pilgrimage of farmers and businessmen and wives and children moving to the front of the worship tent.

  “Well, Harry?” Granger said.

  “Let’s hope he makes breakfast,” the colonel said.

  Behind Harmon Jasper’s house the preacher lay naked under a cotton sheet on the soft mattress Mrs. Jasper had provided in a stall near the rear of the barn. They had fashioned it into a small room for him, with a lamp and a table beside the bed. The crowd was gone, leaving behind a generous contribution. The tent squatted empty at the edge of the field. The only sound was the rain still spattering intermittently on the roof, the only odor the pleasant smell of wet hay. Brother T stared at the ceiling and took in deep, long breaths. His arm throbbed painfully and the aches in the joints in his legs and arms were profound.

  Should I thank God or the Devil? he wondered. Whoever. That snake hitting me was the miracle. It made believers of the whole damn bunch. Hallelujah and amen.

  He heard the barn door squeak open and waited. A moment later she appeared in the stall doorway. An angel in a white frock shimmering in the lamplight.

  “It’s me, Brother T,” she said softly. “It’s Penny.”

  “My rose of Sharon,” he said. “My angel of mercy.”

  She smiled, embarrassed and flattered by his words. “I brought you some milk, and Papa sent you one of his nightshirts.”

  “Everyone is so kind. So generous.”

  “It was you who was generous, giving yourself up for us. I never saw such bravery.”

  “I was in the hands of God,” he said, sitting up. He let the sheet drift down to his waist.

  She stared at his powerful arms and chest and felt a familiar trembling below her stomach. He began to shiver, and she came to him and helped him put on the nightshirt, pulling it down over his head, her hands running across his hard body.

  “The Lord blessed me tonight,” he said, taking her hands in his. “I was sanctified, as you are.”

  Her hands were trembling, not out of fear, but with anticipation.

  He slid his hands up her arms to her shoulders and then her neck to her cheeks until his fingertips were brushing her lips. He could feel her heart pounding. He drew her very tenderly to him, felt her breasts swelling against his chest, felt her breath against his throat. His arms surrounded her.

  “I will bless you as I was blessed,” he whispered. “I will anoint you with my seed and share God’s love with you.”

  He lowered her to his bed.

  CHAPTER 2

  JULY 10

  Sheffield, Illinois, was sixty miles south of Chicago, an affluent town of seven-thousand-plus mostly middle and upper middle class citizens who either commuted into the city every day or worked in a burgeoning electronics industry that provided higher than average income in white-collar jobs. The town itself had preserved the look of the fifties, its main street lined with locally owned businesses that were supported by the locals. A shopping mall and fast-food center was located a few miles from town, but there was a sense of loyalty by the people of Sheffield to businesses owned by their neighbors and friends. There was very little crime in Sheffield. It was an anachronism in the late 1990s, a town that tried to hold on to its history and values while progress swirled about it.

  It was a perfect place for the trial, although the locals were largely annoyed by the press that swarmed in, filling its old four-story hotel, the motels on its outskirts, and the three above-average downtown restaurants. News vans with satellite dishes mounted on their roofs crowded the parking places around the courthouse, a stately old building that had recently enjoyed its one hundredth birthday.

  The Sheffield Cafe, up the street from the center of attraction, had become the gathering spot of the media. They absorbed space, drinking coffee and devouring the daily specials. The locals at first complained bitterly that these out-of-towners had taken over, but now, on the eve of the trial, they ventured forth, mixing with the press, listening to theories and rumors and generally getting caught up in the excitement of the biggest event in the town’s history. The sixteen jurors and alternates who were to be sequestered when the trial began had achieved the status of local celebrities.

  Jack Connerman sat at a small corner table in the cafe with a view of the courthouse down the street. The magazine writer had been in Sheffield for two days, talking to the locals and soaking up local color. The small table was covered with notebooks, local newspapers, and a legal pad on which he was scratching out notes, referring constantly to his research. He was so deeply focused on his task he didn’t see the tall woman enter the restaurant, look around, and walk to his table.

  “Jack Connerman?”

  Startled, he looked up sharply and whipped off a pair of old-fashioned horn-rimmed glasses. He recognized the dark-haired woman immediately. Decked out in a black suit and white silk blouse, she was stunning; prettier in person, less officious, perhaps, and softer than she appeared on television. She was carrying a forest-green leather briefcase.

  “Ms. Azimour,” he said, standing and offering his hand. There was nothing soft about her handshake.

  “Sorry to interrupt, are you on deadline?”

  “Nope.”

  “Good. May I join you for a minute?” she asked pleasantly.

  “Please.”

  She sat down across from him and smiled when she looked at the mess on the table. He slid the notebooks and papers into a pile and laid the legal pad on top, facedown.

  “You needn’t do that on my account,” she said.

  “I don’t own the table,” he said with a boyish grin. Connerman was a lean man with graying hair and a youthful face that belied his forty-eight years. He was dressed haphazardly in a wrinkled tan poplin suit and a pale blue shirt open at the collar.

  “How’s the food?” she asked, checking the menu. “I’m starving. Airline food tastes more and more like cardboard every day.” There was a trace of British in her accent.

  “Like Mom used to cook,” he said. “They make a mean Reuben.”

  She flagged a waitress and ordered a Reuben and a glass of Budweiser.

  “I just got in an hour ago,” she said. “Couldn’t get a room at the hotel. They’ve got me in the Sunflower Motel, which is in Kansas someplace.”

  He laughed. “You’re spoiled,” he said. “You’re about fifteen minutes from town. Couldn’t pull any rank at the h
otel, huh?”

  “I don’t think they ever heard of World Wide News over there.” She shook her head. “I like to be where the action is.”

  “Well, this is where the action is during the day. At night everybody gathers in Harnicker’s Steak House right over…” He turned and pointed across the street. “… there. It becomes a bar when they close the grill at nine.”

  “Been here long?”

  “Two days.” He paused for a minute, then asked, “Can I do something for you?”

  “I understand you’re Martin Vail’s official biographer.”

  He laughed heartily. “Unauthorized only,” he said.

  “Everybody says you’re the Vail expert.”

  “I’ve been covering him off and on for about fifteen years.”

  “I hear you’ve done twenty or thirty magazine stories on him.”

  “Four is more like it. Plus some columns.”

  “Freelancer?”

  “Contract writer for City Magazine, and I do a column for the Trib on Sundays. Op ed.”

  “Are you friends?”

  “Well, let’s put it this way, he’s never taken a poke at me.”

  “He takes pokes at people?”

  “Figure of speech.” Connerman took out his wallet, leafed through some business cards in one of its pockets, took one out, and handed it to her. Vail’s name was printed in the right-hand corner. In the center of the card were two words: NO COMMENT.

  “That tough, huh?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Well, he’s not real verbal.”

  “Think he’ll stand still for a one-on-one interview?”

  Connerman threw back his head and laughed so hard half the eyes in the restaurant looked over at him.

  “If that’s what you’re after, you made a long trip for nothing.”

  “I’ve been told that before.”

  “That what Castro told you?”

  “His hatchet men did. Fidel was easy once I got past the bodyguards and hangers-on.”

  “Quite a coup.”

  “Did you see it?”

  “Oh yeah. And I’m not even interested in Cuba.”

  “Everybody so far says Vail’s a real pain in the ass.”

  “He’s a cool guy, just doesn’t do a lot of talking outside the courtroom. He has a real hard-on for lawyers who try their cases on the courthouse steps.”

  “I’m interested in why.”

  “Why?”

  “Why he decided to take on Western Pulp and Paper, and Atlas Chemical.”

  “There’s a lot more to it than that.”

  “Not as far as the national press is concerned. Do you know both their stocks took a nose dive over this?”

  He nodded.

  “Is this guy Vail running for governor or something?”

  “Vail doesn’t do anything for show. And he’s never run for public office in his life. Doubt he ever will.”

  “He was D.A. in Chicago before he became Attorney General. How did that happen?”

  “He was appointed chief prosecutor in Chicago and became D.A. when his boss died of a stroke. The governor appointed him Attorney General when his predecessor was caught, uh, in delicto, as the saying goes.”

  “That made headlines all over the world. I mean the ex-Attorney General’s indiscretions, not Vail’s appointment.”

  The waitress brought her Reuben and she attacked it like a field hand on a fifteen-minute lunch break.

  “What do you want from me, Ms. Azimour?”

  “Call me Valerie, will you?”

  “Okay.”

  “You’re not a fountain of information yourself, Jack. Okay if I call you Jack?”

  “Everybody does.”

  “I just want to get a handle on this guy. Why would he take on two of the most powerful corporations in the world?”

  “Like I said, there’s more to it than that.”

  “Such as…”

  “A whole county gone rotten. This is a RICO case, Ms…. Valerie.

  He’s looking to take down four commissioners, a couple of state environmental boys, a bank. And he’s probably going to give the daily newspaper up there a 200,000-volt jolt before he’s through.”

  “I repeat: Why?”

  “Well, for starters, three major corporations colluding to bribe public officials and state investigators, diverting money from all kinds of government programs and using it for their own purposes, laundering money through banks they controlled, covering up one of the worst pollution problems in the country, and corrupting a local newspaper and its reporters to lie to its readers so the people wouldn’t know what was going on.” He paused for a moment and added, “On the other hand, maybe he just got pissed off about something.”

  Now it was Azimour who laughed, holding a napkin over her mouth as she did. “Hot-tempered Irishman, that it?”

  Connerman leaned back in his chair and stared at her. “What do you know about Vail?”

  She shrugged, then opened her briefcase, took out several magazines and a folder of clippings, and dropped them on the table in front of him. “Confession time. I’ve read all your stuff on him.”

  He moved the items around with a finger and nodded. “Well, I’m flattered. Now you know everything I know.”

  “C’mon.”

  “What else can I tell you?”

  “I’d like to get inside the guy. What makes him tick, what kind of personal life does he have, why did he take this on? I mean, he’s going up against a couple of real sharks, the toughest corporate lawyers in the country.”

  “Maybe that’s why he’s doing it,” Connerman said with a slight grin. “Doesn’t worry him, then?”

  “Are you kidding?” He shook his head. “I’ll give you this. When Martin Vail goes into court tomorrow, he’s going in to win, to win big, and there’s no question in his mind about that.”

  “You do know this guy pretty well, then?”

  “Well, we’ve kind of grown up together, professionally I mean.”

  “In what way?”

  “I’ve sat through a lot of his trials. He’s matured from an arrogant, hard-nosed defense attorney to a tough prosecutor to a guy who really believes in constitutional law.”

  “Mr. Self-Confidence, huh.”

  “Put it this way, I doubt he’s lost five minutes of sleep over those corporate sharks you mentioned. Vail’s one of the best lawyers alive. And I’ll bet you every penny I make on this story you don’t get more than three words out of him. The first one will be ‘Hello.’”

  “You’re really sold on this guy, aren’t you?”

  “I admire perfection.”

  Vail guided the black sedan into the underground hotel garage and parked near the service elevator. Police lines kept the press out of the garage. He called the desk on his cellular phone.

  “Hi, it’s Martin Vail. I’m at the service elevator. Thanks.”

  He snapped the phone off, stuck it in his pocket, and sat in the car until the doors opened. He got out and scampered into the cubicle.

  “Any problems, Jerry?” he asked the plainclothes detective who operated it.

  “Nah. Coupla hotshots sneaked into the hotel earlier today, but we nailed them before they got through the lobby.”

  “You do good work, Detective Fennerman.”

  “I do okay for a small-town cop.”

  “Ever want to move up in the world, let me know. I still have a little pull with the Chicago department.”

  “No thanks. The last homicide we had here was four years ago. And the last drive-by shooting we had was a teenager shooting the bird at one of his buddies.”

  Vail chuckled. “I’d stay here, too, Jerry.”

  He got off on the sixth floor. The team had taken over half the upper story of the hotel, and carpenters had blocked off the hallway. The only way to get to the A.G.’s headquarters was by guarded elevator.

  Naomi Chance, who literally ran the operation, smiled when he walked into the main suite. Beh
ind her, clerks were busy arranging evidence, tagging files, getting everything ready for the next day. Vail’s office was in an adjoining suite.

  “Hi, boss, have a nice trip?”

  “If you call spending the day at Joliet Prison a nice day, yeah.”

  “Okay, was it successful?”

  “The missing link.”

  “No kidding? That good, huh.”

  “I made Jimmy ‘the Doc’ Fox an offer a month ago. Today he decided he liked it.”

  Naomi looked concerned. “You’re not making a deal with that scumbag, are you?”

  “Jimmy Fox is doing ten to twenty for second-degree murder. He’s done five, so he’s up for parole in another two. We put him in a country club like Statesville and guarantee he’ll walk in two years.”

  “A stone killer?”

  “All I’m doing is moving him out of Joliet. He’s clean there, he’ll do the deuce and go out anyway.”

  “And what did he give up?”

  “I’ll fill you in after I take a shower. Gotta get the prison stink out of my nose. Anything new here?”

  “Shaughnessey called,” Naomi said casually.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “He’s on the third floor—the Presidential Suite, naturally. Asked if you’d drop by for a drink.”

  “The night before the trial and he wants me to stop by for a drink?”

  “He actually was pleasant to me. Usually he treats me like I have something catching.”

  “Shaughnessey is something catching.”

  She laughed. “Want to tell him you don’t have time?”

  “We hear from Abel yet?”

  “That’s the second message. Dinner with the mysterious gentleman at seven-thirty at the Coq d’Or. There’s a private dining room in the back. Dermott and Abel are bringing him over to make sure he isn’t followed. They were worried about bringing him here.”

  “Smart.” He looked at his watch. It was four-thirty.

  “Call Shaughnessey. Tell him I have fifteen minutes at five.”

  She laughed. “Jesus, Marty, you’re going to piss him off before you even go down there.”

  “I just want to make sure he knows the Attorney General of the state outranks a two-bit state senator.”