The Wrath of Angels (26 page)

In short, Becky thought, Davis Tate was an asshole, but that was why he was so useful. Still, recruiting men such as he required a degree of care, and their continued use involved careful diplomacy. They couldn’t be stupid or else they would be unable to perform their appointed role in the media, and they couldn’t be too smart in case they began questioning what they were doing, or how they were being used. The easiest way to ensure their continued compliance was to stroke their ego and surround them with those most like themselves. Hatred, like love, needed to be regularly fed and watered.

Tate continued to sniff the air.

‘You sure you don’t smell it?’ he said.

Becky sniffed. There was something, she admitted. It was faint, but unpleasant. She could almost taste it on her tongue, as though she’d just licked a smoker’s fingers.

‘It’s old,’ she said. ‘It’s on someone’s clothing.’ Their skin and hair too, because you didn’t get to smell that way unless the nicotine had ingrained itself upon your system. She could almost hear the cells metastasizing.

She glanced over her shoulder. At the very back of the bar, where the light was at its dimmest, she saw a figure seated in a booth against the wall, a newspaper spread before him, a brandy snifter in one hand, the index finger of the other gently tapping a rhythm upon the table as he read. She couldn’t see his face, but his hair looked greasy and untidy. He struck her as unclean, a polluted man, and not just because the tobacco smell was certainly coming from him.

‘It’s the guy in the corner,’ she said.

‘There’s no excuse for a man smelling that bad,’ said Tate. ‘At least he won’t outlive us.’

Tate was not certain, but for a moment he believed that the rhythm of the man’s tapping might have been interrupted, and then it resumed and he forgot about it.

‘Ignore him,’ said Becky. ‘He’s not why we’re here.’

‘Goddamn disloyal advertisers and fat station managers without an original idea in their heads is why we’re here,’ said Tate.

‘It’s not just the advertisers and the stations we have to worry about, though,’ she replied. ‘You realize that? The Backers are concerned.’

Tate’s mouthful of beer tasted wrong. It wasn’t just his suspicions about the bartender, misplaced or otherwise. He always felt this way when the subject of the Backers was raised. At first, their existence hadn’t bothered him so much. The Kelly woman had approached him when he was a minor player broadcasting out of San Antonio, with barely a dozen statewide syndications to his name. She’d arranged to meet him for coffee in the lobby of the Menger Hotel, and he hadn’t been impressed with her at first. She was dowdy and plain, and Tate suspected that she was also a dyke. He had no objection to dykes as long as they were pretty – that was probably as close to a liberal viewpoint as he’d ever managed to come – but the butch, masculine-looking ones bothered him. They always seemed so angry, and frankly they scared the shit out of him. Kelly wasn’t an extreme case: her hair was shoulder length, and she wasn’t making some protest about oppressive male views of women by refusing to wear makeup or avoiding skirts and high heels. No man would have given her a second look in a bar or a mall, though, and most wouldn’t even have bothered with the first look.

But when she started speaking he found himself leaning forward, hanging on her every word. She had a soft, melodious voice, one that seemed to him both entirely at odds with her appearance yet also curiously appropriate if you considered her as some kind of mother figure instead of a sexual being. She spoke of how there was a change coming, and voices like his needed to be heard if that change was to become permanent. She said that there were powerful, influential figures with an interest in ensuring this was the case, and they had favors to call in, and money to spend. Davis Tate didn’t have to spend the rest of his career broadcasting out of a roach-filled studio in Valley Hi, driving between it and his similarly roach-filled apartment in Camelot in his piece-of-shit Concord hatchback. He could become a big player in syndicated talk radio if he wanted to be. He just had to trust in others to guide him.

Tate might have been a serious hatemonger-in-waiting, but he wasn’t dumb. Even back then he was self-aware enough to know that, at best, most of what he said didn’t make a whole lot of sense and, at worst, was just damned lies, but he’d been saying it all for so long that even he was starting to believe it. Neither was his ego so out of control as to allow him to think that a northern dyke would come all the way to San Antonio just because of his verbal dexterity and his unerring ability to blame the problems of hardworking white, Christian Americans on niggers, spics, queers and feminists without ever having to go so far as to name them as such. There was always a catch, wasn’t there?

‘Are we talking about a loan?’ he asked. He could barely cover his rent and the repayments on his vehicle as it was, and his credit card was maxed out. The word ‘loan’ now had the same appeal to him as the word ‘noose’.

‘No, any money you receive will be offered on an entirely non-repayable basis,’ said Kelly. ‘Consider it an investment in your career.’

She flicked through the papers on the table before her, and removed a four-page document. It was closely printed, and looked kind of official to Tate. ‘This is the initial paperwork for the corporation we propose to set up in your name. Funding would come from a number of 509(a) and 501(c) bodies.’

Tate read through the document. He was no lawyer, but even he could tell that there was a tangle of legalese here. He could also do addition and multiplication, and what he was being offered amounted to many times what he was earning in San Antonio, with further bonuses promised as syndication increased.

‘We’d also like to place a separate 501(c) organization under your direct control,’ said Kelly. ‘As you’re probably aware, any such organization is tax-exempt and, as long as it accrues less than twenty-five thousand dollars in gross yearly income, is not required to make an annual return to the IRS. In your line of work, it’s often necessary to provide hospitality, and the more hospitable you are, the more friends you’ll have. That requires some disposable income, which we’re prepared to provide. Sometimes, you may even have to use those funds to put individuals in a position where they become vulnerable to pressure, or exposure.’

‘You mean set them up?’

Kelly gave him the kind of look his third-grade teacher used to give him when he failed to master a piece of simple addition, but she masked it with an indulgent smile.

‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘Let’s say you heard that a local union organizer was known to cheat on his wife with the occasional waitress, or even with some of the very immigrants whose rights he was ostensibly working to protect. You could take the view that you had a moral and social obligation to expose his behavior. After all, it’s hypocrisy, as well as exploitation. In that case, baiting a hook wouldn’t be viewed as a set-up. He would be under no obligation to act on his appetites, and you would not be forcing him to do so. It would be a matter of free choice on his part. That’s very important, Mr Tate: in all things, the freedom to choose between right and wrong is crucial. Otherwise, well –’ Her smile widened. – ‘I’d be out of a job.’

Tate still had the uncomfortable feeling that he was missing the point, and the complexity of the legal document in his hand had only increased his suspicion that somewhere a mass of fine print was waiting to come back and bite him in the ass.

‘Excuse me, but what is your job, exactly?’

‘It’s on my business card.’ She pointed at the card where it lay next to Tate’s coffee cup. ‘I’m a consultant.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘It means that I consult. How much simpler can it be?’

‘But for whom?’

‘You see,
that’s
why we want you, Mr Tate: ‘‘for whom.’’ You’re bright, and you can speak well, but you never talk down to your listeners. You address them as equals, even if they’re not. You give the impression that you’re one of them, but you know that you’re superior. You have to be. Someone has to guide ignorant men and women. Someone has to explain the reality of a situation in a way that’s comprehensible to ordinary people or, if necessary, adjust the nature of that reality slightly so it can
be
comprehended. You’re not the only person in the media to receive this approach from us. You’re not alone. I’m offering you the chance to become part of a greater purpose, to put your gifts to their optimum use.’

Tate was almost convinced. He
wanted
to be convinced but still he doubted.

‘What’s the catch?’ he said, and he was surprised that Kelly looked pleased he’d asked.

‘Finally,’ she said.

‘Finally?’

‘I always wait for that question. It’s proof that we have the right person. Because there’s always a catch, right? There’s always something in the fine print that could come right back to bite you in the ass?’

Tate stared at her. She had used almost exactly the words that he had spoken in his head. He tried to remember if he might have said them aloud, but he was certain that he had not.

‘Don’t be shocked, Mr Tate,’ she said. ‘In your position, I’d be thinking the same thing.’

She removed another sheet of paper from her briefcase and placed it before him. There was a single long paragraph at the center of the page. Typed neatly in the middle of an ornate script was his name. It reminded him of a university scroll, not least because it appeared to be written in Latin.

‘What’s this?’ he asked.

‘The catch,’ she replied. ‘In your hand you hold the formal contract, the minor one. This is your private contract, your agreement with us.’

‘Why is it written in Latin?’

‘The Backers are very old-fashioned, and Latin is the language of jurisprudence.’

‘I don’t read Latin.’

‘Allow me to summarize, then.’ Tate noticed that she didn’t even have to look at the page. She knew its contents by heart. She rattled off what sounded to him like the pledge of allegiance, except it was loyalty promised not to a country, but to a private body.

‘
Excercitus Noctis
?’

‘The Army of Night. Catchy, don’t you think?’

Tate didn’t think it was catchy at all. It sounded like one of those ‘Reclaim the Streets’ movements. More dykes, he thought.

‘And that’s it? That’s all I have to sign?’

‘Nothing else. It will never be publicized, and you will never see the name of our organization written anywhere but here. In fact, the Army of Night doesn’t exist. Call it a private joke. Basically, some suitable nomenclature was required, and that one appealed to the Backers. This particular contract is really just to reassure them. We wouldn’t want you to take our money and head to Belize.’

Tate didn’t even know where Belize was, but he wasn’t about to head there even if he did know. He was ambitious, and he’d never get a better opportunity than this one to advance himself in his chosen field.

‘Uh, who are these Backers?’

‘Wealthy, concerned individuals. They’re worried about the direction in which this country is heading. In fact, they’re worried about the direction in which the whole world is heading. They want to alter its course before it’s too late.’

‘When do I get to meet them?’

‘The Backers like to keep their distance. They prefer to operate discreetly through others.’

‘Like you.’

‘Exactly.’

He looked again at the documents before him. One was written in a language that he didn’t understand, and the rest were written in a language that he should have understood but didn’t.

‘Maybe I ought to run these by my attorney,’ said Tate.

‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible. This is a one-time offer. If I leave here with these papers unsigned, the offer will be rescinded.’

‘I don’t know . . .’

‘Perhaps this will be enough to convince you of our bona fides,’ said Kelly.

She passed him a plain white envelope. When he opened it, he found that it contained access details for three bank accounts, including the 501(c) organization that Kelly had implied was merely being considered. It was called the American League for Equality and Freedom. Together, the accounts contained more money than he had earned in the last ten years.

Tate signed the papers.

‘All this money is mine?’ he asked. He couldn’t quite believe it.

‘Look upon it as your war chest,’ said Kelly.

‘With whom are we going to war?’ he asked.

‘Again with the “whom”,’ said Kelly, admiringly. ‘I just love the way you talk.’

‘The question remains,’ insisted Tate. ‘Who are we fighting?’

‘Everyone,’ said Kelly. ‘Everyone who is not like us.’

One week later, he was being introduced to Becky Phipps. One year later, he was a rising star. Now that star appeared to be on the wane, and Becky was alluding darkly to the Backers. The Backers, Tate knew, tended to act when they were displeased. He’d learned that early on. Kelly hadn’t just been speculating when she spoke about the union organizer with a taste for skirt: his name was George Keys. He liked to tell people that he was named after George Orwell. Nobody knew if that was true or not, but Keys certainly came from socialist stock. His father had been a union organizer all his life, and his mother continued to be heavily involved with Planned Parenthood. His grandfather, meanwhile, had set up a Catholic Worker camp in California and was personally close to the CW founder, Dorothy Day, who ticked every box on Tate’s hate list: Catholic, anarchist, socialist radical, even anti-Franco, which, as far as Tate was concerned, meant that she wasn’t even consistent in her own wrongheadedness because the Catholics were supposed to be for the fascists in the Spanish Civil War, right? If the son was one-tenth of the man his grandfather was, then he deserved to be wiped from the earth, even without screwing Mexican factory workers on the side.

It hadn’t been difficult to bribe a whore who worked part-time as a waitress – or was she a waitress who worked part-time as a whore? Tate could never quite tell – to come on to Keys with a sad story about her family back in Mexico, and her cousins working in indentured servitude on Texas chicken farms. Keys bought her some drinks, and the whore bought some back, and one thing led to another until Keys and the whore ended up back at Keys’ place.