Free Fault Line by Sarah Andrews Page B

toward the state capitol, uniting the three campuses on which he operated.
    He was waiting for a telephone call, and he did not like to wait, or, worse yet, to be kept waiting. Waiting was not a skill he greeted with equanimity, especially when seated, even after his now fifty-seven years spent sitting in church each Sunday morning and half of the evenings of the week. In fact, it was only by taking over leadership of the study sessions that he had come to tolerate them at all. This accommodation had ironically earned him a reputation for great devotion. Had he contemplated this irony (and had been a man capable of appreciating ironies), he might have found it humorous, given the pragmatic, rather than spiritual, basis for his church attendance. Apparent piety was simply one of the prices of doing business in his community.
    It was important that he sit completely still. He made a practice of leaving his door open for an hour each day, so that his employees could see him sitting there, being still. Even though no one was peering in on him at this moment, he was ever vigilant, lest one of them wander past, wasting time, as usual. When he
was seen by such minions, or by his adversaries, he had observed that his stillness mired them in the presumption that he was calm and in control, and control was everything in this business.
    His business was the development of unused lands—God’s investment in him—and the redevelopment of decayed properties—God’s dividend. His business was exercising the power of his imagination in the pursuit of making money, and make money he did. Piles of it, mounds of it; enough money to make his fair and honest tithe to the church and still have enough left over to purchase every political tick who presumed to cling to his hide and try to suck his blood. It was pathetic how cheaply they could be persuaded. A pittance of campaign money here, a “loan” to cover a foolish little bet there. They were all the same kinds of boys and girls once things came down to particulars. They were all idiots. They were all whores.
    He was waiting to hear back from one of those whores now, and being kept waiting was irritating in the extreme. But he knew he must play the foolish game with this one for a while longer. Little that he liked to admit such things to himself, Hayes needed this particular fool, and, as two years remained before he would make certain that the fool was not reelected, it was undoubtedly not the last time he would need him. He would use this fool and his magnified ego to back the state geologist down again so he could avoid costly delays on his newest project: a solid city block of new shops three stories tall. Too bad it wouldn’t be ready for the hordes of tourists who would soon flood into the city for the Olympics, but his mall would reap the benefits of the bounty of additional tourism the Olympics would bring in its wake. The second phase of the project was ready to break ground. Time was money, and the fools set up hoops to jump through, rather than having the wit help themselves by helping him. Now they were requiring that he provide easier access to his new sports stadium to further promote the public good! What did they
think—that commerce was not in the public good? It was the very essence of the public good!
    Of course, by joining the stadium to the mall he had been able to get public funding, a dip into the public tax stream, so at least the bribes he must pay to push the mall project forward would not come out of his pocket. But first he had to deal with this latest resistance from the state geologist. Meddlesome woman! Hayes was almost mad enough to spit. The geologist worked for the elected fool, but the fool wasn’t controlling her. All she had to do was scream “fault line” and work ground to a halt. Why did he listen to her? He need only make an undocumented phone call to secure the necessary swing of a rubber stamp, but no,