Free Gibbon's Decline and Fall by Sheri S. Tepper Page A

or lost favor or proved capable of notorious error, he did not merely cross out the name but copied the shortened list anew on the following page. This list contained the names of Jake’s candidates for his father.
    Slowly over the years, as careless men died and foolish men fell from grace, the list grew shorter until, at last, only one name was left. This name appeared now and again in the
Wall Street Journal
, in the
Washington Post
, in the
London Times
, always in connection with powerful international interests. In a profile short on facts and long on aerial photographs of the enormous estates this man was said to own in half the countries of the world,
People
magazine called him the world’s most powerful recluse. He was said to have a fleet of yachts and private planes and even his own railway car. He owned urban real estate all over the world, including a high-rise office building in Chicago, where Jake was. This man was said to keep an eye on his vast empire by wandering through it anonymously, which item of information fit Jake’s suppositions exactly.
    His name was L. S. Webster.
    The more Jake read, the more convinced he became that Webster was his father. Birds of a feather, he told himself. Powerful men recognized one another, and sooner or later Webster would recognize Jagger if Jagger simply put himself in Webster’s way. Since Webster’s name was most frequently mentioned in association with the American Alliance, Jake grew up dedicating his time and money to the Alliance, helping it preserve the American Way of Life against attacks by inferior peoples, feminists, liberals, perverts, welfare cheats, lesbians, humanists, civil-rights activists, environmentalists, and anyone else who had no respect for Tradition.
    Gradually, as Jake advanced from passing out pamphlets at rallies and soliciting money at airports to tasks of greater responsibility, as he went from small jobs accomplished in the public view to larger projects hidden from any view at all, he learned that the membership of the Alliance was wider and more inclusive than the world at large suspected. In addition to many rich and powerful men, certain governmental agencieswere well represented among its members: the FBI, the CIA, the Pentagon. Jake met men from all these agencies; Jake recorded names; Jake was given a number of helpful hints and boosts along the way. He was supplied with money. He was given the names and numbers of contract men and mercenaries who could help his career by doing odd jobs from time to time.
    Throughout all those decades of dedication, Jake saw Webster personally only once. It happened on October 31, 1985, when Jake was thirty-five years old. On that day he was accepted as a formal member of the Alliance. After weeks of feverish anticipation, during which he rehearsed over and over the casual remark he would make about his possible relationship to the great man, he had been ushered into a large office, high up in one of the most luxurious buildings in Chicago. Suffocating falls of ashen draperies covered the windows and muffled any outside noise. Bluish lamplight pooled on an ebon carpet thick as swamp ooze. From behind a desk carved like a catafalque, Webster rose, to beckon Jake forward with a single curve of a pale, expressive hand. Jagger, who had been cautioned to keep his mouth shut, had been amazed at his difficulty in moving at all, in simply keeping his balance.
    What Webster said was: “Mr. Jagger, I am happy to welcome you to membership in the Alliance.”
    Thirteen words. Though it was far from the acknowledgment Jake had hoped for, Jake did not utter a word about fathers and sons—not then, not subsequently. Over the next few days Jake managed to convince himself that such a query would have been inappropriate, ignoring the fact that in that room, in Webster’s presence, any query would have been impossible. There was something quite awful in Webster’s manner, an aspect