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from the sticks, you know— he’s not used to this kind of scrutiny. He could self-destruct all on his own.”
    Stan’s spectacles glittered. “So I suppose you won’t be discussing Sheriff Paxton when you have that meeting at Justice next week.”
    “I don’t believe I said that.” The President smiled.
    “Oh God, you’re not gonna investigate the boy, are you?” the judge interrupted. “You’ve already halfway made him a martyr.” He waved one arm. “What you want to do, hoss, is buy the next election for his opponent, even if the man belongs to the other party. Then Omar there will be a loser. That’ll tarnish his damn badge for him.”
    The President looked at the Judge and smiled. Chivington was one of his oldest allies, the heir to an old Texas political family that had once controlled fifty thousand votes in the lower Rio Grande Valley— a hundred thousand, if you counted the voters in the cemeteries. He had spent ten terms in the House of Representatives, and then, having lost his seat in one of those vast political sea-changes that swept the country every dozen years or so— that in his case swept even the graveyards— he’d been a federal judge known for outspokenness on the bench, extravagant behavior off it, and the highest number of calls for impeachment since the glory days of Earl Warren. Since his retirement he’d joined a law firm in D.C. and become an advisor to the powerful—including the young telegenic fellow he’d helped to win the White House.
    “I am keeping all my options open in regard to Sheriff Paxton,” the President said.
    “That’s fine for now.” The judge nodded. “But you’ve got to take care of that problem before the next election. Trust me.”
    The President nodded. “He’s on the agenda.”
    Stan looked at the television again, at the picture of Omar Paxton taking the oath. “Made for television,” he said, and his voice was wistful.
    *
    “There’s a thousand reporters here,” Omar said later, addressing his deputies in the little high-ceilinged lounge the parish pretended was something called a “squad room.”
    “Most of them are going to go home before long, but there’s still going to be a lot of attention placed on this parish.”
    “So,” Merle said as he stood by the machine and poured himself coffee. “No incidents.”
    “Particularly no incidents that could be described as racially motivated,” Omar said.
    “We don’t get to have no fun at all?” Jedthus asked. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the air conditioner that rattled in the window. “We don’t even get to knock the heads of the niggers we’re used to knocking?”
    “We live in a video world,” Omar said. “Let’s remember that half the people in this state have camcorders, and they’d just love a chance to earn ten grand selling the tabloids pictures of one of us whacking some coon upside the head. And then you’d be on network news, and we’d all be so surrounded by federal agents and judges and lawsuits we wouldn’t be able to do anything.”
    “Damn.” Merle grinned. “For ten grand, I’d sell pictures of y’all.”
    Merle settled with his coffee onto the cheap sofa. Cracks in its orange plastic had been repaired with duct tape.
    “Just take it easy for now,” Omar said.
    “By the way,” said Merle, “I heard from D.R. at the Commissary. He was afraid that the election might scare all the little niggers away from the camp meetings this summer.”
    “Awww.” Jedthus moaned with mock sympathy.
    “Well,” Merle said defensively, “they bring a lot of money into this parish. And a lot of it gets spent at the Commissary. It ain’t like D.R.’s got that much money to spare.”
    The Commissary was the general store in Shelburne City, and had retained its name from the time when it was the company store of the Shelburne Plantation, which had once occupied much of the parish. Now it was owned and run by D.R. Thompson, who had married Merle’s