Freedom [154]
“Kind of shitty luck, of course, for the people who sold out early,” Walter said.
“If they’re still struggling, we can offer them jobs, too.”
“For an additional however many million.”
“And the fact that it’s patriotic is also perfect!” Lalitha said. “The people will be doing something to help their country in time of war.”
“These people don’t strike me as losing a lot of sleep over helping their country.”
“No, Walter, you’re wrong about that. Luanne Coffey has two sons in Iraq. She hates the government for not doing more to protect them. She and I actually talked about that. She hates the government, but she hates the terrorists even more. This is perfect.”
And so, in December, Vin Haven flew into Charleston in his jet and personally accompanied Lalitha to Forster Hollow while Walter stayed simmering, with his anger and humiliation, in a motel room in Beckley. It had been no surprise to hear from Lalitha that Coyle Mathis was still given to lengthily riffing on what an arrogant, prissy-ass fool her boss was. She’d played the role of good cop to the hilt; and Vin Haven, who did have the common touch (as evidenced by his friendship with George W.), was apparently reasonably well tolerated in Forster Hollow as well. While a small band of protesters from outside the Nine Mile valley, led by nutcase Jocelyn Zorn, marched with placards (don’t trust the trust) outside the tiny elementary school where the meeting was held, all eighty families from the hollow signed away their rights and accepted, on the spot, eighty whopping certified checks drawn on the Trust’s account in Washington.
And now, ninety days later, Forster Hollow was a ghost hamlet owned by the Trust and available for demolition at 6 a.m. tomorrow. Walter had seen no reason to attend the first morning of demolition, and had seen several reasons not to, but Lalitha was thrilled by the imminent removal of the last permanent structures in the Warbler Park. He’d lured her, in hiring her, with the vision of a hundred square miles entirely free of human taint, and she’d bought the vision big-time. Since she was the one who’d brought the vision to the brink of realization, he couldn’t very well deny her the satisfaction of going to Forster Hollow. He wanted to give her every little thing he could, since he couldn’t give her his love. He indulged her the way he’d often been tempted to indulge Jessica but had mostly refrained from, for the sake of good parenting.
Lalitha was hunched forward with anticipation as she drove the rental car into Beckley, where rain was falling more heavily.
“That road’s going to be a mess tomorrow,” Walter said, looking out at the rain and noting, with displeasure, the elderly sourness in his voice.
“We’ll get up at four and take it slow,” Lalitha said.
“Ha, that’ll be a first. Have I ever seen you take a road slow?”
“I’m very excited, Walter!”
“I shouldn’t even be here,” he said sourly. “I should be doing that press conference tomorrow morning.”
“Cynthia says Mondays are better for the news cycle,” Lalitha said, referring to their press person, whose job, until now, had consisted mainly of avoiding contact with the press.
“I don’t know which I’m dreading more,” Walter said. “That nobody will show up, or that we’ll have a room full of reporters.”
“Oh, we definitely want the room full. This is really amazing news, if you explain it right.”
“All I know is I’m dreading it.”
Staying in hotels with Lalitha had become perhaps the hardest single part of their working relationship. In Washington, where she lived upstairs from him, she at least was on a different floor, and Patty was around to generally disturb the picture. At the Days Inn in Beckley, they fitted identical keycards into identical doors, fifteen feet from each other, and entered rooms whose identical profound drabness only a torrid illicit liaison could have overcome. Walter couldn’t avoid thinking about how alone Lalitha was in her identical