The Overton Window Read online

  The big man ticked his chin in Noah’s direction. “Who’s your boyfriend?” he asked.

  “Not my boyfriend,” Molly said, in a tone meant to emphasize what a far-fetched idea that really was. “This is Noah Gardner, from where I work, and Noah, this is my friend Hollis.”

  A beefy right hand the size of a fielder’s mitt came toward him, and Noah put out his own. “Good to know you, Hollis,” he said, with a clasp only firm enough to transmit sincerity without throwing down a challenge for that iron-grip competition some men love to engage in upon first meeting.

  “The pleasure’s all mine,” the big man said. Good etiquette had obviously been drilled into him from childhood; by his manner it seemed that shaking hands with a total stranger was an event to be treated with great respect. In contrast to his physical size his voice was unexpectedly high and reedy. The overall effect was something like being introduced to Winnie-the-Pooh, if Winnie-the-Pooh had been a seven-foot, mostly shaven, talking grizzly bear.

  Molly had brought back a selection of men’s tops, including a faded sweatshirt from Kent State, a dark burglar’s hoodie with a torn pocket and a pattern of moth holes, and a two-tone T-shirt that said presumed ignorant on the front. He took the sweatshirt.

  “Thanks,” Noah said, looking around. “Where can I go to put this on?”

  “For heaven’s sake, it’s just your shirt. Go ahead and change right here if you want to.” She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table and her chin in her palms, with a bewitching innocence on her face that was not quite as pure as the driven snow. “I doubt you’ve got anything under there me and Hollis haven’t seen before.”

  “Aha. So you admit that I’m human.”

  She seemed to study him deeply, as if the piece to a stubborn blank in a jigsaw puzzle might be hiding somewhere within his gaze. It must have been only a second or two, but it felt so much longer than any other mere moment he could remember.

  “We’ll see,” she said.

  CHAPTER 9

  Being between tans, Noah had opted to change his clothes in private, though the restroom turned out to be nearly as crowded as the bar itself. There was a definite scent of weed smoke in the air. He’d already seen a few hardcore, single-issue hemp-heads in the crowd. Maybe they were here to attach their cause to the larger group’s ambitions.

  He slipped out of his damp shirt and into the fresh top he’d borrowed.

  His pants he’d have to live with, but they were already starting to dry out. At least without his dress shirt and tie he might blend in a little better with the majority of the yahoos outside.

  When he returned to the tavern proper he saw that the big guy was gone, but another man had joined Molly at the small table by the stage.

  Noah stopped by a floor column at a point where he was half obscured from their line of sight. It hadn’t been his conscious intention to stand there and watch the two of them from a distance, not at all. That would be impolite, not to mention a little creepy if either of them should have glanced over to notice him there. But as the brief pause stretched into a minute or more, his minor worry of what she might think if she saw him watching was pushed aside by a different concern.

  They were sitting close together, hand on hand, talking and whispering, intent on one another, each finishing thoughts for the other, laughing easily. It was an intimate relaxation between them, a togetherness without any pretense, the kind of closeness you see only rarely between siblings, and sometimes among old friends, but often between two people in love.

  “That Molly, she’s a nice girl, don’t you think?”

  Noah flinched at the sound of the voice near his ear. He turned to see Molly’s large friend Hollis towering beside him, watching the distant table just as he had been.

  I was just—

  “Nice girl. Smart one, too. Quick as a whip.” Now that he’d said a few more words his regional accent was coming through loud and clear. This guy wasn’t just from Appalachia; he looked and sounded like he might’ve eaten one of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

  “Whatever,” Noah said, “I just met her, so—”

  “That boy with her there, his name’s Danny Bailey. Molly tells me they was tight with one another some time ago, but beyond that I didn’t pry no further.”

  Feigning disinterest didn’t seem to be of much further use. Either Hollis was an excellent judge of character or it was so obvious that Noah was smitten with this woman that there was no more need to try to hide it.

  “Okay, so that’s his name,” Noah said, “but who is this guy?” His cover was now blown; Molly had just spotted him and was waving him over.

  “To be honest I don’t know that much about him,” Hollis said, and his next words sounded strange coming from a giant of a man who could probably bear-hug the fight out of a silverback at the Bronx Zoo.

  “But he scares me some.”

  • • •

  When he returned to the table they pulled over another chair and all three sat back down.

  “So, you must be Noah,” Danny Bailey said. “Molly’s told me almost nothing about you.”

  If the twinkle in his deep voice was any indication, Bailey found himself pretty damned amusing. He had the air of someone who was accustomed to being seen from a stage or on camera and had put his look together accordingly. He was handsome enough, but up close you could see all the things the footlights would obscure: too many cross-hatched wrinkles for a man so young, desperately spiky hair with too-careful highlights, face a bit too thin, eyes a little sunken and dry. It was a picture of a guy on the wrong side of thirty trying hard to remember twenty-one.

  “I’m not surprised,” Noah said. “We hardly know each other, and what she knows so far, I doubt she likes too much.”

  Bailey nudged Molly with his shoulder. “What do you say about that, sweet thing?” She looked embarrassed, and was rescued from answering by the arrival of the waitress with a round for the table. “Aw, come on, lighten up, everybody. I kid because I love. Here, look.” He picked up his shot glass and downed whatever brownish liquor it was filled with, then held up the empty in a toast of sorts. “Here’s to new friends, and maybe a new fan.”

  Noah picked up his glass and sipped it. “I’m sorry, you said a new fan?”

  “Yeah, man.” He held out his hand in introduction, and Noah shook it. “Danny Bailey.” He seemed to wait for a sign of dawning recognition, and got none. “Don’t tell me you haven’t seen the video.”

  Noah blinked, and shook his head.

  “Overthrow, man, the video. It’s gonna bring on the total downfall of the whole frickin’ evil empire, thirty-five million views on YouTube. That’s me. I’m shocked, you really haven’t seen it? There’s e-mails about me flying around all over the Internet.”

  “Well,” Noah said, “I guess I’ve got a really good spam filter.”

  For a long moment the legendary Danny Bailey looked like he’d just been double-smacked across his face with the ceremonial dueling gloves.

  “Down, boys,” Molly said.

  Bailey let the air between them simmer just a little while longer. Then he smiled and shook his head, picked up the shot glass in front of Molly, drank its contents in one gulp, and got up to leave. He leaned down and kissed Molly on the cheek, whispered something elaborate in her ear, and then looked across to Noah.

  “Lots of luck,” Bailey said.

  “Hey, really, you too.”

  With the other man gone Noah turned to Molly and tapped the lip of her empty glass. “Can I get you another one?”

  “No, I don’t drink. That’s why he did that; he wasn’t being rude.”

  “Oh no, not at all.”

  “Danny’s a good guy, he’s just living in the past of this movement, I think. I’m not telling you anything that I haven’t said to him. You’ll see what I mean when he speaks tonight. He doesn’t have much of a BS-filter, and he gets people fired up about the wrong things, when there are plenty of real things to fight against
. But, there’s no denying he gets a lot of attention.”

  “Just my opinion,” Noah said. “but it’s a pretty informed one. You should be careful who you associate yourselves with. In PR we have a saying that the message is irrelevant if you don’t choose the right messenger. And it’s not always true, you know, that there’s no such thing as bad publicity.”

  “I’ll take that under advisement.” She looked him over. “I’m glad to see that shirt fits you so well.”

  “Yeah, I’m an off-the-rack medium-large,” Noah said, placing his bundle of wet things on the now-vacant barstool between them. “Thanks again.”

  She nodded. “I’m happy you came. Now”—she scooted a few inches closer—“tell me something about yourself that I don’t already know.”

  Noah answered instinctively. “I will if you will.”

  Molly seemed to think about that for a moment. “Okay.”

  “Okay.” He bit his lip as if in deep thought, considering what to choose as a first revelation. “I have an almost supernatural ability to tell when a person is hiding something.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I do. While the other kids went to Cub Scouts I was sitting behind one-way glass eating M&Ms and watching about a million focus groups. I know people.” He thumped his temple with an index finger. “Human lie detector.”

  “Prove it.”

  Noah looked briefly around the bar and then settled on one man and studied him for a few seconds. “All right. Behind you, over your left shoulder, halfway to the exit sign. Muscle shirt, pirate earring, loose coat, and a blond biker mullet. Be discreet.” She turned to look, and then her eyes came back to him. “He’s not one of you. If that’s not an infiltrator, I’ve never seen one before.”

  Molly turned her head again. When she turned back she didn’t look impressed; she looked troubled, and then angry.

  “Calm down,” Noah said. “What do you think, there’s not going to be a spy or two from the enemy camp at a thing like this?”

  “It’s not right.”

  “Come on, forget about it,” he said. “So, I went first, now tell me something about you.”

  Molly nodded, took a deep breath, and then climbed up to stand on the seat of her stool and shouted across the bar. “Hey, you!” She pointed to the man in question, who had turned to face her along with most of those nearby. “Enjoying the show, are you? Look, everybody! We’ve got a Benedict Arnold in the house!”

  From the malevolent look on the guy’s face, getting publicly busted was one of his least favorite things to do on a Friday night. To a rising chorus of jeers from others around him, with a last venomous glance at her over his shoulder he abruptly packed it in and headed for the door.

  Molly sat back down, with a sweet, vocal sigh.

  “Something about myself … let me see.” She leaned forward, closer to Noah, as though about to share a secret nobody knew.

  “I can sometimes be a little impulsive,” she whispered.

  CHAPTER 10

  The jukebox abruptly faded down to silence and a female speaker took the stage. She was maybe fifty-five years old, with a bright, easy confidence in her eyes. The honest beauty she must have enjoyed in her younger days was still shining through, but mellowed and matured with the years. She waited until some of the noise subsided and then stepped to the microphone.

  “As I look out at you all, I remember what James Madison said of his country in those early days: ‘The happy union of these states is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of liberty throughout the world.’”

  The applause that followed was loud and enthusiastic. With a gesture she quieted the room and continued.

  “The U.S.A. was that example for many years, my friends, and I promise you, we can be again. But today we’re facing a threat to our future unlike anything seen since the days of the first revolution.

  “There are a hundred conspiracy theories that try to explain what’s happened to us over the last century. I’ve seen many of these theories represented here tonight, in the speeches, in person, and in slogans on signs all around this room. All of us are trying to make sense of the same damning evidence. But I’m afraid that sometimes we see only the symptoms, and not the disease.

  “That disease is corruption, plain and simple. Corruption is a virus, always floating in the halls of power, ready to infect and spread among those whose immune systems are compromised by greed and blind ambition. This is the way it’s always been, and our system of government was made like it was, with a division of powers among three separate branches of government, all constrained by limited scope and common-sense principles. Our founding documents established this new form of government to protect us from the sickness that has destroyed freedom since the dawn of civilization: the inevitable rise of tyranny from the greed and gluttony of a ruling class.

  “The enemy we now face is the same enemy that’s always sought to enslave free people. This threat isn’t new. Human history is a chronicle of the struggle of the people against oppression by the few. Those few are always among us, in every generation, waiting for an opportunity to step forward and seize power. Thomas Sowell presented our struggle clearly: ‘The most basic question is not what is best, but who shall decide what is best.’

  “You don’t need to create a conspiracy theory to explain what’s going on around us today. The ruling class has written and published their plans and their history, as plain as day.”

  She picked up and held out a massive hardbound book.

  “This book is titled Tragedy and Hope. It’s nearly fourteen hundred pages of the history and the relentless goals of the enemy. We know this book holds the truth because it’s not a wild piece of fiction written by one of us; it’s a calm and rational book of facts written by an insider and historian sympathetic to the goals of the power elite, and a mentor to presidents, by the way, named Carroll Quigley.”

  A man behind her reached out and exchanged that large book in her hands for an older, thinner one, and she held it out. “If that’s their history, then this is an early, published example of their plan of action. The Promise of American Life, by Herbert Croly, first printed in 1909, before the beginning of the great decline. Its author advocated what he called a New Nationalism. Big government, ever-expanding programs and departments, a nanny state with confiscatory powers and jurisdiction over every aspect of our lives. He believed that in the new Industrial Age the people simply weren’t fit to rule themselves as the well-meaning but misguided Founders had envisioned.

  “Croly renounced his own life’s work in the end, when he saw what he’d helped to set in motion. But his writings lived on, and they influenced every fundamental change brought on by what became known as ‘the progressive movement’ in the first half of the twentieth century, from the Federal Reserve Act and the income tax to the spiral into crushing debt and dependence that began with the New Deal.”

  She put the book down, and spoke quietly and deliberately when she began again.

  “But Herbert Croly was not an evil man.” This declaration was met with silence from the crowd, and she let it hang for a while. “He wanted a better life for the people of his country. He wrote about his ideas on achieving that, and he was free to do so. America today is full of opinions and movements and agendas that differ radically from ours; even among us here, we differ, and that’s the way it will always be. The danger comes when good intentions are hijacked and perverted by the culture of corruption—when those elected to represent us begin to act not for your own good, but for their own gain.

  “It’s the same today. People who, for their own gain, would replace equal justice with social justice, trade individual freedom for an all-powerful, all-knowing central government, forsake the glorious creative potential of the American individual, the beating heart of this nation, for a two-class society in which the elites rule and all below them are all the same: homogenized, subordinate, indebted, and powerless. That’s what corruption wi
ll do, and we’ve allowed it to run rampant for too long.”

  Noah looked away from the speaker to take a gauge of the crowd; old habits die hard. Nearly everyone throughout the room was engaged and listening, but there were exceptions. A variety of men and women, about ten or fifteen, were scattered around the bar looking just slightly unlike the others. It wasn’t their dress that was out of place, but rather their demeanor. They were far more concerned with one another than with what was happening onstage. And at least half of them were fiddling with small digital videocameras.

  “Hey,” Noah whispered, tapping the table near Molly’s arm. She only shushed him, keeping her attention on the woman in the spotlight. With a last uneasy glance around the room, he turned back to the speaker as well.

  “There are thirty-five thousand registered lobbyists in Washington, D.C.” the woman said, to a scattering of boos and hisses that arose from the onlookers. “That’s nearly seventy lobbyists for each member of Congress. Together they spent almost three and a half billion dollars last year—that’s over six and a half million dollars per congressman. With that money they buy influence, not on behalf of you, but to put forward the agendas of their clients. Huge corporations, international banks, the power brokers on Wall Street, foreign governments, media giants, the real, self-appointed ruling class—their lobbyists write the bills, your congressmen work as scripted front men for the tainted legislation, and then they vote as they’re told by their handlers.

  “Not all of them, mind you. There are still good men and women in Washington, D.C.—but more than enough of them have long gone bad. In return for abandoning their oath of office they’re promised fortune, and fame, and reelection if they play along, and if they don’t, they know they can kiss their careers in so-called public service good-bye.

  “This country was founded as a representative republic, but you’re no longer represented here, are you?”

  A resounding No! was shouted from the back, and that triggered a chorus of more shouts from every quarter of the bar. She let the clamor go on for a while and then motioned for quiet, holding up a thin document in her hand.