Джеффри Дивер - The Final Twist

“You want coffee, anything?” He was sipping from a chipped mug, as bulletproof as those in the diner where Shaw and his brother dissected the courier bag containing the mixtape and the ancient document that could change the face of American politics forever.

Shaw declined. “Brought you a present.” He handed over one of the envelopes he and Russell had taken from the BNG gangbangers at the site of the Urban Improvement Plan meeting in the Tenderloin. “Ten K. Laundered and unmarked. Amos Gahl’s mother got one too.”

He peered inside and pulled the money out. “Okay, okay. Can’t say I can’t use it.” He walked to a painting of an old-time sailing ship and lifted it down, revealing a wall safe. After turning his back so Shaw couldn’t see the combination, he opened the door and slipped the cash inside. Upon closing it, he spun the dial a number of times and reseated the painting.

“Well, thankee.” His face grew troubled. “So that son of a bitch Devereux still got what he wanted. Corporations running for office? What does he want more power for, more money? He’s got a company worth a couple trillion dollars.”

“Just one point two.”

“This ain’t funny, Shaw. That’s bigger than Spain’s gross domestic product. Banyan Tree’s going to run for office, and then the world goes to shit with his new policies you were telling me about: fucking the environment, civil rights, immigration. Jesus my Lord, just occurred to me: Devereux could start his own schools. They can teach what they want. Indoctrinate the youth. Hitler did that. ‘The Future Belongs to Me.’”

“The man who would be king.”

La Fleur tilted his head slightly. “That was quite a flick. There was justice in the movie. You remember how it ended? But not here. Devereux? Hell, if he gets enough power he could change the U.S. Constitution and a company could become president of the United States.”

“You think it’d come to that?”

A smile, both coy and troubled, spread over La Fleur’s face. “But you don’t have to look back too far into U.S. politics to see that pretty damn weird things can happen.” He opened one of the metal blinds and looked out. The view of the city was indeed spectacular. And dominating the skyline was the massive office building that housed Banyan Tree. “It’s like the missiles have been launched. I’m enjoying the last view of the country before the nukes hit.” He gazed back to find Shaw looking at the same scene.

La Fleur was sizing him up. “You seem... what’sa word I’m looking for here, Shaw? Detached. Like you don’t care about the cataclysm.” The man squinted. “Yep, I’m sure of it. De-tached. How come’s that? Don’t you care?”

“Let’s put on the TV. Something you might want to see.”

La Fleur nodded toward the ancient set. “This one’s safe, terrestrial. The only kind I’d ever have. You can’t work for BlackBridge and not get this sense of how efficiently electrons can fuck you.”

This was a man Ashton Shaw would’ve counted as a friend.

Shaw clicked the unit on. It had to warm up before the picture crisped into view.

The crawl at the bottom of the screen said breaking news...

A brunette anchorwoman in a bright red dress was looking out at her invisible audience.

“Repeating this afternoon’s top story, three independent forensic examiners have concluded that a recently discovered California Constitution amendment, to allow corporations to hold office in the state, is a forgery. The tally was dated April seventeenth, nineteen oh-six, but all three examiners found that the paper and ink dated to the nineteen twenties.

“Professor Anthony Rice of the University of California had this to say earlier...”

The scene cut to a recorded in-office interview. One shot revealed a large, pale man in a navy suit and a white shirt. His graying hair was thinning and curly.

“Hello, Professor Rice.”

He tapped his round glasses higher on a lengthy nose and nodded to the camera.

“Afternoon.”

“Tell us about this voting tally.”

Rice repeated the story about the implications of Proposition 06 and then added:

“Over the years the voting tally became a kind of Holy Grail for big corporations, which would love nothing more than to hold office in the state.”

“But the experts are saying it isn’t real.”

“I believe what happened is that a businessman in the nineteen twenties hired someone to forge it and hide it in government archives with other documents from around nineteen oh-six. His plan was probably to quote ‘miraculously’ discover it. Why didn’t he? One reason might be the timing. Maybe he went bust in the Depression and his corporation went bankrupt. He faded off into obscurity.”

“ Do you think there really is a legitimate copy of the voting tally somewhere?”

“No, no. I’m sure there isn’t. The tally was just a legal legend. It would be impossible for one to exist. The recount was a long time ago but it was in the twentieth century. As soon as the judge signed it, word would have spread... There were telephones, telegraphs, daily press and as many reporters per capita as we have nowadays. If a recount meant the proposition passed, that would have been front-page news. No, Prop Oh-Six was defeated by the people.”

“Professor, has a corporation ever run for office?”

“A few have tried, as public relations stunts, but they never got very far. All legal scholars and political historians I know think it would be disastrous for democracy.”

“Thank you, Professor. In other news—”

Shaw shut the TV off. It crackled to darkness.

“Well,” La Fleur said. “That’s one kettle of fish... You think it’s for real? About the thing being forged?”

“It’s real.”

“You say that like a man who knows.”

“I do. Because I was the forger.”

So, I say: as Americans and lovers of democracy you should light a bonfire and throw the damn thing in...

Just after Shaw and Russell had left Professor Steven Field’s house in Berkeley, with an understanding of just what Proposition 06 meant, Shaw had made a decision.

He’d considered the academic’s advice — either hide or destroy the tally.

But Shaw had concluded that neither of those would work. BlackBridge, on Devereux’s orders, would continue to search and would undoubtedly rack up more dead bodies in the scavenger hunt. The businessman had been searching for the tally certificate for years. Why would he stop now? But if it appeared that the tally never existed in the first place — that the rumors were based on a forgery — then he might lick his wounds and forget the matter.

Shaw would create a forgery himself. He would make sure Braxton and Droon stole it from the Pacific Heights safe house. Devereux would then send it to Sacramento to present to the state assembly, where forensic experts would determine it was a fake.

Shaw was confident he could pull it off. He had on occasion in the course of his business needed to track down documents for which people had offered rewards. Usually these were last wills and testaments, corporate purchase documents, adoption papers. Those jobs would occasionally land him square in the esoteric world of document examination and forgery.

He needed help, though, to make sure it was a solid job. And he knew whom to call. An expert skilled at detecting forgeries would also have to be an expert on how to create them. He called a friend. Parker Kincaid was a former FBI forensic document examiner. Based outside of Washington, D.C., he was now a consultant.