"S. A. Gorden - The Duce of Pentacles" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gorden S A)

that way-were the two troublemakers. The remaining board members were easily
controlled. The third member was the twenty-seven-year-old son of the local
banker. His father wanted him in state politics and ordered him to run for the
school board as a starting point. The fourth board member was a local doctor.
He felt he should be on the board as his part of community service but was so
busy with his own work he just rubberstamped whatever Jefferson wanted. The
fifth member had been on the board so many years that he had grown senile. The
sixth member was a mother who had five children. The oldest, a nineteen year
old, had just been sentenced to twenty years to life in the state
penitentiary. The mother blamed all her troubles on her children's teachers.
In order to get _Them_, the teachers, she convinced her church, a strict
fundamentalist denomination, to back her election. The seventh and last was a
wife of a local hardware storeowner. She was dumber than the doorknobs her
husband sold but she worshiped strong people. She would look at Jefferson with
those big doe eyes your hear about but seldom see.
The only way the day could get better was if he had an excuse to fire a
teacher. He always thought it was funny how the politicians would, during
their campaigns, complain how you couldn't fire a bad teacher because of the
union-backed tenure laws. You could always fire a teacher if you had an
excuse. You just had to do your job. All teaching contracts had simple
procedures that could be followed to fire a teacher for cause. Jefferson was
always disgusted by the superintendent or principal who couldn't follow the
rules and fire a teacher. He voted ultra-conservative Republican because he
wanted to be able to fire a teacher for fun.
Jefferson fantasized for the next few minutes about being able to walk
down the hall and into the teachers' workroom and fire a faculty member one
month before his retirement benefits started. The smile was erased from his
face by the knock on the front door.
"Thelma, I told you no disruptions before the board meeting."
"Sorry, Mr. Shermon, but two sheriff's deputies are here. They want to
talk to you about a complaint they received about a teacher."
Thelma missed the smile that erupted on Jefferson's face. By the time
the two cops entered the room, all that could be seen on Jefferson's face was
a scowl of great concern. Jefferson was barely able to control his glee when
he heard the name James Makinen. He knew that after the divorce, James had
nearly broken down. If he handled the allegations correctly, he should be able
to completely destroy James. He had only completely broken one other person
before, and he still relished the look of abject despair on his former
girlfriend's face those twenty years ago the night before her suicide. Tonight
after the board meeting, he would use the leather straps on his wife. His
wife's face twisted in pain would be the jewel crowning the best day so far in
his life.
****
James lived on a three-acre plot he purchased on the corner of his
cousin's farm. He had pulled onto the lot a rebuilt fourteen-by-sixty trailer
house. The land and trailer had been purchased using a loan his father had
given him after his ex-wife had left for California. The payments to his
father and the utilities, child support and food bills left him the grand
total of seventy-five dollars per month for luxuries such as furniture and
clothing. The trailer had been delivered with a complete kitchen and built-in