“Down,” Wayne told him, and Hodges was silent.
At the far end of the pool, Wayne suddenly dismissed Bragg and O’Brien. As the two men walked away, Hodges waited uneasily for Wayne to speak. The young man stared at the pool, took a small bottle from his coat, and popped a pill into his mouth. His eyes were almost the same shade as the pool’s faded paint. “I know I can trust you, George. You’ve always been there when I needed you.” Hodges had done such a good job in his years as the Crusade’s business manager that he could now afford a colonial-style house a few miles from the Falconer estate.
“That’s right, Wayne,” Hodges replied.
Wayne looked at him. “My daddy came again last night. He sat on the foot of my bed, and we had a long talk.”
Hodges’s face pulled tight. Oh God! he thought. Not again!
“He told me that the Creekmore witch and her boy want me now, George. They want to destroy me, like they destroyed my daddy.”
“Wayne,” Hodges said quietly, “please don’t do this. That woman lives in Hawthorne. She’s no threat to you. Why don’t you just forget about her, and let’s go on like—”
“I can feel her wanting me to come to her!” Wayne said. “I can feel her eyes on me, and I can hear her filthy voice, calling to me at night! And that boy’s just as bad as she is! He puts himself in my head sometimes, and I can’t get him out!”
Hodges nodded. Cammy was calling him at all hours of the night now, and driving him crazy with her complaints about Wayne’s fits of black temper. One night last week Wayne had left the house and gone to the airport, flying up in the company Beechcraft and doing loops and circles like a maniac. Wayne wasn’t yet eighteen, yet already he was faced with decisions that would stagger a seasoned business executive. Maybe it was understandable, Hodges thought, that Wayne should pretend to be counseled by his father’s ghost as a way of shouldering the burden.
“My daddy says the Creekmores should burn in Hell,” Wayne was saying. “He says, ‘Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.’”
“Wayne, we sent some people over to Hawthorne to ask around about her, just as you wanted. She stays to herself and never goes out, her son went and joined the circus or something, and her husband died not too long ago. She’s strange, but so what? She’s nothing but a faker. If she could really see ghosts and all that junk, then why isn’t she out doing seances or stuff like that for rich people? And your daddy is dead, Wayne. He doesn’t come to you at night. He doesn’t advise you about business deals. Please, Wayne. Let him go.”
Wayne blinked and touched his forehead gingerly. “I’m tired,” he said. “All these meetings make me so tired. I wish I could sleep at night. I need more sleeping pills. The ones you got me before aren’t strong enough.”
“They’d knock out a horse!” Hodges grasped Wayne’s arm. “Now listen to me. You’ve got to stop taking so many pills! I swear to God I could cut my throat for getting you that damned Percodan! Now you take stuff to put you to sleep and stuff to get you up in the morning.”
“Daddy says for me to,” Wayne said, his face expressionless.
“No. No more pills.” Hodges shook his head and started to walk away.
“George?” Wayne’s voice was soft and silken. Hodges stopped in his tracks and clenched his fists at his sides. “George, you forget. If I can’t sleep, I can’t address all those civic groups I’m supposed to meet with. I can’t do the radio and the television shows. I can’t go over the magazine material. I can’t plan for next year’s revival circuit. Can I?”
Hodges turned, his face reddening. “You don’t need any more damned pills, Wayne!”
“Get them. Or I’ll find someone who will.”
Oh, that would be just dandy! Hodges thought. If someone outside the organization found out that Little Wayne Falconer was turning into a junkie, and having strange delusions as well, the press would tear the Crusade to pieces! “You need help. And not the kind you get from pills.”
Wayne’s eyes flashed. “I said get them for me, George! I want to be able to sleep without hearing that witch and her boy calling my name!”
Hodges knew he should say no. He knew he should tell Henry about the delusions. Wayne was coming apart at the seams. The entire Crusade was in danger. But his mouth opened and he said in a harsh rasp, “This is the last time, damn it! Do you hear me? If you ask me again, I walk. I swear it!”
Wayne smiled. “Fine. Now, I want this done too: I want an electric fence put up around the house by the time I get back from Nashville. And I want a new watchman hired. A younger man. I don’t feel safe in the house anymore.”
Hodges nodded grimly.
Wayne patted his back. “I know I can depend on you. Daddy says so.” And then Wayne walked away to rejoin Bragg and O’Brien, new confidence in his stride.
George Hodges was in agony. The boy was killing himself with those pills! He’d promised J.J. he’d do his best to help Wayne with the business, but very often now he thought that they were all in danger of being consumed by a monstrous machine that had very little to do with personal worship. The Christian rock bands, the prayer cloths and the Clowns for Jesus at those revival meetings were just too much!
“George?” Bragg called to him. “What’re you dreamin’ about?”
I could walk away from it, he told himself. Yes. Anytime I want to. But he switched a ragged smile on his face and said, “Nothing. You boys want to get some lunch? I know a place that serves fine barbecue.”
TEN
Krepsin
44
THE LIGHTS WERE LOWERED in the projection room. Mr. Niles picked up the telephone receiver set into the arm of his chair. “Mr. Krepsin’s ready,” he said.
A thin beam of light hit the screen. Luxuriating on a deserted beach was a beautiful brunette in a black skintight bikini. Palms stirred indolently behind her as she combed her long, shining black hair. She glanced at the camera, smiling as she spread suntan oil across her stomach. She undid her bikini top and tossed it aside.
Lovely young woman, Niles thought. Coarse-looking, but certainly attractive. The projector was silent, but the room itself seemed to breathe: there was a muted noise of machinery at work, and the hiss of manufactured air. Niles was a lean man of indeterminate age; though his close-cropped hair was gray, his face was as smooth as a teenager’s. His deep-set eyes were such a pale tint of gray that they seemed almost white. He wore a lightweight dark blue suit, comfortable for the Palm Springs climate. Around him the room throbbed quietly; the air was being cleaned over and over again, drawn in and out of a maze of hidden ducts in the thick, windowless walls. There was a faint aroma of pine-scented disinfectant.
On the screen, the young woman smiled nervously and took off her bikini bottom. There was a small dark birthmark on her lower stomach. A man, heavyset and wearing only khaki slacks, stepped into the frame, his back to the camera. Without ceremony he took off his pants.
“This time the photography’s very clear, isn’t it?” A large, indistinct shape sitting in a special double-width seat a few chairs away from Niles stirred slightly. Heavy-duty springs moaned. A football-shaped bald head was tilted to one side, and tiny black eyes glinted in thick folds of flesh. “Yes, very good. You see all the details in this film.” His breathing was like the harsh noise of a bellows, and he had to gulp for air between words. “I didn’t like the last two films. Too grainy.”
“Yes sir.” Niles watched the sexual acrobatics on the screen with only mild interest.
“Popcorn?” the obese man asked, offering a box to Niles.
“No thank you.”
He grunted and dug one hand into the buttered popcorn, then filled his mouth. A second man, thin and with the tattoo of a skull on his shoulder, had joined in the action.
Niles never knew what films they’d be viewing. Sometimes they were simply parodies of Roadrunner or Tom and Jerry cartoons, other times old and rare silent films. Usually, though, they were like these—sent up from Mexico by Señor
Alvarado. They didn’t bother Niles, but he thought they were a waste of good film.
The girl lay on her stomach in the sand, her eyes closed. She was obviously exhausted. The first man came back onscreen. He was carrying a ball peen hammer.
The bulk of bone and fat had leaned forward. He tilted the popcorn to his mouth and then put the empty box on the floor. He wore a royal-blue caftan that seemed the size of a tent. “She doesn’t know, does she?” Augustus Krepsin said quietly. “She thinks she’s going to take her money and go buy herself a new dress, doesn’t she?”
“Yes sir.”
The hammer rose and fell. Krepsin’s hands clenched in his lap. The second man, now wearing a black mask, stepped back onto the screen. He pulled the cord on a chain saw he was holding, and his skinny arms vibrated.
Krepsin’s breathing was audible; his eyes darted from one figure to the next as the true action and intent of the film unfolded. When the screen finally went black, Niles could hear Krepsin’s soft moan of pleasure. The projectionist was smart enough not to turn the lights up yet. Then Krepsin said, in a childlike voice, “I want light now, Mr. Niles.”
He relayed the order through the telephone. As the lights slowly came up, Krepsin was leaning back in his chair with an oxygen mask pressed to his face, his eyes closed.
Niles watched him for a few silent moments. He’d worked for Augustus Krepsin for almost six years, first as a liaison between Krepsin and the overlords of organized crime in Mexico, now as a companion and righthand man here in Palm Springs. Still, he knew very little about the man. Krepsin was the king of his own hard-won empire. He had originally come to this country from Greece before World War II, and somewhere along the line Krepsin had become entranced with two subjects: death and disease. He talked about each with a clinical interest, and he watched the snuff films as if he could see the center of the universe in a dismembered corpse. Krepsin had built his Palm Springs fortress with strict cleanliness in mind, and rarely ventured out of it.
The telephone in the arm of Niles’s chair buzzed softly. He picked up the receiver. “Yes?”
The operator said, “Mr. Niles? Jack Braddock’s on the line again from Nashville.”
“Mr. Krepsin doesn’t want to be disturbed. Tell Braddock—”
“Just a moment,” Krepsin said. “Jack Braddock?” He breathed deeply and then took off his oxygen mask. “I’ll talk to him.” Krepsin’s organization had taken over Braddock’s Essex Records Company in Nashville several years ago. Essex was continuing to lose money, and there had been a record-pirating scandal two years ago that Essex had barely squeaked out of. Krepsin was beginning to regret letting such a poor manager as Braddock stay on, though Essex had been purchased primarily as an avenue to launder dirty money.
Niles told the operator to put the call through, and Krepsin answered the phone. “What do you want?”
There was a startled intake of air almost fifteen hundred miles away. “Uh…sorry to bother you, Mr. Krepsin. But somethin’s come up that I need to—”
“Why don’t you take speech lessons, Braddock? Everyone down there sounds as if they haven’t had a good bowel movement in years. I can send you some herbal pills that will clean you out.”
Braddock laughed nervously.
“I hope your line is green,” Krepsin said. A bugged line would be “red.” After the pirating mess, Krepsin suspected the FBI tapped Essex’s phones.
“I’m calling from a pay phone.”
“All right. What is it?”
“Well, I got a visit from a lawyer named Henry Bragg yesterday afternoon. He represents the Falconer Crusade, and they want to start making records. They’re looking for an independent company to buy, and—”
“Falconer Crusade? What is that?”
“Religious bunch. They’re into publishing, radio, lots of stuff. I don’t suppose you get the ‘Wayne Falconer Power Hour’ on TV out there, do you?”
“I don’t watch television. It sends out radiation, and radiation causes bone cancer.”
“Oh. Yes sir. Well, this Mr. Bragg is backed by a lot of money. They want to make an offer for Essex.”
Krepsin was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Essex is not for sale. Not to anyone. We worked too hard getting through our troubles with the authorities to give it up just yet. Is this the important reason you’ve called me?”
On the other end, Braddock coughed. Krepsin knew the man was addicted to cigars, and he thought: Throat cancer. Malignant cells, running rampant through Braddock’s body. Disease breeding disease. “There is one other thing I thought you might be interested in,” Braddock said. “Wayne Falconer. He runs the whole Crusade from a little town in Alabama. He’s only about twenty years old, but he’s a hell of a preacher. And he’s a healer, too.”
Krepsin paused. His face folded in thought. “Healer?”
“Yes sir. Cures people of all kinds of diseases. I saw him straighten a man’s back on television last week, saw him heal a pair of crippled legs, too. Bragg says they want to make self-healing records for people to listen to. He says the boy wants to tour Essex, if it’s on the market.”
“A healer?” Krepsin asked. “Or is he simply a good actor?”
“An awful lot of people believe in him. And like I say, that Crusade’s just rollin’ in the money.”
“Oh?” Krepsin grunted softly, his small black eyes glittered. “A healer? Mr. Braddock, I may have been hasty. I want you to contact those people. Let them tour Essex. Talk it up. I’m going to send Mr. Niles to represent the corporation. You and he will work together, and I want to know everything about this Falconer boy. Understand?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good. And one more thing: I don’t want Mr. Niles returning to Palm Springs with his suits fouled by cigar smoke. Now get in contact with those people at once.” He hung up and turned toward Niles. “You’re leaving for Nashville today. I want something called the Falconer Crusade thoroughly investigated. I want to know everything about a boy named Wayne Falconer.”
“Yes sir,” Niles said. “May I ask why?”
“Because he’s either a cunning charlatan—or he’s a genuine healer. And if that’s so, I want him here. With me. It’s time for my massage now.”
Niles helped Krepsin rise from the chair. The man’s huge bulk—over four hundred pounds on a large-boned frame five-feet six-inches tall—left its shape impressed in the leather. As they neared the door, an electric eye triggered the mechanism that both unlocked the door and started a new flow of charcoal-filtered air in the outside corridor.
After they’d gone, a Mexican maid in a long white smock entered the empty projection room and began vacuuming the carpet. She wore spotless white gloves and white cotton slippers, and across the lower half of her face was a surgical mask.
45
THERE WAS A LETTER from Dr. Mirakle in the mailbox today. Billy read it as he walked up the hill to the house in the clear golden light of late October.
Dr. Mirakle said he had his eye on a cottage in Florida. He asked if Billy had read the last batch of books on spiritualism he’d sent, and how his piano lessons were coming along. He asked also if Billy had given any more thought to visiting that institute in Chicago.
Billy slipped the letter back into its envelope. Since that strange autumn three years ago, Dr. Mirakle had written frequently, and often sent him books on a variety of subjects. He’d visited once, about three months after Billy had come home to find his father buried, and had brought the old piano, tuned and repaired, that now stood in the front room.
Six months after that, a letter had come from Chicago, marked special delivery and addressed to Mr. Billy Creekmore. Its return address was The Hillburn Institute, 1212 Cresta Street in Chicago. In the crisp white envelope was a typewritten letter from a Dr. Mary Nivens Hillburn, who said she was writing because of some correspondence the institute had had with a Mr. Reginald Merkle of Mobile. Merkle, the doctor wrote, had impressed upon her and the institute’s sta
ff that Billy might be of interest to them. Were there other witnesses who could verify Billy’s “allegedly paranormal abilities?” He’d let his mother read it, then had put it away in a drawer. He’d heard nothing further from them.
The house was painted white, its windows glinting with sunlight. A wisp of smoke curled from the chimney. Around the house the trees had burst into color, and in the breeze there was a faint chill of approaching winter. An old brown pickup truck, an ugly and unreliable beast bought over a year before with money from a sizable corn crop, rested in front of the house. The Creekmore place was now one of the last houses that didn’t have electricity, but Billy didn’t mind. The dark wasn’t threatening, and late at night the kerosene lanterns cast a soft golden glow that was much better, to his way of thinking, than harsh white electricity.
He was less than a month shy of turning twenty-one. In the last three years he’d grown another two inches and had gained twenty pounds, all of it firm muscle that came from hard outdoor work. His face had sharpened and matured, and thick dark curls tumbled over his forehead; his dark eyes glittered with an earthy intelligence, and could shine with good humor as well. He walked up onto the front porch and went into the house, past the upright piano in the front room; he’d been taking lessons for two years from a retired music teacher at two dollars a week, and had progressed from pounding hell out of the instrument to letting it draw the moods from him as his fingers rippled across the keyboard. Many evenings his mother sat with her needlepoint, listening to the slightly warped chords but appreciating the feeling behind the music.
“Any mail?” she called from the kitchen.
“One letter, from Dr. Mirakle. He says hello.” He sat down in a chair before the hearth and read Dr. Mirakle’s letter again. When he looked up, Ramona was standing over him, drying her hands on a dishrag. “Did he mention that place again?” she asked quietly.