by Rob Byrnes
Lisa stared at the photograph. “I, uh…”
“Yoo-hoo!”
Lisa looked up. “Oh, for Chrissakes!” She turned to Agent Waverly. “Would you excuse me for a minute?”
“Take all the time you need.”
Tish Fielding, of course, was at the front door. And Lisa was not in the mood.
“What is it, Fielding?”
She motioned to the black SUV blocking the driveway of 455. “It’s against HOA rules to park in front a driveway. That could present a very dangerous situation.”
“You want danger, Tish?” Lisa might have said more, or she might have just punched without saying more, but suddenly Agent Waverly was standing behind her.
“Are you one of the neighbors?” he asked over Lisa’s shoulder.
Tish nodded, and he held up the photo.
“Do you know this woman?”
“Of course,” she said. “That’s their housekeeper.”
“You mean she’s Mrs. Hudson’s housekeeper?”
“Yes, she works for Mrs. Hudson, and Mrs. Williams, and Mr. Hudson, and the other Mrs. Hudson. Oh, and Mr. Williams’s son.”
“But not Mr. LaMarca?”
Tish wrinkled her brow. Lisa hadn’t thought the Botox would allow her to do that.
“You mean Farraday?” she asked.
Waverly stared at her. “Who’s Farraday?”
“Their chauffeur.”
He looked at Lisa and smiled. “You have a housekeeper and a chauffeur? Living large, aren’t you?”
She sighed and said, “We try.”
“So who’s this LaMarca?” Tish asked, but Waverly merely thanked her and closed the door in her face.
Back in the kitchen he said, “Hudson?”
“Okay.” She sat. “My name is Lisa Cochrane, and I’m a real estate agent from New York City. Better?”
“So if you don’t mind me asking…what’s going on?”
“Am I under arrest?”
He smiled and shook his head. “No one’s under arrest, Ms. Cochrane. Not even Ms. Price. I’m just trying to figure out what you’re up to. If you tell me nothing, then it’s nothing.”
“Nothing’s going on. Nothing at all.”
When Waverly was gone, Chase came out of hiding.
“We are so screwed,” she said. “They know about you, they know about Constance, and now they know about me.”
Chase thought the circumstances over. They weren’t great, but they weren’t that bad. Not yet, at least.
“Unless they catch us with the Cathedral’s cash, then we’re just a bunch of eccentrics who use fake names. They can’t throw you in jail for that.”
Lisa’s eyes traveled to the cupboard under the sink, where a plastic Wegmans bag hid roughly ninety-five thousand dollars. “You’d better be right. Because I’m not going to jail for a few thousand dollars.”
$ $ $
Jared was groping deep beneath Merribaugh’s mattress when his phone buzzed. It was a text from Dan telling him the preacher was leaving Brooks Brothers.
Just as well, thought Jared. After twenty minutes of searching, it was clear there was no suitcase full of cash in the room. Hell, there wasn’t even a suitcase.
He took the elevator back to his room and texted Grant to report that he hadn’t found the suitcase. Moments later—before Grant had a chance to respond—came the anticipated knock. Jared was about to answer when, in the corner of his eye, he spied Merribaugh’s wallet on the nightstand. He tucked it back under the mattress.
Another knock sounded. This time before he answered he remembered his contraband cell phone on top of the comforter and hid it next to the wallet.
Another knock, this one more urgent. He hollered, “I’m coming,” but since items had been in plain sight that weren’t supposed to be, he made a final visual inspection of the room before opening the door.
Merribaugh greeted Jared with a hangdog expression. It was, Jared thought, sort of touching.
“I looked all over Brooks Brothers,” he explained. “But I couldn’t find the shirt. I even asked the sales associates, but…” He turned his palms up in defeat. “No luck. Are you sure it was Brooks Brothers?”
“Positive.” Jared folded his arms across his chest, trying to create the illusion of pectoral muscles but mostly creating the illusion of a twelve-year-old boy trying to create the illusion of pectoral muscles. “You probably could have looked harder for it.”
“You seem… Can I come in?” Merribaugh entered without permission. “You seem a bit put out. I understand you’re under a lot of stress, Jerry, but there’s really no reason to be upset.”
Jared could play the spoiled brat much better than the angelic innocent—it was more of a natural fit, after all—so he kept his arms crossed and defiantly stared down Merribaugh.
“I wanted that shirt.”
“But…but…”
“How am I supposed to be the star ex-gay if I look like a boring heterosexual?”
“But…I thought the problem was that your clothes were, uh…gay.”
“Oh yeah.” Jared thought for a moment. “But they’re still boring.”
Merribaugh finally found his footing. “But that’s what an ex-gay is supposed to look like! I don’t understand the problem here.”
Jared rolled his eyes. “The problem is that I’m the star, but I’m not getting treated any better than anyone else.”
After years of running Project Rectitude, Merribaugh was not unfamiliar with Gay Diva Syndrome. Jerry Stanley’s outburst was extreme even by that standard, but not uncontrollable.
Still, he was the star attraction. That much was true. Maybe there was some other way to accommodate him…
“Maybe I could upgrade you to a suite. Would that make you happy?”
Jared peered at him through half-closed lids. “Does anyone else at the conference have a suite?”
“Only Dr. Hurley.”
Jared mulled that over. “Maybe…”
“And Louis Lombardo.”
Jared sneered. “I definitely deserve a suite.”
“I’ll try to arrange it.” Merribaugh gazed into young Jerry’s eyes, which once again projected innocence. A demanding innocence, yes, but innocence not unlike that of a three-year-old child with tantrum issues.
“Okay.”
Merribaugh took a few steps toward him and smiled reassuringly. “But first…what can I do to help relieve the stress you’re feeling?”
“Uh…” Jared had seen enough bad porn to know what was coming next, and sure enough, Merribaugh didn’t disappoint him.
“I think you need a massage.”
Jared’s first impulse was to do something—anything—to get the old man out of his room. But that impulse was tempered by the knowledge he was on a job, and—since the suitcase wasn’t in Merribaugh’s hotel room—he’d have to play along until he could figure out where it was.
Because his share of ten thousand dollars out of that seven million dollars was a lot more important than any revulsion he might feel at the thought of Merribaugh’s pudgy fingers kneading his back. As long as those fingers stayed on his back, that was.
So Jared took a deep breath and said, “A massage sounds like it could be nice.”
“I thought it would.” And he might have been mistaken, but he thought Merribaugh punctuated his sentence with a wink, although one so slight he could deny it if Jared called him on it.
“So…what should I do?” asked Jared, as he backed slowly into the room until he felt the back of his thighs touch the bed.
“First, strip to your underwear.”
Jared’s jaw dropped. That didn’t sound right. “My underwear?”
Merribaugh nodded. “Yes, your underwear.”
“Maybe if I just took my shirt off…”
“No, strip to your underwear. It’s better that way. You see, when I give you a Jesus Rub…”
“A what?”
If the exchange fazed Merribaugh, he wasn’t
letting on. “A Jesus Rub. It’s a holy stress management ritual dating back to the time of Christ. In fact, it’s almost a certainty that the apostles gave each other Jesus Rubs to relieve their tension and anxiety. And there are pressure points in your, uh, lower region that can throw your entire body out of whack, which is why you have to strip to your underwear.”
Jared stared at Merribaugh and tried to envision a stack of money standing in front of him—the ten thousand dollars he’d get as his share, in this case—instead of the man. He wasn’t sure how big a stack that would be, but at least the mind trick worked well enough to get his shirt off.
“Now your pants,” coaxed Merribaugh.
That took a mental image of the entire seven million dollars, but finally Jared was laying face-down on the bed, wearing nothing but a pair of white Calvins. He felt Merribaugh’s hands on his upper back and mostly didn’t mind…until those hands left his flesh, followed moments later by the sound of a zipper being unzipped.
“Uh…” said Jared, not quite sure what else to say and afraid to look back. “Are you, uh…?”
“In my underwear, too? Yes.” Those were exactly the words Jared didn’t want to hear. “Relax, Jerry. This is all part of the ritual.”
“And you’re sure Jesus was chill with the Jesus Rub?”
“Chill?”
“Cool.”
“Oh. Yes, yes, Jesus was very chill.” Merribaugh’s hands again began rubbing his back, and Jared closed his eyes and pictured piles and piles of money. And then a few more piles for good measure.
And then more. And a few more…
Maybe the seven million was an underestimation. Maybe the haul would be twenty million. A man could justify a lot for twenty million…
Merribaugh’s voice interrupted his self-justification. “You know, Jerry, if you want to be authentically Christ-like, you should take off your underwear.”
Jared’s eyes popped open. “What?”
“Christ and the apostles didn’t wear underwear.”
Hell no, he thought. There was no amount of money…
“But…but I’m supposed to be ex-gay!”
“If it would make you feel more comfortable, I’ll take my underwear off, too.”
If the fire alarm hadn’t gone off at that moment, Jared might have spontaneously combusted.
21
Inappropriate as he may have been at times like the one just ended, the Rev. Mr. Dennis Merribaugh did have a sense of propriety. When the alarm started blaring, he knew it would not do to bolt from the hotel room—in his underwear—with a twenty-something ex-gay—also in his underwear—so he’d quickly dressed and rushed from the room before Jared had a chance to struggle back into his pants.
When he was alone, Jared checked his messages. Grant had sent an earlier text—HURLEY’S ROOM?—but nothing else.
Jared hoped he wouldn’t have to also try to seduce Dr. Oscar Hurley. Not that he had anything against seduction, but men like Hurley and Merribaugh were an underutilization of his talents.
$ $ $
“Sorry,” Jack Hightower said, barely looking at Mary Beth as the deafening alarm rang. “No room at the inn.”
“But I’m sure we had a reservation!”
Hightower ignored her. “All rooms are booked. Now would you please evacuate the building? Because until you evacuate, I can’t evacuate.”
She wheeled the trashed suitcase away from the front desk and plowed through the evacuees until she found Grant outside.
“No go,” said Mary Beth. “I even tried to be charming.”
He motioned for her to follow him down the block, and she did. When they turned the corner, Farraday was waiting.
“Thanks for helping with this piece-of-crap bag,” she muttered.
“You’re welcome. Okay, we need a new plan.”
“And a drink,” said Farraday.
Grant ignored him. “If we can’t get a room, we’ll have to hang out in the area. Maybe sleep in shifts in the car.”
That didn’t sit well with Mary Beth. “Are you kidding me? We’re gonna spend all night outside?”
“That, and maybe a little time on the inside. Stairwells, the loading dock…”
She kicked the suitcase and it toppled to the sidewalk. “You sure know how to treat a girl, Grant Lambert.”
Farraday spotted a neon liquor store sign down the block. “This might be workable.”
$ $ $
Finally dressed, Jared casually walked down four flights of stairs to the lobby and out the front door. He didn’t see Merribaugh, but did quickly spot Dan. Or maybe Dan spotted him.
They walked away from the crowd until they stood out of earshot.
“Don’t be mad at me,” Dan said, “but I pulled the alarm.”
“You did?”
He nodded. “I needed to talk to you.”
Jared thought about that. “Aren’t there easier ways to do that?”
Dan looked at the sidewalk. “And…And I also wanted to get Merribaugh out of your room. I sort of listened at the door and didn’t like what I was hearing.”
He wasn’t sure if Jared would be angry or not, although he couldn’t imagine Jared had welcomed Merribaugh’s massage.
“Thanks for that,” said Jared, and Dan finally looked up again.
Now feeling as if he was on more solid ground, Dan pressed on. “Can I ask you why you’re flirting with him? Is that some sort of ex-gay poster-boy requirement?”
Jared put a finger to Dan’s lips. “I’ll explain everything. Just as soon as I can.” His eyes scanned the crowd and he quickly dropped his finger. “Merribaugh at two o’clock.”
They saw him before he saw them, which gave them an opportunity to separate. Merribaugh walked past Dan without seeming to notice as he made his way to Jared.
“It was a false alarm,” he said. “Nothing to be concerned about. Now, shall we continue that massage?”
Jared yawned and stretched. “That would be nice, but I’m sooooo tired.”
“But your stress…”
“I think I just need a good night of sleep. In the morning, I’ll be in top shape.”
“I really think…”
Jared winked and even gave Merribaugh Smile Number Three, much as he hated to waste it. “You know what? As a man about to give up the homosexual lifestyle, I really shouldn’t put myself—or anyone else—in that position.”
Deflated, Merribaugh heaved a sigh and looked out into the night. “Well, then…In that case, sleep tight, Jerry.”
A tiny piece of Jared Parsells felt sorry for Merribaugh as he sadly walked away. Until he remembered Merribaugh was a pervert who wore polyester suits. Then he was pretty much okay with everything again.
He took a few more steps away from the crowd, then slipped around a corner where no one would see him on his cell before sending Grant a short text: where r u?
“Right next to you.”
Jared started to type a response.
“No, seriously. I’m standing right next to you.”
He stopped and looked up, and there stood Grant, as Mary Beth and Farraday leaned against a car a few yards away. The phone disappeared into his pocket.
“You search Hurley’s room yet?” asked Grant.
“That one could be tough.”
“We’ve got to find that suitcase. No suitcase means no cash, which means we’re wasting our time. And I don’t like to waste time.”
Jared was about to agree when a thought occurred to him. “There’s a card in Merribaugh’s wallet—about the size of a credit card—with the name of the hotel on it. Do you think it means anything?”
Grant rubbed his jaw. “Could be a claim-check for the hotel safe.”
“That’s what I was thinking!” said Jared, even though it hadn’t been.
Mary Beth leaned forward, liking what she heard. “So Jared gives us the card, we claim the bag and get the hell back to New York. Perfect plan! Let’s move.”
Grant held up a hard.
“Not yet.”
“Not yet? Why?”
“Two reasons. First, because we’re gonna want to swap out luggage and claim-checks, and make sure we get the wrong one in Merribaugh’s hands. That way we’ll get a head start before he realizes anything’s wrong. The other reason we’re gonna sit tight for a while is ’cause the front desk clerk just saw you, so we’ll wait until he won’t remember you or until there’s a shift change.”
“Are you trying to tell me…?”
“Yeah,” he told her. “Whether you like it or not, we’re spending the night out here.”
She folded her arms. “I hate you, Lambert.”
Jared smiled and began to walk away. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going back inside the hotel. To my warm, comfortable bed. And fluffy pillows.”
“And I hate you more.”
$ $ $
Constance heard a knock, then Special Agent Patrick Waverly opened the door.
“Good news. You’re free to go.”
She looked at him, not quite believing what she was hearing. So Waverly repeated himself.
“What’s the angle?” Constance eyed him up and down, sensing a scam.
“No angle,” Patrick said. “You checked out, so you’re free to go. With apologies from the Bureau for the inconvenience.”
“Hmm.”
Waverly shrugged. “What do you want from me, Ms. Price? You’re free to go.”
Constance, now beginning to believe him, found her inner feistiness. “Yeah, you’d better be sorry for the inconvenience. Dragging me out of my church like I was some common criminal. Holding me almost all day…”
Waverly smiled at her indulgently and brushed a forelock of hair out of his eyes. “Do you really want to go down this road, Ms. Price? Because you were brought in as part of an active investigation, and we can continue to hold you if we want.”
She looked down, chastened. “No.”
When she was gone and Waverly had returned from the holding room, Special Agent Oliver Tolan looked up from the monitor and said to him, “You can’t possibly trust her.”
“Of course not. But one thing I’m sure of is she isn’t working on the inside with Hurley and Merribaugh. She’s got something up her sleeve, but not that. Here’s the thing, though, Ollie: I think they might be able to lead us to the money. She and LaMarca are more valuable to us out there than in here.”
