The Four Last Things (Simeon Grist Mystery)

by Timothy Hallinan

  Eleanor glanced at me for a cue. “Let's start at the beginning,” I said. “When and why did you break off from the Church?”

  “When? Ten years ago.” He drew experimentally at the pipe and looked over my head again. “And why?” I turned and saw Sister Zachary failing to duck out of sight in time. “Because the Church changed.”

  “Can you be a little more specific?” Eleanor said, writing something on her pad.

  “It became a business,” Wilburforce said distastefully. “When Alon stopped speaking through Anna, the Church was at a crossroad, so to speak. It was actually a moment of opportunity, had it been grasped. The leadership could have devoted itself to the study of the Revealings. It could have refined the Listening process, as we have, and worked to help its members to achieve their potential. That was all that Alon had ever wanted. Instead, the old leadership frittered and sputtered until a new leadership arose, spreading hysteria through the Church, demanding that a new Speaker stand forth. Suggestible little girls were examined for the ability to Speak, as though it were something physical, like acne.”

  “Or a cleft palate,” I said.

  “Anna did not have a cleft palate.” Wilburforce puffed angrily on his damaged pipe. “She had a mild speech impediment, but there was no trouble distinguishing between her T's and her L's. What happened was that the second little girl got the name wrong and they had to stick with it. It became Aton. And it became nonsense.”

  “So the second Speaker was a fake?” Eleanor asked. “And the new one too?”

  “Um,” Dr. Wilburforce said, focusing over my head to meet the eyes of Sister Zachary, who'd evidently returned to the doorway. “I don't want this to degenerate into name-calling and finger-pointing. I'm sure the little girls are perfectly sincere. Many of the charismatic religions depend on spontaneous utterances to shape their doctrines. In the Salem witch trials, if you remember your history, there was no shortage of witnesses to condemn those poor harmless old ladies. Most of the witnesses were young girls. I'm sure they believed their testimony when they gave it. Young girls are particularly susceptible to that kind of hysterical reaction.” He gave a hollow, slightly uneasy chuckle. “Remember the Beatles,” he said.

  “So the Church created Speakers?” Eleanor was writing busily in her pad as she asked the question.

  “Intentionally, you mean?” Dr Wilburforce said, his discomfort increasing visibly. “No, no, no, no, you mustn't quote me as having said anything like that. The leadership of the Church probably believed that a new Speaker would arise. And they obviously believed they needed one. All I'm suggesting is that their, um, their very eagerness created a climate in which it was probably inevitable that one or more of the young faithful would begin to spout Revealings. Poor dear, it wasn't her fault that she got Alon's name wrong.”

  “Let me boil this down,” Eleanor said. “You're saying that the leaders of the Church of the Eternal Moment created a climate, presumably twice, that would make little girls start to Speak, and that they then exploited those little girls to pull more revenue from the congregation, which they invested for sheer profit.”

  The door creaked open behind me and I turned to see Sister Zachary waddle into the room. “Don't put words in Dr. Wilburforce's mouth,” she said sharply. “He said nothing of the kind.” Dr. Wilburforce hastily retreated from the conversation and sucked at his pipe, focusing all his attention on its bowl. “You're the one who came in here talking about financial improprieties,” Sister Zachary continued implacably. “Dr. Wilburforce has never alleged that the Church is involved in anything illegal. He's simply suggested that they are more interested in matters of funding than we are.”

  “There are libel laws,” Dr. Wilburforce said weakly. “The Church is litigious in the extreme. As we've learned.”

  “Pipe down, you,” Sister Zachary said. “I told you not to give this interview.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Miss Chan and I are doing a piece on the Church of the Eternal Moment, not on your Congregation. We're not trying to cause trouble for you. Dr. Wilburforce can be completely candid with us without worrying about the consequences. If he wishes, if you wish, we'll treat this interview as deep background. We won't name him anywhere in the story.”

  “Tell me another one,” Sister Zachary said knowingly. “We know what the press is like.”

  Eleanor opened her eyes so wide that Zsa Zsa Gabor's sunglasses wouldn't have covered them and ruffled the pages in her notebook. “I'll rip these out if you like,” she said. “You can have them. We're not going to quote you. We just want to tell the truth about the Church.” She actually tore one page out. It was blank.

  Sister Zachary and Dr. Wilburforce exchanged a look. “How do we know that's true?” he asked.

  “Remember Deep Throat?” I improvised. Dr Wilburforce coughed, and Sister Zachary's eyes began to roll. “I don't mean the porno movie,” I added hastily. “I mean Woodward and Bernstein's source for All the President's Men. Everyone wanted to know who he was, but the two reporters never told anyone. Even now, now that it's all over, they haven't. We may not be Woodward and Bernstein, but if this story is as good as we think it is, we'll protect anyone who helps us.”

  There was a long silence. Wilburforce and Sister Zachary exchanged a glance. Sister Zachary shook her head. “Nope,” she said. “I think it's time for you to leave.”

  We all sat there, if you didn't count Sister Zachary, who was standing.

  “May I say something?” Eleanor asked in her sweetest and most submissive-Asian-female voice.

  The tone seemed to lift Wilburforce's spirits. “Of course you may, my dear.”

  “I don't mean to sound pushy or anything,” Eleanor said, smiling winningly, “but I've already got all these notes. Also, Algy's wired, which means that this whole interview is on tape. I mean, there's just no way you can deny what you've already said, and we've made no promises about keeping you out of the story so far.” She looked from Wilburforce to Sister Zachary. “This is difficult for someone who's not used to confrontation,” she said, “but you could probably get your asses sued to hell and gone if we just print what we have already.” She shrugged apologetically, and I stifled the urge to kiss her. “If you see what I mean,” she said.

  “I told you,” Sister Zachary said. “I told you you were asking for trouble.” She subsided, tapping her foot angrily.

  Wilburforce pumped several pounds of innocence into his dark eyes. “I'm a great admirer of the Church, actually,” he said. “As you pointed out, we derived much of our doctrine from theirs, although we've, um, refined and purified it. It's absurd even to consider the possibility that anything I've said could be actionable.” Distracted by the sheer ludicrousness of the possibility, he picked absently at his nose. “Still,” he added, “you're the experts.”

  Sister Zachary snorted again, but other than that she held her peace.

  Wilburforce dreamily examined his finger. “And since, as you say, your story is really about the Church rather than the Congregation, I suppose I should ask you how we can proceed. I think it was Jefferson who said he would prefer a free press with no government to a government with no press. A sentiment, I may say, that I certainly share.”

  “In other words,” I said, “we can ask you some more questions?”

  “More questions,” Dr. Wilburforce said dully. He looked despairingly at Sister Zachary.

  “In exchange, there will be no mention of any of this,” Sister Zachary said after a couple of warm-up breaths. “Not me, not him, not the Congregation.”

  “Agreed,” Eleanor said.

  Dr. Wilburforce glanced at his weighty wristwatch. “We have your oath,” he said. “The next gathering is due in a little more than an hour, and we have to prepare. You've got ten minutes.” He lifted himself ponderously back onto the corner of his desk.

  “What was your job in the Church?” I said. Sister Zachary pulled up a rickety-looking chair. I held my breath as she sat in it.

 
“He was Anna's personal physician,” she said. The chair held.

  “Why did she need a personal physician?”

  “The Revealings,” Wilburforce said from his perch. “No one understands the Revealings. Somebody had to monitor her vital signs, check her eyes, make sure that the Revealings weren't harming her.”

  “Tell me about the Revealings.”

  “She was a channel,” Dr. Wilburforce said. “She had an amazing receptivity. Alon spoke through her whenever he wanted. At the beginning, it was random. Later, when he began to understand that it was more, um, productive to do it when the members of the Church were gathered, he popped up mainly during the formal Revealings. Other than the fact that she channeled Alon, she was a perfectly normal little girl.”

  “Is this on the level?” Eleanor asked.

  Wilburforce looked affronted. “Absolutely,” he said. “I'm a doctor. Do you think I'd participate in anything that wasn't aboveboard?”

  We all let that pass.

  “Does Angel, the new Speaker, have a personal physician?” I asked.

  ”A nonentity,” Sister Zachary said. Her tone would have curdled cream.

  “Does this nonentity have a name?” I asked, knowing the answer.

  “Certainly,” she said. “Richard Merryman.”

  “You don't like him,” I said.

  “That's neither here nor there,” she said airily. “He's not Hubert Wilburforce.”

  He certainly wasn't. On the whole, I thought that Wilburforce, a good old-fashioned fraud if ever I'd seen one, was less dangerous than Merryman. “What percentage of your Congregation,” I asked, “is made up of people who've left the Church?”

  “Half,” Sister Zachary said promptly. “The others are new seekers after truth.”

  “Among the people who've come to you from the Church,” I said, “was there one named Sally Oldfield?”

  “Yes,” Dr. Wilburforce said.

  “No,” Sister Zachary said.

  “We seem to have a difference of opinion,” I observed.

  “The answer is no,” Sister Zachary said. “We never knew her.”

  “I was thinking of someone else,” Dr. Wilburforce said apologetically. “Someone with a similar name. What was her name, dear?”

  “Sarah Elder,” Sister Zachary said promptly.

  “And Sarah Elder is alive and well? I could talk to her if I wanted to?”

  “If you could find her,” Sister Zachary said. “She's no longer with the Congregation.”

  “No forwarding address?”

  “I think she moved to Denver.”

  “Or maybe Boulder,” I said.

  “Maybe,” Sister Zachary said. “Whichever, she's not here.”

  “What about Ambrose Harker?” This time their bewilderment rang true. “Or Ellis Fauntleroy?”

  “What a dreadful name,” Wilburforce said. “His parents must not have wanted children.”

  “He's never been here either,” Sister Zachary said.

  ZERO, Eleanor wrote in her notebook. Then she drew little candles around it. Eleanor always doodled candles. I dithered over whether they were phallic symbols or symbols of hope. Eleanor maintained that phallic symbols were symbols of hope.

  “You said the Church had new leadership,” I said. “Who are they? All the public sees are Angel Ellspeth and her mother.” Wilburforce goggled helplessly at Sister Zachary. Sister Zachary shook her head tightly. Wilburforce began to search for a match.

  Eleanor rose to an inspiration. “We know there are lawyers,” she said. “You told us the Church was litigious. There are lawyers, aren't there?”

  “Sweetheart,” Sister Zachary said, “lawyers are the whole banana.”

  Chapter 12

  The lawyer's name was Meredith Brooks. Like Ambrose Harker, or Ellis Fauntleroy, for that matter, he had two last names. Unlike Ambrose Harker, he was who he said he was.

  And then some.

  Brooks, Martin, Soames, and Pearce occupied every square foot of a cloud-catching floor in Century City. In addition to the Waspiest name I'd ever seen on a lawyer's shingle, Brooks, Martin, Soames, and Pearce had the most medieval furniture.

  “Good God,” Eleanor said, shaking off the rain as the elevator doors whispered closed behind us, “where are the monks?”

  A long, polished refectory table stretched down the middle of the waiting room, ornamented solely by a large brass urn that could have held the ashes of every saint whose name ended with a vowel, but which now was host to a spray of oversize, slightly carnivorous-looking flowers that had undoubtedly been picked only hours earlier from the slopes of some Pacific volcano. A warlike stained-glass window, bejeweled with flapping banners and knights in combat, gleamed at us. Wooden pews, ripped untimely from an English cathedral, lined the walls. I flipped up one of the seats and found a hand-carved wooden gargoyle goggling at me on its underside.

  “Charming,” Eleanor said. “And very popular in the Middle Ages. Let's hope it's not a metaphor: the beast beneath the brass and polish.”

  I let the seat fall. The brutish, leering face with its protruding tongue had unnerved me. “Beasts and lawyers in the same place?” I said. “You must be kidding.”

  A big brass-faced grandfather clock at the far end of the reception area began to chime ten.

  “There's nobody here,” Eleanor said, sounding only slightly less nervous than I felt. “Why isn't there anyone here?”

  “Good morning,” someone said behind us on the stroke of ten.

  The occupants of the towers of Century City are almost uniformly white, and I hadn't expected her to be black. She was also beautiful and she had the self-possession you see only in the truly virtuous and in deeply corrupt politicians. She was wrapped seamlessly in a form-fitting neon-blue dress made of something that had to be silk.

  “We're here to see Mr. Brooks,” Eleanor said. She may have been apprehensive, but you'd never have guessed it.

  “You're the ten-o'clock,” the black woman said. “Miss Chan from the Times and Mr. Swinburne. Are you related to the poet, Mr. Swinburne?”

  “He was my great-uncle,” I said resignedly.

  The woman smiled. “Into whipping, wasn't he?” she asked. “I read somewhere that the only thing he preferred to a rhymed couplet was a bare bottom and a nice flexible whip.”

  “It's not hereditary,” I said. “I'll take a rhymed couplet any day.”

  “Over a bare bottom?” the woman said.

  “I always recite a rhymed couplet over a bare bottom,” I said grumpily. “Don't you, Miss Chan?”

  “No,” Eleanor said. “I'm usually the bare bottom.”

  “So was Swinburne,” the black woman said. “Mr. Brooks is on the phone to New York at the moment. I'm Marcy, by the way. Would either of you like coffee?”

  We both declined.

  “It'll just be a moment,” she said. “I'll let him know you're here.” She turned to go. “By the way, Mr. Swinburne,” she said, “what couplet do you usually recite?”

  “ ‘What light through yonder window breaks?’ ” I improvised. “ ‘It is the east; and Juliet is the sun.’ ”

  “That doesn't rhyme,” she said accusingly.

  “Bare bottoms distract me,” I said. “They make it hard to tell what rhymes.”

  “I'll bet they make it hard, at any rate,” she said with a sudden white grin. “I'll be back in a sec.” Eleanor giggled.

  A wide black patent-leather belt hung low on Marcy's slender hips. Dangling from it was a thin black rectangle of metal about the size of a television remote-control unit. She pushed one of the buttons on it with a tapering vermilion-tipped finger, and a door slid open in front of her. She shimmered through it, as iridescent as a hummingbird, and the door closed behind her.

  “Pretty neat,” Eleanor said, still giggling.

  ”A glorified garage-door opener,” I said. “And don't push this Swinburne shit too far.”

  “Oh, Algy,” she said. “You should be proud of you
r heritage.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Next person we see, you can be Edna St. Vincent Millay's granddaughter, and we'll see how you like it.”

  The door at the end of the room opened again and the woman called Marcy came back in. “Mr. Brooks will see you now,” she said. “If you'll just follow me?” We did.

  The main counsel of the Church of the Eternal Moment was as shiny as a potato bug; he shaved so close it looked like he'd had electrolysis. Sitting behind a dark, massive desk, he looked up at us through lashless slate-gray eyes under pale little eyebrows. A bit further down he featured a nose that brought Richard Nixon's to mind, with a little cleft in its tip, a characteristic a friend of mine used to call a facial fanny. Below that were a fatty, pursed little mouth and three clean-shaven chins that suggested an escalator of fat running down to the knot in his bright red tie. He was the first balding man I'd ever seen who looked like his forehead was advancing rather than his hairline receding. He wore a dark, perfectly tailored suit with an almost imperceptible charcoal stripe. From the cuffs of the jacket protruded shiny little hands, the right ornamented by the discreet glow of a class ring. Unexpectedly, a fat gold-link bracelet was tucked sloppily into his left cuff, above a thirties-vintage gold Rolex on an alligator strap. Rain drizzled through the picture windows, wrapping the hills in gray. He didn't bother to get up when we entered.

  “Yes, yes,” he said, in answer to nothing. “Come in and take a seat. Time's short, I'm afraid.” We sat, and he made an expansive gesture in the general direction of the beautiful black woman. “Marcy,” he said peremptorily, “no calls. Give us fifteen minutes.” She closed the door behind us and he crossed his hands on the desk and regarded us. Head-on, he looked much younger than his sixty years; he had the smooth, unlined face of the truly selfish, the face of a man who had never wasted a moment's serious thought on another human being.

  “Ah, Miss Chan,” he said. “I'm an admirer of your book.”