Masquerade

by William Kienzle

  Under the weight of all this literature, and freed of the necessity to respond, David read all or most of what he was sent from P.G. Press, then filed it all in the wastebasket. But he had to wonder where all this was leading.

  The other shoe had dropped some six months ago with an invitation to the Reverend and Mrs. Benbow to visit P.G. Enterprises just outside Mission Viejo, California.

  Martha said it was quite out of the question for her. She had several major closings scheduled, and trusted no one else to handle them. But she strongly encouraged him to go. It would be a nice break for him; he needed one; no sense waiting for her to have time for a vacation, not with sales doing so well.

  Finally, with many misgivings, David accepted the invitation. All that Martha said was true. He needed the refreshment of some time off and away. And in truth, he was curious to see for himself the complex institution that was P.G. Enterprises. The compelling argument he gave himself was that the visit might end Krieg’s full-court press to sign him to a contract. David had said no to the proposition in every possible way but face to face.

  It was at the end of March—not a bad time to trade Illinois weather for that of Southern California—that David Benbow visited P.G. Enterprises, all expenses paid.

  On arrival, David was given a complete tour of the vast complex. He was properly impressed. He had no reason to doubt Krieg’s characterization of the television studios as state-of-the-art. The cathedral itself was a gigantic atrium that ascended endlessly toward heaven.

  During that extended weekend, David was ushered about by interchangeably bright, mostly blond, young men and women, who seemed never to stop smiling. His quarters were flawless. His every want was seen to, in many cases anticipated.

  Friday and Saturday evenings he dined with the Reverend and Mrs. Klaus Krieg. Mrs. Krieg—“just call me Betsy”—seemed to dote on every word that fell from anyone’s lips, but especially those of her husband. As far as David could determine, Betsy had no original thoughts—nor, for that matter, many thoughts at all. But she was gorgeous and well kept. David quickly learned to enjoy looking at her and to expect nothing of substance from her. Betsy and her husband appeared to get on wonderfully. He treasured her and she appreciated him and all he provided for her.

  Sunday night, David’s final evening in this lavish complex, was memorable. He sensed it would be even before he learned he would be dining alone with the Reverend Krieg.

  If everything, particularly the meals, during these three days had been without flaw, tonight’s dinner was as close to perfection as one could come this side of heaven. It seemed that Krieg had somehow researched Benbow’s eating habits. Nearly all David’s favorites were served: vichyssoise, Caesar salad, lamb (medium-rare), new red potatoes, asparagus with hollandaise sauce, red fruit gelatin, double chocolate cake.

  The preludial white wine gave way to a fine red with the meat. Coffee was served, and a bottle of cognac placed on the table.

  Krieg lit a cigar and contentedly exhaled a thick cloud of aromatic smoke. As far as Benbow was able to tell, Krieg smoked cigars at every opportunity except when someone present would be offended. Although he was not a smoker, David enjoyed the aroma of both pipe and cigar. Krieg apparently knew that. Not once did he ask David; somehow he knew.

  Krieg seemed to examine the cigar as he spoke. “Have you enjoyed the weekend?”

  David smiled. “That has to be a rhetorical question.”

  Krieg returned the smile. “Good, good. I was hoping it would be restful. It pays to get away from the grind from time to time.”

  “How about yourself, Klaus?” They had been on a first-name basis from the moment David arrived. He knew some referred to Krieg as “Blitz” but this privilege of so addressing him had not been extended.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, there’s no sign that you ever take a break.”

  “This . . .” Krieg’s expansive gesture seemed to encompass the entire P.G. kingdom, “. . . this is my vacation. It’s all I wanted. All I ever aimed for.”

  If this is the whole ball of wax, David thought; if this is everything you want, why have you been bugging me to work for you? But, to remain the gracious visitor, he said only, “Well, it does seem to have just about everything a man could want.” He drained his coffee cup.

  “More?” Krieg leaned toward the coffee pot.

  “No, that’s plenty. What a marvelous dinner!”

  “Yes, it was good, wasn’t it?” Without asking, Krieg filled the bottom curve of two snifters with cognac and offered one to Benbow. “Come . . .”Krieg stood. “Let’s go to the gallery.”

  Taking their glasses with them, the two moved out onto an arcaded balcony three stories above the grounds. P.G. Enterprises was built on elevated terrain. From this vantage, they could easily view the countryside. The evening lights of Mission Viejo, largely residential, were beginning to go on.

  It was a cool, pleasant evening; the view was tranquil, a perfect dinner was being serenely digested; the cognac generated an agreeable burning sensation in his throat. “God’s in His heaven; all’s right with the world,” came to mind. But somehow, God seemed to have very little to do with any of this. Strange; the place was named for Him. P.G.: Praise God. Ostensibly, God’s work was being done here. The two standing on this balcony were men of God. But there was no denying David’s conviction that God was at best a secondary figure in P.G. Enterprises.

  After a prolonged silence, Krieg spoke. “It’s not the panorama of Chicago—your country—or for that matter the hills of San Francisco, or the skyline of New York, but it is restful, peaceful . . . don’t you think?”

  Benbow nodded wordlessly.

  “You know, David,” Krieg went on, “there is one thing that hasn’t been mentioned once during your stay here.”

  Benbow very well knew what had been missing: the point of it all—his signing a contract to write for P.G. Press. However, he kept silent.

  “This is a beautiful site,” Krieg went on, “in a beautiful corner of the world, where the weather is always beautiful. Don’t you feel it, David? Isn’t this a bit of heaven on earth?”

  Benbow gave this a few moments’ thought, then said, “I’d have to agree: It’s all you say it is.”

  “Then you can understand why we want to share it with everyone we can. It’s like wanting every human soul to be admitted to the eternal presence of God in that heavenly land where there are many mansions.”

  Benbow recognized the familiar tone that he’d heard so often while watching the messianic presence of the Reverend Klaus Krieg on television. Does he turn himself on, David wondered. Is it a self-fulfilling wish? “Wait a minute, Klaus. I thought we were only indulging in figures of speech. This place may be ‘a bit of heaven on earth’ metaphorically, but it’s not literally heaven. We’ve got to go some before we get there. And I’m confident that the real heaven will be beyond the wildest dreams of even P.G. Enterprises.”

  Krieg guffawed. “Of course, David . . . of course. You gotta pardon an old war-horse who’s never quite left tent revival meetings behind him. Bit of an exaggeration there, I’m afraid.

  “But seriously, you know, if you were to become a member of the team, so to speak, this would be a second home to you. We’d put it right in the contract.” His expansive gesture included everything within the horizon, the greensward, the sky, Mission Viejo with its twinkling fairytale lights and superb climate. “All of this, David—all of this would be yours.” Pause. “Praise God!”

  Krieg’s words struck a resounding chord in Benbow’s memory. Didn’t he know, David wondered; wasn’t he aware of what he’d just said? It was right out of the Synoptic Gospels. The classic scene of the devil tempting Jesus. David had used the text so often he knew it verbatim: “Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and saith unto him, ‘All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.’”

/>   The parallel was so striking, at least to David, that he thought it incredible that it might not have occurred to Krieg. Krieg promising him all of Mission Viejo and a slice of P.G. Enterprises if David would fall off his high horse and sign the blasted contract. He felt like borrowing the words of Scripture: “Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, ‘Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.’”

  Benbow regarded Krieg intently. Apparently, he was oblivious to the similarity of his statement to that famous passage of the Gospel. Still, David harbored doubts. Krieg, after all, was a preacher. Who should be more familiar with Scripture? Did he have some sort of defense mechanism that blocked any comparison between him and Satan? David thought the latter supposition more probable.

  Neither of them had spoken for nearly five minutes. While David pondered this singular proposition, Krieg appeared simply to be enjoying the evening: the food, the drink, the weather; the comfort and security of his P.G. empire.

  “Well?” Krieg said at length.

  David responded with a wordless, quizzical look.

  “See here, David,” Krieg said, “P.G. Press has been romancin’ you for quite a spell now. You had to know that’s what this weekend was all about. We want you. I want you. When you gonna sign that contract?”

  David’s quizzical look turned to one of wonderment. “But Klaus, I’ve given you my answer—many times more than once.”

  “You haven’t given the right answer yet.”

  “It’s the only answer I’ve got.”

  “You got somethin’ against money, wealth?”

  “Of course not, Klaus. I’m a priest. I know what it is to stretch a meager salary. But we’re doing all right now, between Martha’s income and my salary . . . and, of course, the books.”

  “You could make more with me, a lot more.”

  “Maybe”—a noticeably more resolute tone crept in—“maybe not. Maybe I would not be able to deliver what you would demand of me.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Advice from a friend.”

  “Sales reps don’t know everything there is to know about the publishing business. They’re just out there beatin’ the pavement and talkin’ to bookstore owners and the chains.”

  “How did you—?” David didn’t complete the question. He wouldn’t have said anything if he hadn’t been so startled: How did Krieg know the advice came from a sales representative in his parish?

  Quickly, David recovered. “Look, Klaus, I happen to believe the advice, and I respect the person who gave it to me. I simply don’t want to chance signing with you. If you want me to say I am flattered you want me so badly, I’ll gladly say it. Just about any author would be pleased, complimented beyond measure, to be courted as perseveringly as you have me, especially with this lavish weekend. But it doesn’t matter what you say, Klaus; my answer is no.”

  “It might matter what I say.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Krieg swirled the last sip of cognac around the bottom of the snifter. “There’s Pam.”

  “What!”

  “Pamela Richardson.”

  Her full name! God! How did he know? How did he know what food was David’s favorite? How did he know who had given him the advice to steer clear of P.G. Press? How did he know about Pam? How in hell did he know!

  “Right about now, you’re probably wondering how I know.”

  Was he clairvoyant?

  “Now look, David, when I want something I get it. It’s happened just about all my life. ’Course I don’t get a fix on just anything. I make sure I really want it ’fore I go after it. But, then, when I decide this is what I want, why I just go out and get it.”

  Impossible! No one can do that, get whatever he wants. On second thought, he’d have to amend that: No one he knew could do that. But then he didn’t intimately know anyone in Krieg’s income bracket. Oh, there were his wealthy relatives, of course. But he hadn’t had any contact with them in years. Maybe it was true; maybe if money was no obejct, maybe you could get whatever you wanted.

  But Krieg was not going to get David Benbow by default. Maybe there was a bluff to call somewhere here.

  “Pamela Richardson,” David said. “Someone I’m supposed to know?”

  Krieg burst out laughing. “I’d say so—even in the Biblical sense. You’ve had carnal knowledge of her lots and lots of times.” He took a black notepad from his jacket pocket and began leafing through it. “Would you like some dates?”

  Could he still be bluffing?

  “So, you have dates in a notebook. That means nothing. It’s no more than your word against mine.”

  From the corner of the balcony railing, Krieg picked up a large manila envelope. It had been there all the while, but David hadn’t noticed it.

  Krieg removed the envelope’s contents and fingered through a series of 8 × 10 glossy photos. He handed them to David, who looked at them one by one. They were black-and-white shots of him and Pam—almost everywhere: walking arm-in-arm down a tree-lined street, picnicking on the grass of a public park, dining in a restaurant. All very innocuous—yet pictures of almost every time in recent memory that they had chanced being together publicly. He had expected the stereotypical sleazy bedroom shots. He was greatly relieved.

  “So? I have been in the company of a young lady a few times. Is there any law against that? God or man’s?”

  “David, David . . .” Krieg shook his head. “You must have caught on by this time. C’mon, you’re a smart kid. I know more about you than anyone—your mother, your wife, your mistress, anybody. I just showed you the tip of the iceberg. I thought you’d be impressed that I knew who touted you out of signing my contract. Then there’s knowing every blessed thing you like to eat, that you don’t mind cigar smoke—pipes, for that matter—the name of your mistress. Weren’t those fine, clear shots of you and Pamela?

  “We could go on, David, but I wanted to spare you the tapped phone conversations, the tapes of all those amorous affairs that took place in her apartment—we erased the small talk, gossip, and things like that, and concentrated on the sexy sounds and sweet nothings. Do you really want me to trot out all that . . . really?”

  David slumped, figuratively and literally. He had to admit that it was feasible that Krieg, immorally and technically, had procured all he claimed to. Benbow had never been so embarrassed. Not even as a child. Someone had shredded his privacy and recorded his most secret words and intimate actions. He gave hardly any thought to begging Krieg for mercy. The man had made it crystal clear that he got what he wanted. And he wanted David.

  Shame gave way to an intense anger. “Klaus, this is blackmail!”

  Krieg smiled ruefully and shrugged.

  “It’s blackmail!” David repeated. “And you, a Christian minister! Have you no shame!”

  “Me? I didn’t sneak around to a young lady’s apartment—a vulnerable young lady . . .”

  Vulnerable. It was the word used by the Reverend Massey that had so affected Benbow. Had Krieg bugged that conversation too? By now, David would have put nothing past the man.

  “I didn’t sneak around to a vulnerable young lady’s apartment,” Krieg repeated, “to seduce her and carry on an adulterous relationship after having been advised to break it off not once but twice! And you think I should be ashamed!”

  “All right, all right,” David said. “I’ve sinned. I won’t excuse myself.

  But I failed. I was weak. Your sin is coldly deliberate. Your sin is full of malice. And you won’t get away with it. How is it going to look for a minister of the Gospel to admit that he’s been no better than a peeping Tom? You’re going to degrade yourself. You may even destroy yourself.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t think so, Father Benbow. If you recall, it was a fellow minister who turned in Jimmy Swaggart, and he suffered no ill for it. But that isn’t part of my plan. You see, I have numerous friends in the fourth estate. There are ways of leaking information. Why, Father
, I wouldn’t even be involved. Somebody else. And, far from destroying myself, I know for a certainty that the news media will be grateful. Indeed—grateful.”

  David felt a strong urge to pitch Krieg off the balcony. The impulse was brief. Later, on reliving the scene, Benbow had to admit to himself that the real reason he hadn’t done it was that the fall probably wouldn’t have killed the bastard. David was deeply ashamed to realize that the very moral consideration of murder had had nothing to do with his holding back.

  At this point, at least all the cards were on the table. David now knew clearly what the stakes were. And Krieg seemed to hold all the aces. Yet David was not quite ready to throw in his hand.

  But first he had to buy some time.

  Benbow did his best to introduce a tone of surrender, submission, entreaty to his voice, as he stated that this could, indeed, be an unrefusable offer, but that these revelations had come unexpectedly, that he’d need time to consider all the ramifications of signing with P.G.

  Krieg countered that Benbow had had plenty of time—years—to weigh every possible consequence. This was decision time.

  Benbow, affecting to try to be as reasonable as possible, acknowledged that Krieg was, of course, free to act now, spread the slander, and ruin Benbow’s careers, marriage, life. But, he said, it was clear Krieg had not gone to all that trouble and expense for the purpose of defamation of character, but rather as a most impressive bargaining chip, in order to force Benbow’s signing with P.G. Since Krieg had already waited years, as he himself had admitted, what was so difficult about giving him just a little more time? After all, Krieg wanted Benbow’s signature on a contract, not his head on a pike. The head was destined for hanging only if the signature was not forthcoming.

  With some reluctance, yet with the acknowledgment that basically Benbow’s point was well taken, Krieg agreed to wait a bit longer. But, he warned, his patience had worn thin; an affirmative response had better damn well be forthcoming, or . . .