Spellbinder

by Harold Robbins

  Preacher touched the telecommand. The set went off. He looked at Jane. “What did you say?”

  “You weren’t listening,” she accused. “Don’t you have enough religion all day without watching all those preachers at night?”

  “There’s no other way I can keep up with what all the others are doing,” he said. “You can think what you like about Reverend Angley, at least he’s doing one thing right. He’s getting out there and talking to the people. He’s not just relying on the tube to reach them.”

  She looked at him. “You sound as if that’s what you’d like to be doing.”

  “I kind of miss it,” he admitted. “There’s something about seeing their faces as you bring them the word and actually touching them and feeling their response to you and to God.”

  “But you don’t have to kill yourself doing that,” she said. “You do better than all of them, and never even once have you asked for money yourself the way the others do, so you must be doing something right.”

  He looked up at her. “If you’re talking about bringing in money you know better than that. It’s not me. It’s you. The way you set up the computers so that they automatically send letters and bulletins to our lists of people is better than anything the other ministries on the air have. They can’t even touch us.”

  “Would you rather I was more like Tammy Fay Bakker or Jan Crouch?” she asked sarcastically.

  He shook his head. “I like you the way you are.” He smiled. “Besides, you can’t even carry a tune.”

  “Now you’re being silly,” she smiled.

  “Okay,” he said, pulling her down to the bed beside him. “Now, what was it you said?”

  “Daddy didn’t like the way the meeting went today.”

  He met her eyes. “I know that.” He slipped his hand inside her gown and cupped her breast. “Your daddy likes to have things his own way.”

  She put her hand over his to keep his fingers from playing with her nipples. “I’m trying to be serious, Andrew.”

  “So am I,” he said, feeling her nipples harden to his touch. He smiled at her. “How long has it been since we smoked a joint together?”

  Her face went soft and her lips brushed his cheek as she rested her head on his shoulder. “Too long,” she whispered.

  He kissed her quickly. “I think so too.”

  She leaned back against the pillow as he opened a drawer in the bedside table next to him. He turned to her with a small wooden cigarette box in his hand. He opened it, revealing it to be filled with neatly rolled joints. She looked at him in surprise. “Where did you get that?”

  “Charlie sent it down from Los Altos,” he smiled. “Your father got his way on that one but, I guess, none of us are too unhappy about it.”

  She knew what he meant. It took the old man almost three years to get rid of the Harem, as he called them. At the end, only Charlie and Melanie were left, and when Preacher offered them the chance to go back to Los Altos and rebuild the Community there, they jumped at it, finally admitting they were never happy in Churchland. “How are they doing?” she asked.

  “Fine,” he smiled. “Tarz just came back from there. They have all the permits from the city and construction will begin soon. By this summer they’ll have the camp ready to give a hundred poor kids a week, a real country-farm-type vacation. They’ve already made arrangements with churches in San Francisco and Los Angeles.”

  “I’m happy for them,” she said genuinely. “But I still don’t see why you insisted that you pay all the bills yourself. The church can afford it.”

  “It’s my own thing,” he said. “They started it with me and we decided to keep it that way.”

  He took a joint from the box and lit it, drawing the smoke deep into his lungs and passing the stick to her. He watched while she took a few tokes. “Good?” he smiled.

  “Fabulous,” she said. Suddenly she giggled. “I’ve never had anything like this before. Two hits and I feel stoned already.”

  He laughed, taking the joint back from her. “It should be good. Those two are the best judges of grass in the world.”

  She watched him draw on the stick. “Do you miss them?” she asked, reaching for the cigarette. She giggled. “Do you miss having your own little harem? A different girl to choose from every night?”

  He laughed. “Do you want to know the truth?”

  She nodded.

  He laughed again. “You bet I do.”

  She drew again on the joint, then put it down and held her arms toward him. “You come down here, you fool. You’re about to find out that a one-woman harem is all you can manage to handle.”

  ***

  He struggled from his sleep to answer the telephone ringing next to his bed. “Hello,” he said, his eyes still closed.

  His secretary’s voice echoed in his ear. “Good morning, Dr. Talbot. Mr. Randle, Mr. Craig and Mrs. Lacey are here to see you.”

  He opened his eyes. The luminous digital clock on the night table read 8:05 a.m. “Damn,” he muttered to himself. Usually he was at his desk before eight o’clock. Just like the old man to show up on a morning he slept late. “Take them into my office and give them a cup of coffee,” he said. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  He pushed back the cover and got out of bed. Halfway to the bathroom her voice stopped him. “Everything all right?” she mumbled sleepily.

  “Fine,” he answered, looking back at her. “I overslept.”

  “I don’t know how you can get up,” she said, her eyes still shut tight. “I can’t move. Maybe you should get the harem back.”

  “No reason to,” he smiled. “We did all right.”

  “I almost forgot how great a good fuck can be,” she said. “It was beautiful.”

  “It was beautiful,” he said. “Now go back to sleep, I’ve got to go to work.”

  Chapter Three

  Fifteen minutes later he walked into his office. They were seated on the couch, their coffee cups on the table before them. He pulled up a chair and sat facing them as his secretary placed a cup of coffee in front of him. “Good morning,” he said. “More coffee?”

  “No, thank you,” Randle said. The others shook their heads in agreement.

  Preacher looked up at his secretary. “That will be all, Miss Grant. Thank you.” He sipped at his coffee until the door closed behind her, then put it down. He came right to the point. “What reason do I have to thank you for this unexpected visit?”

  Randle cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Mr. Craig, Mrs. Lacey and I were very disturbed by your defeatist attitude at the board meeting yesterday.”

  “Defeatist?” Preacher’s voice was dry.

  “Yes,” Randle replied. “We got the impression that you feel nothing can be done to improve our position.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Preacher said. “I merely said there is only a limited market for all the television ministries and that the maximum has already been reached.”

  “We don’t agree with you,” Randle said.

  “Why didn’t you say so at the meeting then?” Preacher asked.

  “Saw no reason to,” the old man said. “Thought this was a matter to settle among ourselves. After all, the others are nothing but employees.”

  Preacher nodded. “I see.” He took another sip of his coffee. “But you didn’t seem to respond to my suggestion about investing some of our money in the local churches.”

  “Mr. Craig and Mrs. Lacey agree with me. It would be throwing the money out.”

  “You have a better idea?” Preacher asked.

  Randle looked at Craig. “Dick, you’re closer to the situation than I am. Supposing you tell Dr. Talbot what we recommend.”

  Craig looked at Preacher. “You know, of course, that Mrs. Lacey and I have a long history of association with many Baptist evangelical churches.”

  Preacher nodded. “The good work you and Mrs. Lacey have done for the Christian church is a matter of record and very much appreciated. I, too, a
ppreciate your interest in us and will listen most carefully to your suggestions.”

  Craig smiled. “Thank you, Dr. Talbot.”

  “Not at all, Mr. Craig. I really mean that.”

  Craig relaxed slightly. “In our opinion, the real problem facing this ministry is that it has held itself apart from the general Christian evangelical movement.”

  “You mean what is commonly known as the Christian New Right?”

  Craig nodded. “In a sense. For example, we have not committed ourselves to the work of the Moral Majority and taken a strong position with them in trying to bring about a return of the traditional American values.”

  “I hope you’ll forgive me if I appear ignorant, Mr. Craig,” Preacher said, “but I fail to see how an affiliation with a political action committee will benefit our ministry.”

  “Active participation in their work will bring an increased visibility to our ministry just as it has to Falwell. Before that work Falwell was just another minister. Now everybody in the United States knows his name.”

  “I still don’t see where that has helped his ministry. If anything, I have the feeling that Falwell is under heavy financial pressure to maintain the activities of his ministry. If I’m to believe what he tells us, every activity of his ministry is on the verge of instant bankruptcy.”

  “It’s not that bad,” Craig said. “Dr. Falwell has cash-flow problems but then so do many of the others—Oral Roberts, Jim Bakker and Pat Robertson. Even Jimmy Swaggart has problems in maintaining his missionary work in feeding and caring for the needy in some of his third-world missions. Money has become very tight. We all have to work harder just to get our share.”

  Preacher looked at him. “Without meaning to be disrespectful of the good work all these gentlemen are doing, Mr. Craig, is it possible that the overall drop in the audience for the television ministries over the past two years coincides with their entrance into politics and their attempts to impose their versions of morality on the system?”

  “I don’t think that has anything to do with it,” Craig said testily. “What do you advise? That we bury our heads in the sand like ostriches and allow the devils of Communism and immorality to continue to take over our great country as they have been doing over the past forty years?”

  “No, I don’t believe that, Mr. Craig,” Preacher said quietly. “But I do believe that God has given us a greater platform from which to fight the devil than a political one.”

  “If you’re talking about the television tube,” Craig said sarcastically, “that’s not enough.”

  “I agree with you that it’s not enough, Mr. Craig,” Preacher said quietly. “What I am talking about is the churches and pulpits throughout America. It is in His house that we must do battle with the devil.”

  “Dr. Falwell agrees with that viewpoint completely. Do you know that he has helped more than three hundred graduates of the Liberty Baptist College found their own churches? And that he plans to have thousands more in the next ten years?”

  “I have no reason to doubt you, Mr. Craig. It seems to me quite possible, if that should happen, that there will not be enough room left in America for any Baptist church except the Liberty Baptist. It could be a very sad thing if that happened, because to me one of the greatest things about the Baptist faith is that each church and each minister is proud of his independence and freedom to preach the word of God by his own lights.”

  “But it’s the future, Dr. Talbot. It’s the American way of big business doing it better than the smaller, ill-equipped and underfinanced independent.”

  Preacher was silent for a moment, then turned to Mrs. Lacey. “Do you feel the same way?”

  “Yes.” She nodded vigorously. “We must all unite for a common goal. Together we must stamp out the immoralities that threaten to destroy the American family.”

  “And you, Mr. Randle?” Preacher asked.

  “I see no other way, son,” the old man said. “It’s the only way we can have the kind of government that we need to safeguard our economy. The only voices that the politicians hear are those that go into the ballot box. If we want further changes in the laws that benefit our interests we have to be in a position to exert even more power than we did to elect President Reagan and gain control of the Senate for the Republicans.”

  Preacher looked at him. “Would it be impertinent if I ventured that changes in the tax laws and the decontrol of oil prices would benefit your various interests by more than a hundred million dollars this year?”

  “It would be impertinent,” the old man said testily. “I don’t see where it’s anyone’s business.”

  “Would it be impertinent, sir,” Preacher said smoothly, “if I were to ask your age?”

  “That’s stupid!” Randle snapped. “Everybody knows my age. I’m sixty-eight.”

  Preacher smiled inwardly. He knew the old man was well past seventy. “From what Mr. Craig has said, it would take Dr. Falwell ten years to accomplish his plan. Would you be willing to wait that long?”

  “What the hell are you getting at?” Randle said balefully.

  “What if I were to show you that with the expenditure of ten million dollars or less we can reach the same objectives in two years?” Preacher’s voice was deceptively soft.

  Randle stared at him. “I’d say you were crazy.”

  “Kentucky Fried Chicken,” Preacher said.

  “You are nuts,” Randle said.

  “McDonald’s.” Preacher saw the light suddenly dawn in the old man’s eyes. “Want to hear the rest of it?”

  The old man nodded grimly without speaking.

  “Franchise,” Preacher said carefully. “After TV that’s the next step. It worked for them, it can work for us. There are already established at least ten thousand Baptist churches eking out a bare existence in almost as many villages and towns. If we bring them our expertise and methods, together with a reasonable amount of financial assistance, we could have almost as many affiliated franchised Community of God Churches of Christian America Triumphant as we care to take on.”

  “Son of a bitch!” the old man said in a wondering voice. He caught himself and turned to Mrs. Lacey. “Excuse me, madam.” He turned back to Preacher, a broad smile coming to his face. “I knew I was right when I cottoned to you right away. You really are a sneaky bastard.”

  Chapter Four

  “I think you’ve flipped your wig, Preacher,” Joe said. “There ain’t never been no nigger preacher on national TV except Reverend Ike an’ he’s a big joke.”

  “Then it’s about time there was one people can take seriously,” Preacher said.

  “If you do want one, who you gonna get?” Joe asked. “The only one I know is out in Los Angeles. Fred Price of the Crenshaw Christian Center is already on thirty-five TV stations with his ‘Ever-Increasing Faith’ program. And even if he hasn’t gone national yet, he don’t need us. He already bought the old Pepperdine University campus in L.A. to build himself a new ten-thousand-seat church for about fourteen million dollars.”

  “You’re right, he’s not our man. Mainly for two reasons. One, he’s playing to the middle-class blacks with white-middle-class aspirations who are looking for just a mild touch of black gospel preaching. Two, he may be involved already with Oral Roberts. I’ve heard he’s contributed some large sums to the City of Faith Hospital in Tulsa.” Preacher picked up a computer printout from his desk. “I have a list of more than eight thousand black Baptist evangelical and pentecostal churches, each with a congregation running between two hundred and fifteen hundred people. These are the people who need us, the people we can help. There’s not a one of these churches that is covering its expenses.”

  “They ain’t goin’ to listen to us,” Joe said. “They goin’ to figure it’s just another ripoff by the whitey church.”

  “Sure they will if I go to them. But I’m not going,” Preacher said. “You are.”

  “Now I’m sure you completely gone,” Joe said. “I never preached no
sermon.”

  “Then you had better begin practicing. We’re planning to tape your first show in two weeks.” He stared at the expression on Joe’s face and began to laugh. Joe seemed almost dumbfounded with surprise. “It’s not really that hard,” he added. “Just hold the Bible in your hand, wave it around your head a little bit and slap the pulpit with your other hand every now and then. At the same time you stare the camera and the audience right in the eye and act like you’re the man who wrote the good book.”

  “We’ll never fill our church with enough blacks for a TV show,” Joe said. “They ain’t that many in this part of the country.”

  “I know that,” Preacher said. “Besides, I don’t want to use the church. The interior is too well known and will be recognized by the viewers. I’m planning a different look for your show. One more like the churches they’re used to, smaller, more intimate. We’re shooting your show in the first chapel. We can make three hundred people in there look like they’re all packed into a sardine can.” He stared at Joe. “What do you say, Pastor? Want to try it?”

  Joe looked at him. “What you call me?”

  “Pastor,” Preacher said. “Can’t have just any ordinary man do a show like that.”

  “Praise the Lord, I’ve just done been promoted,” Joe said, his face breaking into a wide grin. “You bet your sweet ass I’ll do it!”

  ***

  The sign in front of the small white frame church was as cracked and faded as the church building itself. The black lettering was streaked and almost illegible. Preacher read it as Joe pulled the rented car to a stop.

  THE LITTLE RIVER BAPTIST PENTECOSTAL CHURCH

  Prayer meetings

  Sunday School 8 A.M.

  every night at

  Sunday Worship 11 A.M.

  7 P.M. except