Deadfall nd-15

by Bill Pronzini

  We followed him inside. Some sanctuary; it looked like a glorified office building-no doubt this was where the take from the church’s various nontaxable enterprises was counted, blessed, and secreted. Through an open door I had a glimpse of one large, mostly bare room that may or may not have been used for meditation; three other doors along the central hallway were closed. We stopped before the last of these. Painted on the panel in dark-blue letters were the words: THE RIGHT REVEREND CLYDE T. DAYBREAK. And below that, in somewhat larger letters: THE MORAL CRUSADE. A hand-lettered sign thumbtacked above the knob told you to Please Knock Before Entering.

  The Reverend Holloway knocked. A voice inside said, “Come right in,” and Holloway opened the door and Kerry and I went in. He stayed out in the hall, shutting the door after us.

  It was a large office, done in plain blond-wood paneling, with its dominant feature being a plain blond-wood desk set in front of windows shaded by Venetian blinds. The blinds were open now and sunlight came streaming in. It bathed the Spartan contents of the office in a benign radiance, as if by design: the desk, a group of matching and uncomfortable-looking chairs, a blond-wood file cabinet, a painting of Christ on one wall, a huge cloth banner on another-dark-blue lettering on a snowy white background that said THE MORAL CRUSADE-and the sole occupant coming toward us with both hands outstretched.

  Clyde T. Daybreak was something of a surprise. I had half-expected a tall, dour, hot-eyed guy dressed in black-a sort of cult version of Cotton Mather. Or maybe the strong silent type with a gaze that was both penetrating and hypnotic, like Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter. Clyde T. was neither one. He was short, he was round, he was bald except for a reddish Friar Tuck fringe forming a half-circle around the back of his head. He wore the same kind of conservative dark-blue business suit as the Reverend Holloway, and a skinny tie with a gold clip that, believe it or not, formed the words The Moral Crusade. He was smiling, and his cheeks were red and rosy, and his eyes were as bright and blue and serene as a mountain lake on a summer day.

  He took hold of my hand and worked it up and down vigorously, as if he were trying to prime a pump. Which, in a manner of speaking, he probably was. He said, “Welcome, brother, welcome!” in a just-perceptible Southern drawl. Then he took Kerry’s hand and pumped it and said, “Welcome, sister, welcome!” Through all of this I paid close attention to his eyes. Behind the bright blue serenity there was a shrewdness and something that might have been guile. He had a kind of aura about him, too, that electric quality that makes people respond to religious and political zealots everywhere-a combination of intense will and either deep conviction or the ability to simulate it. He was the type who could lead a crusade, all right, all the more so for his plain looks and deceptively open manner.

  He asked me, “Have we met before, brother? I don’t seem to recall having the pleasure.”

  I told him it was our first visit to the church. I didn’t tell him I hoped it would be our last.

  He invited us to sit down, ushered us to the chairs in front of his desk, held Kerry’s for her, and then bounced around behind the desk and sat down himself. His swivel chair must have been wound up high or built up with extra padding; as short as he was, he still seemed to be looking down at us like a little king on his throne.

  “Were you with us for services this morning?” he asked.

  I said, “No, we missed them. We just got here.”

  “Too bad, too bad. You’re familiar with the teachings of Ezekiel, of course? The resurrection of dry bones?”

  I nodded. Kerry took out her handkerchief and sneezed into it.

  “Well,” Daybreak said, and smiled, and then said, “The Reverend Holloway tells me you’ve come to offer a donation to the Moral Crusade.”

  “Actually, no,” I said. “That was just a ruse to get in here to see you.”

  He had terrific poise, you had to give him that; his smile didn’t even waver. “Deceit is a sin, brother,” he said gently.

  “That depends on the magnitude of the deceit. Some kinds are more sinful than others.”

  “To be sure. But all sin is wicked, brother; those who indulge in it casually are no less apt to be damned than those who embrace it with open arms. The sins of man are the devil’s playthings.”

  “Would you say harassment is among them?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Harassment. The kind that’s done in the name of God.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  “This lady is Kerry Wade,” I said. “Does the name mean anything to you, Reverend?”

  “No, brother, it doesn’t. Should it?”

  “It should if your assistants confide in you. Ms. Wade is your Reverend Dunston’s ex-wife.”

  His smile was gone now; but it seemed to have faded out gradually, rather than to have disappeared all at once. In its place he wore a grave, earnest expression.

  “I still don’t understand,” he said. “Perhaps you’d better explain the purpose of your visit.”

  “Isn’t it obvious? We’re here to put a stop to Reverend Dunston’s delusion that Ms. Wade is still his wife. She divorced him more than five years ago.”

  “The Church of the Holy Mission does not recognize divorce,” Daybreak said. “In our eyes, divorce is-”

  “-a pernicious invention of man,” I finished for him. “Uh-huh, so I’ve been told. But that doesn’t change the legality of Ms. Wade’s decree. Or her unwillingness to remarry her ex-husband, which is what he keeps pestering her to do.”

  Kerry blew her nose loudly, as if in emphatic agreement.

  Daybreak said, “May I ask the nature of your involvement in the matter, sir?” I seemed to have lost my status as his brother; now I was just plain “sir.” “Are you Mrs. Dunston’s attorney?”

  “It’s Ms. Wade, and no, I’m not her attorney. I’m a friend of hers, a close friend. Dunston has been harassing me, too.”

  “Ah,” Daybreak said.

  “Ah?”

  “Ah.”

  “All right,” I said testily, “I confess: I’m a fornicator. What of it?”

  Kerry suppressed a giggle and blew her nose again. It sounded like a goose honking.

  “Your confession saddens me,” Daybreak said. “It comes without shame. There is so much sin in today’s world, so little shame.”

  “And I suppose the Moral Crusade is going to reverse the trend?”

  “We will do our part,” he said passionately. “Yes, we will.”

  “Well, let me tell you this,” I said. “Sinners have rights, too, the same as moral crusaders. And one of them is the right to live our lives without interference-”

  I broke off because Daybreak was shaking his bald head. He said, “Sinners forfeit their rights until they renounce their wicked ways. God has no patience with those who spurn His teachings, who foul the paths of righteousness.”

  “Did He tell you that?”

  “Sir?”

  “Do you talk to God, Reverend?”

  “Of course.”

  “Does He answer you?”

  “Of course.”

  I was starting to get flustered, which in me is one step shy of losing both my patience and my temper. I said, “And I suppose He told you it’s okay for a man to hound his ex-wife just because he-”

  “A man does not have an ex- wife, sir,” Daybreak said. “When a man marries it is for his lifetime and that of his wife’s; in God’s eyes it is for all of eternity. If his wife should leave him he is justified in demanding that she return to his house and his bed.”

  “No matter what she wants, is that it?”

  “It is what God wants that matters.”

  “There are laws-”

  “God’s laws are higher.”

  I could feel myself sliding toward the edge of unreason. And at this point I was not even sure I wanted to stop the slide. I said, “Listen to me, Daybreak. I’ve had just about enough of-”

  “Oh, stop it,” Kerry said suddenl
y. “I’ve had enough of this myself.”

  Daybreak and I both looked at her. She sneezed, blew her nose, snuffled, and said to him, “You win, Reverend-you and my ex-husband both. I can’t fight it anymore. I’ll go back to him.”

  I gawked in disbelief. Daybreak beamed. “The Reverend Dunston will be pleased to hear that, my dear,” he said. “Surely the Almighty will be, too.”

  I said, “Kerry…”

  She ignored me. “Does Reverend Dunston live here at the church?” she asked Daybreak.

  “Oh yes. He has an apartment in our main house.”

  “Then that’s where I’ll be living, too?”

  “Yes. You’ll find it quite comfortable.”

  “But you know, I’m not going to remarry him.”

  “There’s no need, my dear. You’ve never been un married.”

  “Oh, I understand that,” she said. “But I wonder if everyone else will.”

  “Everyone else?”

  “Everyone in your flock. And everyone in the Bay Area, not to mention other parts of the country. And especially NOW and the other women’s organizations. Oh yes, and let’s not forget the American Civil Liberties Union.”

  “I don’t understand…”

  “Well,” she said, “the Church of the Holy Mission may not believe in divorce or the individual freedom of women or the laws of the land, but a lot of people do. I’ll bet the newspapers will be delighted to hear from me.”

  “Newspapers?”

  “Yes. As soon as I move in with Ray… I mean the Reverend Dunston

  … I’ll call half a dozen papers and tell them both your church and your so-called moral crusade sanctions the keeping of women in religious bondage.”

  “Bondage?”

  “Exactly. When the women’s organizations hear about it they’ll come here in droves and picket the church and disrupt your activities. Then there’ll be national wire service stories and all sorts of television coverage. The church and the Moral Crusade will get a lot of publicity, Reverend Daybreak. Won’t that be nice for you?”

  He sat there blinking at her. Me too, only my blinks were ones of admiration. She had succeeded in doing with a few well-chosen words what I hadn’t even come close to doing with a barrelful: rattling him right out of his sanctimonious self-assurance. He said lamely, “My dear Mrs. Dunston…”

  “I can see the headlines now,” Kerry said. “ ‘Church Forces Woman to Live with Ex-Husband.’ ‘Church Condones Bondage of Women in the Name of Religion.’ ” She let him have a sweet, guileless smile. “The whole thing will probably become a nationwide cause celebre, ” she said. “In fact, I’ll make sure it does. I’m in advertising, you know-the Bates and Carpenter agency in San Francisco. We’re very good at saturation promo campaigns, the manipulation of public sentiment. Even better than you are.” Another sweet smile. “That should help no end when the lawsuit comes to trial.”

  “Lawsuit?” he said. “Trial?” he said.

  “Oh, I forgot to mention that, didn’t I? If I can get the right lawyer-and I’m sure I can-we’ll ask as much as, oh, ten million dollars in punitive damages. We’ll settle for less, of course. It all depends on the church’s assets at the time.”

  Daybreak got jerkily to his feet; the look on his face was one of pure horror. He seemed to realize that, because he wiped it off and then turned his back to us and stood staring out through the venetian blinds, his hands washing each other just above his tailbone.

  I looked at Kerry and mouthed the words You’re terrific. She wrinkled her nose at me, snuffled, and sneezed again.

  For about two minutes it was very quiet in there. Then Daybreak turned around, slowly, and looked at Kerry; I might not have been there anymore. He had the mask of serenity in place again. He even managed to work up a faint nervous smile as he said, “You’d go through with it, wouldn’t you, Mrs. Dunston-everything you said?”

  “Yes, Reverend, I would. And my name is Wade, not Dunston — Kerry Wade. Please remember that.”

  “As you wish.”

  “As it is. ”

  “What do you want from me, Ms. Wade?” “I want you to have a nice long talk with my ex-husband. I want you to tell him to leave me and my friend alone from now on. I want you to explain to him exactly what will happen if he doesn’t.”

  “Is that all?”

  “That’s all. I don’t think it’s too much to ask, do you?”

  “I will speak to Reverend Dunston,” he said.

  “Immediately?”

  “Immediately.”

  “Good.” She stood, and I bounced right up alongside her. “I do hope you can make him understand,” she said, smiling. “If not… well, I’ll have no choice but to pack my bags and move right in.” He smiled back at her-there wasn’t a trace of humor in his smile-and she said, “Goodbye, Reverend Daybreak,” and went to the door and I followed her out like a puppy.

  Neither of us said anything until we were clear of the now-deserted church grounds. I said then, “You amaze me sometimes, lady. Where did you get all of that stuff in there?”

  “It just came to me.”

  “Good thing it did. I wasn’t doing too well.”

  “No, you weren’t. Another thirty seconds and you’d have been calling him a crook and a charlatan.”

  “He is a crook and a charlatan.”

  “Maybe. But he doesn’t think so.”

  “I thought you’d gone nuts at first. I couldn’t figure out what you were doing.”

  “Women’s wiles, my dear.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Well, that put an end to it; you hit him right where he lives. We won’t have any more trouble with Dunston.”

  “Lord,” she said fervently, “I hope not. I would hate to have to follow up on all those threats.”

  “You don’t mean you’d actually move down here?”

  She gave me an enigmatic smile, and then sneezed in the middle of it. “What do you think?” she said as we reached the car. “You old fornicator, you.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was after two when we got back to San Francisco. I was pretty hungry by then, but there was no time to even grab a sandwich; I would be cutting it close as it was, getting to the Fairmont in time for my three o’clock appointment with Margaret Prine. I dropped Kerry off at her apartment and hurried downtown and up onto Nob Hill and parked more or less legally on Taylor Street, opposite Grace Cathedral and around the corner from Mrs. Prine’s fancy apartment house. I was exactly one minute late when I walked into the hotel.

  The Fairmont has been a San Francisco landmark for close to eighty years and is still one of its finest luxury hotels. It has posh bars and restaurants and shops, a couple of suites that would cost you a grand a day if you had the right pedigree, a twenty-nine-story tower addition built in the early sixties, and a lobby notable for its late-Victorian elegance: dark, brownish marble pillars and staircases, ornate wood-paneled ceiling and walls, antique furnishings. If you’re wearing a hat when you walk in there you invariably find yourself taking it off. It has that effect even on lowbrows like me.

  The lobby was moderately crowded at the moment; I walked the length of it, feeling out of place and looking for an elderly woman with a gold-headed cane. There were plenty of elderly women and even a couple of canes, but none of the latter had a gold head. I made another circuit and then decided I ought to sit down somewhere, before one of the security people spotted me and took me for an undesirable. There was some plush maroon furniture near the entrance to the Squire Restaurant, opposite the hotel’s main entrance off Mason Street. I parked myself on an overstuffed couch and watched people move in and out, back and forth. And waited.

  At 3:20 I was still waiting. Maybe Ozimas didn’t go to Big Sur after all, I thought. Maybe she got hold of him and he told her he didn’t know any dealer in antique miniatures named Charles Eberhardt, and that made her balk at keeping our appointment.

  I was fretting with that possibility when I saw her. She came in throu
gh the main entrance and stopped and held her cane up in front of her in a discreet away, so that the gold head was visible. I got off the couch and went her way, taking my time so I could size her up. From a distance she looked small and frail in a bulky fur coat, like somebody’s nice old white-haired grandmother-one who happened to have a couple of million dollars or so. Up close there was no mistaking the toughness in her seamed and rouged face and her shrewd gray eyes, the imperiousness of her bearing. Or the fact that she was a woman who knew what she wanted and usually got it, one way or another.

  “Mrs. Prine? I’m Charles Eberhardt.”

  She looked me up and down, once, as if she were examining a curious artifact. If the artifact made any impression on her she didn’t show it. She said, “How do you do, Mr. Eberhardt. I apologize for being tardy; I was unavoidably detained.”

  Sure you were, I thought. She’d been late on purpose-I understood that now. A double-edged ploy, no doubt, designed to test Mr. Eberhardt’s sincerity and to froth up his eagerness to sell her a Cosway snuff box.

  I said, “No apology necessary, Mrs. Prine.”

  “You’ve bought the Cosway?”

  I smiled at her. “Shall we go into the lounge, where it’s more private?”

  “No. It’s too dark in there. I’ll want to examine the piece, of course.”

  “Of course.” I gestured toward where I’d been sitting before; none of the furniture there was occupied. “Over this way?”

  She nodded and we went that way and took opposite ends of the same lumpy couch. She said, “Now then, Mr. Eberhardt, the Cosway.”

  I said pleasantly, “Now then, Mrs. Prine, my name isn’t Eberhardt and I don’t have any Cosway box.” I told her what my name was and that I was the private detective she wouldn’t talk to last week. I also offered her one of my business cards.

  She didn’t take the card; she looked at it as if it were something unclean. Looked at me the same way, with a sprinkling of contempt and malice thrown in. “I do not care to be lied to,” she said in a chilly voice, and started to get up.