Identity Matrix (1982) (30 page)

Nobody raised an eyelash at our obvious intimate relationship, not in Vegas, although some of the guys I knew couldn't figure out how I could go to bed with an attractive guy and obviously enjoy it and then go home to my "wife." Dory seemed to understand and not to mind my promiscuity as long as I always came home to her. For her own part, she didn't seem interested in
anybody but me—although I hardly could have stood in her way—and she seemed happy and content. I might have been the star, but she was the boss in the house-hold, no question about it, and I liked it that way.

If anything, our relationship deepened even beyond what I would have thought possible. At times we almost seemed two different sides of the same person, knowing what each other was thinking and feeling, understand-ing each other and trusting each other totally.

On her official eighteenth birthday she came of legal age for most things and applied for a legal change of name, from Delores Eagle Feather to just Dory Carpen-ter. I was flattered, but she did it because she wanted to and I didn't object. She had a lot of fun changing names on accounts and her driver's license and even passport when it came through. She had taken the last step, that of becoming her own person and not somebody else, and she was radiant.

The publicity campaign paid off. I got written up by one columnist as "The Queen of Las Vegas" and I loved it. I did talk shows and supermarket openings and loved to shock the hell out of people by proving myself an intellectual, conversant with a lot of topics, although never in the act. That wasn't the image the public was buying.

Again the old hang-up, of course. What I was outside was what was important to the masses.

Dory had been right, too, about the club's dependence on me. When I made a move to leave, they jumped, had long discussions with my agent, and, since they really couldn't offer me more money—without a casino, which a strip club couldn't have under the weird laws there, their top gross was limited—but they did wind up offer-ing me a slightly lower salary and a profit percentage, which we took, along with the biggest piece of ego I could imagine—a name change to

"Misty's Harbor," complete with large, sexy portrait of me framed in Ve-gas neon.

The only dark spot was the numbers of the Redeemed that seemed to be growing everywhere. You couldn't go anywhere without running into them with their flowers, candy, shaved bodies and raped and gutted minds. They had bought large buildings, huge tracts of land, and were gaining political influence, the kind that comes with massive amounts of tax-free money and power. They swelled in membership and never seemed to lose converts, a fact that actually attracted more young peo-ple and lost souls to the movement. As usual, the press was mixed, the conservatives upset at losing their kids, the liberals shocked at the gutting of a generation's spirit, but with Constitutional guarantees there was noth-ing, it seemed, that could be done to slow them.

They were spreading worldwide, in the Latin coun-tries, in Africa, in Europe and parts of Asia, tailoring their public beliefs to fit local concerns. It was hard to tell what they were doing in the Iron Curtain countries, but I had no doubt they were there and working successfully.

The cult alone soon had a worldwide following esti-mated at more than twenty
million.
Dory and I watched the TV and headlines and understood anew what Dan Pauley had meant. The Association planted, and grew, and moved out to conquer all.

I couldn't believe that Parch and IMC would take this lying down, and I wondered if, somehow, they'd just discovered an enemy they could not fight without mak-ing themselves into the enemy. It must be frustrating, I thought more than once, to
know
and have the power and be so impotent.

We'd been living our own life of peaceful glamour for more than two years now, and it showed no signs of slacking off. Some tentative investments Dory had made in local real estate had already paid off, and we were very comfortable and secure. To celebrate our second "anniversary" I'd taken some time off and we'd gone to Hawaii and Tahiti, a sort of belated honeymoon, just the two of us doing what all lovers do—or would like to do, if they had the time and money.

Coming home from the club late one night, about four or so, I was feeling a little off and just wanted to get in, eat, and relax. On such days Dory would have a light supper waiting, and I could just relax and unwind.

I walked in and saw nothing cooking and Dory in the living room avidly watching TV. For a moment I just thought she'd got engrossed in a movie or something, but then I realized it was a newscast and that she was very intent on it. I frowned. A newscast? At this hour?

She looked up as I entered, looking worried and hag-gard, and I grew concerned. "What's up?" I asked. "What's happening?"

She got up and came over, giving me a hug and a kiss. "You haven't
heard?

You
don't
know?"

I shook my head. News didn't travel much in
my circles, at least not while it was happening.

"They shot the President!"

'What?"

She nodded. "He was comin' out of a hotel in Chicago where he was campaigning and they zapped him!" "What?
Who?"

"The Redeemed! About an hour ago. Opened up on all sides with automatic weapons! Mowed down a
huge
crowd."

My God! I thought, and sank back into the sofa. What insulated lives we've led. I wasn't a fan of the Presi-dent's, but I still felt a deep sense of outrage at the deed.

"Why would they do it?" I asked aloud. "It doesn't make sense for The Association to do something like this."

We both went over and turned back to the TV. They were showing an instant replay of the thing—it seemed to have been in front of the network cameras. It was a stunning, horrible, grotesque sight. "They're all
smiling,"
I breathed, unable to tear myself away from it. "Oh, my
God!
"

They switched back to the studio, where a tired looking anchorman, not one of the regulars, continued the story.

"Vice President Arnold was awakened and told the news at 3:45 Pacific Time. Arnold immediately cut short his campaign swing through California and is expected to fly to Washington later on this evening. His motor-cade is already getting ready to go to the airport and he is expected to leave for there as soon as possible.

"Repeating our earlier story. President Long is dead, shot to death by gunmen waiting for him with subma-chine guns outside the Trevor House Hotel in Chicago where he had been in an early morning political strat-egy session with Illinois Republican bigwigs. He emerged from the hotel at about six fifteen Chicago time and was immediately cut down, along with at least twenty-six others, by a squad of at least six gunmen with auto-matic weapons who were allegedly members of the Church of the Redeemed. All six were killed. A complete list of the dead will follow shortly.

"President Long had to fit the session into a crowded schedule, and scheduled it only as a last-minute bid to end party bickering in the crucial midwestern state. The unusually early time was caused by his schedule. He was due to fly to Kansas City at eight Central Time."

I did a mental calculation. If he was shot at 6:15 Central, it was 4:15

here—only twenty minutes or so before I got home.

The announcer was going on and on about the whole thing. The list of dead included the Secret Service agents, some well known press people, his top campaign aide and two Congressmen from Illinois.

"FBI and Secret Service agents immediately went to the local and national headquarters of the International Brotherhood Church of the Redeemed, but spokesper-sons for that organization deny any responsibility for the slaying and state categorically that they are as shocked as the rest of us."

"I'll bet," Dory grumbled.

I thought a moment. "No. Wait a minute. Maybe they are.

"Huh? You know those idiots don't do anything without orders!"

I sat back, feeling stunned. "Dory—suppose it
isn
'
t
The Association.

Suppose it
isn
'
t
the Redeemed."

She looked at me quizzically. "What do you mean? You saw 'em. You remember how Dan looked: Who else could it be?"

I thought furiously. '`Dory—who's the Speaker
of the House?"

"Huh? I dunno. Why? I guess I can look it up in the almanac." She got up, rooted around, found it, strug-gled with the contents, then found the right page. "

Well I'll be damned," she said. "Phillip J. Kelleam."

"Arnold's a dead man," I told her. "If not today, then as soon as possible."

"I don't get you."

"Dory—if the President
and
Vice-President are killed before a successor be named, the Speaker of the House becomes President."

"Oh, Jesus!" she breathed. "It's Harry Parch!" I nodded.

"We gotta do something. Warn the Secret Service or something!"

I shook my head sadly. "We can't. He's probably
got our phone tapped and us monitored very closely right now. Besides—who'd believe us? And why would they?" I got up, went over to the small bar, and poured myself a stiff one.

Dory came over and looked at it. "Pour me one, too. A good stiff one. I think we both need it."

In the background, a remote announcer was saying, "The Vice-President is emerging now, absolutely cov-ered by Secret Service agents. He's in the car—they're roaring off. They want to take no chances tonight."

But, as night passed and the dawn rose over the desert, my prediction was already true. More of the so-called "Redeemed" had planted a huge series of bombs on a key overpass any limo would have to take to get to the airport. It exploded as Arnold's limo went over it, then dozens of the Redeemed, all smiling, closed in and machine-gunned everything that moved. Some of the cops who survived finally got them—it was a suicidal attack with none of them even trying to find cover—but they had done their job.

And so had Harry Parch.

In a way, it was a master stroke. Kill the two top men. Put your own man in power, probably backed up by a huge contingent of people either on the inside at IMC or those who had been invited out to scenic Nevada for a demonstration.... Kidnap some of the Redeemed and reprogram them. Make sure it was on national televi-sion, the nightmare of young, hollow faces in robes and hoods smiling as they shot those people down in cold blood. Knocking off both the top spots absolutely dem-onstrates the conspiracy in the public mind, allowing Kelleam to take control and move decisively, as a result of massive public outrage and pressure, to close down the Redeemed. Was it any coincidence that the bomb-planters had waited to be cut down at that bridge when they could have easily slipped away?

So all we could do was sit there and get very drunk so we wouldn't have to decide whether or not Phil Kelleam and Harry Parch were really any improvement over The Association.

We awoke hung over when the phone rang the next afternoon. I reached blearily over Dory and answered it. It was Joe, of course, telling me that the club would be closed for a few days, through the funerals, anyway. I just told him I expected it, hung up, and rolled back on the bed again.

I felt really lousy, but Dory was even worse, so I struggled up, finally, sticking some coffee on, then flipped on the TV. The usual stuff, mostly, what you would expect under these conditions.

Kelleam had wasted no time while we slept, declaring four days of public mourning, scheduling the unprece-dented double funerals, and, almost before he was sworn in, authorizing the FBI and Secret Service to move in on the Redeemed all over the country with National Guard and regular military supporting them. He had almost unlimited power for the moment to deal with the obvi-ous menace, and he was making good use of it—to the applause of Congress and the people. He moved so effi-ciently that you'd almost swear he'd been expecting something like this and had the plans already drawn up.

Most everything was closed, even in Vegas, except the casinos, of course.

Dory struggled into the kitchen, groaning, and looked like I felt. She reached into a drawer, took out a plastic bag, and rolled a joint. It didn't make the hangovers go away, but we didn't care so much about them anymore.

The TV showed the military moving on Association buildings, temples, and holdings with exceptional speed and thoroughness. Tens of thousands were being rounded up, and large camps were being established in different parts of the country to hold them all. A quick session of Congress had authorized exceptional emergency mea-sures, thereby reinforcing what Kelleam was already doing by executive order. Many other countries were moving, too, either frightened by the Redeemed or using the events in the U.S. as an excuse to move. All over the world the cult, which had enjoyed such fantastic suc-cess, was being rapidly and systematically crushed. Ru-mors were already circulating that really strange things were being discovered in examinations of church papers and property; implications were being made that this was far more than the simple religion it appeared.

About five that afternoon we'd both come down suffi-ciently to eat something and function in a more or less normal manner, but we both felt down, depressed, and helpless. It seemed obvious to us that the country was being softened up in order to be faced with the threat of alien invasion, an invasion by mind control which needed defense.

It would take a while, of course, to build the pressure up and do it right, but it wouldn't be a very long time. They would want to capitalize on the emotional shocks and the resultant national mood. They would introduce the devices all over the country, the processors that would make you safe from the aliens. They were proba-bly quite rapid and efficient now, and maybe even por-table. People would beat down the doors of government demanding protection, and they would get it. Yes, they'd get it—and what else? A few ideas, a few attitudes, perhaps, that they didn't have before? Neither of us could fully shake the feeling that it wasn't the beginning of the end.