The Brunist Day of Wrath: A Novel (43 page)

“Will the circle be unbroken,
By and by, Lord, by and by?
There’s a better home a-waitin’,
In the sky, Lord, in the sky!”

BOOK II

And when he had opened the second seal
,

I heard the second beast say, Come and see
.

And there went out another horse that was red:

and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth
,

and that they should kill one another:

and there was given unto him a great sword
.

—The Book of Revelation 6.3-4

II.1

Thursday 23 April – Saturday 25 April

“It don’t make none a your common sense, Ted, and you know it. This penny ante town can’t afford to fix the potholes or pick up the garbage—how we gonna get into a high stakes headbutt with old man Suggs over a useless goddamned artificial bump in the ground that ain’t even genuine real estate?”

“Land is only useless, Maury, when it’s not being used. It has electric and phone lines already in place, train rails and usable structures. With the flat land the town owns below it, it has industrial park potential, could be developed for housing or for a coal-burning power plant. Might even be turned into a profitable recreational facility.” It angers him to have to wheedle with this irresponsible third-rate shoe salesman who is only the mayor because Ted has made him so. It angers him even more to think about spending so much money on that worthless piece of land, for which he is only inventing improbable uses. But he hates to get beat. If they lose the mine land and hill to Pat Suggs and those religious fanatics, they’ll never be rid of them. He has heard rumors they plan to build on it and that Suggs may be buying up other property nearby. Creating a complex. His voluptuous doodles show signs of anxiety and irritation. Swirly lines flying off in all directions. Ted glances out onto the bank floor, catches her watching him; she looks away. “And the city doesn’t have to pay a nickel up front. You can float a bond and meanwhile the bank will loan the city the entire amount at bank rate.”

“Nah, I’ll never be able to sell this to the council. Let them fundamentalist loonies have their hill, Ted. Who the fuck cares? They’re even bringing in a bit of business. If they turn up in town, we’ll simply shoot ’em.”

“They’re already in town, Maury. Suggs is letting them occupy some of his prefabs in Chestnut Hills.”

“Don’t I know it. The handful of neighbors who still live out there are bellyaching about the filth and noise and overcrowding. It ain’t clear who’s paying the electricity and fuel bills. There are health and fire hazards. I’ve asked the chief to shut that operation down this week. By the way, Dee mentioned this morning there’d been a break-in in some of the mine buildings out there.”

“Really? What got taken?”

“Dee don’t know, says it ain’t his jurisdiction, but figures it was more like vandalism than theft. Someone heard motorcycles, so it’s probably them same shits who was throwing body parts around last Sunday. Unless the mine owners robbed theirselves to collect the fucking insurance.”

“I’ll see what I can find out.”

“I am disappointed, Mr. Puller. I had supposed this matter would have been taken care of by now.”

“Well, they been laying low, Mr. Suggs. And until now we never really had nothing on them to take them in.”

“Was the slaughter of Mr. Wosznik’s dog nothing? Their outrageous behavior Sunday at the hill? The attack on Cavanaugh’s car? They probably do not even have proper licenses. I know for certain that at least one of them is too young. And some of their motorcycles may have been stolen. Have you checked into that? No, you have waited too long, Mr. Puller, and now we have a serious problem. The theft is undermining my negotiations with the owners for the purchase of the mine. They refer to those bikers as ‘my people.’ This will not do.” “They’re at the top of our agenda now.”

“I should very much hope so, Mr. Puller. We also need your assistance at the church camp. I promised them protection against threatened assaults until they could organize their own security, and I expect you to provide that. Our Patriots organization will be loaning them arms, and perhaps you can make the proper arrangements. You and Mr. McDaniel can provide training. But we have to be cautious. We don’t want to put guns in the hands of unreliable people. And there is no need for powerful weapons, just enough to serve as a deterrent and protect the periphery.”

“I can do that.”

“And we have a possible problem of trespass. The rules of the campsite prohibit use of the main buildings for personal residences, but some of the persons who have come here from elsewhere are presently occupying them. If they do not leave voluntarily, they may have to be removed forcibly.”

“My old faceboss, you mean. Just let me know.”

“I will do so. Now either lock that motorcycle gang up or run them out of here. They are a dangerous threat to law and order. I expect results, Mr. Puller.”

“Dave Osborne?”

“You got him.”

“Dave, this is Ted Cavanaugh over at the bank. How’s it going over there at the old footwear emporium?”

“I’m having a hard time beating away the traffic. Sold a pair of shoelaces just yesterday. Or maybe the day before. You calling for a look at the books?”

“No, this is something else, Dave. There’s been a break-in out at Deepwater. From your time out there as night mine manager, what do you figure might have got taken?”

“Can’t imagine anything worthwhile left behind.”

“What was usually kept there?”

“Tools. Lamps and helmets. Tags. Electrical gear, that sort of thing.”

“Any weapons?”

“I don’t think so. Unless you call old mine picks a weapon. The mine managers on duty got issued a pistol, but I don’t think it’s there anymore.”

Meaning, he took it home with him. “That’s it?”

“Far as I can remember. Maybe some dynamite.”

“Dynamite?”

“Yeah. For shot firing in the old days. It was how coal was loosened from the face. A few years back, we switched to compressed air. A lot safer. We probably got rid of the dynamite, though I remember seeing it on inventories.”

“Dynamite. Holy mackerel.”

“And then Jim got hit by a dead bird and ended up on TV. They’re calling it the Headless Annunciation. God help us if he’s pregnant.” It is Sally’s mother, spreading her daily evangel. “Well, you know Jim, Em. Always in the wrong place at the right time.”

Em does know Jim. Back in high school her mom and dad and the couple who are now the Wetherwaxes used to double date. Only, with each other’s present mates. Who came out best? It’s a draw. Though Archie at least has a real job working for the phone company. They used to park out at the lakes and go for a moonlight swim together. Or anyway they did that once. The family legend. Now the two women talk about their men like pets they keep and clean up after. Sally writes: They were just having fun playing around in offbeat short stories, when suddenly they found themselves in the middle of a hackneyed genre novel. Written by the dim-witted little town whose covers they’re clapped in.

“Jim doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut, especially if it’s past eleven in the morning and he’s had a couple. And Ted’s got no sense of humor. Have I said that before?” Will she be able to write her own story? Will it be any better? She thumbs through the notebook to find her drawing of the sleeping prince, sketches in a black phone receiver by his ear, and above it writes: Hello? Hello…? “I suppose you heard about those bikers attacking Ted’s car? He was coming back from a business meeting, and when he told Jim about it, Jim said it sounded like a gang of typical wildhair bankers to him and asked whether Ted noticed if anyone he’d been meeting with had any tattoos, and Ted blew up at him, called him a stupid goddamned you-know-what. Jim still doesn’t know why, but since then he’s started drinking at ten instead of eleven.”

Telephones, she writes. The disembodied self as sown voice. Which is more real, speaker or spoken? The spoken can remain, the speaker cannot. Thus: back to gestures, foreskins.

“Yes, I know, Em, Archie can put it away, too. But at least he has to wait until after he’s stopped climbing telephone poles.” Once, when she had scarlet fever, Sally had to lie all day in the dark, her only entertainment the radio. The voices she heard seemed to hover in the dark like real presences. It’s like that sometimes reading a novel. That weird thing called voice. There but not there, hovering over the text. But nothing is disembodied. That’s a religious idea. Writing, radio, telephony: It’s all just a vaudeville act. Like the first phone conversation. Come here. I want you. A novel in five words. “Yes, I heard that. She’s got Wes penned up in her garage. What do you think’s going on there? Oh yeah? Tell me, I’m all ears…” As an image would that be two big ears or a cluster of them, like that fire god who her anthro prof said was called “the thousand-testicled one”? Sitting bored in class, she tried to draw that, couldn’t. A hundred maybe, max. Small ones.

“It has been a long time since the last inventory, Ted, but the mine owners promised to check it. They are probably nervous about it and may try to cover it up.”

“Nervous?”

“Well, they still own the mine and could be held responsible for leaving such hazardous material unsecured. Especially if it were to be employed in a crime.”

“That could be useful, Nick. The city is backing out of the purchase of the hill, at least at the current asking price, so we may have to try to stop this sale some other way.”

“We have grounds for any number of temporary injunctions. I think we can keep them from taking the hill over for a year at least. Don’t know, though, if we can keep them off it at the same time.”

“And what about the sources of the cult’s money? Where is it all coming from? Have you looked into our own church accounts?”

“I have. Mrs. Edwards seems to have funneled most of the church’s income from the sale back into the camp. Presumably for a Presbyterian halfway house for troubled teenagers, which she’s allegedly building out there. Should be easy to go after her. Getting the money back is another matter. She has also cleaned out her husband’s accounts. Completely illegal. He could sue her.”

“Wes is not part of the real world, Nick. I’m still working on getting him committed. For his own good as much as ours. But there’s talk about their having the wherewithal to build a church on top of that hill. Where the hell did they get it? Can’t be from the camp sale. Suggs again?”

“Well, I’ve hesitated to tell you, but you may be buying it for them.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was asking myself the same question: How can they pay for this? So I went scouting around through accounts, looking for large withdrawals and I think I found what I was looking for. It’s bad news, Ted. It’s your wife.”

“What? Irene?”

“Over the past few months she has been moving her funds into a separate account in a bank up in the city. And from there it has almost certainly gone straight into the cult account.”

“But she’s bedridden! How—?”

“Well, she has a telephone. Gave a corporate tax lawyer up in the city power of attorney, and he set it up for her. Know a guy named Thornton? Edgar Thornton?”

“Yeah, I know him. Thorny. Irene’s old college beau before she met me. A Deke.”

“A what?”

“Fraternity guy. Different fraternity. Jesus. I can’t believe this. Can we put a restraining order on the transfer? Non compos mentis, and all that?”

“Probably too late. It’s already gone. Some of it may have been handed over in cash.”

“Or freeze the Brunist accounts?”

“We can try. It’ll be a painful thing, you know.”

“It’s already painful, Nick. Right this minute, I’m having trouble breathing.”

“Eh, ciao, bello. Howza lawr’n-order racket?”

“Had to shoot a stray dog week before last. How’s things up in the big city?”

“Ah, you know, Demetrio, wine, women, and song, the usual stronzata. I miss the old neighborhood.”

“Sure you do.”

“Ascolta, cugino, I’m calling about a hometown boy there, see if I can’t do him a favor since I owe him one. Un buon ragazzo, Charlie Bonali, Vince’s boy—you know him?”

“I know him.”

“He’s a little hard up just now and could use a job. I thought you might have something there for him.”

“Well, there is a police job opening up here, I think, but—”

“Now ain’t that amazing! I thought there might be. And you got problems. You got some lunatic Jesus freaks down there.”

“They’re outside town and so far they mostly been only bothering each other. But—”

“But you never know, right? Those people are completely pazzo!”

“They’re a bit weird.”

“I know, I gotta deal every day here with spics and sambos and dumb hillbillies, all of ’em mostly bombed outa their dim little melons, either with dope or that yelling they call praying. Count yourself lucky! But you’ll like Charlie. He’s big and he’s brave and he takes no shit from nobody.”

“Well, he can come in for a—”

“Except you’n me, right? Shit from you’n me he takes like ice cream.”

“There are other guys running this town. I don’t have the final say who—”

“Right, you got that tinhorn ex-shoe salesman down there, what’s his name, Cass-hole?”

“Yeah, the mayor.”

“I hear he’s been muscling in on our neighborhood, squeezing our people with some kinda fucking protection racket.”

“He’s been campaigning.”

“Well, he won’t be doing that no more, capitano. And you just tell him who you want. I got a feeling he’ll be open to suggestion.”

“I don’t know. The mayor’s got some powerful backers. The bank, for example. And the bank has recently hired a sharp new lawyer who seems to have his eye on just about everything.”