Small-town attitude. He couldn't help feeling this was going to be more of a problem than he'd anticipated. He half thought about heading right out of town, back to LA, calling Johnny later and saying, Thanks but no thanks. The pleasure of meeting your old man will just have to wait, Bro. Good luck with the rest of your life.
But that life was wrapped up in his now. For better or worse, he couldn't bring himself to just walk away.
He paused at the intersection where a green sign with white letters indicated the Verner Pass Highway. The road pointed up into the mountains.
The LaSalle compound was up there. What had Johnny called it? Beth-El. Whatever that meant.
Steve made the turn.
Beth-El's entrance appeared a few hundred heavily wooded yards from the highway. The private road was well marked with No Trespassing signs and ended at a huge black iron gate. On either side of the gate was an eight-foot wall, covered with ivy. It might have been the entrance to Yale or Harvard. But it was so out of place in these mountains, where wooden A-frames and ersatz log cabins were the more common design.
To Steve, Beth-El seemed the sort of enclave an eccentric with a lot of money and strong opinions could hole up in without worrying about someone sneaking in one night with a gun and a grudge.
Steve got out of his Caddy and pressed the button on a call box by the gate. A voice asked who it was and Steve told him and the voice said to wait.
Leaning against the Ark, Steve listened to the sounds of the woods and the wind in the trees. He wondered why he felt so nervous. He'd been around great wealth before, from the outside looking in, of course. He'd once prosecuted a rich Hollywood agent who was into forcing sex with his female clients. The guy had all the monuments of power and money, including a huge house in Pacific Palisades with a killer view of the Pacific Ocean.
Now all he had was a view of the exercise yard at the CMC in San Luis Obispo.
Money and land were the hard currency of California, unless you ended up doing hard time in the slam. Like Johnny had. And now it was Steve's job to keep him out forever, and maybe do the same for Eldon LaSalle.
Steve heard the crunch of steps approaching. Through the iron bars he saw the big guy he'd met at Johnny's place. Rennie. That was it. He was dressed in a tight, slate-colored T-shirt that gave him the look of an industrial press, like the one that crushed Arnold Schwarzenegger in
The Terminator.
Without a word, Rennie opened a box and entered something on a keypad.
The iron gate slowly swung open.
Rennie said, “Drive up to the house.” An order.
Steve got in the Ark, drove in, and saw in his mirror the iron gate swinging closed. Like prison gates.
The asphalt drive was cracked with age and covered with pine needles. It twisted for a quarter mile through a healthy blanket of trees. The place was enormous, like some sort of game preserve. Eldon LaSalle was, at the very least, a land baron. He'd done pretty well with tax dodges and bad racist fiction.
Steve took a couple more curves, then hit a straightaway into a clearing. And saw a mansion. No, mansions were too small. It was a
manor
. Or a fortress, one made of stone and redwood and gables with copper cornices. Paul Bunyan â sized steps led up to an expansive porch, and what looked like the door of a European cathedral. Only this door had horns of some kind prominently displayed.
Steve pulled the Ark to a stop in front of the steps and looked up and saw Johnny there. For a moment the horns on the door framed Johnny's head.
“Welcome, little brother!” Johnny called. “Come on up.”
As Steve got out of his car, he noticed a couple of men off to the side, dressed in jeans and blue work shirts and military haircuts. They were just looking at him. The new arrival.
“What do you think of the place?” Johnny said.
Steve started up the steps. “Impressive.”
“Impressive? You ain't seen nothin' yet. Come in and check it out.”
Johnny pushed the door open and motioned Steve inside.
The first thing Steve saw was a moose head mounted on the wall. A big one, with cold glass eyes staring. If this were Disneyland, it might have blinked a couple of times and started talking. Welcome to Mooseland, kids!
The interior design was like a 1920s hunting lodge, a place William Randolph Hearst might have built for his buddies weekending for a little elk bagging. Everything was wood and rustic, with ornaments and furniture and fabrics that all seemed to come from antler-bearing beasts.
The doorways were all extra wide, as if trucks backed through them regularly.
“You a hunter, Steve?” Johnny said, leading him down a long dim hallway.
“Never took it up,” Steve said.
“Boy, you don't know what you're missing. There's nothing like the hunt.”
“Do you hunt for your food here?”
“Food and sport. You know, in the joint, there were two things I wanted right away when I got out. And the second thing was to go hunting.”
He winked at Steve.
“Third day I was back,” Johnny said, “me and Eldon went out with bows and I bagged me a big old buck. That's getting down to it, don't you think?”
“Down to what?”
“The elements. The essentials. Man against nature and all that.”
“Like
Moby Dick
.”
“Whatever.” He opened an oak door at the end of the hall.
“Come in and meet the old man.”
Steve hesitated, half expecting flames to shoot out of the room.
I am Oz!
Indeed, the most prominent feature in the room was the fireplace. It was the first thing Steve saw. It could hardly be avoided. It was maybe six feet high, with an ornate mantel of white stone. In the stone was a bas-relief Steve couldn't quite make out. It looked intense, like the fire crackling in the fireplace.
Another in a seemingly unending collection of huge antlers hung above the mantel. There were two further sets of antlers on the far wall, just above a solid oak bookcase packed with neat, leather-bound volumes. A leather wingback chair faced the bookshelf. Steve saw the top of a head in the chair, and smoke swirling up from in front of it.
“Pop,” Johnny said, “here he is.”
The head did not move.
The chair did. With a
whirring
that sounded just like a âWheelchair.
Eldon LaSalle was in the biggest, plushest wheelchair Steve had ever seen. A control panel with joystick â they did call them joysticks, didn't they? â took up the right arm of the chair.
Eldon LaSalle wheeled forward.
He was dressed in a red flannel shirt and black suspenders. He might have been a farmer, or a mortician on his day off. In his mouth a black briar pipe smoldered, the smoke framing his head like a halo of haze. His face was long and equine, his ears too big for the head. Gray, owlish eyes peered at Steve through the pipe smoke, the kind of eyes that miss nothing. Steve guessed him to be in his late seventies.
He put his hand out. Steve met him halfway, right in front of the roaring fire. He took LaSalle's hand. It was bony but strong and seemingly covered with leather, just like the chair. When he tried to let go, LaSalle kept the grip. He still had his pipe in his mouth. Steve could smell the blend now. It was a deep woodland smoke, something fit for a wizard.
“I've heard a great deal about you,” Eldon said in a deep, resonant voice. Almost too much voice for the thin body.
“Good, I hope,” Steve said.
“There is none good, but God alone.”
All this while gripping Steve's hand and staring straight into his eyes. Steve felt like the cobra looking at the charmer.
Finally Eldon let go of Steve's hand, removed his pipe, and smiled a mouthful of yellow teeth. On his lap was a red, leather-bound book. He held it up. “Plato,” he said. “You know Plato?”
“Not personally,” Steve said.
“He got as close to God as one can get without knowing Jesus Christ. Quite an accomplishment.” He held the book out to Johnny, who took it and walked it to the bookshelf.
“I'm happy to welcome you, my son,” Eldon said. “For that is what you are. A brother to Johnny.”
Steve swallowed, nodded.
“And what do you think of my home?”
“Quaint. A little vacation getaway.”
“Far from it. This is Beth-El. The House of God. âAnd God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Beth-el, and dwell there: and make there an altar unto God.' Do you know your Bible?”
“Um, not really.”
“Ah, the riches that await you.”
Steve smiled weakly, and looked again at the bas-relief on the fireplace. He could see it clearly now. Some figures in ancient garb, with serious faces and raised arms, loomed over a pathetic-looking man on the ground. He cowered, about to receive something very unpleasant.
“Do you like it?” Eldon LaSalle asked.
“Gets your attention,” Steve said.
“I had it commissioned. It is the stoning of Achan.”
Steve tried not to look overly befuddled.
Eldon paused, then waved a spectral hand at the artwork. “A division of Joshua's army was defeated by the city of Ai. Joshua rent his garments, for he thought the Lord was with him. But Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed things. A trespass before the Lord.”
Steve had no idea what Eldon LaSalle was talking about. He looked to the side, at Johnny, who smiled with a go-with-the-flow look.
Eldon continued. “So Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan and the accursed things, and his sons and his daughters and his oxen and asses and sheep, and his tent, and all that he had, took them to the valley of Achor. And all Israel stoned him with stones, and burned them with fire.”
“Ouch,” Steve said.
“Exactly,” Eldon said. “The commands of the Lord are serious things, but he is a God of mercy and love when you obey him.
When you don't hurt your own tribe, when you're on the right side.” Eldon placed his hand on Steve's shoulder. “Glad to have you on our side, Son.”
Johnny said, “We finally got a lawyer we can trust, Pop.”
“Indeed.” Eldon LaSalle's owl eyes probed Steve's. Steve felt like he was being searched and warned at the same time. And wondered if there was a stone pile on the grounds somewhere.
“There is nothing worse than a lawyer you can't trust,” LaSalle said. “But I'm sure you know that. And now it is time to break bread together. Enjoy the earth's bounty, Son.”
The dining hall was like something out of the old
Knights of the
Round Table
movie. Dim lighting in the windowless chamber was provided by two wrought-iron chandeliers hanging from the high-beamed ceiling. A dark wood table ran nearly the whole length of the hall. As Steve walked in, twenty or so men were standing behind large wooden chairs.
Silent.
Most of them had a similar look. Short hair and work clothes. The arms with prison tats. The look of the ex- or soon-to-be con.
His new family?
Johnny led Steve to one of the empty chairs and left him there. Steve assumed the silent stance. When in Rome. When in the house of God.
He looked at the guy directly across from him. The guy stared back aggressively. Like if Steve went for the potatoes au gratin too soon he'd get his hand slapped.
He scanned the rest of the assembly, saw Rennie about halfway down, looking at him. Neal was next to Rennie. Johnny had gone to the other end of the table to the chair by the head. The only empty chair now.
A few minutes ticked by. Some of the guys at the table had their eyes closed. Praying? Or wishing the food was there?
Then Eldon LaSalle appeared at the far end. Steve hadn't heard any door open. It was almost like the old man had materialized through the wall. The wingback wheelchair hummed to the head of the table. He paused, then raised his hands.
At that, everybody bowed heads. Steve didn't. Until he saw Eldon looking straight at him. Steve closed his eyes.
Eldon's voice rose like a down-home preacher's. “ âThe LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell.' ”
Eat up my flesh? Steve thought. Bring on dinner.
“ âThough an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident. One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life.' ”
If we ever get to dinner.
“ âFor in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock. Arise, O LORD; save me, O my God: for thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek bone; thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly.' Amen.”
A hail of voices answered, “Amen.”
Everyone sat.
Steve did too, in front of a table setting of pewter and silver.
Then the entertainment began.
A line of women, seven of them, varying in age, in simple, long cotton dresses, entered with platters and bowls of food, and dishes and pitchers. They began to serve and the men began to talk. The guy to Steve's right said, “So whattaya think, uh?”
He wore a buzz cut and scowl. Steve said, “What are we having?”
“Venison, hunted down by the ladies themselves.”
“They hunt?”
“With the best.”
“Is that legal?” Steve asked. “I mean, it isn't hunting season, is it?”
The guy gave Steve a half smile and a wink.
“Ah,” Steve said. “So what do they hunt with?”
“Rifle or bow. Taught by the Master himself.”
“Master?”