Let the Fire Fall Page 5

  Blake never mentioned his former life, Matt, Lisa, Derek, or Lorna. He never spoke of his dog, or his friends. He hardly spoke at all, unless Obie ordered him to, and then his answer was short to the point of rudeness, and direct with an honesty that was infuriating. Dee Dee asked him if he liked her hair down or up, and he said the question was silly. She was beautiful either way and knew it, but why did she always have to make someone else say it for her? Everett, desperately trying to make up, asked him if he’d like to go to a circus and Blake said, no thank you, he didn’t like the way Everett tried to pull him to his lap, and he didn’t like Everett’s soft hands on his arm or leg. And Obie said he’d kill Everett if he ever. Everett spent the night on his knees weeping and praying for strength, and the next day he vanished into the slum area of Dallas and didn’t reappear for three days, and for months he avoided Blake. Wanda tried repeatedly to make him understand that she had been hired by Obie, that she was morally bound to carry out his directions, and that it hadn’t been wrong for a father to want his child. Blake stared at her each time without answering, and when she finally pressed him for a reaction, he said, “Probably that’s how the captains of the slave ships excused what they did. They were doing their jobs.” Wanda blanched and launched into further explanation.

  Dee Dee tried to talk to Obie about the kid and the effect he was having on them all. “Obie,” she said, “send him back. I’ve been watching the way you look at him. You’re scared to death of the kid.”

  “Shut up. Get lost.”

  “Sure. You had an itch and you didn’t know how to scratch it. You thought the kid was the answer, but you still got the itch, Obie. Send him back.”

  “He’s important. He’s a part of it all.”

  “Yeah? For chrissakes, how? He’s a troublemaker, that’s what.”

  “Beat it, Dee Dee. I don’t know how. If I knew I’d be using him. It’ll come to me. Just shut up about him.”

  Dee Dee went to Billy. “See if you can talk sense into him, Billyboy.”

  “Won’t do any good. Obie’s a superstitious fool. He’s his own most tied-up follower, and he doesn’t know what it is he’s following. From the first time he laid eyes on the kid, it’s been different. He never went after a chick like this. There’ve been plenty hot for a quick tumble in the sack with God’s Voice, and he couldn’t have cared less. But the kid… that’s been different. Have you seen the way he watches him? He’s scared shitless over the kid and he doesn’t know why.”

  “I’ve seen,” Dee Dee said. “I don’t like all this, Billy. Something’s happening to Obie, he’s changing. I just don’t like it.”

  Obie was changing. One day it all fell into place and there was no more mystery, no more tension in Obie’s life, although the superstitious dread that they all had commented on was to remain with him, hidden, ready to pull him again whenever Blake was the issue. What happened at that time, though, was this: Obie found religion.

  It came about this way: Dee Dee slammed a car door and caught three fingers of her left hand in it. She screamed with pain, and screamed again when she saw the bleeding bruised fingers. The fingernails would go, maybe she’d have stiff fingers now. She might need surgery. They were staying in a motel outside Detroit where Obie was holding a revival nightly for ten days. Obie had been practicing his sermon when her shrill screams sounded. By the time he got to her side, the others were already there, with Blake in the background watching with large, sober, gray eyes. He was staring at Dee Dee’s ghastly face, not her hand. And still staring at her face, compelling her attention to himself, he went to her and took her hand, not looking at all at the blood and the mangled fingers.

  “Dee Dee,” he said softly. “It’s all right. Don’t cry.” She gasped, swayed, and yanked her hand from his and stared at it.

  “It doesn’t hurt,” she said. “It doesn’t hurt!” Billy broke the tableau after a moment. “Come on inside,” he said. “Let’s clean it up and have a look.” Obie took Blake’s arm and pulled him along when he started to hang back. Inside Billy’s room Dee Dee let him wash her fingers and examine them closely. She was calm now and almost uninterested in her hand. Her eyes turned again and again to Blake, who avoided her gaze embarrassedly.

  “They’re cut good,” Billy said, “turning black already. They’re a mess.”

  Dee Dee said, “I don’t want to lose the nails, Blake.”

  “You won’t,” Blake mumbled, trying to pull away from Obie.

  Obie stared at him, sweat broke out on his forehead, and he started to shiver. He dropped his hand from Blake’s arm and took a step backward; his face felt strangely numb, as if he were going to faint, or had just got up or something. They were all staring at Blake, and Wanda said it in a tone of awe and absolute belief, “A healer! My God, we’ve got a healer!” Obie staggered, was caught and steadied by Everett, and he stood weeping, open-mouthed, dizzy, and enlightened.

  After that Blake appeared on stage with Obie. He did nothing, said nothing, but cures happened and he was blessed. Endowments were set up for him, in his name, some to be administered by trusts, others to be handled by Obie.

  And three years after joining the group, seven months as an active participant in the services, Blake tried again to run away, and this time was successful. At a revival in Birmingham he managed to climb into the trunk of a ’59 Ford and hide there until the owners drove off to their home twelve miles from the tent. When they stopped the car, he waited for an hour, got out and started to walk north, keeping to the woods and unpaved roads, living on nuts and berries and stolen corn. He didn’t know where he was going, didn’t care, so long as it wasn’t back with Obie and his gang. He knew he couldn’t go back to Matt and Lisa. Obie would simply take him again, this time with lawyers and policemen. He would hide in the cities until he was grown up and no one could tell him what to do, and then he would be a doctor and work with his father.

  Obie stamped up and down his hotel room muttering to himself. No one else in the room dared speak. Dee Dee studied her nails; Billy smoked and drank; Wanda sighed and heaved herself up and down in a chair trying to get comfortable; it was getting harder all the time to find a comfortable chair. Everett Slocum sat behind a temple of fingers and prayed inaudibly.

  “I’ll give him ten minutes longer,” Obie said. “Then out.” He was talking about Merton, the chief of his security forces. Merton was in his thirties, tall and very thin. He had bad vision that required thick lenses for correction. Unable to adjust to contacts, he wore massive black-framed glasses. His long straight hair was black also. He was an ex-F.B.I. agent. He had joined the Bureau after college with the intention of receiving training from it, and then quitting, and this he had done. His own agency had been getting along all right when Obie hired him four years ago, but since then Merton had flourished beyond all expectations. Privately he had decided that working on the side of the holies was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

  Obie needed a drink. For the first time in almost a year he realized that he wanted and needed a drink. He examined the thought, looked at Billy with his never empty glass, and shrugged. He couldn’t remember when he had stopped drinking. And smoking. He had stopped smoking also, without being aware of it. Now he wanted a cigarette and a drink. There was a knock on the door and he yanked it open.

  “Well?” he demanded. Merton scowled and shrugged as he entered the room.

  “Nothing. Daniels hasn’t left home in the past week. His wife is there. They didn’t snatch the kid. I told you he upped and walked out. Like he did before.”

  “And I told you to find him and bring him back.”

  “Yeah. Look, Obie, we need pictures in the paper, and local police help. I got twenty men on this, and that’s not enough. One shot on TV could have him spotted in a day, but this way… ”

  “No publicity,” Obie said. Merton poured a drink for himself and downed it in a gulp then poured another. Obie’s urge to have a drink was gone now, and he was feeling somet
hing else. His eyes narrowed as he tried to pin it down. Very slowly he said, “Supposing this was all planned. All determined. He comes and stays with us for a couple, three years, then vanishes again. He’ll be back. We got to get things ready for his return.” Wanda stirred and her eyes widened as she watched him. Dee Dee looked blank and half asleep. Billy studied the contents of his glass and finally nodded.

  “That’s how to play it,” he said.

  “Play it? Play it!” Obie swung around to glare at Billy and there was fire in his eyes. “I play no games, Billy. I had a vision. He’ll be back when the time comes, but when he comes back this time he’ll expect to find his house in order. This is Armageddon now. Here. We are the advance guards, the banner carriers. There are only two camps, Billy. The camp of the godly, and the camp of the unbelievers. The atheists, Communists, whatever you call them. The ones who will not be led into the light. Time has run out for them. It’s our turn now. The word has been spoken and the word is Now. He came to us to show us his powers, and he is gone now to study and to sharpen his powers. When he returns he will be in person the God that we saw through him.”

  He talked on, his voice exultant now, swept up in his own words, and Billy, watching him, looking at the others in the room who were carried along with him, thought: “Well, I’ll be goddamned, he has swallowed his own line of crap.”

  INTERLUDE THREE

  Special to the N.Y. Times

  Crowds estimated to be well over one hundred fifty thousand filled the new Coliseum outside Detroit tonight. They came on crutches, in wheelchairs, accompanied by nurses and companions: thin unhappy-looking people, sick people, fat people. They filled the auditorium and when Bloke Daniels Cox took his place alongside Obie Cox you could feel the tension in the atmosphere mount. The sermon was long, and during it Blake didn’t move. He might have been asleep. Then Obie Cox prayed to God, beseeching Him to manifest Himself through Blake, and the boy looked at the people. He didn’t make a motion; he didn’t speak; he merely looked at the people. And the people responded magically. Headaches vanished; sight brightened; wobbly legs became strong; crutches were left behind; wheelchairs abandoned…

  Editorial from the Detroit Daily News

  Articles on articles, speeches on speeches, where and when will it all end? The Voice of God Church has grown from an idea in the head of a country boy to an organization that today numbers in the millions. The facts are these: Obie Cox has a magnetic personality and probably the greatest stage presence of any man in living memory. He has chosen his lieutenants with supreme core; they have functioned exactly as they should. When his church faltered, he introduced his son, who has even more charisma than the father. The church got over the hump that could have spelled its demise. Such unerring intuitive grasp of what his congregation will accept and believe is uncanny. We don’t know if the boy is a genius. It doesn’t matter if he heals; they believe he does. What does Cox actually give his believers? Permission to lie, cheat, hate. And prophecies of catastrophes. He hedges all bets, covers all angles, and gets converts…

  Testimony from tile transcripts of the A.M.A. hearings regarding the “cures” credited to Blake Daniels Cox (cont.)

  Q. Now, Mrs. Siddons, you were telling us yesterday about your spontaneous cure…

  A. Yessir. You see, my doctors always said that there wasn’t much they could do about a case so advanced like I was. You know, appendicitis out, and gall bladder; and most of my stomach, and spleen and kidney…

  Q. You had surgery when, Mrs. Siddons?

  A. All the time, yessir. And I says to my husband. John Siddons, that’s my husband, you see. I says to him that since I’m most near dead anyways, I might as well go and see if that son of Obie Cox can do me any good, because sure as hellfire, he couldn’t do me any harm, don’t you see. And he looked. Yessir?

  Q. Who was your doctor, Mrs. Siddons?

  A. Which one? I’ve had a passel of them.

  Q. Who performed the surgery to remove your kidney?

  A. Here’s a list of doctors. I seen all of them from one time to another. I think Jones, or was it Harriman? But he’ll know. You just ask him. After he was finished, he said— No, that was another time.

  Q. Mrs. Siddons, you realize, don’t you, that our examinations have shown you to be in excellent health, with an appendix, and both kidneys…

  A. That’s what I’m telling you. Obie Cox’s son done worked a real miracle on me!

  Chapter Six

  IT was raining in New York state, had been raining for three days now, and the wind was cold, the world dark and mist-shadowed. There were no edges on buildings, trees, rocks, anything. Rounded by fog and mist, the estate looked unreal, a double exposure used to illustrate a fantasy tale. Winifred turned from her window and paced her room some more. Turnover time again, she thought bitterly. Of all the initial team that had taken over the care of the Star Child, she was the only one remaining, and now they were being shuffled again. She kicked a hassock furiously. Her clock chimed four and she jerked the door open and marched down the heavily carpeted hallway to the conference room, where she expected to have her dismissal notice handed to her.

  Colonel Wakeman was in charge now. A psychologist of the Watson school, he had no use for Winifred. He was a pansy, she thought with disgust. Just what Johnny needed. Wakeman was forty-two, athletic, sunburned, virile-looking, and a pansy, who knew that she knew and hated her for knowing.

  At Wakeman’s side was Dr. Felix Duprey, the new pediatrician assigned to Johnny. He had the thick folder of medical records tucked under his arm. A brush moustache, sideburns, pot belly over long thin legs. She looked at the next of the new men. Leonard Mallard, who smiled and smiled, was in charge of security of the estate. Lenny had been there for almost a year before anyone had been let in on the secret that he was in charge. He had filled a vacancy in the lower echelons, ostensibly gathering information about the place and how it was run, and only in the past week had stepped up to his rightful position. And people had vanished overnight.

  There were others that she had met briefly: the Russian teacher, a French physical activities coach, consultants in all fields from other nations. She nodded and walked around the conference table to her seat. They were still waiting for Rose Laskey, the art instructor, a tall girl, twenty-seven, with long fluttery hands that could work magic with paper, clay, paints, all the accoutrements of her profession. Winifred suspected that Rose was C.I.A. She wondered again, as she often did, if she was the only one present who wasn’t holding down two positions.

  She wondered even more why no one had ever approached her about taking on the second, even more important job. Probably thought she was undependable.

  There were ten professionals on the estate, drawing salaries of fifty thousand to one hundred thousand dollars annually, plus whatever they drew that never was recorded for public disclosure. There were fifteen sub-professionals, the second-class professional; the assistants to the first-class professionals, etc., and they made an average of sixteen thousand dollars per year. There were twelve sub-sub-professionals, clerks, cooks, and menials of various sorts, low in rank on the estate, probably very high in offices whose doors came wrapped in plain brown paper. They made from six thousand to nine thousand dollars a year. Openly. Then there was the cost of the upkeep of this minor army. All told the bill came to over two million dollars every year. Quite a budget designated to the care and feeding of one skinny little boy.

  Wakeman cleared his throat and the meeting was under way. It was like most of the consultation meetings where various members gave verbose reports about the boy’s progress. Rose would produce art work; the doctors would read from their records and offer a prognosis for the coming months—always the same, colds, hay fever, asthma, prognosis favorable. Winifred’s report consisted of his psychic development. A mother’s baby book, one dollar over a ten-cent-store counter, conscientiously filled in, would have done the same job. Sometimes there was news of an impending Visit by a di
gnitary, the president of the United States, or the premier of Russia, or a representative of this or that church, but nothing of that sort came up this time. After the meeting Wakeman turned to Winifred and asked if she could stay for a private talk.

  She nodded. No one ever ordered anyone to do anything here, much too civilized for that. But she had been ordered, and she suspected, now it would come. Her pink slip. Did anyone ever actually get a pink slip? She never had seen one. Her mind followed the line of thought, pink slip, lingerie, Freudian slip…

  “Dr. Harvey, as you know your own work here has been indispensable to those who have studied the Star Child throughout the years. When the clearance has been lifted and you can publish your studies, your name will be placed among the other giants in the field.”