Walking to the building’s entrance, I noticed the limo driver, a giant of a man, leaning on the fender reading a newspaper. I nodded when he looked up. He pinned me with his hard eyes.
I pulled open one of the doublewide glass doors and entered the building. A long hallway led to the main auditorium. A few pictures hung on the walls, photographs of dour looking men, and farther down at the end of the hallway was a large portrait of Jesus-his beard was trimmed and neat, his long hair styled and combed to perfection. He had the look of a movie star. Like he might’ve bought his cloak and tunic at Sy Devor’s on Vine Street.
Several doors were cut into the hallway. I tried the one marked Office, but it was locked, so I continued on to the end of the hall which opened into a large auditorium.
The place didn’t look like any church I’d ever been in. It looked more like a basketball arena, high exposed-beam ceiling and wood floors, but there were no hoops in sight. And unlike a basketball court, the floor was covered with row upon row of gray metal folding chairs. At the north end, a large stage extended the width of the auditorium.
Up on the stage a small group of men and about a dozen young and attractive women stood in a circle. A guy standing in the middle of the group, wearing a pinstriped double-breasted suit, seemed to be getting all the attention. I walked purposefully toward the stage, as if I belonged there. One of the men, a tall, long-limbed guy dressed casually in denim pants and a short-sleeve white shirt, saw me coming.
“May I help you?” he called out.
I kept walking toward the stage, about thirty feet away. “Looking for Reverend Snavley,” I hollered back at the guy.
“I’m Reverend Elroy, Elroy Snavley, but we’re a little busy right now. Do you have an appointment?”
“Just need a second of your time.” I skirted the front row of chairs and moved to the center of the room. Nearing the edge of the stage, I looked up at the group. “Hey, I like your slogan, outside on the sign.” A little friendly banter to break the ice.
The other man, the one in the suit, stopped talking and made an irritated, shooing gesture directed at Reverend Elroy. He obviously wanted the reverend to get rid of me.
Elroy came to the edge of the stage and, squatting, looked down at me. He was about forty; a pleasant-looking guy, lightly freckled face, disheveled sandy hair, but his nose was too large to fit comfortably between his close-set eyes, which kept blinking.
“Oh, do you like my slogan?” he said. “I paraphrased Cicero. You know, ‘A room without books is like a body without a soul.’”
“Kinda sounded a little like the Gallo wine commercial, too,” I said. “You know, ‘A day without wine…’”
“Yeah, that too,” he said with a hint of irritation.
I didn’t want to tell him what Sol’s friend, a comedian, had said: ‘A day without sunshine is like night,’ didn’t want to get on Elroy’s bad side right out of the gate.
“Hey, Elroy, can we get on with this?” the man with the suit demanded.
The reverend glanced at the suit, then quickly back at me. “I’m sorry, sir, but as you can see I’m busy.”
The man in the suit stood stiffly with his chest puffed, glaring at me. He was in his mid-fifties, a little paunchy, and he had a large head with an abundance of silver hair, leonine in its grandeur. The man had an expensive barber, and his suit cost more than my car. The limo outside must be his, I presumed.
“It’s about Robbie Farris,” I said.
Elroy bolted upright and swiveled to Mr. Suit, the man obviously in charge.
The suit glared at me. His gaze felt like a blast from a hot furnace. “Come on, let’s talk,” he said.
CHAPTER 12
The rich guy’s name, I found out, was J. Billy Bickerton. I’d heard of him. Who hadn’t? He owned a string of evangelical TV stations across the nation. These religious, nonprofit stations made a lot of money, and Bickerton was very rich indeed.
“Okay,” he said, “let’s get to the point here. Just what do you want from us?”
I ignored Bickerton and addressed Reverend Elroy. “Reverend, I’m a lawyer, a member of the bar, and I’m defending Robbie Farris.”
The good reverend blanched. “I don’t know anything about him.”
Reverend Elroy’s plain, threadbare-carpeted office wasn’t much, maybe twenty-five feet long and about twelve feet wide with a small wood desk jammed at one end. We sat at a card table at the opposite end, away from the desk. Bickerton, the big shot, took a seat across from me. The Reverend was perched in his chair, on my right, nervous like a twittering finch.
“Hey, Mr. O’Brien, he doesn’t know the guy. So I don’t see how we can be of any help to you.”
“He knows Robbie, all right.” I turned to Reverend Elroy. “And I need a little information.”
“Yes, I knew him.” The reverend’s eyes darted around the room. “But I had nothing to do with him. But I hear he’s in trouble, disappeared.” He paused and when I didn’t say anything, he added, “Hey, it was in the papers.”
“He came here for help, and you sent him away.”
“Now look here, O’Brien,” Bickerton said. “You come waltzing in here all bent out of shape about some kid. Telling us you’re a lawyer, member of the bar and all that crap. I hate lawyers, leeches. May I call you Jimmy?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, Jimmy. Now what’s your fee? What do you charge for your services?”
“Fifty dollars an hour.”
“Same price as a Vegas whore.”
“Plus another fifty for Rockin’ Robbin.”
“Who’s that?”
“My pimp.”
He let out a guffaw. “I like your attitude, young man, but, you see, we’re real busy around here. Tell him, Elroy. Tell Jimmy just how busy you are.”
“I’m putting together a TV special,” Reverend Elroy said. “Very exciting, it will teach troubled kids that Christianity can be fun, more fun than drugs and rock ’n’ roll. But the show will have the type of entertainment they can relate to. Mr. Bickerton has agreed to air the show on his network.”
“Tell him about the dance number you wrote for the show, Elroy. Don’t be modest.”
The Reverend’s eyes blinked. “It’s called ‘Get Down and Funky With Jesus.’”
“It’s a hoot, I’ll tell you that,” Bickerton added. “All those cute little Christian gals shaking their booties for the Lord. Can’t miss.”
“That’s nice, Reverend,” I said to Elroy. “But didn’t you advise Mrs. Farris that her son would be better off going to a drug treatment center?”
Bickerton jumped in again. “Are you here to cause problems for Elroy? He’s already told you he had nothing to do with the kid.”
“I don’t want any trouble. I just want information about Robbie, his connection with the church, stuff like that. Might help in my search for him.”
“It’s a sad case, yes indeed, very sad.” Reverend Elroy shook his head. “But when he came here, he was too far gone, beyond even my ability to save him. As a last resort I recommended the intervention center to his mother, Mrs. Farris.”
“Jimmy, Reverend Elroy would rather not discuss any of this, isn’t that right, Elroy?”
“Why not?” I asked.
Bickerton went on to explain that going public about Robbie, talking about his membership in the drug rehab program, would not only be embarrassing, but it might jeopardize the church’s ability to acquire corporate sponsors whose cash was desperately needed to help save wayward teens. He said the reverend’s failure with Robbie was unique. Reverend Elroy Snavley worked with hundreds of teens, and one was bound to slip through the cracks. Why jeopardize the entire program because of one incorrigible misfit?
“Yes, Robbie doing those crazy things… well, it just might make Elroy look like a failure,” he added.
While he rattled on, I wondered what a big shot like Bickerton was doing here at this nothing Van Nuys church in the first place. I’d read in the L.A. Times that his outfit, The Holy Spirit Network, was huge, with forty or more stations, and they were looking to acquire an additional broadcasting outlet or two in the lucrative Southern California market. But why was he here now with Elroy Snavley? Anyway, I was getting a little tired of him jumping in every time I had a question for the reverend.