Nancy shook her head. "No. I don't know her."
I had finished my lobster salad and my beer. Three whiskies and a beer at midday and I was feeling mushy. Nancy ate the last of her steak. "Why are you interested in all this?" she said.
"Off the record?" I'd always wanted to say that to a reporter.
"Deep background," Nancy said.
"Sherry's missing. Banks claims she was kidnapped by the Reorganized Church of the Redemption."
Nancy raised her eyebrows. "The Bullies kidnapped her?"
"That's what Banks said."
"You sound skeptical," she said.
"Not really skeptical, it's a deep-seated habit I've developed from spending the last twenty years talking with people who speak with forked tongue."
"Cynical," she said.
"More than that. The story doesn't make a lot of sense. First of all, it sounds just like the Hearst kidnapping, and second, Banks never called the cops. Says he doesn't want a media circus like the Hearst case."
"That may be the definition of ego," Nancy said. "Imagining yourself worthy of a media circus. The Hearsts maybe, but Tommy Banks?"
"I know. He also said he was ashamed that he hadn't died trying to save her."
She shrugged. "More convincing. I believe he has some kind of belt in karate. But . . ." Nancy shrugged and widened her eyes.
"Five people with automatic weapons-doesn't make much difference what kind of belt you have."
"I would think not," Nancy said.
The waiter took our dessert order. Nancy had apple pie and cheese. I had black coffee.
"Why would they take her," Nancy said.
"Banks says they want to make her one of them."
"Aggressive proselytizing," Nancy said. "But why her, why not me, or you? You look like you might be hard, but you see what I'm asking."
"Banks said she'd been involved before. `A brief flirtation when she was in college,' he said."
"And once a Bullie, always a Bullie?"
"I don't know. That's my next stop. I'm consulting a specialist on fruitcakes."
"Fruitcakes? How unsympathetic a view of religion," Nancy said.
There was a small swallow of beer left in my glass. I drank it.
"Malt does more than Milton can," I said, "to justify God's ways to man."
CHAPTER 8
The priest was an arrogant one, full of his own knowledge and the pleasures of his impending salvation. But he knew a lot about the Reorganized Church of the Redemption and if I had to suffer a certain amount of foolishness to get the information, I could smile and smile and be agnostic.
"The Bullies," he said, "are a macho subspecies of Christianity. They believe in the concept of Christian soldiers and worship the Christ who scourged the moneylenders from the temple, not He who suffered His own crucifixion."
I smiled and nodded. We were in Father Keneally's office at B.C., a big corner room in one of the handsome graystone buildings on the Quadrangle. On the walls there were pictures of Keneally with Cardinal Cushing, with a couple of former governors, and standing with an arm around the shoulders of a football player named Fred Smerlas. Smerlas was enormous and Keneally was not and the gesture looked strained. The opposite wall was covered with books on shelves and as Keneally talked I had no reason to doubt that he'd read them all.
"Would they kidnap somebody?"
Keneally raised his eyebrows. He was small and neat with an expensive black summer priest suit, and pink healthy-looking skin and crisp white hair cut short. He smelled of bay rum and his nails appeared to have been manicured. A decanter of wine, maybe port, stood on the windowsill and the afternoon sun slanting through it made a purple gleam on the beige Oriental rug that covered the office floor.
"Kidnapping is not part of most Christian rituals," he said.
I wanted to sigh. It was the kind of answer he'd give.
"Neither was the rack and the strappado, as far as I know," I said.
The priest steepled his hands and placed them against his lower lip and nodded, smiling slightly. "You might think of these people as a kind of Christian version of the Jewish Defense League. They are activist. They might use force to achieve the goals of the religion."
"Is it really a religion," I said.
"Are you asking me to define religion, Spenser? In one sense a religion is a religion if it says it is a religion. The Bullies believe in a supreme being and a system of conduct derived from that supreme being's teachings and precepts."
Sigh.
"Religious belief is rather like love," Keneally said. "It can manifest itself in various experiential forms."
"Is Bullard Winston a genuine religious leader?" I said. "Or is he a charlatan."
"Power corrupts, Spenser. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Winston certainly appeared sincere at the outset, but now I can't be sure. There was some talk of drug use once, but nothing more than ecumenical gossip. Few men are immune to the temptations that reside in absolute authority. Those who resist most successfully are perhaps the recipients of divine aid."
Keneally leaned back in his swivel chair and crossed his ankles on the desktop. A fortunate recipient of divine aid. His black oxfords gleamed with polish.
"How does the church feel about Winston's chances for divine aid?"
"There is, in my view, and it reflects the best thinking currently in the church, little justification for the Bullies' militancy in doctrinal sources, in patristic writing, or in scripture."
"How big," I said.
"Membership? Perhaps ten thousand nationwide. The founding church is here, in Middleton, and there are mission churches in a number of cities across the country and abroad-somewhere in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, I've heard. It seems to have a good funding base, and seems to be well managed."
"You have an address for the church headquarters?"
"No, but it is in Middleton and should be listed in the phone book."
"Okay," I said. "I'll go visit them. Any summation you'd care to give me before I go?"
"I don't know how much reason you have to be wary of these people," Keneally said, "but I have none. As far as I know the church leaders and membership are sincere, if doctrinally unsophisticated. The Bullies pose no threat to the established church or, as far as I know, to the established order. Its membership is probably disenchanted with more orthodox worship, and like so many other fringe religions, the Bullies provide a complete life, albeit a limited one. It is communal, rather rigidly ruled, and vigorously organized by a single purpose. Certain kinds of people find it a very attractive alternative to lives that have been chaotic or aimless."
"The Bullies are not the only source for that kind of satisfaction," I said.
"Indeed not." Keneally smiled. "Many in my calling are drawn by something not dissimilar. But the Bullies also, of course, represent an antiestablishment, and-for lack of a better word-revolutionary, option. The established churches are just that, established, and would thus be less inviting to a certain kind of person."
"A life with mission and without uncertainty," I said, "with some revolutionary zeal for frosting."
Keneally nodded. "One could do worse," he said.
"One often does," I said.
CHAPTER 9
The founding church of the Reorganized Church of the Redemption was on the former site of an animal park and theme village off Route 114 in Middleton. There were about fifteen acres with a green, and a plain white church at one end. Several bungalows lined each side of the green and behind them some small outbuildings, and then gardens. The whole thing looked like a cut-rate version of Old Sturbridge Village.
I pulled in onto the gravel drive that circled the green and drove up and parked beside the church. It looked like any New England village church. In the gardens behind the bungalows a number of people were working.
I walked up the front steps of the church and into the foyer. A sign said OFFICE, and an arrow pointed left. I went left. There was a set of stairs and another arrow. I followed the arrow down and in the basement of the church found a collection of office cubicles separated by frosted glass partitions. There was air-conditioning and fluorescent light and the sound of typewriters. A young woman at the reception desk said, "May I help you."
She had a frizzy perm and some makeup. She wore a white blouse with a round collar and an olive skirt.
"Is there someone who normally talks to people with questions," I said.
"Questions about the church, sir?"
"Yes."
"Mr. Owens is our director of community relations," she said.
"May I speak with him," I said.
"Certainly, sir. Would you have a seat. I'll see if Mr. Owens is free."
I sat and she stood, and walked down the corridor. She was wearing high-heeled shoes with no backs and her tan legs were bare. Not bad hips for a religious zealot. Susan had told me that those kind of shoes were called fuckme shoes. "On the assumption that you didn't want to order them in quite that way to a saleslady at Filene's," I had said, "what else would you call them?" Susan had said that she'd simply have to find some and point. She'd never heard them called anything else. Probably called hold-my-hand shoes here.
The receptionist returned and smiled and said Mr. Owens would see me. I followed her down the hall and she ushered me into one of the cubicles. There was a gray metal desk and two gray metal chairs and a file cabinet and a picture of a man, probably Bullard Winston, on the wall. Owens stood and put out his hand.
"Bob Owens," he said.
Owens was tall and trim with sandy hair and some freckles. His hands had large knuckles and they cracked slightly when we shook hands. He had on a seersucker suit and a white shirt and a light yellow tie.
I sat in one of the metal chairs and said, "I am looking for a young woman named Sherry Spellman." I took my license out and handed it across to him. He looked at it, smiled, handed it back.
"Not a flattering likeness," he said.
"It didn't have much of a start," I said. He nodded.
"Sherry is with us," he said.
"Here?" I said.
Owens smiled. "She is with us," he said.
"I'd like to speak with her if I may."
"I'm sorry, sir, that isn't possible," Owens said.
"Why not?"
"She has sought refuge with us. We cannot very well violate her refuge at the first request."
"She's here voluntarily?"
Owens put his head back and smiled and rolled his eyes at the ceiling. "My God, yes. How else would she be here? This is a Christian church."
"Her friend says she was taken forcibly. That's why he hired me."
Owens didn't smile. "That is absurd," he said. "Who is this friend?"
I shook my head. "No need for you to know," I said.
"The charge may well be actionable," Owens said. His face was severe, and with his freckles he looked like an angry child.
"Simple charge to disprove," I said. "Let me talk with her."
"No. I cannot. She has a right to sanctuary. She has a right to come here and be undisturbed."
"I appreciate that. On the other hand, you can probably appreciate why I can't just take your word for it."
"I'm afraid you'll have to."
"There are several ways to do this. But the easiest would be to talk with your boss. May I see him?"
"Mr. Spenser," Owens said. "This is harassment, and it is intolerable. Sherry Spellman is here of her own volition, she is well and happy and does not wish to be bothered. That is the end of it. You'll have to leave."
"Another way would be I could call the cops," I said.
Owens pushed a button on his multibutton telephone and in ten seconds the frizzyhaired receptionist stuck her head in the door.
"Ask Corey to send a couple of men down here, please, Miss Chase."
"Yes, sir," Miss Chase said, and pulled her head out and closed the door.
"Or I could get up and go out and begin to look through the buildings," I said. "See if she is here."
"I have requested two church deacons to come by and escort you from church property, Mr. Spenser: I'm sorry to be so brusque, but we do not turn the other cheek here. And we do not accept intimidation. And we believe in direct, immediate, and vigorous action when necessary."
There was a knock and Owens nodded and two large young men came in wearing white short-sleeve shirts and chino pants. They were both obvious body builders. One had a crew cut, the other was balding, though he was still in his twenties, and combed the sparse brown hair over the bald parts. Vanity even here.
I said to Owens, "I will need to see Sherry Spellman and talk with her. And I will. But busting up your deacons this morning doesn't seem like the way to go about it." I stood up. "I'll be in touch," I said. No one spoke. I walked past the deacons and out of the church. They followed and stood on the church steps and watched me as I drove away.