"Certainly. That's the appeal of the thing. The MC says, 'Mrs. Homer Popalwitz, here is your reward for devoting twenty-seven years of your life to caring for your dying mother.' And the curtain goes up dramatically on a three-day vacation in Rio."
"I like it. We can give cash when appropriate, but we'll concentrate on merchandise or package vacations or whatever reward seems most suitable. We'll have to have Smith's approval before we go any further."
"He'll love it," Naida said. "He's such a nice old man."
Smith loved it. Frayne told him, "We've worked out a religion for you. You're going to give people presents for being good - not just at Christmas, but all through the year. Is that what you want?"
Smith nodded happily.
Prockly was horrified. "It'll cost a fortune!"
"No, sir, it won't," Frayne told him. "A TV giveaway show doesn't pay off the entire studio audience - just three or four contestants. A giveaway religion wouldn't have to reward the entire congregation - just a few meritorious members at each meeting. Also, some of the rewards can be quite minor - a new pair of eye lenses, a pair of orthopedic shoes - and such relatively inexpensive things can be splendid rewards to a deserving person genuinely in need of them. And we can select our recipients so the rewards won't exceed a reasonable weekly budget."
Prockly thought for a moment. "Well - he is the PR Board winner, and if this is what he wants - get up an estimate of the capital outlay required to get the thing started, plus a weekly budget, and I'll ask the Governors how long they're willing to keep it going."
"We can count on a little income from the religion," Frayne said.
"How?" Prockly demanded.
"An offering usually is taken at a religious service."
"Well - maybe. But let's not count on very much."
Frayne went back to his office and brooded over his next problem, which was Alton Smith. With his revamped appearance, and in the robes Koten designed for him, Smith was a genuinely impressive religious figure - until he opened his mouth. Neither elocutionists nor a throat doctor had been able to do anything about his squeaky voice.
Frayne called in Harnon. "Smith has got to talk," he told him. "This religion will be his personal property, and it would spoil all his fun if he had to stand around and watch someone else perform. We can hire an assistant minister to do the sermons and keep the service going, but at an absolute minimum Smith should hand out the gifts himself and bless the congregation personally. Take a throat mike, and have him whisper, or purr, or murmur, or speak softly, or anything else you can think of, until he comes up with something that can be amplified into a respectable voice."
Charles Jaffner exclaimed, "They're really going to base the religion on Santa Claus?"
"Santa Claus and TV giveaway shows," Benjamin Franklin said. "When do we blow the whistle?"
"Not until they get established and make suckers of a lot of people."
Edmund Cahill nodded wisely. "It's called, 'giving them enough rope.'"
Frayne found a dilapidated, unused theater in a rundown, virtually abandoned shopping center - a victim of FHD, the Free Home Delivery craze.
He took Smith to see it. "The available churches are much too small," he said. "This can seat a thousand, which is too many, but at least you can grow without having to move. You won't get any limousine traffic in this neighborhood. There isn't even a landing area, though we could convert part of the parking lot if there was a need for one, but not many of your followers will be flying in. You'll get them from that housing development across the way, and those apartments and condominiums - even the high-rises, which probably have a lot of welfare cases. Satisfactory?"
Smith said softly, "Oh, yes. Very satisfactory." He spoke without squeaks. Harnon had taught him to speak softly into a microphone, and now he used his microphone voice all the time. When amplified it sounded odd but strangely impressive.
Prockly drew the line at buying the theater for Smith, but they were able to arrange a lease with very favorable options for long-term renewal or purchase. The owners knew that no one else was likely to want it.
"We'll pay the lease out," Prockly said. "That gives Smith's religion a rent-free headquarters for a year, and you can include living quarters for him in the remodeling. In addition, we'll furnish enough money for overhead, including a reasonable allowance for those gifts, for three months. After that he's on his own. That's the Governors' final decision."
"What about the choir?" Frayne asked. "And an organist? And an assistant minister to read the ritual and sermons?"
"They're included in the overhead. Three months - but the allowance is for ordinary church singers, not imports from Old Lincoln Center. Any money that comes in as an offering is Smith's. He can use it to run a fancier show, or for overhead beyond the three months, or he can call it his salary. Does this sound satisfactory?"
"I'm sure he'll have an enjoyable three months," Frayne said.
They hired an assistant minister, a middle-aged, out-of-work actor named Harvey Borne, who had a beautifully resonant speaking voice. With Smith looking on in his usual gentle, friendly fashion, the four of them - Frayne, Harnon, Naida Ainsley, and Borne - set about working out the practical application of the new religion's doctrine. The first thing they did was throw out the survey on new names for god and tie their doctrine firmly to the Christian Bible.
"Why should we go to all the trouble of making up sermons," Borne asked, "when the Bible has a million sermons ready to use?"
They seemed to be making progress at last, so Frayne returned to the problem of budget estimates. When next he looked in on them, he found them gathered about a massive photo of the old theater's crumbling marquee. The sign, TABERNACLE OF THE BLESSED, had been painted into the photograph across the top of both faces of the marquee, and Harnon was fitting biblical texts into the remaining space. Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
Frayne said distastefully, "A church with a marquee?"
"If a theater can have a marquee, a church can have a marquee," Hamon said cheerfully. "They're both offering an evening's entertainment. And doesn't the Bible say something about not hiding your light under a bushel?" He added another text, The righteous shall inherit the earth. And, below it, He shall reward every man according to his works.
"The architect's plans call for tearing it off," Frayne said. "It'll be replaced with a Gothic-type entrance. Something with dignity."
"There's been a change," Harnon said. "Smith likes it this way, so they're going to repair it and leave it on. Anyway, with Santa Claus and TV shows for a model, we couldn't be dignified if we wanted to. This religion's going to be exuberant and happy, and the hell with dignity. Right, Altie?"
Smith beamed at him. "Right, Ronnie." He proclaimed in his new, hushed voice, "Happy - that's the way we want it. People enjoying getting presents."
The new assistant minister gave Smith a grin and a wink. Borne was a hearty man, generously proportioned - Frayne suspected that he was out of work because of the limited availability of roles for fat men - and he possessed an infectious, booming laugh. "Right on, Altie. Make it a happy show with lots of action, and we'll have a record run."
"Audience-participation action," Harnon put in.
"Right on," Borne said. "This stuff sends me - takes me back to my childhood. Mother made me go to Sunday school, and I hated it. Now the stuff sends me." He picked up a sheet of paper and read oracularly. "'I was hungry, and you gave me meat. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you took me in.' Solid! I never thought of it that way when I was a kid, but it's a promise. Churches been making that promise for centuries, and when anyone wonders why they don't pay off, they make noises about what a wonderful thing death is. Well - life is much more wonderful, and a religion that rewards its followers in life has got to be a sensation." He read again, "'Whatsoever good things any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord.' See? Nothing there about being dead. It says you do good, you have good done to you, period. A religion that won't pay off until you die is like a policy in a life insurance company that may or may not be bankrupt - and you can't find out which it is until your claim is filed." He leaned over and patted Smith on the back. "You've got a great idea there, Altie, and we'll make it a great show." Smith beamed happily.