Nothing but Gossip (9 page)

“I need to see Reverend Bourbon,” I told him.

“He’s on the air right now. ‘The Cowboy Crusade’ is on from two to four every afternoon.” As he spoke, he opened the glass doors for me to pass into the cathedral lobby, and then he ambled down a thickly carpeted corridor, its walls filled with blown-up photographs of Bourbon-induced miracles. “He does the two-to-three slot and it’s pretty close to three now, so he’ll be wrapping up pretty quick. I’ll take you in and then let his secretary know you’re here. Is he expecting you?”

I shook my head, wondering in the back of my mind
if I should enter what many people considered a den of wild-eyed, Bible-thumping, snake-handling, eye-rolling, bathtub-baptizing, tongue-speaking, foaming-at-the-mouth, wigged-out religious fanatics. I’d never been in such a place, and I felt nervous. Afraid they might grab me, hold me down, and not let me go until I repented, which could keep us all busy for several days. The fact is, to tell the truth, deep down, I was afraid I might like it.

Of course, it was nothing like what I expected. Things seldom are. Although he called it a cathedral, more than anything it was a large, state-of-the-art broadcast studio—comfortable, well padded, muffled, with large video screens on the walls so the audience could see what was going on onstage. At the moment, white-suited Johnny Bourbon was sitting in an armchair wrapping up a conversation, in a normal voice, with a young, nicely dressed woman whose little daughter sat on her lap.

The three of them stood, and he placed his hands on their foreheads. “God bless you,” he said, and they left the stage to enthusiastic and sympathetic applause. Many people were crying.

Then he turned to the camera and said a brief prayer, basically for the whole universe. Once the broadcast had cut away to a taped fund-raising commercial, he walked down a few steps to the audience level and said, “I’m done for today, but if any of you would like to come down here and just pray quietly with me for some special problem or need, I’ll just stand here for a couple of minutes and pray with you.” He held open his arms.

Slowly a handful of people came and huddled quietly around him. I looked at them, and at all the faces in the room, and I got the feeling that this was the last stop for many of these people. They’d tried everything else—sex,
drugs, alcohol—and finally had found solace in the Lord.

It was powerful and moving and extremely simple. There was nothing weird or embarrassing or funny about it. These were people in need whose faith had brought them here. I’d never felt the power of such a communal commitment, nor seen the sort of childlike trust and faith they had in Johnny Bourbon, and I questioned every word Alma had said about him.

Above them, the broadcast monitor silently showed a video of more miracles, mostly in Africa from what it looked like, while an 800 number flashed constantly across the bottom of the screen. I realized the fund-raising effort was probably not directed to the hometown audience. They came every day. They’d already given their all.

After a final embrace, Johnny let go of his parishioners and left the room with a wave, calling out “God bless you.”

Another blue suit appeared by my side and touched my arm. “Marshal Bennett?” he asked. “Come with me please.”

I followed him across the studio and through an unmarked door into a busy backstage area where I saw Shanna getting ready to make her entrance, out another door, and down a noisy linoleum-tiled hallway to a bank of elevators where two armed guards stood on duty at a desk. One of them handed me a visitor’s badge while my escort put a key into a lock next to the button for the fifth and top floor. The doors slid shut and we rose silently to the executive offices, which, I guess, looked a little like heaven—all white and gold. A large, curved white reception desk with a huge crystal vase of calla lilies sat in front of a thick glass wall embossed with the Johnny Bourbon’s Christian Cowboys
logo: a lone cowboy on a pony looking up at a cross on a hill.

The second I stepped into Johnny Bourbon’s office, those ultramarine eyes locked onto me, and I must admit that after seeing him in action, even briefly, it was hard for me to evade their power. Through the windows, the Wind River Range extended behind him and he was illuminated in such a way that I wondered if there might be some boosted lighting effects involved, because the golden glow stayed on his shoulders when he approached and took my hand.

“Welcome to the Cowboy Cathedral. That’ll be all for now, Judith Ann,” he told the thick-waisted, low-slung, locomotive of a secretary who’d been taking dictation. She had the air of long-term propriety over Reverend Johnny, and she flipped her notebook shut and gave me a disapproving What-Jezebel-have-we-been-visited-with-now? glare as she left the room.

Maybe there was some sort of hidden signaling system, I don’t know, but a split second later yet another door opened and a beautiful young woman with long dark hair, large black eyes, and red, heart-shaped lips appeared. A short black shift did little to conceal her figure.

“Not yet, darlin’,” Johnny told her. “I’ll buzz you.”

“Okay, Reverend Johnny,” she answered meekly. She had an accent that sounded Italian to me.

Then we were alone and the room was quiet but for the hum of Johnny Bourbon’s personal energy. He walked over to a bar, pulled the stopper from a crystal decanter, and filled a tumbler with about three fingers of liquor, which he drank off neatly. Then he drew in a deep breath, shrugged it off, and turned to face me.

“This is a pleasant, but not unexpected visit,” he said, refilling his glass. “Would you like a drink?”

“No, thanks,” I responded, feeling slightly breathless under the heavy gaze. “I’m here to ask you a few questions. I’ll try not to take too much of your time.”

“Please, have a seat.” He indicated one of the chairs in front of his desk, and once I’d sat down, he came and sat on the edge of the desk directly in front of me, one foot on the floor. The other white boot swung as slowly as a pendulum. His crotch was on the same level as my eyes, a short reach away. He was not wearing underpants. He cradled the drink in both hands.

I got up and changed seats. I wanted to tell him this kind of stuff was simply not a go anymore, and he had too much going for him to act like that, but it wouldn’t have made any difference. I was confused by him. By his power to love, the incredible sincerity and compassion he’d exuded from the stage, and now this crude display. I also must admit I found the overtness slightly erotic, and if I weren’t in love with Richard, and marrying him in five days, I would have seriously considered calling Johnny Bourbon’s bluff, which I suspect was not a bluff at all but a serious invitation to what I also suspect would probably have been a wildly and mutually satisfying roll.

Instead, I laughed. “You’ve got the wrong girl, Mr. Johnny. I’m beyond temptation.” I took my glasses and notebook from my purse.

He smiled at me. “I understand,” he said, but he stayed where he was, and he was ready.

“What’s your real name?” I asked.

“You mean my given name? Bud Hutchinson. I got Johnny Bourbon when I was a cowboy and the trail bosses realized I was better at singing around campfires, especially after a couple of belts out of the bottle, than wrangling. Then I started preaching a little, because
when you’re out there for weeks at a time, you need to invite the Lord in and hear what he has to say.”

“Where were you when Alma was shot?”

“In the bathroom.”

“Which one?”

Johnny shrugged. “One of them. There’re so many of them, I lose track. I could lead you to it, though. Lots of mirrors.”

“Alma told me you’d had a fight yesterday afternoon and she threatened to stop her gifts if you didn’t leave Shanna.”

“That’s true. God knows, I couldn’t have survived without Alma’s backing while I was in prison, but we never had an understanding that I’d leave Shanna for her. I’d never leave my wife, and she’d never leave me.”

“How much money do you raise every year?”

“About two hundred million. All from the show, ‘Johnny Bourbon’s Cowboy Crusade.’ I got out of the real estate business the same day I walked out of prison.” He smiled. His teeth were white against the black beard. “I’m a quick learner. Which is also why I wouldn’t shoot Alma or anyone else. I’ve done my time, and I’m not going back there again.”

“Were you in the bathroom alone?”

“What makes you ask that?”

“I can’t imagine. Intuition, maybe. Were you?”

“No,” Johnny said sheepishly. “I wasn’t alone. I had a lady with me.”

I waited. Staring him in the eye, tapping my pen slowly on the pad to the same tempo as his swinging boot.

He broke our gaze and looked at his hands. “I was with her sister. Mercedes.”

I bit back a laugh and the urge to say, “In your
dreams,” and instead asked how much Rutherford Oil stock he owned.

“A few thousand shares.”

“Where do you stand on the Russian project?”

“I haven’t totally made up my mind, but I’ll tell you, Mercedes certainly can be persuasive. There’s nothing like the passion and fervor of a determined woman.”

As I left his office, he picked up his phone. “Come on in, Marcella,” he said to the little Italian. The door locked automatically behind me.

Y
ou can’t wear the copper organza,” Mother said. “You wore it to one of Lulu’s parties. Besides, you can’t wear organza after Labor Day.”

I was lying in the bathtub, inhaling deep breaths of calming, stress-reducing, eucalyptus-scented steam, trying to remember whether Mercedes had said she was going to talk to Kennedy McGee or Johnny Bourbon, while Mother frowned upon me over the speaker phone, carrying on about how I was the guest of honor and should look my best. All in all, between the eucalyptus and Mother, I was spending a completely contradictory, self-defeating, waste of time.

Marsha Maloney, coanchor of the KRUN evening news, having been struck dumb by my mute button, rattled along soundlessly from the small television on my dressing table. Unfortunately, since I could read lips, I could not entirely escape her long-faced, droop-eyed, sob-sister story about how some woman had gone on to long-term disability and was collecting Worker’s Compensation, permanently traumatized by some fellow
in a ski mask who came into her office, exposed himself, and masturbated onto her desk. Thankfully, a full team of psychiatrists was called in to make sure everyone else in the company was able to continue working, and they all had one of those big, sappy, sharing sessions when they all sit in a circle and tell the worst thing that ever happened to them, and then they hold hands and cry and take the rest of the day off. Sweet Jesus. Excuse my French, but what in the world are people thinking? Why didn’t she just tell him to put it back in his pants or she’d call his mother? I think I’d say, “Gee, that sure was quick.”

“It’s one of my favorite dresses,” I explained to Mother. “It’s my wedding, and I’m wearing it.”

She let the moment pass. “You’ll look perfectly lovely.”

“Thank you. We’ll see you there.”

“Now, Lilly, don’t forget, Richard’s parents arrive at noon tomorrow.”

“Did you really think I was going to forget that?” I ran more hot water in to plump the bubbles back up. The sight of my naked body scared me to death. At least if the bubbles were there I could pretend it looked pretty good, that gravity hadn’t grabbed it and wasn’t beating it to death like Raggedy Ann. That it wasn’t starting to look like that old hag’s in
The Shining
.

Mother was off again about how simply delightful my new in-laws were and how lucky I was to get them. She sounded a little defensive, and it occurred to me that maybe she was a bit nervous about having Mr. and Mrs. Richard Welland Jerome, Sr., of Manhattan, of Jerome Guaranty Bank & Trust, one of America’s oldest and most venerable banking houses, marry into her family, and then I realized what a cockeyed thought that was, since she’d spent most of her life trying to get
me hooked up with Prince Charles until Camilla came on the scene and she had to admit that he was obviously blindly in love. I mean, if having the Windsors spend a week at your ranch doesn’t make you nervous, why would some Upper East Side aristocrat?

Back in the studio, Marsha Maloney shook her head sadly as the insulted victim sobbed uncontrollably into a reporter’s microphone from a remote hookup in her front yard. From the looks of her, in her tight shorts and a tank top that was too small to reach her waistband and cover up several rolls of blubber, with strings of dirty hair tucked behind her ears like hanks of spaghetti, the guy in the ski mask was undoubtedly the best opportunity she’d ever had. It was probably her father or brother or something, trying to cheer her up.

The story changed to a crash on the interstate, and what I saw made me sit up instantly. “I’ve got to go,” I said to Mother, hanging up on her mid-self-help idea. It had been a one-car crash. The car, a pearl-gray Cadillac Seville, had lost control and spun out, slamming nose first, into a heavy cement divider. The driver was Jim Dixon, a senior executive of Gilhooly GMC Truck and Chevrolet. It appeared that alcohol was involved.

I toweled off quickly, stepped into an old pair of jeans, boots, a flannel shirt, and a pullover sweater, and ran down the stairs.

“Going to Elias’s,” I called to Celestina, who was sitting on a stool in the kitchen, sipping a cup of tea and talking to her daughter on the phone. Baby and I jumped into my Jeep and raced so fast the half mile down to ranch headquarters that when I left the truck outside the main cattle barn where Elias kept his office, dust from my spinning tires was still rising at my front door.

I tore up the steep stairs, past the life-size bronze of
Wind River Ranger, Elias’s Grand Champion bull, who had a gray Stetson hanging from one horn and a dark-gray pinstripe Brooks Brothers suit vest hanging from the other. I found Elias standing in front of a mirror, tying his tie and smoking a cigar. The darkened cattle ring lay below us, past the wall of glass behind his messy desk.