CoverBoys & Curses (15 page)

Chapter Forty-Seven

Quaking
Threats

THE
PRIEST ARTICLE HIT the stands with a big splash. And as a very bad idea. I
didn’t know L.A. housed so many Catholics and their high-powered Catholic
attorneys.

Core
staff had gathered in our small conference room. They were indifferent to the
pending lawsuits. I had a reliable team, although I admit I was not indifferent
to the names of attorneys splayed across my desk and flooding my email.

I read
across my teams’ faces like a lawyer might try to read a jury: Averted eye
contact. Pursed lips. Nervousness.

No one
would speak.

“We were
all on board with this issue and I’m not going to apologize for it. We weren’t
the ones to break the story of the priestly child molestations back in Germany.
We didn’t break the story on the two hundred children in Milwaukee at the St.
John’s School for the Deaf. We just kept the story out there for public view
because it shouldn’t be flushed away with the dirty dishwater.

“Do you
know what the church did to Father Murphy? They sent him in for therapy! No
other punishment.”

Geoff, an
integral part of
CoverBoy’s
every foundation, was first to respond with a flat statement. “We broke the
story about the therapist’s involvement. They’ll crucify us.”

“He’s a
big boy in a major county mental health center. He’s paid by our government.
Our money,” I charged back on ground that seemed more firm then I’d ever
stepped on before.

“Yes,
but Lauren, he has patient-client privilege. And you’re right. He’s a big boy
in the big church. What were we thinking?” Geoff’s voice quaked.

“The man
came to me. He called it some sort of trumped-up psycho babble for having a
guilty conscience. He’s getting up there in age and suddenly realizing he won’t
get past the Pearly Gates if he doesn’t come clean with what he knows.”

My junior
editor responded, “Sounds like he’s screwed either way. Might as well go and
buy a pitch fork.”

“We
didn’t use his name,” I added.

“Doesn’t
take a genius,” Geoff said. “We’ve identified that he’s a guru in the mental
health system and a deacon in the Catholic church.”

“Again.
We didn’t use his name and he came to us with the story. It’s all on tape and
emails and evidential correspondence. No lawsuits.”

“Let’s
hope he lives,” Geoff murmured.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Gabriella
Criscione

I
HAPPENED TO BE IN the neighborhood. Dumb line, but I didn’t have anything
better. I wanted to see Gabriella Criscione. It could have been a mission of
good will, except I wanted to know more about what she knew of Carly renting
her Bel Air home to The Centre more than I wanted to know about Gabri’s
welfare.

           
She must have thought it strange, my
dropping in on her. I found it strange to find her at home on a Sunday, only
because of her vocation.

           
Her black and vacuous eyes led me
through the foyer; her sentry of the suit of armor allowed me the crossing.

           
“I’m not exactly booking any dinner
parties these days, if that’s what you want,” Gabri said. She quickly added,
“But I’m fine. Just fine.”

           
“I’m glad to hear that. You have no
reason to be—“

           
“Embarrassed? Mortified?”

           
“Gabri, you are an institution in
L.A., and we’re all here for you.”

           
“You don’t mean your boyfriend,
Brock Townsend?” her eyes glared.

           
He’s not my boyfriend, and no, Brock
didn’t exactly convey his concern for Gabri.

           
“I mean Sterling. Carly. Me”, I
offered.

           
Gabri snipped her scissors,
attacking a bouquet of fresh basil. The kitchen already smelled of caramelizing
onions and garlic. One-inch cubes of meat sat on a nearby butcher’s block.

           
“Making calf liver,” Gabri said.
“Damn shame. It used to be good for children to eat the damn stuff. Now it’s considered
a bad organ meat. All you need is onion and garlic. And don’t tell anyone, but
I add tongue. Its flavoring is divine.”

           
 
I watched as she added cube after cube of
something
to the bottom of the copper
skillet.

           
“Come,” she said. “It’s time for the
feeding.

           
We walked outside—Gabri carrying a
big bucket. She poured scoops of food into the murky waters of the moat that
encircled her home.

           
The mottled
Shubunkin
fish gathered to dine on the tasty recipe of frozen plankton, beef heart and
bloodworms. They soon jumped out at the outstretched arm and gobbled every
morsel within seconds.

           
“We all care about you,” I said as
we journeyed back inside.

           
“Sterling is a good girl. That Carly
is a whacko. Living in that wacky compound.”

           
I didn’t even have to use my
interviewing skills. Gabri did all the talking.

           
“That girl must be on steroids, or
meth, or something. She’s a nut case.”

           
“She can always go back to her home
in Bel Air,” I said. “If and when things may not work out for her she could
resell her home at The Centre.”

           
Gabri huffed and puffed. But she’d never
blow her house down. Not the concrete cave she lived in. She shook her head at
me.

           
“What is it?” I said. Genuine
concern. No interrogation.

           
“She isn’t even pulling rent on that
place. It appears she’s
lending
it
out. But not now. That foolish woman went and gave it away. Not that it’s any
of my business.” She shook her head again, as if shaking off the water after a
dunk in a city sewer.

           
“You know this for a fact?”

           
“I ran an O and E on it. Ownership
and encumbrances. It shows mortgages, liens, and deeds.”

           
“Ownership? Now?” I asked.

           
“Dr. Harlan Coal.”

           
I heaved in a deep breath, finding
some grounding in the comforting aromas now coming from Gabri’s skillets. “I
don’t think we should jump to any conclusions,” I said. “Maybe there’s some
sort of explanation we don’t know about. Maybe a trade or something.”

           
“You know, I manage to piss off a
lot of folks,” she said, “just because I don’t kiss the feet of those I
disfavor. In my business there’s this cardinal rule that I’m suppose to love
everyone, and I say fuck that! I make my money the hard way and I do a damn
good job. But, I’ve made my share of enemies along the way. I just haven’t
fingered all of them yet.”

           
“All of us have burned some
bridges,” I said.

           
She murmured, “Yes, so I’ve heard.
You push the envelope, my dear. But so far you haven’t received a painted
portrait of yourself. You’re ahead of the game, at least by L.A. standards.”

           
“Animosity runs its course,” I said.

           
“My course is encapsulated by one
single wimp. He’s hiding,” she tapped her stubby fingers on the counter next to
the trimmed fat and in rhythm to an unheard tune. “I’ll deal with the rat
bastard.”

Chapter Forty-Nine

Showtime

I
PULLED UP TO The Centre and noticed Harlan—Dr. Coal, in the back seat of a red
Jeep Wrangler, with two kids in front. All of them hopped out and started
bundling up wooden crates of groceries.

           
“Need an extra hand?” I asked.

           
Dr. Coal jolted around with a
grimace, but recovered with a toothy grin and a bouquet of yellow daises.
“Indeed, if you can handle this load.” He gave me the flowers.

           
“Looks like you have your hands
full,” I said, embarrassed that I had shown up without any regard to
appointments. I’d already rehearsed my excuse that I was there only there to
drop in on Carly. I seemed to need excuses to go anywhere.

           
“Provisions for our weekly meeting,”
Coal said.

           
I didn’t know Coal or The Centre
stuck to any schedule of meetings but one of the boys affirmed, yes, every
Tuesday night.

           
I helped them deliver the boxed
vegetables into the compound cafeteria, probably best described as a community
kitchen. To the best of my knowledge anyone was free to use it for impromptu
gatherings.

           
With a nod from Dr. Coal, I followed
him toward the sizeable auditorium. I’d seen it before on my first tour of The
Centre, but I would have never imagined the kind of energy now emanating from
the eager participants.

The man
with the ponytail, Armand? He appeared and disappeared, and I remembered the
man on the beach. Coal had said Armand had no temperament beyond being finicky
over the final touches of a floral arrangement at an evening gathering feast.
The man I saw at the beach, so close to my home, was vituperative. Angry.
Physical. I dismissed any circumstantial evidence. There were plenty of long
braids in Los Angeles.

           
The audience dressed as if under a
dress code of denim and white cotton only. With blue jeans, shirts and denim
dresses, my emerald St. John suit flagged me as an outsider. I took a seat in
the back row of the large hall.

           
A small woman knelt on the raised
platform, center stage. She led the group in an exercise of deep breathing,
alternating between verbal affirmations.

           
Four persons lined up behind the
woman. In pep-rally fashion, one by one they revealed their intimate histories
with The Centre. Their emotive testimonials whipped the air. As I’d believed
all along, Dr. Coal was causing significant change in peoples’ lives.

           
Dr. Coal jumped out on the stage
from behind heavy white draping.

“Time is
running out!” He swirled on the platform and the white linen gauze he wore swayed
in curling drifts of movement, his eyes shaded from the lights with the dark
tinted glasses. “You have found a place of unconditional love. You are weak. I
am weak. Yet here, together, we are whole and strong.”

His
audience numbered somewhere near sixty. They all fell into a whisper of
chanting. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. No matter how I tried to
piece words together, they were more like syllables. Normally I would have
shunned the spectacle but for some odd reason I found it comforting.

“Let go
of the past! Don’t go back there! Never go back!”

Coal
continued to sweep the stage. Left, right, center, back. His speech was
patterned, but irregular. As his sheathed body faded and all but disappeared in
front of the white curtains, I found myself swirling into a warm fantasy.

I
imagined his tanned skin just beneath the surface of the gauze shirt. I
imagined the texture of the skin and each muscular curve.

Too much
CoverBoy
in my blood, I thought.

The
truth is I didn’t hear much else of what Coal spoke that night. Each
mesmerizing phrase seemed to pass over my head, but not before entering my
heart and soul.

I felt
warm. Loved. And part of me was realizing it was time to let go of Payton.
Maybe it was true. Maybe I didn’t need to return to Tucson.

Dr. Coal
left the podium and the small woman who had led the chanting came back onto the
stage, announcing the breakfast meeting would be at precisely 6:00 A.M. the
following day. The strict schedule was something new to me. Carly never
mentioned it.

Where
was Carly? Impossible to find her in the crowd of denim. Surely she would see
me in my unmistakable glow of green attire.

Three
persons stood in front of me, as if I were but a green mist to be ignored. “He
belongs to his people,” said one.

“And we
are lucky. We are his.”

Now I
felt creepy. I pulled the emerald jacket closer to my chest and was thankful
that I had chosen a seat in the back. I dashed out to the courtyard. In the
brisk air I found a welcome relief.

What was
it? Sweet and salty, sweet and sour, or sweet and bitter? Something didn’t set
right with me.

Carly
sat on a park bench along the winding path. Two squatty Pug puppies jumped
around at her side. I was happy to see a familiar face and even happier she
wasn’t wearing denim.

“I
looked for you inside,” I said, scrunching next to her on the bench.

“Meet
the new loves of my life,” she said. “This is Elliot and this one is
Antoinette.”

“Wow.
This is a surprise. I know you love dogs but I didn’t think—”

“Why
not?”

“Miss Perfect.
Interior designer. As in, no dog hair or dog poop. For sure, no doggie breath
and dog kisses,” I said, letting the puppies lick my hands.

“Consider
them my
Foo
Dogs with real fur, but less ferocious,”
she said. “Besides, I like to break the rules. You know that.”

“Rules?”

“We’re
really not allowed to have pets here at The Centre.”

“Allowed?”

           
“You know. Rules. Not unlike any
H.O.A.” She brought Antoinette up to the bench seat.

           
“They’re adorable,” I said.

           
“They’re my replacement for you
stealing Dr. Coal’s attention away from me.”

           
Carly knew how to drop bombs better
than anyone I knew. Was she serious?

           
“Tell me,” she continued, “does he
like the work I did for you at your beach house?”

           
“Carly, Dr. Coal has never been to
my home. Why would you ask such a thing?”

           
“Because I see the way he looks at
you. It’s like no therapist relationship I’ve ever known.”

           
Carly switched gears before I could
get my fighting gloves on. She slid off the bench, scooping one puppy in her
arms and grabbing the leash for the second one.

           
“Don’t go,” I insisted.

           
“Come with me if you like. Dr. Coal
has a book for me to pick up at his house.”

           
“But isn’t he still in the
auditorium?”

           
“It’s okay. He told me where to find
it. Remember, we don’t have locked doors around here.”

           
Yeah. That privacy and respect thing
they had going on.

           
The ground burst with summer
delights. A second round of roses had begun to bloom and the lotus flowers cast
their rich foliage against the glassy sheets of fountain water. Elliot and
Antoinette were still trying to get the hang of their leashes, which meant
Carly was having a hard time keeping them both out of the gardens and
fountains.

           
Eventually Carly led the puppies,
tangled leashes and all, up the short stairs of Coal’s residence. Without
thought she threw open the unlocked door and nodded toward me to follow.

           
“Kind of weird being in here alone,”
I said.

           
“You’re not alone. You’re with me
and two illegal puppies. And I told you, Dr. Coal told me it was okay.”

           
I leaned against the massive stone
wall as Carly picked up the hardcover from atop a large floor pillow. “Carly,
do you ever wonder what’s behind this wall? It seems like it has the only
locked door on the entire compound.”

           
“Sometimes, I guess,” she said, “But
Dr. Coal says it’s mostly records. I think of it like the
Akashic
Records, but better.”

           
“It’s a big space. There must be a
helluva lot of records.”

           
“You ask him if you’re so
interested. He’ll probably give you a library pass.”

“It’s
not like that, Carly,” I said.

She
tightened her grip on the two leashes. “I know what rules to break, and when to
put on the
brakes
,” she said.

And she
walked away.