Love Her Madly (32 page)

When your sexual energy is suppressed, it doesn't just go away. It's displaced, as my shrink friend has assured me. And that explained the extraordinary ingenuity and wit of the Shakers. Too bad for them there weren't any more of them left on earth except one very old lady. I didn't consider Raymond Tiner's band of followers Shakers. According to the little old lady, they didn't count. They were misled, that was for sure. But they were topnotch capitalists all the same. Got a little sloppy, though—forgot to pull their product from the shopping channel.

I threw the books in the trash can at the San Antonio airport.

*   *   *

I'd never seen the Alamo but I'd certainly seen pictures. That's how I was imagining Tiner's mission, and that's exactly what it looked like.

I stood in the shade under the spreading branches of a live oak that had to be a hundred years old. It was on a little rise that had not been affected by the Pamayan flood. The mission itself might have been built by Disney; it was perfectly square-cornered, its outer layer of new adobe smooth and burnished in the sun. It was surrounded by an adobe wall twelve feet high, which meant no one could see into the grounds unless they chose to climb the hill to the live oak. A dirt drive maybe a half-mile long made its way from the town of San Yglesia to the mission.

On the other side of the mission, the snaking line of vegetation was the same as what I'd seen outside my window at La Posada. The Rio Grande was just a few yards from the rear wall behind the mission.

Two men were sinking thin metal posts every few feet along the top of the wall. The men were dressed alike. In the bright Texas sun, they wore white shirts, black pants, and gray vests. Black hats, too, exactly like the photographs of the Shakers in the books I'd read. I guessed they were getting ready to string barbed wire.

A car came down the road. There was a gate in the wall, and it opened for the car. Two men just inside the gate were also in Shaker clothes. The man who got out of the car was not. I'd say it was Vernon Lacker.

I walked down the backside of the hill the way I'd come up and went to the pickup I'd rented. The road from Laredo skirted the hill. I'd parked the pickup just off the road. I got in and drove into San Yglesia. The town was a sleepy, dusty little place. The only part of the mission visible from the town was the bell tower looming over the walls. The wood houses facing the street were dilapidated. The biggest one had a sign:
SAN YGLESIA HOTEL
. I guessed there might be a vacancy.

I got my stuff and went in. A young woman behind the desk was reading
Vanity Fair.
She looked up at me and did a bit of a double-take. I said, “I'd like to check in and stay for the night.”

“Would you now?”

“Yes.”

She got out some papers and spent quite a bit of time trying to come up with a pen. When she did and I'd checked in, I said, “Is there a way to get to the mission other than from the street out front?”

“You mean the temple?”

“The temple?”

“It ain't a mission, because a priest ain't been in it. Fact is, they call it a temple, so we do too. Planning to join, right?”

“I'm thinking about it.”

“Honey, get a divorce instead. You want to walk out on a bad man, fine, but don't think you'll be any happier with those folks. Some guy kicks you around, you end up with a limp, 'course you leave. But those people, they work like dogs and they don't ever come out. They believe in separation of the sexes. Don't exactly throw parties. You're too young and good-lookin' to be buried, if you don't mind my saying.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

“Best you just go on upstairs and freshen up. When you come down I'll have a nice little sandwich for you out on the porch. You can watch the wind blow the dirt and have a think about what you're doin'. I'll throw in a bottle of Lone Star, on the house.” She handed me a big iron key. “It's the only one I got at the moment, so make sure you give it back when you check out. Gal who works here tomorrow won't think to ask.”

I said “Okay,” took the key, and thanked her. “If it turns out I want to stay a couple of days, will you have a vacancy?”

She laughed. “You can throw that worry away. Been on the road?”

“Yes.”

“Listenin' to the radio?”

“No. It rattles.”

“You ain't heard the latest on Rona Leigh, then?”

I felt a little lurch in my stomach. “No.”

“'Nother tape come in. Got it right here in the VCR. Saved it for my friend. Care to see it?”

I did.

She gestured for me to come around the desk. She had a little TV on a shelf under the counter. She played the tape for me. Rona Leigh's voice was much stronger. The feeding tube was gone. She quoted from the parable of the Prodigal Son. Then she recited one of her own about the inevitability of goodness never being able to hide long. Then she said that even though she had not been willing to die for the murder of Melody and James, she would accept dying for Jesus, if that's what it took to pass along His Holy Word. “Just as I accept the thorns of Jesus' crown which represent his own bitter suffering, I also do not forget the crown's green leaves, symbolizing the hope I nurture for the reward awaiting me. After the darkness of the winter of my present life, I will at last enter the happiness of the eternal spring of heaven which blessed God grants me in his precious mercy.”

Her words didn't reflect Vernon's anymore. They reflected Tiner's. She and Vernon had had no plan for her to enter the eternal spring of heaven.

She closed her eyes. That was the routine. Only this time she didn't need to close them. Her efforts hadn't wiped out any energy she had. She was still smiling.

Tiner's voice came over the serene shot of her lying there so contentedly, arms folded in a cross over her chest, her tiny hands relaxed. He said, “Our CHRIST AND SAVIOR knows that capture will soon be upon us. The LORD GOD has told me this. We will soon be TRAPPED within our GETHSEMANE. Until that time, the Daughter God has SENT TO US will continue to preach. Her followers INCREASE each day, a hundredfold. It is the WORD of the LORD!”

The video went black.

The clerk said, “My, my, my.”

I said, “You're not on the Internet, are you?”

“Me? Nearest computer is in Laredo. Unless you want to go to the temple and ask the crazies if you can use theirs.”

Nope. “Is there a phone in my room?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

I went upstairs. The room was small, the ceiling almost too low for me to stand up, and the floor was tilted. The little window looked down onto the river, the banks only a few feet apart, much narrower and slower-moving than it had been in Laredo. I called the shrink, seeing as how he didn't trace his calls. I told him I needed a favor, needed him to find out the server of the Rona Leigh tape, the newest one. Told him I didn't have the facilities.

He'd seen the tape. “She's looking a bit stronger, isn't she?”

“Yes.”

“Hold on, Poppy.”

I heard him clicking around. He came back to me.

“Webtunes dot com.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

“As always, the pleasure is mine. Closing in, Poppy?”

“Maybe.”

He was still clicking and then he stopped. “Poppy, Webtunes dot com is now off the Internet. You people don't waste any time.”

My man Auerbach was watching. The FBI had shut it down and I'd gotten my answer from the shrink in the nick of time.

I hung up. I thought a shower before my sandwich would be nice. There was only a bathtub, though. I've forgotten how to take a bath. I washed my face instead.

I went back downstairs for my sandwich.

The clerk wasn't behind the counter; she was outside sitting at the table on the porch having a sandwich of her own. Mine was there too, with a napkin over it. I sat down.

I said, “Is there a store here that sells clothes?”

She looked me up and down. “Nope. Laredo. Jesse's feed store sells work clothes out at the opposite end of Main from the temple.” She pointed. “That's all we got.”

The sandwich and the beer fortified me. I got in the pickup and drove to Jesse's. I was officially accepting the no-walking philosophy of Texas.

Jesse sold me a short-sleeved jumpsuit, plus socks and work boots. He threw in a John Deere cap. I said, “Do you mind telling me if there's been any unusual action at the temple lately?”

He scrutinized me. He decided to answer, liked to talk. “I stay clear a them, ma'am. I'm a Christian, and I sure as hell don't know what the hell they're about. Won't do business with them people. Not that they need my business. Everything they need they order on their computers. Deliveries all the time, stuff goin' in every day.”

“So nothing especially out of the ordinary has happened?”

Scrutinized me again. “Who wants to know?”

“I do. I've been hired by a fellow to talk them into giving him his daughter back.”

He started to clean his nails with a screwdriver. “Won't be the first time someone tried to do that. Daughter, huh? Usually somebody's here lookin' for his wife. If the daughter's over eighteen they'll tell you the daughter's got free will. They'll tell you that real friendly. Then they'll order you off the property. Call the authorities. Sheriff'll come down and tell you same thing they told you. Way it is.”

“The man who hired me is willing to pay a lot of money to have his daughter returned.”

“Your man's a fool, then. Ought to hire a few cowboys, go in there with their weapons drawn, grab her.”

“Are the people inside heavily armed?”

“Ain't armed at all. Be easy as lickin' butter off a knife. Fact, tell your man to pay me. I'll do it.”

“But how do you know they're not armed?”

“Been inside. See, at first they come to me. Till I decided they was just a little too cuckoo. Give me the heebie-jeebies. Only weapons they got in there are hoes. Nice hoes. Forged them right there inside the temple. They don't hunt. They're mostly vegetarians. Eat a chicken or make a lamb stew once in a while. They got no guns for huntin'.

“People tolerate 'em 'cause once a week they hold a market outside the gate. Best produce you ever seen. Cheap. People come from miles around. Couple a Believers drive a truck up to the Laredo border into Mexico and donate the food. Do-gooders.”

He wiped the screwdriver on his pants.

“But now that you mention it, they stopped havin' their market not so long ago. People keep comin' around, but the Believers tell 'em they don't know when they'll hold the next one.”

“Nothing else?”

“Well, I'll have to think. I'm more than happy if I can help you get the girl back. Those people ain't healthy. Don't believe in the sex life. Husband and wife join up there, they got to agree to separate sleeping quarters. So, hey, at least that daddy a yours don't have to worry about his gal gettin' knocked up.”

He laughed and coughed and took out a grimy little can, opened it, and plugged up his cheek with what looked like a wad of tar.

“Now I consider it, there's been
two
unusual things. One, closin' up the market like I said and, two, a police van went in there couple weeks ago, dead a night. Don't know what that was about. Musta shook 'em up. Those people go to bed when the sun sets and get up at dawn. My brother seen the van. He lives down that end a Main. He's border patrol, works third shift.”

“Did he see the car leave?”

“Not that he said. I imagine it left. 'Less some cop decided to give up fightin' crime so's he can grow his own beans and do without women. I doubt that.”

“So do I.”

I thanked him for the clothes and the help.

I drove down Main. A curtain hung from every front window in San Yglesia, and every window framed a person holding the curtain back.

I passed the hotel and stopped at the drive that led to the mission. The barbed wire was up. The tapes had to be worth a fortune. It isn't often you find live video of God's Daughter. I guessed Tiner would order his followers to fight the law or why the barbed wire? And he meanwhile would take off with the tapes, abandoning all of them to a pitched battle. It was about money. Which meant they might not have been armed previously, but they were now.

Rona Leigh and the New Shakers were about to be thrown to the wolves. If Tiner ended up in Venezuela a rich man—well, there are worse things. But if Rona Leigh and the Believers ended up dead, there would be renewed sanity status for all the right-wing militias refusing to disappear. Tiner had to be convinced his safest course of action would be to turn Rona Leigh over to the authorities, and my deal would be to give him a twenty-four-hour head start to disappear with his tapes.

And there would be no storming of the Alamo if everyone knew I was in there with them. They'd know I was in there as soon as the FBI interviewed my hostess at the hotel and Jesse at the feed store. I'd registered in my own name. As soon as they went into my room and found all my stuff. Far as I could see, I was the only authority who might arrange such a deal with Tiner. The idea would be to have Rona Leigh in custody before the mission was located, which would be very soon because, when Delby realized I didn't pass the information she'd given me to our director, she would do it. Goes with integrity.

What I needed was a policeman. I didn't want to just bring her into the local station. I had to feel out Scraggs. If he didn't see my point, I'd do it without a policeman.

I drove north to Laredo and used the phone in La Posada. I had a hard time reaching him. He was up the road somewhere in San Antonio. Where my trail got cold. I left my name and waited for my cell phone to ring. It did five minutes later.

He said, “Where are you?”