“That’s just what we’re trying to avoid, Harry. But I will tell you this. If it comes down to blowing them out of there, we’re prepared to do it.”
There was a military coldness and precision in his voice that I’d never heard before. What a hell of a lousy position to be in, though.
“Howard,” I said. “This sucks.”
“I’ve got to get you back down the hill. They said they were sending out a negotiator at three. We’re going to talk face-to-face for the first time. You mind walking down?”
“Of course not. So you’re meeting the Reverend Woodrow Tyberious Hogg?”
“Hogg?” Howard asked. “Hell, he ain’t up there.”
“I thought-”
“These are his people. They’re from his group, but he claims he hasn’t got any control over ’em, and he certainly ain’t up on the firing line himself. Hell, he’s probably sitting in his mansion on Hillsboro Road in the Jacuzzi, watching all this on television just like everybody else.”
We walked back to the communications van and Howard radioed the officer at the roadblock that I’d be walking down alone. I didn’t know if that was to protect me, or to make sure I didn’t try to hang around.
“Hey, Lieutenant,” I called as I walked away. He turned in my direction.
“What’d you think about that country-music singer that got waxed last night?”
He waved his hand wearily. “I haven’t even had time to think about it. I gave that one to Fouch.”
So Reverend Woody had decided to skip the fireworks his own people had started. And Detective E. D. Fouch would be investigating the murder of Rebecca Gibson.
I had the sense life was going to get real interesting over the next few days.
I threw my jacket over my shoulder and loosened my tie, then started up Broadway, in shock from what I’d seen. The walk back to my office seemed much shorter, as if I were unaware of what was going on around me or of time passing.
God, how weird.
I stayed in the office just long enough to throw the bricklayer’s file, with an invoice and a copy of the videotape, into a briefcase and to verify that my answering machine was empty. Then it was back to the car and into the traffic.
There was a wreck on Broadway on the bridge over I-40 that was just being cleared away, so I missed the worst of the jam. Some poor sucker in an old Plymouth had turned left to get on the freeway, and what looked like a brand-new Toyota pickup-temporary tag still taped in the back window-had T-boned him on the passenger’s side. Somebody’s day was shot all to blazes.
Getting past that sucked up about ten minutes, so by the time I found a parking space on a side street off Demonbreun Street at the top of the hill next to Tourist Trap Row, my heart was beating pretty fast. I had less than an hour now before my appointment with Phil Anderson at the insurance company, the appointment that I hoped would bail me out financially.
So why was I running around working up a sweat on something I couldn’t do anything about? I couldn’t come up with an answer, so I just kept plowing ahead.
Jericho’s was inside an old, renovated house that perched on the slight rise overlooking Broadway, next door to Gilley’s. The building was two stories high, painted gray, with tasteful maroon shutters on tall, double-hung windows. The name was emblazoned across the front in bright pink neon, with red crucifixes blazing steadily on either side of the crackling light. In two display windows on either side of the door, mannequins dressed in the custom-made clothes stood on mute display.
It struck me as odd that there weren’t a passel of news vans and cop cars outside here as well as down at the morgue. But then the Pentecostal Enochians had always been fairly discreet about owning the place. Unlike some other religious cults who’d opened up storefront retail operations in order to convert the infidels, the PEs had been content to make a fortune quietly.
I opened the door and stepped inside. The air was cool, dry, and scented with that stuffy textile odor I always associate with clothes stores or new carpet. An electronic bell chimed as I closed the door behind me.
The large front room was crowded with clothes racks, with shelves against the walls rising all the way to the top of what must have been at least a twelve-foot ceiling. Jackets, denim or leather mostly, hung on the clothes racks, while the shelves were piled with folded jeans.
And, God Almighty, clothes like I’d never seen before in my life. Pain quite literally came to my eyes and I found myself squinting to cut off some of the sensation. I pulled a stonewashed denim jacket off the rack and examined it.
Every seam had been studded with rhinestones, red and gold and blue and yellow and green. Light twinkled off chrome buttons. The damn thing had to weigh at least ten pounds. And on the back, an airbrushed painting of Christ on a Harley-Davidson, and the words BIKING FOR JESUS! airbrushed with a flourish across the shoulder panels. Jesus was outlined in sequins, and the tires of the bike were gold leaf, either fake or real; I couldn’t tell which.
Then I saw the price tag: $1,200. Damn, I thought, better be real.
The rest of the stuff was in the same vein: airbrushed apostles at a long table staring beatifically at Christ as he spread his arms out to either side ($750); a sequined Virgin Mary staring up at a rhinestoned Christ on the cross ($900); and, of course, Christ in the clouds with his arms around Ail-vis as the two stare down at a miniature stylized rendition of mourners filing past the grave at Graceland ($1,400). The painted title above that one read THE KING MEETS THE KING.
You know, one of these days, a few centuries down the road, archaeologists will excavate the ruins of Nashville, Tennessee, and they’ll come across this place. And they’re going to think we were all like this.
I shook my head in wonder. As far as I was concerned, the success of this venture only validated my long-held belief that there is a significant portion of the populace whose wallets are bigger than their brains.
Other racks had clothes decorated in a more secular fashion. If I wanted, for instance, a six-hundred-dollar jacket with an airbrushed George Jones or a Hank Williams, Jr., or a Tammy Wynette, this was the place to get it.
A young woman with flowing black hair, wearing a floor-length paisley granny dress and sandals, stepped out from behind a curtained door at the other end of the room next to the counter and cash register. She looked to be early twenties at the most, with the glazed look that marks Nashville’s considerable population of hippie wannabes.
“Can I help you?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’d like to see one of these jackets with Garth Brooks on it.”
“Oh,” she said, then let loose with a long sigh. “We had one with Garth on it, but his people got a court order and made us quit selling them. Said the image of his face was his property and we couldn’t use it. He’s the only one who’s ever complained. Most stars are proud to be on a Jericho’s jacket.”
“Maybe you should have offered him a royalty,” I suggested.
“Naw, not worth it.”
I wandered between a couple of racks casually, fingering the clothes as the young woman watched me. We were the only two in the store, as far as I could tell. Of course, at these prices you didn’t need a high customer volume.
“This stuff is really nice,” I said, hoping God wouldn’t strike me down for bearing false witness. “Who does it? The custom artwork, I mean.”
“Oh, we have a number of artists who create for us.”
“Hmm, they don’t sign their work, though.”
“Most of them figure it’s their way of doing God’s work. They don’t want any recognition. It’s all His glory, anyway, right?”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I’ve always been curious about this place, but never stopped in before. How long’s it been around?”
She turned a blank look on me. “I’ve been here almost two years. I don’t know how long it was here before that.”
This young woman struck me as the kind of person a cult recruiter would look at and the words Dead Meat would come to mind.
I noticed a small, white plastic bin on the counter next to the cash register. Tucked inside the bin was a stack of leaflets. I walked over and picked one up, then unfolded it. It was an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven-inch sheet, tri-folded, printed in red ink. The headline across the top read ARE MASONS THE TOOL OF THE DEVIL? The rest of the pamphlet was filled with a diatribe about how every evil in the world was perpetrated by the Masonic conspiracy in conjunction with the Illuminati and the Trilateral Commission, or some such nonsense.
I suppressed a chuckle. I always thought the Masons were those fat, middle-aged, balding guys who wore sequined fezzes and clown suits and rode miniature motorcycles in the Christmas parade and collected money for underprivileged kids. Or were those the Shriners? Hell, I always mix them up. In any case, it’s hard for me to imagine either of them being a tool of the Antichrist.
When I turned back after scanning the paper, she was staring at me intently. “What’s your name?” I asked.
“Charlotte.”