Comeback

1

Seven hours before some atheistic sons of bitches robbed the Reverend William Archibald of four hundred thousand dollars, he woke up alone in bed. "Now where the hell is she?" he said.

Tina, having heard the familiar rich baritone voice, immediately popped out of the bathroom, saying, "Here I am, Will." Her heavy ash-blonde hair framed that willing face in a mad tangle, still mussed from sleep. She was naked, and remained the only woman in Archibald's experience to overflow her birthday suit. "Is there something you want, honey?" she asked.

He looked at her standing there, open, amiable, those round cheeks bracketing a full-

lipped mouth succulent with sleep. "Come to think of it," he said, "there is."

Fifteen minutes later, Archibald was whistling in the shower while Tina ordered breakfast from room service. By the time he was dressed in his pinstripe blue suit, white shirt and figured blue tie, his sleek jowls gleaming with aftershave and his pewter hair brushed into corniche waves, breakfast was waiting in the living room of the suite, set up at the table by the big window overlooking the view, which Archibald ignored. Every town was the same, finally, if you didn't live in it; just a collection of tall and short buildings containing people who might be helped by Reverend Archibald's ministry, and might help the reverend in return. Now, seating himself before his bacon and eggs, home fries, orange juice, toast and coffee, he said a heartfelt, "Thank you, Lord," and tucked in.

Tina appeared ten minutes later, having completed her daily transformation. In her pale gray suit, white blouse with neck ruffle and low-heel black shoes, with her hair tamed into a bun, her pale and subtle makeup, and her horn-rim spectacles—she was blind as a bat, and wore those glasses everywhere except in bed, where she got along quite well by feel—she was no longer the compliant and indulgent Tina of their nighttime hours, but Christine Mackenzie, conductor of the Reverend Archibald's Angel Choir. The mouth was still loose and carnal now, when she smiled hello, but when singing "Just a Closer Walk with Jesus" those lips could appear to be swollen with nothing more than heavenly love. Heavenly.

At Tina's place, across the table from Archibald, the breakfast consisted of half a grapefruit, two slices of dry toast and tea without milk. Tina was a lush girl inside that gray suit, but it was a lushness that could spill into over-ripeness, as they both well knew. Limiting herself to a diet that the monks of the Middle Ages would have chosen for penitent reasons, to the castigation of the body and the greater glory of God, but doing so for rather different reasons of her own, Tina managed to hold her abundance in check, to keep herself at a level that was no more than what the kikes call zaftig. (The bastards even have their own language.)

From the very beginning of his ministry, William Archibald had understood that the appearance of propriety was the name of the game. It wasn't merely that the appearance of propriety was as good as propriety itself, but that it was much better. If the appearance of propriety were steadfastly maintained—religiously maintained, you might say—a reasonably careful man could have it all; the rich rewards of religion and the rich rewards of life. And that's what he wanted: it all.

Archibald wasn't a hypocrite. He believed that man was a sinful creature and he said so, publicly and often, never excepting himself. He believed that his ministry had held back many a fellow human being from committing crimes and sins untold. He believed that his contributions to the social order, his civilizing influence on men and women who were in many ways still one small step from the apes, were practical and immense, and he firmly believed he was worth every penny he made out of it. His ministry had rescued drunkards, saved marriages, reformed petty thieves, struggled successfully at times against the scourge of drugs, cured workplace absenteeism and given a center and a weight and a sense of belonging to unnumbered empty, drifting, useless chowderheads. If, in his leisure moments, he liked to ball a big-titted woman, so what?

They were finishing breakfast when Dwayne Thorsen came in, looking brisk and competent in a gray suit that managed to be as respectable as Archibald's without competing with it. Dwayne's twenty years in the Marine Corps had left him lean and mean, and his seven years as Archibald's executive assistant had done nothing to change him. He still preferred his old cropped-short Marine haircut (the stubby hair pepper-and-salt gray now), his comfortable but ugly black oxford shoes, and his government-issue wire frame round-lens glasses, through which his pale eyes skeptically gleamed like the coldest sunny day in Norway, from which his thinlipped hard-working farmer forebears had emigrated a century ago.

"Morning, Dwayne," Archibald said. "Order yourself some coffee."

"Ate."

There was a third chair at the table, facing the view. Like the other two, it was armless, with a cushioned seat and delicately scrolled wooden back. When Dwayne's big-knuckled hand reached for it, the chair seemed to flinch, as though sure it would be kindling in a minute, but Dwayne merely pulled it out from the table, sat in it, ignored the view as much as the others had, ignored Tina as well—he usually did, facing her when he absolutely had to with a fastidious sneer—and said, "All set."

"Well, naturally." Archibald smiled at his assistant. "If you're in charge, Dwayne, it's all set."

Dwayne shrugged that off. "Morning news says six hundred of them camped at the arena last night."

Not unexpected. Since Archibald's crusades offered no advance sales and had no reserved seating or credit card sales or anything else except cash on the barrelhead as the customer walked in the gate, and since his draw had only increased with the television ministry, it was usual these last few years for a number of people to bring sleeping bags or deck chairs and camp out the night before at the gate of the stadium or arena where he was to appear, to be certain of getting in. Still, six hundred was a pretty impressive number, and Archibald couldn't help a little smile of satisfaction as he said, "Radio news or television news?"

"Both. Local insert on Today, and just about every local radio news spot."

Good. Archibald would have no trouble selling out this twenty-thousand-seat arena, but it was nice anyway to let other people, people who so far were insufficiendy aware of the Reverend William Archibald, know that this attraction was such a grabber it drew six hundred overnight campers. Better than the World Series.

Dwayne went on, "Security's shitty at this place, though I don't suppose it matters."

"Dwayne," Archibald said comfortably, sopping up the last of his egg yolk with the last of Tina's second piece of toast, "you say that every place we go."

"It's true every place we go," Dwayne said. "These outfits today, they're not used to cash."

"Dwayne, Dwayne," Archibald said, "who's going to steal from the ministry?"

"Well, we've had some, now and then."

"Pilfering. Employees, misguided smalltime people. You find them out, Dawyne, you always do, and I give them a good talking-to."

"And then I," Dwayne said, "kick their butts into the street."

"But we haven't had anybody like that for a long time," Archibald said. "You pick those people with a great deal of care, Dwayne."

"Which brings me," Dwayne said, "to this boy Carmody."

Archibald sighed. "A knottier problem than most," he admitted.

"I think we ought to get rid of him."

"For zealousness? Dwayne, we've never had to do anything like that before, and I just worry it could backfire on us."

"He's making trouble," Dwayne insisted. "He's an infection that could spread. I like my troops motivated."

"Yes, of course. But the press, Dwayne. The press is a constant affliction. If Tom Carmody's disaffection led him to the wrong reporter, if he found a sympathetic ear in the media to listen when he says we threw him out because he got religion, it could be very bad. Very bad."

"Three days' wonder."

"Maybe. And maybe it's open season on servants of the Lord right now, Dwayne, and we ought to, as our corporate friends say, protect our asses."

"I don't like what he says to the troops," Dwayne insisted.

Archibald understood what Dwayne's problem was. The Marine Corps method of dealing with rotten apples was to seek them out, identify them, and throw them away before they could infect the rest of the bushel. But the Marine Corps didn't have to worry about the combination of a naturally hostile press and a business dependent on voluntary contributions. What Tom Carmody could do to sow doubt in the minds of Dwayne's troops was nothing to what he could conceivably do, with the right reporter's help, to sow doubt in the minds of people like the six hundred drinking their thermos coffee at the moment out at the arena. Employees come and go, but the six hundred are needed forever.

Which it would not be politic to explain to Dwayne, an essentially simple soul whose range of comprehension was unlikely ever to extend beyond the perimeter of the brigade. If someone was troublesome to Dwayne's troops, that's all he would see or care to see; the larger picture was beyond him.

Archibald said, "I tell you what. After the crusade today, I'll have a chat with Tom, see if I can bring him round a bit."

"Fine," Dwayne said. "But, Will, look at him when you talk to him. Look him over. Keep an open mind. If he isn't gonna come around, tell me. I won't just fire him, I'll ease him out, so he don't get mad."

The idea of Dwayne being tactful brought a faint smile to Archibald's lips. He said, "I'll study him like the lesson of the day. How's that?"

Tina said, "Maybe you could talk him into joining some monks or something. Go into a monastery. Then he'd be away from us, but he'd be happy."

Dwayne always squinted a bit and looked away when Tina spoke, as though a bright light were being shined on him. He did that again now, and left it to Archibald to say, "Tina, that's a very good idea. I'll sound him out. A monastery is an excellent place for a religious young man."

"He's got a girl friend," Dwayne said, with no inflection.

Archibald raised an eyebrow. "Has he? So much for the monastery. Is she part of the problem, do you think?"

"Probably. Don't know for sure."

"Perhaps I should talk to them both together."

"She isn't here," Dwayne said. "She isn't one of us. She lives back in Memphis," he explained,

Memphis being Archibald's home base, where he had his Eternal Jesus Chapel and where his television ministry was taped.

"Well, I don't think we should postpone the issue until we get back to Memphis," Archibald said. "I'll talk to Tom this afternoon, after the crusade, and if necessary, talk to the girl later, when we get home. What kind of girl is she?"

"Don't know," Dwayne said, and shrugged. "Mary something. Don't know a thing about her."