Let the Fire Fall

Chapter Twenty-four

HE’S in there, and I want him out. Take a dozen of your men and get inside that ship and don’t come out until you find him.”

Merton watched his lieutenant walk out stiffly, and he knew that Blake had eluded them again. No one could have stayed inside the ship for two weeks without being found, or running out of food, or making his presence known somehow. His spies among the UNEF reported nothing untoward had occurred aboard. He went to find Obie.

“It was your job to keep him,” Obie said. “And it’s your job to find him now and put him in a cage. Get that, Merton. If you don’t get the job done this week, I’ll find someone who will.”

“Oh, shut up,” Merton said.

Obie started from the deep chair that was massaging his back. There were fatty deposits over Obie’s hips, around his rib cage. No jiggling chair would take them away. Hard work, less food might, but even that was doubtful. Obie was destined to put on weight. Merton scowled at him and motioned for him to sit down again. He draped a leg over Obie’s desk and said, “Let’s get this out in the open, Obie. You aren’t going to fire me now, or ever. If I get tired, I’ll leave. Period. I have enough on you, on Dee Dee, on Wanda, Billy, everyone you ever hired for any little nose-picking job you wanted done to put all of you away for the rest of your lives. So forget it.”

Obie turned very red. Where his hair was thinning on top, his scalp showed through, cherry bright. “You think I don’t have the same kind of stuff on you?”

“I know what you got. So we’d all go together. Forget it, Obie. We’ve got things to decide.” Obie glared at him, but he sat back again and the chair shook him gently. “First, you go ahead with the Son of God routine that you started. I’m putting everyone I have on this. We’ll find him, and by the end of next year we’ll be ready for the resurrection, just like we planned. Tell your writers to bear down on that.”

“No,” Obie said firmly. “Not unless we have him in our hands. Too risky.”

“Listen, you fool,” Merton said. “We need him now. I got a ringer for him. With the gas, and the buildup, they’ll accept it. For the climax, we’ll have him. Leave it to me.”

“Let me see the ringer first.”

Merton had the boy brought in. He did look like Blake. Fair, with intense eyes, good build. But he was incredibly stupid. Which probably was a good thing. He would follow any orders that he could remember. Obie grunted and the boy was led away.

“He’s an idiot!”

“So what? You want him to sit on the stage and look at them. That’s all. You do the rest anyway.”

The buildup started. Blake would appear henceforth along with Obie; the God-given healing powers had been restored in full. Bring forth the halt and the lame, bring the blind and the dumb, bring you small ones whose bodies are twisted, your old One whose legs stumble and falter. Bring them all. Let Obie and His Son heal. them, with the power and the strength and the might of God that abides in them.

The next show was scheduled for Miami, a tough city, filled with money men and bought women and hedonists of all ages and bents. If Obie and the ringer got through to them, anything was possible.

The billboards read: They give you water where there was none. Power where there was no power. Wine where there was no wine. Health where health has failed. Come feel the power of God that shines forth through Obie Cox and his son Blake.

The auditorium seated two hundred thousand, and it was filled. The MM’s were out in full force, most of them in plainclothes, all of them armed and alert for the Barbers, and for Blake Daniels.

Obie glowed and was beautiful, his beard gleamed, with peroxide and a luminous dye, and his eyes shone with the power of God. He paced in his dressing room smoking furiously, waiting for Merton’s report that all was clear. Billy chewed on a fingernail and looked fat. Dee Dee in her white robe was lovely, but she, like Obie, was smoking hard.

“I wish you hadn’t let him talk you into this,” Billy said, spitting out a bit of his thumbnail. “It isn’t going to take many of those scenes like Chicago to make a fool out of you. If those kids show up with their voice distorter and their scissors…”

“If Merton bitches this one,” Obie muttered, “I have just the guys for him. They have orders….”

Dee Dee gasped. “You’re kidding!”

“You too, if you think it’s time to take sides,” Obie said.

Dee Dee shrugged. If she had to take sides, she would stand pat. Obie knew that. Merton without Obie was just another ex-F.B.I. man.

Merton came in then, looking satisfied and very matter of fact. “Time,” he said. “I gave the word to get started.”

“You’re sure about the audience?”

“Absolutely. We used the scanners on everyone who came in, no electronic devices, no scissors, nothing. We had to take a hundred seventy-four aside and escort them back out, but they weren’t Barbers. Blackjacks and knives and a few stun guns. That’s all.” The sound of the choir drifted in. They were very good, three hundred voices, each girl good enough to solo.

“The kid? Is he set?”

“He knows what he’s supposed to do. As long as he doesn’t have to speak, he’ll be fine. Calm down Obie. This one is fixed down the line.”

Billy. turned on the 3D and they saw the choir, miniaturized, but there in the room with them. A camera did a slow sweep of the audience, and again they were there, seeing the individuals in person. Dee Dee stubbed out her cigarette, and left for her solo. Billy waddled out, still unhappy, to watch from behind stage and to take charge of the money when it came in. Presently it was rime for Obie to go on. Obie straightened his shoulders and left Merton alone in the dressing room. Only then did Merton allow some of the worry he was feeling to show on his face. He drank a quick scotch and water, then concentrated on the 3D. It was going out all over the world; everywhere people were watching to see if the Barbers would break up yet another of the rallies held by Obie. Riots, fires, National Guards had repaid their diligence the last three times Brother Cox had held open revivals, and they were hopeful that this would be as exciting. Obie had been forced to go to closed meetings with only the broadcasts to take the message to the people, and it had cost him; at the rate of half a million dollars a meeting, it had cost him. Now they would regain lost ground. But Merton worried.

The lights went out slowly, the flickering tapers relieving the dark very little, and when the spot came on, Obie was there, looking handsome and very sure of himself. He could feel the excitement from the crowds, and their fear of being caught up in something that could get dangerous. Obie prayed, getting the full feeling of his audience, and when the prayer was over the collection was taken. Billy managed that part of it. He would be jubilant; there were many bills of credit, many dollars, the jingle of coins. Obie had the feel now: he knew what he would preach. He never really knew until he felt with the audience. Actually what he said didn’t vary all that much, but his delivery did, and tonight he would be happy, hopeful, excited. This was the beginning of the end. The power of God had been contested and had not been found wanting. The forces of evil had been driven out once more. God was triumphant. Obie Cox was triumphant. The hallelujah chorus started and Blake’s stand-in came forward. For a second Obie’s stomach churned; the kid looked legitimate as hell. Blake had always come out reluctantly, closed in on himself somehow. The boy took his seat and Obie started:

“God gave us this boy so that His power could be shown here on Earth. And God said, ‘I shall reveal many things through this boy, and when the time comes, I shall take him to My bosom that man might know that I have put My Mark on him.’ And to this boy God revealed many things: how to restore sight to eyes grown dim; how to put strength in limbs twisted and weak; how to bring well-being to bodies suffering and pained; how to bring peace of mind to man. And when this house, Earth, is in order, then will God return this boy to his home in heaven and man will be ready to meet the strangers and to overcome them….”

The trouble with charisma, one of the problems of making it understandable, is that on paper it is so flat, while in the flesh it sings and dances and draws and compels. Obie Cox had that charisma. He was insincere, he was crafty, he was a cheat, a liar, a clown according to some of those who had seen through him, but he had charisma. He could say A-B-C and make his audience love it. He could recite nursery rhymes and they would go away thinking they had heard great poetry. He had the gift. He held the audience of two hundred thousand.

Obie fed them, nourished them, structured their fears and their anxieties for them; he buoyed them to the heavens and then took away the props and replaced them with conditions, First they had to eradicate the menace to mankind: the forces of evil among them, the short hairs who threatened mankind by not believing in the message of the Voice of God. There would then be room enough, food enough, hope enough. But only after Armageddon.

When Obie ordered them to come forward and declare themselves on the side of The Voice of God and what it stood for, they came in droves. They pushed and fought to get to the stage where each convert was presented with a plastic glass which he filled with water by himself, and which then gave him wine. The miracle of the wine drew more converts. But the first batch started to act strangely. They stared at the wine, looked about as if awakening, and when the time came for them to withdraw backstage to sign up for instructions and for a place in the Listener’s Booths, they edged away, and gradually resumed their seats, or tried to leave the auditorium. They were quiet and well behaved for the most part; unless an eager MM tried to force them backstage, they simply acted bewildered by it all.

Obie hurriedly started his final prayer, calling on God to manifest Himself through Blake.

“And God said, ‘Rise ye who would seek delivery from pain and from hurts, and look on him, My Son.’” Obie motioned to the boy, who stared at him dully, half asleep, forgetful of his role for the moment. Obie motioned again and the boy remembered. He stood up and turned to his left and stared at the masses of faces turned toward him. Somewhere behind them a small scuffle broke out when a newly awakened wine sipper woke up and demanded back his credit of ten dollars, his donation to the Church. The boy stared and slowly people in that section of the audience started to gasp and some of them stood up weeping and crying out. The healing was taking place.

In the dressing room Merton was sipping Scotch and water, a satisfied smile on his face. Like clockwork. there was something with the wine routine that needed looking into, but they could fix that. The rest was as sweet as honey. He dropped his glass suddenly and leaned forward. A figure was floating over Obie’s head. Merton swore long and fluently and watched.

Blake Daniels sat on air cross-legged and nodded to people in the audience. He looked down at the double standing on the stage with his arms outstretched, and he laughed. Everyone heard him laugh. Obie heard. Obie’s head snapped back. and he stared, turned white, looked like he might faint, but stood there, unable to move, unable to speak. Blake waved to him casually, pointed again to the boy and laughed once more. He floated easily over the heads of the audience, looked down on them, and made several gestures. Some of those in the audience rose from their seats, with looks of astonishment and pleasure on their faces, and joined him in the air. One was a frail white-haired woman who left a wheelchair behind to float. Blake laughed joyously at her and she laughed also. There had been a total silence at first, but now people were starting to react. There were screams and cries: “Take me, too.” “Pick me up.” “Show me how to do it.” “Who are you?” and so on. Some fainted. Blake looked down again and made another motion; more joined him, a youngster of ten or eleven, another white-haired woman, a young man of twenty-five or so, two teen-aged girls. A Militant Millenniumist pulled his stun gun and aimed it. Blake turned toward him shaking his head. The man said later that he felt a flashing pain in his hand, heat, electricity, something that he couldn’t describe, and he dropped the gun. Other guns were dropped. Blake led his floaters from the auditorium then, and they all vanished upward into the sky.

The auditorium was in a shambles by then. People forgot Obie Cox and his son and tried to clamber out over and under other people for another glimpse of the floaters. The MM’s were pushed aside, as were ushers, and the plainclothesmen. The noise was intolerable. The choir was ordered to sing, but they couldn’t be heard. Backstage a band of youths dressed in black staged a robbery and the entire take was lifted and vanished while the attention of the guards was on the bedlam of the auditorium. The boys floated away with the loot afterward.

When Obie got back to his dressing room Merton was there. Obie said nothing. He was as white as the robe he wore; his eyes were quite mad. He hit Merton on the side of his face with his fist and his ring cut deeply into the flesh, baring the cheekbone. Merton was staggered and dazed, but he wasn’t out. He lashed back with a knife. Obie kicked him in the groin, and this time Merton fell screaming in pain.

Obie sat down then and drank Scotch from the bottle. He got very drunk very fast. When Merton could move, Obie kicked him again, and this time Merton lay unmoving for a long time. Obie left him on the floor and returned to Mount Laurel. Merton would have joined the opposition when he got in condition to join anything once more, but he never found them. He went back to the F.B.I. and became their chief informer concerning the Church.