Niles watched him for a few silent moments. He'd worked for Augustus Krepsin for almost six years, first as a liaison between Krepsin and the overlords of organized crime in Mexico, now as a companion and righthand man here in Palm Springs. Still, he knew very little about the man. Krepsin was the king of his own hard-won empire. He had originally come to this country from Greece before World War II, and somewhere along the line Krepsin had become entranced with two subjects: death and disease. He talked about each with a clinical interest, and he watched the snuff films as if he could see the center of the universe in a dismembered corpse. Krepsin had built his Palm Springs fortress with strict cleanliness in mind, and rarely ventured out of it.
The telephone in the arm of Niles's chair buzzed softly. He picked up the receiver. "Yes?"
The operator said, "Mr. Niles? Jack Braddock's on the line again from Nashville."
"Mr Krepsin doesn't want to be disturbed. Tell Braddock—"
"Just a moment," Krepsin said. "Jack Braddock?" He breathed deeply and then took off his oxygen mask. "I'll talk to him." Krepsin's organization had taken over Braddock's Essex Records Company in Nashville several years ago. Essex was continuing to lose money, and there had been a record-pirating scandal two years ago that Essex had barely squeaked out of. Krepsin was beginning to regret letting such a poor manager as Braddock stay on, though Essex had been purchased primarily as an avenue to launder dirty money.
Niles told the operator to put the call through, and Krepsin answered the phone. "What do you want?"
There was a startled intake of air almost fifteen hundred miles away. "Uh . . . sorry to bother you, Mr. Krepsin. But somethin's come up that I need to—"
"Why don't you take speech lessons, Braddock? Everyone down there sounds as if they haven't had a good bowel movement in years. I can send you some herbal pills that will clean you out."
Braddock laughed nervously.
"I hope your line is green," Krepsin said. A bugged line would be "red." After the pirating mess, Krepsin suspected the FBI tapped Essex's phones.
"I'm calling from a pay phone."
"All right. What is it?"
"Well, I got a visit from a lawyer named Henry Bragg yesterday afternoon. He represents the Falconer Crusade, and they want to start making records. They're looking for an independent company to buy, and—"
"Falconer Crusade? What is that?"
"Religious bunch. They're into publishing, radio, lots of stuff. I don't suppose you get the 'Wayne Falconer Power Hour' on TV out there, do you?"
"I don't watch television. It sends out radiation, and radiation causes bone cancer."
"Oh. Yes sir Well, this Mr. Bragg is backed by a lot of money. They want to make an offer for Essex."
Krepsin was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Essex is not for sale. Not to anyone. We worked too hard getting through our troubles with the authorities to give it up just yet. Is this the important reason you've called me?"
On the other end, Braddock coughed. Krepsin knew the man was addicted to cigars, and he thought: Throat cancer. Malignant cells, running rampant through Braddock's body. Disease breeding disease. "There is one other thing I thought you might be interested in," Braddock said. "Wayne Falconer. He runs the whole Crusade from a little town in Alabama. He's only about twenty years old, but he's a hell of a preacher And he's a healer, too."
Krepsin paused. His face folded in thought. "Healer?"
"Yes sir. Cures people of all kinds of diseases. I saw him straighten a man's back on television last week, saw him heal a pair of crippled legs, too. Bragg says they want to make self-healing records for people to listen to. He says the boy wants to tour Essex, if it's on the market."
"A healer?" Krepsin asked. "Or is he simply a good actor?"
"An awful lot of people believe in him. And like I say, that Crusade's just rollin' in the money."
"Oh?" Krepsin grunted softly, his small black eyes glittered. "A healer? Mr. Braddock, I may have been hasty. I want you to contact those people. Let them tour Essex. Talk it up. I'm going to send Mr Niles to represent the corporation. You and he will work together, and I want to know everything about this Falconer boy. Understand?"
"Yes sir."
"Good. And one more thing: I don't want Mr. Niles returning to Palm Springs with his suits fouled by cigar smoke. Now get in contact with those people at once." He hung up and turned toward Niles. "You're leaving for Nashville today. I want something called the Falconer Crusade thoroughly investigated. I want to know everything about a boy named Wayne Falconer."
"Yes sir," Niles said. "May I ask why?"
"Because he's either a cunning charlatan—or he's a genuine healer. And if that's so, I want him here. With me. It's time for my massage now."
Niles helped Krepsin rise from the chair. The man's huge bulk—over four hundred pounds on a large-boned frame five-feet six-inches tall—left its shape impressed in the leather. As they neared the door, an electric eye triggered the mechanism that both unlocked the door and started a new flow of charcoal-filtered air in the outside corridor.
After they'd gone, a Mexican maid in a long white smock entered the empty projection room and began vacuuming the carpet. She wore spotless white gloves and white cotton slippers, and across the lower half of her face was a surgical mask.
45
There was a letter from Dr. Mirakle in the mailbox today. Billy read it as he walked up the hill to the house in the clear golden light of late October.
Dr. Mirakle said he had his eye on a cottage in Florida. He asked if Billy had read the last batch of books on spiritualism he'd sent, and how his piano lessons were coming along. He asked also if Billy had given any more thought to visiting that institute in Chicago.
Billy slipped the letter back into its envelope. Since that strange autumn three years ago, Dr. Mirakle had written frequently, and often sent him books on a variety of subjects. He'd visited once, about three months after Billy had come home to find his father buried, and had brought the old piano, tuned and repaired, that now stood in the front room.
The house was painted white, its windows glinting with sunlight. A wisp of smoke curled from the chimney. Around the house the trees had burst into color, and in the breeze there was a faint chill of approaching winter. An old brown pickup truck, an ugly and unreliable beast bought over a year before with money from a sizable corn crop, rested in front of the house. The Creekmore place was now one of the last houses that didn't have electricity, but Billy didn't mind. The dark wasn't threatening, and late at night the kerosene lanterns cast a soft golden glow that was much better, to his way of thinking, than harsh white electricity.
He was less than a month shy of turning twenty-one. In the last three years he'd grown another two inches and had gained twenty pounds, all of it firm muscle that came from hard outdoor work. His face had sharpened and matured, and thick dark curls tumbled over his forehead; his dark eyes glittered with an earthy intelligence, and could shine with good humor as well. He walked up onto the front porch and went into the house, past the upright piano in the front room; he'd been taking lessons for two years from a retired music teacher at two dollars a week, and had progressed from pounding hell out of the instrument to letting it draw the moods from him as his fingers rippled across the keyboard. Many evenings his mother sat with her needlepoint, listening to the slightly warped chords but appreciating the feeling behind the music.
"Any mail?" she called from the kitchen.
"One letter, from Dr. Mirakle. He says hello." He sat down in a chair before the hearth and read Dr Mirakle's letter again. When he looked up, Ramona was standing over him, drying her hands on a dishrag. "Did he mention that place again?" she asked quietly.