I showed him the nine millimeter and the eyes got larger.
I said, “I work security for the Climax Club, gentlemen. Would you please step out of the vehicle and stand for a search? We’ve had death threats.”
A voice from the rear of the vehicle came, a resonant, liquid baritone with a practiced pleasantness built in. “That won’t be necessary, young man. I’m the Reverend Lesser Weaver. Join me in back. We’ll talk.”
I heard the doors at the rear of the vehicle unlock themselves by way of invitation.
Replacing the nine mil in my back waistband, I threw the tiny-eyed thug a look that probably didn’t worry him a whole hell of a lot. Then I opened the sidewalk-side rear door and got in, taking the fold-down seat facing my host, who wore a gray tailored suit, a white shirt, and silk lavender tie with matching breast-pocket hanky.
The leader of the Evangelical Redeemer Church was thin, fifty-something, with money-green eyes, a long Roman nose, a wide mouth, a cleft chin rivaling Kirk Douglas, and a full head of brown hair so styled and sprayed it might have been rubber, like the fake dog shit you can buy in a magic shop.
“You have a name, son?”
“Jack.”
“No surname?”
“Quarry.”
“Unusual.”
“I like it.”
“Well, it is distinctive. The Lord likes individuals.”
“I thought he preferred sheep.”
“We’re all sheep before Him.”
“Swell. Just keep your shears to yourself. What’s your business here, Reverend?”
His eyebrows were darker brown than his hair; he lifted one. “‘I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.’ Matthew Five, twenty-seven eight. That is my business, young man.”
I glanced around the limo interior. “Seems to pay pretty well.”
A mild, condescending smile came to the wide, narrow lips. “Our Heavenly Father does not wish poverty upon His servants. He wishes only the best for His followers. ‘Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart.’ Psalms thirty-seven four.”
“Jeez, that sounds a little dirty. But who am I to judge? I was serious about those death threats, Reverend. Do you know anything about that?”
The smile grew even more patronizing, somehow, and the green eyes hardened. “I know that Mr. Climer is at risk of reaping what he’s sown.”
“If you’re talking about sex, I’m pretty sure he does a lot of sowing without reaping. As for making money off the weaknesses of others, I would imagine that’s something you know something about.”
The smile disappeared. “Perhaps we don’t have anything to discuss, young man.”
“I think we do. Let’s discuss what you may reap — you and those two ex-military guys in the front seat, and any other others like them who may be in your employ — if you attempt to kill the man I’m working for.”
His laugh was light but somehow chilling. “Kill that pitiful evil pornographer? Why I on earth would I want to do that? I will leave his punishment to the Good Lord’s devices.”
“Spare me any man-of-God nonsense. It’s clear your opposition to Climer’s business is getting you a lot of attention from the media. It’s a hell of a recruiting tool for your church.”
The reverend gestured toward the street, where Climer had gone back in and the choir was chanting, “God is love, porn is hate.”
He said, “Yes it is, Mr. Quarry. A most effective recruitment vehicle. Which is exactly why, in addition to the Sixth Commandment, what you’re suggesting is absurd. Mr. Climer is helping me build a national congregation. I’m already on the radio, blessed by one hundred thousand watts. I’ll be on television... again, nationally... by this time next year.”
“You should really draw an audience with that snake-handling routine of yours. And the talking in tongues.”
His smile was tinged with regret. “I’m afraid we’ve had to abandon certain of the more colorful aspects of our preaching to become a more mainstream ministry. Serpents are restricted to the printed page of Genesis now. Speaking the language of angels or ancient forgotten tongues, though, if not overused, that does have value.”
“Showmanship, you mean.”
His shoulders winged up. “Showmanship is but a means to bring troubled souls to the Lord.” He folded his hands in his lap as if about to lead me in prayer. “Are you familiar with All-Star Wrestling, young man?”
“Who isn’t?”
“What makes that modern-day gladiator spectacle work, would you say?”
I knew what he meant immediately. “A villain. Everybody loves a villain. TV really loves a villain.”
“Yes. And Max Climer, Mr. Quarry, is mine... Ah, here come reinforcements.”
Charging around the corner, from the same direction as had the choir-robed protesters, a group of young women surged, bearing their own placards, very much not the print-shop variety: PORN KILLS; PORN IS VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN; WOMEN AGAINST PORN; PORNO!; and even stop climaxing! which might or might not have been purposely ambiguous. A banner on poles required two young women to hold it up, both black and in Angela Davis Afros: WOMEN’S LIBERATION NOW! Circled power fists were drawn on either side of the slogan.
The most interesting thing about this second wave of protest was the way the first wave moved back for them, and almost politely, discreetly returned around the corner the way they came. It was a little like watching the offense come off the football field and the defense come on.
“Talk about strange bedfellows,” I said.
These new arrivals appeared to be college girls, and they were in jeans and t-shirts or mini-dresses and sandals, lots of long straight hair and round wireframe glasses and no makeup. They were chanting, “Porn kills!”
“You coordinated this,” I said to Weaver, mildly astonished and definitely impressed. “How did you manage it? These girls are the same pro-abortion bunch your people despise!”
“Where pornography and Max Climer are concerned,” he said, with a small shrug, “we share common ground. I have friends on campus who know how to pull strings, and push buttons. These young people came on foot and in their own cars and vans. Our church brought in two busloads. A friendly merchant provided his parking lot.”
The TV cameras were still rolling, and the female on-air reporters were finding interview subjects among the rather shrill protesters. No Climax customers entered or left while act two of the show was underway, but then the place had been packed already, with plenty to drink and no shortage of naked women to look at. Everybody was getting what they came here for.
Unlike the choir from Evangelical Redeemer Church, the libber contingent had an apparent leader right there in the thick of the fray, a particularly attractive young woman whose blonde-highlighted brown hair was straight and to her shoulders; she was in cutoffs and a light blue t-shirt that said
a billboard made all the more appealing by the bra-free nature of her high perky breasts. Two steps led up to a small porch at the Climax Club entrance, and that’s where she stood, addressing the crowd, raising and waving a clenched fist as she led the group of several dozen pissed-off coeds in chanting, “Porn kills! Porn kills!”
The door behind her opened and, of all people, Vernon Climer in a denim suit with a winged-collar blue-and-white paisley shirt came out and the girl turned to him and they screamed in detail at each other. Then he took her by the arm and dragged her into the club.