“Thank you, Al,” Jacobs said.
“Very welcome.” Speaking to the boss and ignoring me.
“Nice pants,” I said. “Takes me back to the days when the Bee Gees quit the transcendental stuff and went disco. Now you need some vintage platform shoes to go with.”
He gave me a look that wasn’t very soulful (or very Christian, for that matter), and left. It would not be a stretch to say Stamper stamped out.
Jacobs picked up his lemonade and sipped. From the bits of pulp floating on the surface, I deduced it was homemade. And from the way the ice cubes clittered together when he set it back down, I deduced I hadn’t been wrong about the palsy. Sherlock had nothing on me that day.
“That was rude, Jamie,” Jacobs said, but he sounded amused. “Especially for a guest, and an uninvited one, at that. Laura would be ashamed.”
I let the reference to my mother—calculated, I’m sure—pass. “Uninvited or not, you seemed glad to see me.”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be? Try your lemonade. You look hot. Also, if I may be frank, a bit uncomfortable.”
I was, but at least I wasn’t frightened anymore. Angry is what I was. Here I sat in a gigantic house surrounded by a gigantic swatch of ground that no doubt included a gigantic swimming pool and a golf course—perhaps now too overgrown to be playable, but still part of the estate. A luxurious home for Charles Jacobs’s electrical experiments in his later years. Somewhere else, Robert Rivard was standing in a corner, probably wearing a diaper, because bathroom functions were the least of his concerns these days. Veronica Freemont was taking the bus to work because she no longer dared to drive, and Emil Klein might still be snacking on dirt. Then there was Cathy Morse, a pretty little Sooner gal who was now in a coffin.
Easy, white boy, I heard Bree counsel. Easy does it.
I tasted my lemonade, then set it back down on the tray. Wouldn’t want to mar the expensive cherrywood finish of the table; goddam thing was probably an antique. And okay, maybe I was still a little scared, but at least the ice cubes didn’t clink in my glass. Jacobs, meanwhile, crossed his right leg over his left, and I noted he had to use his hands to help it along.
“Arthritis?”
“Yes, but not bad.”
“I’m surprised you don’t heal it with the holy rings. Or would that qualify as self-abuse?”
He gazed out at the spectacular view without replying. Shaggy iron-gray eyebrows—a unibrow, actually—drew together over the fierce blue eyes.
“Or maybe you’re afraid of the aftereffects. Is that it?”
He raised a hand in a stop gesture. “Enough insinuations. You don’t need to make them with me, Jamie. Our destinies are too entwined for that.”
“I don’t believe in destiny any more than you believe in God.”
He turned to me, once more giving me that smile that was all teeth and no warmth. “I repeat: enough. You tell me why you came, and I’ll tell you why I’m glad to see you.”
There was really no way to say it but to say it. “I came to tell you that you have to stop the healing.”
He sipped more lemonade. “And why would I do that, Jamie, when it’s done so much good for so many?”
You know why I came, I thought. Then I had an even more uncomfortable thought: You’ve been waiting for me.
I shook the idea off.
“It’s not so good for some of them.” I had our master list in my back pocket, but there was no need to bring it out. I had memorized the names and the aftereffects. I began with Hugh and his prismatic interludes, and how he had suffered one at the Norris County revival.
Jacobs shrugged it off. “Stress of the moment. Has he had any since?”
“Not that he’s told me.”
“I think he would have, since you were there when he had the last one. Hugh’s fine, I’m sure. What about you, Jamie? Any current aftereffects?”
“Bad dreams.”
He made a polite scoffing sound. “Everyone has those from time to time, and that includes me. But the blackouts you suffered are gone, yes? No more compulsive talking, myoclonic movements, or poking at your skin?”
“No.”
“So. You see? No worse than a sore arm after a vaccination.”
“Oh, I think the aftereffects some of your followers have suffered are a little worse than that. Robert Rivard, for instance. Do you remember him?”
“The name rings a faint bell, but I’ve healed so many.”
“From Missouri? Muscular dystrophy? His video was on your website.”
“Oh, yes, now I remember. His parents made a very generous love offering.”
“His MD’s gone, but so is his mind. He’s in the sort of hospital sometimes referred to as a vegetable patch.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” Jacobs said, and returned his attention to the view—midstate New York burning toward winter.
I went through the others, although it was clear he already knew a good deal of what I was telling him. I really surprised him only once, at the end, when I told him about Cathy Morse.
“Christ,” he said. “The girl with the angry father.”
“I think the angry father would do more than just punch you in the mouth this time. If he could find you, that is.”
“Perhaps, but Jamie, you’re not looking at the big picture.” He leaned forward, hands clasped between his bony knees, his eyes on mine. “I’ve healed a great many poor souls. Some—the ones with psychosomatic problems—actually do the healing themselves, as I’m sure you know. But others have been healed by virtue of the secret electricity. Although God gets the credit, of course.”
His teeth showed briefly in a cheerless spasm of a smile.
“Let me pose you a hypothetical situation. Suppose I were a neurosurgeon and you came to me with a malignant brain tumor, one not impossible to operate on but very difficult. Very risky. Suppose I told you that your chances of dying on the table were… mmm… let’s say twenty-five percent. Wouldn’t you still go ahead, knowing that the alternative was a period of misery followed by certain death? Of course you would. You’d beg me to operate.”
I said nothing, because the logic was inarguable.
“Tell me, how many people do you think I’ve actually healed through electrical intervention?”
“I don’t know. My assistant and I only listed the ones we felt we could be sure of. It was pretty short.”
He nodded. “Good research technique.”
“Glad you approve.”
“I have my own list, and it’s much longer. Because I know when it happens, you see. When it works. There is never any doubt. And based on my follow-up tracking, only a few suffer adverse effects later on. Three percent, perhaps five. Compared to the brain tumor example I just set you, I’d call those terrific odds.”
I was a turn back, on the phrase follow-up tracking. I’d only had Brianna. He had hundreds or even thousands of followers who would be happy to keep an eye on his cures; all he had to do was ask. “Except for Cathy Morse, you knew about every case I just cited, didn’t you?”
He didn’t reply. Only watched me. There was no doubt in his face, only rock solid certainty.
“Of course you did. Because you keep tabs. To you they’re lab rats, and who cares if a few rats get sick? Or die?”
“That’s terribly unfair.”
“I don’t believe it is. You put on the religious act, because if you did your stuff in the lab I’m sure you’ve got right here at The Latches, the government would arrest you for experimenting on human subjects… and killing some of them.” I leaned forward, my eyes on his. “The newspapers would call you Josef Mengele.”