Spellbinder Read online

  “Don’t forget to have Beverly give me the sermon as soon as she finishes, Reverend,” Bailey said.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Preacher said. He turned and went out of the tent.

  Joe fell into step with him. “What do you think of the idea, Preacher?”

  “I think they’re crazy,” Preacher said.

  “I don’t think it’s so bad,” Joe said. “After all, it’s no worse than when you faked beatin’ up on Tarz.”

  Preacher stopped and turned to face him. “I think you’re missing the whole point. I didn’t say I didn’t like it. I think it’s the greatest thing to come down the pike since the Model T. I only hope they can pull it off. But I still think they’re crazy.”

  ***

  “Okay, Reverend,” Woden said. “I know you did this many times before, but never for the camera. Now, when the tent flap goes up, you step in. You have the Bible in your hand, you don’t look down, you don’t look up, not sideways, just straight ahead past the camera that will be moving in front of you. Make sure you stay on the white chalk marks so that we don’t lose you. Go up the steps slowly, put the Bible on the podium, then look out at the audience and go into your greeting. Welcome to the Community of God Church of etcetera, etcetera. Got it?”

  Preacher nodded.

  The director retreated behind the tent flap. His voice came from inside. “Go!”

  The flap went up. Preacher stepped inside. He walked slowly, doing exactly as he had been told. He began to speak. “Welcome to—”

  “Okay, stop!” the director called. “Very good.” He paused and someone whispered in his ear. He looked up at Preacher on the platform. “That was perfect, Reverend, but do you have any objection if we put some makeup on you? You show up much too pale.”

  Preacher looked down at him. “Is it really necessary?”

  “Come and see for yourself,” Woden said.

  Preacher came down from the platform and followed him to a small monitor standing nearby. “Okay, roll the replay,” Woden said.

  There was a blur, then Preacher came on the screen. He stared at himself for the first time. It was very strange. He never realized his skin was so white. “I’m really not that pale,” he said.

  “The camera picks up skin tones we don’t see with our naked eyes,” Woden said. “It happens quite often. A little makeup will fix it.”

  “Okay,” Preacher said. He looked at Woden. “When will the tape we took this morning be ready? I thought you said we’d be able to see it right away.”

  “It needed a little editing,” Woden said. “Some of the girls’ dresses were just a little too sheer. We had to cut away from them. We should be ready in about another ten minutes. If you want to go back to your van now, I’ll call you.”

  Preacher nodded. He knew what the director meant. Sheer wasn’t quite the word for it. When those girls came out of the water their nudity practically leaped through their dresses. But he had almost forgotten about it when the other people began to leap into the water. In a peculiar way he himself had become caught up in their fervor. It had become almost real. Their cries “Praise the Lord! I’m saved! I’m born again! Thank you, sweet Jesus!” still rang in his ears.

  “Okay, I’ll be in the van,” he said. He walked out of the tent.

  “Reverend Talbot,” the girl’s voice called.

  He looked up. “Yes, Miss Dawson?”

  “I have the recording tapes you made that we’re hooking up to our computer phones,” she said. “Would you like to hear them?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Do you have a quiet place?”

  “My van,” he said. “I was just going there.”

  She followed him into the van. “Very nice,” she said, glancing around.

  “Not much,” he smiled. “But it’s home.” He led her to the table. “You can put the tape player here.”

  She placed the tape player flat on the table. “You know how this works,” she explained. “When the phone rings, the tape answers it automatically, then transfers the call to the first operator free.”

  “They told me that.” It was all part of their audience check. Throughout the program, the announcement would be made that if listeners just called the toll-free number and gave their name and address and birth date, they would receive by return mail a letter signed by the Reverend C. Andrew Talbot personally, which would contain the names of five great Americans born on that same date together with a special prayer for their guidance written by him, absolutely free. There was no money to send, nothing to buy, not even the telephone to pay for. It was all absolutely free.

  She pressed down the play button and his voice came from the speaker. “Hello. This is the Reverend C. Andrew Talbot of the Community of God Church of Christian America Triumphant, thanking you for your call in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ. Now, if you will wait just a moment, I will turn you over to one of our operators who will be happy to take your name and address. Thank you again for calling and God bless you.”

  She clicked off the button and looked at him. “What do you think?”

  “It’s long,” he said.

  “I know that,” she answered. “But our research shows that people like it. It gives your reply a realness that makes it very believable.”

  He shrugged. “You’re the expert.”

  “It’s our business,” she said. “You know your Bible. We know people.”

  “The Bible is people,” he said.

  She shot him a quizzical glance. “You don’t seem too excited about all this.”

  “It’s strange,” he said. “But I’m learning.”

  She rose to her feet. “I have the feeling, Reverend, you’ll learn very fast.”

  There was a knock at the door and a voice came through it. “The playback is ready, Reverend.”

  “Be right with you,” he called. He turned back to the young woman. “They’re going to show me the baptism thing we did this morning. Would you like to see it?”

  “I’d love to,” she said.

  “We’re showing it in the editing van,” the man who was waiting for them said, and they followed him across the field.

  The editing van was a giant Winnebago trailer filled with machinery. Gathered around the large screen were Marcus Lincoln, Woden, Bailey, and Perry Smith.

  “Cut the lights and roll it,” Woden said as Preacher and Miss Dawson moved up to the screen.

  The lights went down and the tape began to roll. The scene came on and Preacher found it hard to believe that it all hadn’t happened spontaneously, it seemed so real. In a few minutes it was over and the lights came back on.

  Lincoln turned to him. “Well, Reverend?”

  Preacher nodded. “You were right, Mr. Lincoln. It is very good. I have just one objection though.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The girls’ dresses. They all seem much too nude.”

  “We’re doing something about that, Reverend,” Woden said quickly. “We’ve ordered slips for the girls to wear under the dresses and they’ll be here in time for the program. Believe me, there will be nothing to worry about then.”

  “You’ve been right so far, Mr. Woden,” Preacher said. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  Lincoln was smiling. “We’re going to have a good show, Reverend. I feel it in my bones.”

  “I hope so, Mr. Lincoln,” Preacher said.

  “Reverend Talbot,” Bailey, the assistant director and writer, called.

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve taken the liberty of having your cue cards retyped,” he said quickly. “I haven’t made any changes in your text or subject. I’ve just added notes in red so that you know which camera to turn to for emphasis on particular points. I think you’ll find it helpful. You look them over and if you have any questions, just call on me and I’ll try to clarify them.”

  Preacher took the cards from him. “Thank you, Mr. Bailey.” He glanced at the others. “If there’s nothing else I’ll
get back to my van.”

  “You’re all clear now, Reverend,” Lincoln said.

  He went out of the trailer and Jane Dawson followed him. “What are you going to do now, Reverend?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. He shrugged his shoulders. “So much has happened, I feel like getting out and getting stoned.”

  She stared at him in surprise. “Why, Reverend, I didn’t know preachers even thought of things like that.”

  “We’re only human, Miss Dawson.” He laughed. “And besides, what do you think St. Francis was doing all that time he was in the desert? He ate of the wild plants of nature and saw great visions.”

  She met his eyes. “I never thought of it quite that way.”

  “Don’t forget I spent three years in Vietnam, Miss Dawson. And I would have to be real stupid if I didn’t discover many things out there.”

  She stared at him for a moment. “I have some dynamite grass back at my hotel.”

  He shook his head. “It wouldn’t be wise for me to go out there.”

  “I happen to have a few joints in my bag,” she said.

  He smiled. “Well, in that case, why don’t we go back to my van and just go over that recording a few more times? Who knows? We might even be able to improve it.”

  Chapter Eight

  Ten days after the program was taped, he was back at the Randle Ranch. But this time it wasn’t for dinner. It was for a business meeting at ten o’clock in the morning.

  The same people who had been there the first time he had come were there. They sat around the conference table in a private room just behind the library. Jake Randle sat at the head of the table, chewing comfortably on his Havana cigar, a pleased expression on his face.

  “You can review the figures, Mr. Lincoln,” he said.

  Marcus Lincoln nodded and opened a folder in front of him. “We ran the program twice on our own stations. On Tuesday morning at eleven o’clock and on Thursday night at ten o’clock. Tuesday morning we averaged an eleven share of the audience exclusive of the network stations, and on Thursday night we averaged a fifteen share of the audience exclusive of the network stations. We also cut a half-hour radio tape from the program and ran it daily for five days at various times on one hundred and seven of our own stations, forty-two of them FM. In each case we reached a greater share of the audience on each successive rerun. We started as low as a six share on some stations and went as high as a twenty-two share on some stations by the end of the week. For the whole week on radio we averaged a better than sixteen percent share.” He closed his folder and looked up. “I think those results are very encouraging. They indicate a positive potential audience for this program.”

  Randle looked at Miss Dawson. “Miss Dawson.”

  “Mr. Randle.” She picked up a sheet of paper. “The television showings resulted in a total of one hundred and eleven thousand five hundred twenty-one telephone calls—which is an extraordinarily high response based on the viewer share of the audience quoted by Mr. Lincoln. On the radio programs where we asked for mail-in cards we are still in the process of receiving and counting them. At this point, however, we estimate that we will receive slightly more than two hundred thousand postcards and letters. This, too, is an extremely high average response based on Mr. Lincoln’s figures.” She put the paper down. “All in all, I feel safe in saying I feel we have had a very successful program.”

  “Thank you,” the old man said. He turned to Dick Craig. “I know a lot of your people looked at the show. How did they feel?”

  “The Americans for a Better Way felt very positively about the program, Mr. Randle. They felt that the program could help provide a very satisfactory outlet for the projection of their point of view.”

  “Mrs. Lacey,” Randle said.

  “The members of the board of directors of the Christian Women’s Council feel that Reverend Talbot is an outstanding example of a fine young Christian American and we would be very proud to sponsor his program in every way we can.”

  Randle turned in his chair. “Last, but not least, Mr. Everett.”

  The public-relations man cleared his throat. He looked around the table. “You understand, of course, that we approach our surveys in quite a different manner than you. We examine a program for reaction to the image projected by its star performer.” He paused for a moment to give his statement a greater importance. “We find that the reaction to Reverend Talbot from both men and women is an extremely good one. The men see in him the qualities of strength and leadership they admire, and the women see in him the strength and idealism which appeals to both their mother-instinct combined with a subtle, almost sexual response.” He paused again and looked around the table. “It is my considered opinion that, while nothing is easy, it should be relatively simple for us to establish a national image for Reverend Talbot that will fit into all our objectives.”

  “Good.” The old man nodded. He looked down the table at Preacher. “Reverend Talbot, you look as if you have something to say.”

  “I have, Mr. Randle,” Preacher said. “Everything I’ve heard here is very interesting but I still have a question to ask. What do we do next?”

  “A good question, Reverend, but that is a question that you and I will answer between ourselves.” He rose to his feet. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your time.”

  The meeting was over and after the goodbyes were said Preacher and the old man were the only two at the table. The old man looked at him silently, still chewing on his cigar. Preacher returned his gaze without speaking.

  Randle took the cigar from his mouth and looked at it. “I could make you bigger than the Pope,” he said, almost reflectively.

  Preacher still didn’t speak.

  “Of course, it would depend a great deal on you.”

  Preacher was still silent.

  “You would have to clean up your act. Get rid of that big nigger you have hanging around and that chink girl. They don’t fit into your image. People don’t like niggers and chinks. And those ten little girls you got washing your feet like you were Christ. They talk too much. By now, everybody who’s been around that show knows you’ve been fucking all of them. They got to go too.”

  “Is that all?” Preacher asked.

  “No,” Randle said. He turned from looking at his cigar to Preacher. “You also got to stop fucking Miss Dawson. You got her head so turned around, she’s neglecting all the other work I got for her to do. Besides that, I have a very personal interest in that girl.”

  Preacher rose. “Mr. Randle, I thank you. I’ve learned a great deal.”

  The old man peered up at him. “What did you learn?”

  “That I don’t need you. I can do it on my own.”

  Randle snorted. “Where you going to get the five million dollars it will take to put you over?”

  “I heard the same reports that you did, Mr. Randle. That show went a lot of places. You’re not the only game in town.”

  “Nickels and dimes,” the old man said. “It’ll take you years before you see any real money. Son, I can have you makin’ thirty, forty, maybe even fifty million a year so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

  “I’m young yet, Mr. Randle,” Preacher said. “I can wait. I’m in no hurry.”

  “What’s so difficult about doing what I asked?” the old man questioned. “Those people are not that important. They can be replaced.”

  Preacher looked down at him. “Mr. Randle, you don’t understand. There’s a great deal more between those people and me than just what you’re looking at. There’s love and faith and trust. Those people have been with me for years through all the struggle and shit and have never once betrayed my faith in them. Judas betrayed our Lord for thirty pieces of silver. Do you really think you can ever offer me enough to make me betray them?”

  Randle stared at him silently for a moment, then stuck the Havana back in his mouth. “Sit down, young man, sit down,” he said. “We have to find a place to build
a church for you.”

  Preacher sat down. “I have a place in Los Altos, California.”

  “Won’t work,” Randle said. “Everybody thinks all the nuts are out in California. We got to find a place for you in the South or Southwest.” He chewed on the cigar reflectively. “A city, not too big, not too small. One with good travel connections. And one that ain’t already got a preacher of its own on national television.”

  “What about New Orleans?” Preacher asked. “The location is good and I always liked that town.”

  “Nope. Too Catholic.”

  “Atlanta? That’s a wonderful city.”

  “Nope. Too liberal.”

  “Memphis? That’s central.”

  “Uh-uh.”

  Preacher stared at him. “You’re playing games again, Mr. Randle. You already have a place picked out.”

  “That’s right,” the old man said.

  “Then let me in on it.”

  The old man looked at him shrewdly. “You’ll stop fucking Miss Dawson?”

  “I already have,” Preacher said.

  “Then I have the perfect place for you. Filled with our kind of people.” The old man smiled and put a match to his cigar. He looked across the table at Preacher through a cloud of smoke. “Right here. Randle, Texas.”

  “You got to be kidding,” Preacher said. “There’s two churches here already and neither of them has enough money to stay alive, with only about three thousand people to draw from.”

  The old man looked up at him shrewdly. “You’re forgettin’ two things. One, it’s my town and I own it, so whatever I want gets done. Two, the ministry that we’re startin’ up ain’t for Randle alone. It’s for the whole United States.”

  “We’ll still have to get people here,” Preacher said. “It’s only a bus stop on the Greyhound line.”

  “You tend to your preachin’,” Randle said. “Leave the rest to me. I’ll get them here.”

  Chapter Nine

  It was after one o’clock in the morning when the stretchout dropped Preacher in front of his van and pulled away. He paused for a moment and looked up at the sky. The stars were twinkling brightly in the blue velvet Texas night. “I’m frightened, Lord,” he said aloud. “I don’t know where You’re taking me and I do believe that You will protect me. But I’m still frightened.”