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  “You’re not angry with us, Preacher?” Charlie asked.

  “I’m not angry with you,” he said. “You’re all my children.”

  “We love you, Preacher,” Sarah said, taking his hand and kissing it.

  Melanie took his other hand. “We just want to be with you like we used to be before.”

  “You still are,” he said. “Nothing’s changed.”

  “Then let us stay tonight, Preacher,” Melanie said. “We promise not to do anything like this again.”

  He looked over her head at Charlie. The tears were still running down her cheeks. “All right,” he said, in a suddenly gentle voice. “Put out the candles and let’s go back to sleep.”

  But sleep still eluded him and it wasn’t until the morning, when he saw the bearded men with wide-brimmed black hats descend from their car in front of the meeting house, that he knew the meaning of his foreboding.

  They were Brother Ely and Brother Samuel from the Church of the Sons of God, and he suddenly knew to whom the House of Soong had sold the bricks.

  Chapter Seven

  The white Cadillac convertible was parked in front of the meeting house as he walked toward the building. The top was down, revealing the red leather interior gleaming in the morning sun. He walked around to the driver’s side and leaned in over the steering column to read the registration form Scotch-taped to it. The car was registered to the Church of the Sons of God in San Francisco. He straightened up and went into the building.

  Tarz was seated at the table with the two visitors. The two men were dressed in somber black, black wide-brimmed hats, black shirts and slacks—even their full beards were black. They rose to their feet as he came into the room.

  He didn’t extend his hand to them. “Brother Ely, Brother Samuel,” he said.

  Brother Ely, the shorter of the two men, smiled. “Preacher, it’s good to see you again.”

  Preacher nodded. He neither smiled nor answered.

  “We heard you were in town,” Brother Samuel said. “Why didn’t you stop in to see us?”

  “Had no reason to,” Preacher said shortly.

  “But you were there three days,” Brother Ely said. “You should have stopped in. You know Brother Robert thinks highly of you. He feels no one works harder for the Lord than you.”

  Preacher stared at him for a moment, then sat down in a chair across the table from them. He lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair, unsmiling. “I’m sure Brother Robert didn’t send you down here to tell me that.”

  Brother Ely glanced at Tarz meaningfully, then back to Preacher. “He wanted us to have a private conversation with you.”

  “In the Community of God we have no secrets from each other,” Preacher said. “You can speak freely in front of him or any other of the children. We have nothing to hide.”

  Brother Samuel got to his feet. He was a large burly man, well over six feet tall, with shoulders that seemed as wide. “The message Brother Robert gave us was for your ears alone,” he said heavily.

  Preacher looked up at him. He knew the man’s reputation. He’d been bouncer in cheap nightclubs and a collector for loan sharks who reputedly had seen the light and joined the Church of the Sons of God. But his job for Brother Robert was the same as it had always been: to intimidate and keep dissident members in line. “You’re wasting your time, Brother Samuel,” Preacher said easily.

  “Sit down, Brother Samuel,” Brother Ely said. “Preacher knows what he’s doing.”

  Brother Samuel sat down heavily, a truculent expression on his face. He clasped his hands on the table and stared down at them silently.

  Brother Ely turned back to Preacher. “You may have heard that we have just completed a very successful mission throughout the state and have brought more than two hundred converts into the church.”

  “I heard,” Preacher said shortly. It was true. They had gone up and down the state canvassing small communes and families that were existing on the fringes of starvation, promising to save them from the total collapse and destruction of society that the Sons of God said was coming.

  “Two hundred,” Brother Ely said importantly. “We’re now more than five hundred members, with churches in L.A. and San Diego as well.”

  Preacher nodded without speaking.

  “We’re becoming a real force,” Brother Ely said. “Soon they won’t be able to ignore us.”

  “Congratulations,” Preacher said sarcastically.

  “We have over eight hundred thousand dollars in cash and property and we’re collecting over a thousand a week. We own small businesses in each of the towns where we have churches. We’re really growing.”

  “You also have Crazy Charlie,” Preacher said.

  “Not anymore,” Brother Ely said quickly. “Brother Robert kicked him out. The things he wanted to do didn’t go down with us. We hold with God in our views of chastity. All Charlie wanted was sex and to play Jesus.”

  “But Charlie followed Brother Robert over from Scientology,” Preacher said.

  “That’s not true,” Brother Ely said. “Brother Robert left L. Ron a long time ago. He never knew Charlie there. He told me that Charlie was lying about everything, that Charlie was in jail all the time he said he was with Scientology.”

  “Where’s Charlie now?” Preacher asked.

  “Somewhere down near L.A.,” Brother Ely answered. “He’s picked up a bunch of kids and kooks and keeps them stoned out of their minds all the time on dope and acid. That’s the only way he can keep them believing that he’s J.C. and can save them on Judgment Day.”

  “He’s a bad one,” Preacher said. “Someday he’s gonna kill somebody.”

  “Not him,” Brother Ely said. “He’s a coward.”

  “Then he’s gonna get some fool kids to do it for him,” Preacher said.

  “That’s his problem,” Brother Ely answered. “We don’t have anything to do with him anymore.”

  Preacher was silent for a moment. “But that’s not the reason you came down here, is it?”

  “Brother Robert wants you to consider joining up with us,” Brother Ely said. “He feels that together we can be real important. Maybe even bigger than L. Ron.”

  Preacher laughed. “No way. We’re a simple Christian community. We don’t hold with that amalgamation of Jehovah, Jesus Christ and Lucifer that you do. We believe only in the Holy Redemption promised to us by our Savior Jesus Christ.”

  “But Brother Robert has already proven that Jesus has brought about a reconciliation between His Father, Jehovah, and his uncle, Lucifer. On Judgment Day, Jesus will gather up the righteous unto His Father’s protection and Lucifer will destroy all the others.”

  “He hasn’t proven it to me,” Preacher said. “And not to anyone else who believes in what the Bible has taught us. There’s no way we can get it together.”

  “How many children do you have down here?” Brother Ely asked.

  “Forty-odd,” Preacher answered.

  “Join up with us and you’ll have more than a hundred in no time.”

  “Not interested,” Preacher said flatly.

  “Maybe you should be,” Brother Ely said darkly. “The law is already on to you. They know you’ve been selling the grass up in Frisco. We can keep them off your back.”

  “They can do what they want,” Preacher said. “We’re clean down here. They’re not going to find anything.”

  “Come on,” Brother Ely said. “Five hundred bricks would take at least five acres of plants.”

  “Somebody’s got it wrong,” Preacher said. “There’s not a bit of the weed growing anywhere on the place.”

  Brother Ely stared at him. “That ain’t what we heard from the House of Soong.”

  “You bought grass from them?” Preacher asked.

  “Five hundred bricks. At the same time you were up there fund-raising.”

  “That’s interesting,” Preacher said. “And that’s why you think we’re growing and dealing?”

 
“No,” Brother Ely said. “We got it from the source. There are men in the House of Soong who don’t like it that you’re making it with Barbara. They want her out. A woman’s got no place in an important tong like that.”

  Preacher got to his feet. “That’s all bullshit. You can go back and tell Brother Robert that the Community of God is not interested in a deal with him.”

  Brother Ely looked up at him. “If’n you’re a real community, you wouldn’t mind letting the children take a vote and decide for themselves which way they want to go?”

  “Not at all,” Preacher said. “They can go any time they want. But there’ll still be no deal with Brother Robert.”

  “Then don’t blame us if the law comes down real hard on you.”

  Brother Samuel got to his feet again. “I tol’ ya, the only way to talk with a jerk like this is to show him the error of his ways,” he growled, moving menacingly toward Preacher.

  Preacher watched him steadily. “I don’t recommend that you try to teach me anything.”

  Brother Samuel launched a hamlike fist at Preacher’s face. Preacher seemed to move his head only slightly and the big man’s hand whistled harmlessly through the air past him.

  “Why don’t you calm down,” Preacher said in a flat voice. “You know we don’t believe in violence here.”

  “I’ll show you what to believe in,” Brother Samuel grunted. He leaped forward, swinging again.

  This time, Preacher seemed to turn partly away from him as if he were trying to escape. Brother Samuel pressed forward after him. He never saw Preacher’s kick coming at him until Preacher’s heavy boot caught him flush on the side of his face. There was a heavy crunching of bone and he was knocked sideways to the floor, blood pouring from his nose and mouth. He tried to raise himself on his hands, staring up in angry surprise at Preacher, but the effort was too much for him. He collapsed to the floor again with a groan.

  Preacher looked down at him, then at Brother Ely, still sitting in his chair. “Get him out of here and take him back to Brother Robert with the message I gave you. We want nothing to do with the Sons of God.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t believe in violence,” Brother Ely said.

  “I don’t,” Preacher answered. “But I didn’t say we don’t believe in self-defense. You all forgot I spent three years in Vietnam.”

  Brother Ely was silent for a moment. He made no move to help the big man on the floor. “All the same, I’d like you to think over Brother Robert’s proposition.”

  “I’ve already thought it over,” Preacher said with finality, and he walked out of the meeting hall.

  From the window of his own little building, he watched Brother Ely and Tarz help the big man into the car. Brother Samuel held a big white towel to his face. He muttered something to Tarz, who turned and walked away.

  “What happened?” Charlie asked, coming to the window and looking out as the white Cadillac turned and began to drive away.

  “Nothing,” Preacher answered. He watched Tarz walk back into the meeting house. Something was wrong. Ordinarily Tarz would have come right over to see him. For a moment he wondered if Tarz had been in touch with them before they came down here. Then he resolutely pushed the thought from his mind.

  The Community of God was all together. There was no chance that a Judas could be among them.

  Chapter Eight

  He sat in the pickup and waited for Charlie to come out of the post office. Usually he didn’t go into town for the mail but today he was restless. The meeting with the two men from the Sons of God had disturbed him more than he cared to admit, even though he considered them nothing but one of the many strange cults that had proliferated in California, attracting and preying on the hippies and the kids who wandered disenchanted with their lives and came searching for they knew not what.

  It was the L. Rons, the Brother Roberts and Crazy Charlies that seemed to get most of them, preaching disaffection with society and promising them a utopia. More than one child had found himself bound in virtual bondage to a man or a group that used him only for what could be obtained from him. And even stranger was the fact that the used were happy being used, because it made them feel needed and important.

  It was not what God had promised them or even what God had intended for them but it had a strange power that he could not comprehend. The Lord had commanded him to bring succor to the lost and that was what he tried to do. But maybe that was not enough. Maybe there was something that he himself was missing, something lacking inside him. Maybe it was that the authority he preached was God’s and the authority they sought was temporal. But he could not pretend to be anything other than what he was. A man spreading the word of God. He could not do what the others did and place himself above them as God’s appointed representative on earth, thus commanding obedience from them. They were all God’s children and he was one with them.

  Through the windshield he could see Charlie coming out of the post office, the mailbag in her hand. She was smiling as she opened the door. “We got more than a hundred letters,” she said. “From what I see they all came from Frisco.”

  “Good,” he said, starting the engine. “Those flyers we gave out got some results.”

  “Oh!” she exclaimed. “I almost forgot. This telegram came for you.”

  He ripped open the yellow envelope and read the message. important you call me this number 777-2121 immediately. barbara.

  He glanced at the date on the top of the telegram. It had been sent from San Francisco two days before. He should have received it yesterday. Strange that Tarz, who had picked up the mail, didn’t bring it to him. But it was possible that it had not been received until after Tarz had already gone.

  He opened the door and stepped from the pickup. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said.

  Charlie read the expression on his face. “Something wrong, Preacher?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered. He started for the telephone booth at the edge of the parking lot.

  Through the closed glass door of the telephone booth he could see Charlie opening some of the letters in the mailbag. The coins tinkled down into the slot and the telephone at the end of the line began to ring.

  Barbara came on the line after the second ring. “Hello.”

  “This is Preacher,” he said.

  Her voice was strangely hushed and nervous. “What took you so long?”

  “I just got the telegram this minute,” he said.

  “You’re going to have some visitors,” she whispered.

  “I already did. This morning,” he said. “I threw them out.”

  “Oh.”

  “What’s the connection between you and the Sons of God?” he asked.

  “I haven’t any,” she whispered. “But my uncle decided that a woman should not be the head of the House of Soong. He was the one who made the deal with them and told them who we bought it from.”

  “Couldn’t you stop him?” he asked.

  “There was nothing I could do,” she answered. “He’s taken over. I’m virtually a prisoner up here, locked in my own apartment. Most of my cousins are already on his side.”

  “Aren’t any of them loyal to you?”

  “I have no way of telling. They’re letting no one up to see me.”

  “Why don’t you just walk out of there?”

  “I tried. But they have two men on the door downstairs. They wouldn’t let me out. My uncle has denounced me to the family as a whore because we spent the night together.”

  Preacher was silent for a moment. “What are they going to do now?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “But I’m afraid. He’s called for a family council the day after tomorrow. Cousins are coming in from L.A., Chicago and New York.”

  “What can they do?” he asked.

  “They can have me removed,” she said. “And there’s nothing I could do about it. I won’t be allowed to attend the council.”

  “That’s not too bad,” he
said. “You don’t need all that responsibility.”

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “That’s not what the tong means by removal.”

  He was shocked. “They wouldn’t!”

  Her tone was fatalistic. “That’s the way it is done. Succession in the tong can only come when the former head is dead.”

  “You have to get out of there,” he said.

  “I told you. I can’t,” she said.

  “I’ll get you out.”

  “There’s no way you can get up here. They have two men on the elevator door all the time and my uncle has taken away their keys. The only time anyone can come up here, even with food, is when he opens the elevator for them.”

  “Do you still have your key?” he asked.

  “Yes. But that won’t do any good. There’s no way I can get it to you. If it weren’t for this private telephone line I wouldn’t even have been able to send you the telegram.”

  “If I remember correctly, it’s an Otis elevator, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then get your key. There will be a number on the back of it.”

  “Hold on,” she said. There was a clicking on the phone as she put it down. A moment later she came back on. “I have it.”

  He had paper and pencil ready. “Give it to me.”

  “One, 0, seven, two, three, five, K.I.”

  He read the number back to her.

  “That’s right,” she said. “But what good will that do?”

  “Otis will have a record. They always do. Just for emergencies. I’ll have them make one for me.”

  “But you’ll have to get past the men downstairs,” she said.

  “Leave that to me,” he said. “I will call you tomorrow night about two in the morning. But whether you hear from me or not, have a bag packed. I’ll be there about that time.”

  She was silent for a moment. “You don’t have to do anything. That’s not why I called you. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “We all live by God’s mercy,” he said. “We will both pray for His guidance and protection. I will see you tomorrow night.”