by Pat Powers
"You are keeping me from my gardening, Mr. Bowman," she said, "and it is my chief pleasure now I've retired. What can I do for you?"
Somehow I doubted that gardening was her chief pleasure. She gave off all kind of juice, just in the way she moved, and the way she spoke.
"I'm investigating the kidnapping of a woman named April Dancer," I said. "I was hoping you might have some information that would prove helpful."
"If I can help you, I will," she said. "What do you want to know?"
She did not ask me why she might be connected to Dancer.
"I'm investigating the possibility that a group called Mopus Diem might be involved in some way," I said. "I understand you are the Atlanta contact for them.
"I am a member of Mopus Deim, as are many other people here in the Atlanta area," said Furnsome. "It's not a secret organization, really, it's open to anyone who share the beliefs and values it is founded on. And it's about doing good works, which kidnapping young women would definitely not be. So I don't think your possibility is all that possible."
She had a crisp, clear tone, yet there were traces of a Southern drawl in it. She looked me straight in the eye as she spoke, daring me to disbelieve her words. I did not believe her words, or disbelieve them. Investigators who went around believing people just because they said things didn't tend to solve cases.
"I know that Mopus Deim is a large organization with a public purpose of doing good works," I said. "I also know it has strong ties in the intelligence community, with top intelligence officers around the world as members, and that it's alleged that there's a black ops arm of Mopus Deim that takes action when hard deeds need to be done."
Furnsome was now smiling at me, and the merriment in her eyes was at full throttle.
"You know better than that, don't you Mr. Bowman?" Furnsome asked. "I am aware that some people associate us with every secret organization since the dawn of time, but they're typically the same ones who think UFO aliens have taken over the Air Force so they can keep Elvis' location a secret."
"I know the ones you're talking about," I said. "But their allegations are not what brought me here, fun reads though they are. I'm here because I know that April was kidnapped by a group of people, not a loner. I know that some members of an organization allied to Mopus Deim, the Mothers of Propriety, have written emails to April Dancer which practically accuse her of being the Antichrist in a coin bra. I credit some of the rumors about Mopus Dei because some of the accusations come from disenchanted former members who are unhappy with Mopus Dei's techniques, and because some of your members are obviously well placed to mount black ops. And I've been given your name as an Atlanta resident who might be in touch with any black ops types in the area. Frankly, I'd be doing a very poor job if I didn't check you out."
"To be honest, I fear for Miss Dancer if this is the best lead you've got," Furnsome said. "And who gave you my name as a Mopus Dei secret agent? It's not a rumor I care to have spread about me."
"I'm not at liberty to divulge my sources," I said. "But I assure you that if my investigation finds the information not credible, I will tell my sources that they were misinformed. Could ask what your relationship with Mopus Deim is?"
Certainly," said Furnsome. "I am a Chalice Bearer, a first-level lay member. That is the top level to which member who have not sworn celibacy may rise. Below me are the Trumpeters and the Flag Bearers. Above me are the Escorts and at the top level, the Cloak Bearers. We think of ourselves as a divine procession following Jesus to the City of God."
A divine procession, or a divine army, I thought.
"What sort of work do you do for Mopus Deim?" I asked.
"Over the last few years, my major activity has involved establishing the Golden Years Community, a communal group of condominiums for women in business who have grown old and have no families to live with," said Furnsome. "Very often, women who want to get anywhere in business face a tough choice -- family or career. It's not a fair choice to have to make, but it's definitely a choice that many women have faced. For those who placed career over family, retirement can be very hard. They have no one to go to. Golden Years Community is a place for them."
"Did you face such a choice in your life?" I asked.
"Yes, I did," said Furnsome. "But that's not the point. I got far enough in business that I can lead a rich and satisfying life on my own terms to the end of my days. But not all women have been so lucky or gone so far. They need help when they retire, and my part of God's work has been to provide such help."
"That's very commendable," I said, wondering what horrible deeds she'd done in her business dealings to feel so guilty. Then again, she was probably Catholic. You didn't have to do anything bad to feel horribly guilty if you were Catholic, it was right there in the religion -- my Catholic friends were very clear on that point.
"What other sorts of things does Mopus Deim do?" I asked.
"We provide funding and support for orphanages and hospices around the world, we fund children's hospitals, we organize charity events, that sort of thing," said Furnsome.
"The literature makes it very clear that Mopus Deim has a strong political bias," I said. "Wasn't it started by a Catholic priest who was persecuted by the Communists in eastern Europe? Isn't it full of conservative, anti-Communist intelligence agents? I mean, I try to keep an open mind, but I've read a lot about them that makes it very clear that the organization has a political agenda and is intent on carrying it through. So I have trouble believing that Mopus Deim's activities stop with orphanages and hospitals."
"We do have intelligence agents who are members, as well as doctors and lawyers and judges," said Furnsome. "We accept anyone who agrees with our openly stated values and goals. We do oppose Communism generally, because it promotes atheism generally. But the focus really is on good works rather than opposing the heathen."
"Come on, the priest who founded your order was a supporter of the dictator that the Communists eventually overthrew," I said. Andrew's files had given me the full skinny, and I was using it. "There are a lot of indications that very bad things happened to left-leaning priests and nuns during the dictator's regime and that Bishop Sradajek had a lot to do with it. When the dictator topples, Sradajek flees to Rome and founds a quasi-religious group which is soon filled with right-wing spies. Mopus Deim members are suspected to have been behind all sorts of covert ops, and my thought is that April's kidnapping might be one of them."
"Oh, come now," said Furnsome. "Even if some covert arm of Mopus Deim existed -- and it doesn't -- what possible kind of purpose would be served by kidnapping some poor stripper? Please don't tell me she Knows Too Much."
"She's not a stripper, she's an ethnic dancer," I said. "She keeps her clothes on in her public performances," (I mentally excised her Gorean dances from 'public performances.') "And she may or may not Know Too Much, but the theory I'm operating on is that someone in Mopus Deim is cranking the culture war up a notch. And there's no doubting that Dancer is a major figure in American culture right now, symbolizing open sexuality and sensuality to millions. I've read her hate mail, and she's certainly cranked up a lot of Mothers of Propriety members and social conservatives generally. If somebody were planning to push the culture war to a new level, Dancer would be an obvious target."
"Well, somebody may have done that, but I don't know who it might be and have never heard of anyone with Mopus Deim who might think it was a good idea," said Furnsome. "You have a theory, Mr. Bowman, but your ideas about Mopus Deim are not true. I will admit, Bishop Sradajek's history prior to the Communist takeover in his country has been challenged by some, including some ordinarily responsible church people. But nobody has challenged Mopus Deim's activities, and as for kidnapping strippers to make people more moral -- you have to admit it sounds silly when you say it."
"It sounds silly the way you say it," I said, noting Furnsome's insistence on identifying April as a stripper. "But there's nothing at all silly about April's kidnapping, a
nd I'm not prepared to strike Mopus Deim off the list of suspects. Is there anyone with your organization who might be in a position to tell me things which might clear the group of responsibility for April's kidnapping?"
"Such as?" Furnsome asked.
"Such as, where the membership was when she was kidnapped?" I asked.
"Hmm, can't think of anyone like that offhand," said Furnsome. "There are probably a couple of hundred members of Mopus Deim in the Atlanta area, it would probably be very difficult to track them down at the time of April's kidnapping."
"Well, then where were you around 3:35 day before yesterday?" I asked.
"In my gardens," said Furnsome.
"Alone?" I asked.
"No, my gardener was with me," Furnsome said.
"So you've got a full staff here -- a maid, a cook, a gardener ..." I said.
"And a personal assistant," said Furnsome. "As I said, I have the means to live on my own terms. Plus my Golden Years Community work and my Mopus Dei activities require help. And I also mentor promising young businesspeople from time to time."
"Commendable," I said. "So you'd have plenty of corroboration for your whereabouts."
"Yes, I would," said Furnsome.
I passed her my card.
"If you can think of any way I can clear your organization off my list of suspects, I'd be very grateful if you'd give me a call," I said. "You may be under the impression that I have a brief against Mopus Deim. I do not. I only want to find April Dancer before she comes to harm. I will be very happy to find proof that Mopus Deim had nothing to do with it."
"Negatives are notoriously hard to prove," said Furnsome. "But I will help you if I can. I am generally opposed to young women being harmed."
Chapter 15
I could hear them questioning my manhood and my courage in the coarsest language imaginable
By the time I pulled out of Furnsome's drive, it was late afternoon, early evening. Rush hour was in full swing, and in highly developed Roswell and Alpharetta, that meant slow going, especially if you had to go near the major arteries, which I did.
I was fuming a little at the traffic because I wanted to get an interview with the other ALFALFAN, Billie Jo Culpepper, at the Polder Pounder Bar where she tended bar. it was in Sandy Springs, a few miles south of Roswell but it was a tough drive at rush hour.
So I sat in the van and put the pieces together, or tried to. I was pretty sure Wrathbottom was lying to me, but I wasn't sure about what. It would be great if the ALFALFANs were behind the kidnapping, because they were amateurs and I could probably crack them fast and get to April in time -- if they hadn't killed her already.
I wasn't sure if Furnsome was lying. Like a lot of skilled businesspeople, she was very good at keeping a poker face. She hadn't revealed anything she didn't want to. Her protestations of Mopus Deim's innocence sounded genuine enough, but she wouldn't have gotten very far in business if she couldn't fake innocence. And the stuff in the files that Andrew had sent me had been fairly damning. There were some heavy players on Mopus Deim's team, people who would not hesitate to kill or kidnap if they thought duty, or even expediency, lay in that direction. Based on capabilities, they were my strongest suspects. Dancers did not ordinarily run around kidnapping people, and it was very rare for politicos to do so. But to a top-level covert ops agent, it was a definite option.
There was also the fact that the snatch had been so well planned and executed. Done in broad daylight but without any witnesses to date, except for security cameras too distant to get a make on anybody. It had a pro feel to it.
Except, Furnsome had a point. What business would an outfit like Mopus Deim have in kidnapping a dancer? While April was very, very good at her craft, her talents were not unique. There were a lot of other gifted ethnic dancers out there, as Lady Astra could demonstrate from her graduates alone. April was great, but her niche could be filled by another fairly easily. Taking her out would not change the cultural forces that had made her popular.
Of course, it was entirely possible that the people who had kidnapped April would not see things that way. They might think that if they could get rid of the popular representative of dance and sensuality and sexuality, they might make those things less popular. It sounded kind of like Charlemagne trying to command the tides to go in and out, but something kept censorious types at it.
The Polder Pounder Bar, Billie Jo Culpepper's workplace, was set a block off main street in Sandy Springs in the back of a strip shopping center. It had a small, discreet sign over the door, and a prominent street number. Though it was still early in the evening, the lot was full of cars.
That told me a few things about the bar. It wasn't advertising. There were a lot of bars like that in Atlanta. Some few catered to the extremely wealthy. But most of them were gay bars.
I squared my shoulders mentally and walked past quite a few motorcycles into the club's entranceway. I had followed suspects into gay male bars before. At least in this bar I was unlikely to get my butt felt up and propositioned. Not that it didn't make a guy feel good to be wanted.
The entrance to the Polder Pounder was a small, dark room. Two black-painted doors closed off the entrance to the club, behind which I heard twangy bluegrass music and a murmur of conversation. There was a desk with a cash register on it to one side of the room. A woman with a nose ring and a purple mohawk sat behind the counter, looking at me with a bored air.
"Hi," she said. "I'm sorry sir, this is a ladies-only club." Something about the way she said 'ladies only' implied that the words left a bad taste in her mouth.
That's all right," I said. "I don't have to go in. I'm here to speak to one of your bartenders, Bobbie Jo Culpepper. I'd be happy to meet with her here or in an office or in the parking lot."
"What's your business with Bobbie?" she asked coolly.
"I'm an investigator working on a kidnapping case, and I'm hoping that Bobbie can provide me with some useful information," I said.
"You with the police?" she asked.
"No, I'm a private investigator," I said.
"Well, I don't think Bobbie can see you," said Ms. Mohawk.
"Would you ask her if she would?" I asked. "It might well be to her advantage to talk with me."
"She's busy," said Ms. Mohawk. "Come back later."
"Well, if she can't talk with me, I guess there's the other alternative," I said, pulling out my cell phone. "I used to work on the Atlanta PD, I've got friends there. I'm just going to call and let them know that there's an important witness, maybe a suspect, in the April Dancer case here, with probably quite a few suspects among the clientele. I'm sure they'll be glad to send a few officers over to sort things out. And they'll probably let me listen in on the interrogations as a courtesy."
Ms. Mohawk gave me a hard, level stare. I returned it. I was bluffing, in a sense. If I called my old partner he might send in some detectives to take the joint apart. But then I'd have to give up everything I'd learned about the Alfalfans, and I didn't want to do that just yet. But if it was the only way to get an interview with Culpepper ...
She must have been pretty good at reading body language because she said, "Just a minute, lemme talk to someone. Wait here."
"Sure," I said agreeably.
A minute of cooling my heels brought out an older woman, middle aged, though she had an aggro buzzcut and wore faded jeans and a light blue blouse that looked workshirt-ish. She didn't have the hostile look of Ms. Mohawk, though.
"I'm Livvy Sanders, I'm the manager here," she said. "I understand you want to speak to one of our employees?"
"Right, Billie Jo Culpepper," I said. "I'm a private investigator hired by April Dancer's lover to look into her disappearance."
"Lover?" asked Sanders. "Don't you mean 'master'?"
"I mean someone who has a legitimate interest in wanting her found and is paying me to find her," I said. "Culpepper may have information that could be useful. I'm not at liberty to say more without Culpepper's OK --
I don't want to be spreading her business around without her OK."
"Why should she talk to you?" Sanders asked. God, these women were protective of Culpepper, what was she, retarded?
"She should talk to me because the only interest I have is in finding April Dancer and effecting her safe return," I said.
"I don't see how you could describe returning Dancer to a household where she's a slave as safe," observed Sanders.
"Suppose I were looking for a missing woman on behalf of her lover," I said. "Some people would say returning a woman to the arms of her lesbian lover could never be right. You'd say they have no idea what they are talking about. And you'd be right."
"All right, point taken," said Sanders.
"In any event, the real reason Culpepper should talk to me is that her other option is to talk to the cops," I said. "They have two interests -- April's safe return, and identifying and prosecuting the ones who kidnapped her. Now I don't care a thing about that second part. If she's got information about April's kidnappers or whereabouts, I can use it without in any way going after Culpepper. If I can get to April fast enough, I could save Culpepper a lot of legal hassles, provided she's not one of April's kidnappers."
"Billie's not a kidnapper," said Sanders.
"Then she definitely wants to talk to me," I said.
"Mind if I sit in when you talk?" Sanders asked.
"It's OK with me if it's OK with her," I said.
"We'll use my office," said Sanders. "Keep your head low and slouch a bit and most of the gals will assume you're in drag. Don't want to get them cranked."
If Ms. Mohawk was any indication, I saw Sanders' point. So I slinked into Sanders' office and sat down in one of the two sturdy wooden chairs that faced the desk and waited for Sanders to bring in Culpepper.
Culpepper turned out to be a hearty young kicker gal, with big, dyed blonde hair and a broad, open face, full of strength and certainty.
Right now her face was flushed, and a little sweaty, and it was obvious why. Culpepper was wearing an ethnic dance outfit, and not one of those flesh-challenged ones that were worn when kids and moms were watching. This was a lot closer to the Gorean ideal. a barely-there G-string, a coin bra that had large gaps in it, bracelets, wristlets, rings on fingers and toes, a pierced bellybutton, pierced lip, ring in nose, etc.