Much to his surprise, Joe finds that the local community takes an intense interest in his little undertaking. But with the neighborhood cops paying him regular visits, the local media snooping around, and a burgeoning flock who desperately needs his guidance, Joe's scheme might not be working quite as planned...
1
As he covered the glittery mauve walls of the failed dance studio with a thick coat of purest, cheapest white, Joe Dixon reckoned that he had just about a month to save his butt. He had paid a month’s rent. A deposit on the electricity, gallons of whitewash, brushes and junk furniture took most of the rest of the thousand bucks from Mulligan. He was left with enough to eat for a month, if he didn’t go crazy at McDonald’s.
Back in Folsom, while starting a three-to-five stretch for the world’s least successful bank robbery, it had occurred to Joe that as criminals went, he was crap. Over more than fifteen years, scam after scam had earned him ever-lengthening stays in prison. Each stretch, Joe had attempted to learn a new and successful criminal trade. It finally occurred to him that if these experts were any good, they’d be out on the street living high. There had to be a better investment for his cigarettes.
A couple of days later, a trusty librarian had handed Joe a Bible instead of the biography he’d expected and wouldn’t listen to reason. ‘You just read that,’ the trusty insisted. ‘It’s the real thing — the King James Version.’
That didn’t mean much to Joe, but out of sheer boredom he opened the battered black-leather cover and started turning the pages. It could have been worse—a Jackie Collins. Joe hadn’t had a Bible in his hands since he’d briefly tried to sell stolen Bibles door-to-door ten years earlier. He began to recognize bits, and that lured him on. He didn’t have much else to do.
The payoff came quickly. A few days later, the fox-faced young sociology graduate doing prisoner assessment gestured him to a chair, paged through a file between puke-colored covers and then looked at him sharply. ‘You a good Christian, Joe?’ he asked suddenly.
‘So-so,’ Joe answered. He wasn’t much good at lying either.
‘That’s not what I hear,’ said the counselor. ‘I hear you’ve been reading the Bible pretty steadily.’ He prided himself on his intelligence network. The trustees mostly told him what he wanted to hear.
Joe shrugged noncommittally. ‘It’s something to read,’ he said, sticking to a semi-truthful tack but willing to switch if something better came up.
The counselor looked back down at the file. ‘It doesn’t look here as if you are much of a hard guy, Joe,’ he said.
‘No,’ Joe admitted as if this were a grievous fault.
‘That’s good, because I’ve got a job for you that wouldn’t suit a hard guy.’
Joe’s eyebrows said: Oh? His mouth said nothing.
‘That’s right. You see, Joe, the chaplain here needs another assistant, and I think it could be you.’ He looked down again. ‘You’re a Baptist?’
‘That’s right,’ Joe said, beginning to get with the program.
‘What kind?’
‘Ordinary kind,’ said Joe, taking no chances.
‘That’s good, too,’ said the counselor. ‘The last guy we tried was hard-shell, fire and brimstone, strict Sabbatarian.’ He frowned. ‘Reverend Perkins found him a little too…’
Joe knew that he wouldn’t be too. Not at all.
He got the job. A week later, still reading the Bible, Joe was reporting for work in the chaplain’s office.
As Joe opened the door, the chaplain’s number one assistant, a grizzled old con with a brush-like crew-cut, looked up at him skeptically. A nameplate on the desk read F. X. Reilly. Behind Reilly, the door indicated: The Chaplain is IN.
‘You Dixon?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Sit down, ‘Reilly said. Before Joe hit the wood, Reilly asked. ‘You’ve come to work for the chaplain?’
‘That’s right.’
‘That’s wrong,’ Reilly said. ‘You’ve come to work for me. I work for the chaplain. Understood?’
‘Understood,’ Joe said.
‘Cigarette?’ Reilly asked.
‘Don’t use them,’ Joe said.
‘Even better,’ Reilly said. ‘I’m a heavy smoker.’ He opened a desk drawer to indicate where any surplus cigarettes could be dropped. ‘Bear that in mind.’
‘I will.’
‘You and I are going to get along,’ Reilly said. This was more order than prediction. ‘Now, Reverend Perkins is in there’—he jerked his thumb at the door— ‘and he’ll fill you in on your duties. Listen very carefully and then come out here and I’ll sum them up in three words. Any idea what these are?’
‘Anything you say?’ said Joe, who was a quick learner.
‘You and I are going to get along,’ Reilly repeated. ‘Now go talk to The Man.’
2
The Reverend Perkins was a nice little guy who would have been an Army chaplain if he’d passed the physical. Failing that, he sat in his office, read his Bible, signed letters and did whatever Reilly told him. Joe did the same. Neither the prisoners nor the warden had any cause for complaint. The wise-guy cons had to work overtime to come up with a religious urge that Reilly could not accommodate. He had a thick book, Religions of the World. If he couldn’t find it there, Reilly had a wide network of ecclesiastical connections at the end of the telephone line. Even the Holy office at the Vatican was not beyond his reach, and he knew three archbishops by their first names.
Occasionally, an assistant warden complained about the chaplain’s phone bill. The Reverend Perkins (Reilly) would point out that Folsom had not had a religious riot, or even protest, in years. That pretty well shut up the warden’s office. The Reverend Perkins had become a respected figure in California penal circles. Reilly was thinking about getting him promoted.
Mainly, Joe shotgunned convict crews setting up and breaking down arrangements for religious ceremonies. In a rare jocular moment, Reilly called him ‘God’s corporal.’ Aside from that, Joe was expected to sit in his chair in the corner of Reilly’s office and read his Bible. Reilly superintended Joe’s biblical education with sharp and searching questions. F.X. Reilly would have been an excellent principal of a seminary if God hadn’t made him a bank robber.
Recognizing a good deal, Joe didn’t make waves. Then, one drowsy Wednesday afternoon after about nine months, Reilly decided to let Joe in on The Plan.
‘Joe,’ he began conversationally, ‘what did Christ say to his disciples about the lilies of the field?’
‘They toil not, neither do they spin,’ Joe said without even looking up from his reading.
‘Good boy,’ Reilly said. ‘And those lilies made out fine. You ever wonder why I make you read the Bible all the time?’
‘It looks good?’
‘Of course it looks good,’ Reilly said impatiently. ‘A chaplain’s second assistant devoutly plowing through the Good Book. Everybody loves that, and so will the Parole Board. But there’s more to it than that.’
‘Yeah?’ said Joe, still reading.
‘Yeah,’ said Reilly. ‘Joe, shut that damned book and listen carefully.’
‘I’m listening,’ said Joe, looking up.
‘How would you like,’ Reilly asked, ‘to be like those lilies and never work again? A big house, good clothes, the best car that money can buy, the best-looking woman around—in short, to live off the fat of the land?’
‘In other words,’ said Joe, ‘live the Life of Reilly?’
‘Don’t be a smartass, Joe,’ Reilly said. ‘I’m serious. How does that sound?
‘How do you think?’ Joe said seriously. ‘Great. What’s the scam?’
‘No scam,’ Reilly said earnestly. ‘Strictly legit.’
‘Go on,’ Joe said.
‘All right,’ Reilly said, ‘but keep your trap shut. No wisecracks.’
‘Promise.’
‘Okay,’ Reilly said, looking at Joe with intensity. ‘I’m only letting yo
u in on this because I’m too old to start a new racket—life. With any luck, they’ll carry me out of Folsom in a box.’ Reilly was a lifer under California’s ‘three strikes’ law due to the unfortunate fact that most people considered bank robbery a felony.
‘But, Joe,’ he continued, ‘you’re young enough to pull it off. How old are you—thirty-two or three?’
‘Thirty-four in October,’ Joe said. ‘If I get parole first shot, I’ll be nearly thirty-five when I get out.’
‘You’ll get it,’ Reilly said. ‘With God and me on your side, it’s a cinch.’
‘And Perkins?
‘What God and I want, Perkins rubberstamps. Now, listen.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Good. Now, can we agree that even atheists—when the cops are knocking down the door—give a fleeting thought to the supernatural?’
‘I suppose,’ Joe said.
‘Okay,’ continued Reilly, ‘and these are the hard cases. The world is full of people whose spiritual hankerings can be activated without the threat of immediate arrest. The world—especially California—is full of loonies looking for a snug haven in the bosom of Abraham. You accept my thesis: there are people out there with unfulfilled religious yearnings.’
Joe just nodded.
‘You’re learning,’ Reilly said. ‘Okay, I have another theory: The richer people are, the greater their guilt and hence the greater their religious need.’
Joe nodded again. He saw no point in arguing.
‘Okay,’ Reilly said, ‘since we’re in a state of perfect understanding, I’ll cut to the gist. As soon as God and I arrange for the Parole Board to spring you from this joint, you are going to set up as a Man of God.’
‘Start a religion?’ said Joe doubtfully.
‘I didn’t say that,’ Reilly snapped. ‘I said set up as a Man of God. There’s a big difference, most of it to do with the law. I’ll give you the essentials, in a nutshell. You got any money on the outside, Joe?
‘Some,’ Joe said. ‘A guy called Mulligan is holding a thousand bucks for me.’
‘That’s all?’ Reilly was disappointed. ‘God and I will have to work a bit harder,’ he said, ‘and you will have to start at the bottom of the market. But I still think you can do it. Now, what do you do first?’
‘I have no idea,’ Joe said.
‘Of course you haven’t,’ Reilly said. ‘I just wanted to make sure that you knew that. First thing you do is get your hands on that money. Is that a problem?’
‘Not if Mulligan wants to keep walking without a limp,’ Joe said.
Reilly was going to point out that this was hardly the language of a Man of God, but decided to plunge on. ‘Then you find the right location—details later—rent an empty storefront…you got me so far?’
‘So far I can handle it.’
‘Okay, then you go to some junk shop and buy a small table and two chairs.’
Joe nodded.
‘Then, put one chair behind the table, one in front, your Bible on the table and your butt on the chair behind the table.’
Joe waited for more, but Reilly just sat there as if he had imparted the secret of the philosopher’s stone.
‘That’s it?’ Joe said at last.
‘That’s it,’ Reilly said. ‘You sit there reading until the first sucker—prospect—comes through the door. Then, another will come. And another. Within three months, you’ll have a regular flock and be bringing in small money. In six months, your overheads will be covered. And within a year, you’ll never have to graft—legal or illegal—again in your whole life. You’ll be a bona fide spiritual leader with your faithful parishioners competing to satisfy all your needs and desires.’
‘If you say so,’ Joe said warily.
‘I say so,’ Reilly said with satisfaction, ‘and I even have a name for your—I won’t say church—organization.’
‘And that is?’ Joe prompted him, as he knew Reilly expected him to do.
‘The Word,’ Reilly said proudly.
‘The Word?’
‘The Word,’ Reilly said with finality.
Buy The Word on Amazon at watchfirepress.com/theword
About the Author
Charles Alverson’s writing career has spanned over five decades, during which he has written for publications such as The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, and HELP! Magazine. Alverson has written ten novels, two children’s books, and helped co-write the screenplays for Terry Gilliam’s cult films Jabberwocky and Brazil.
Alverson currently lives in Serbia, where he has resided with his wife since 1994.
Download Alverson’s anthology of short fiction Ryan’s Way & Other Short Stories when you sign up for his free author newsletter at watchfirepress.com/alverson.
The Triple Shot Box (Goodey's Last Stand, Not Sleeping Just Dead & Fighting Back): Three Gritty Crime Novels Page 62