“Yeah?”
“Why didn’t you tell me about those?”
Straight hesitated and spoke slowly, seeming to choose his words carefully. “Well, ah, before you committed to joining us, it didn’t make sense to give you a lot of background on Christian identification symbols.”
“Fair enough. But you can tell me now. Those crowns you and the people in the salt mine wear are your identification symbols, right? And they come from the third chapter of Revelation, when God tells the church of Philadelphia: ‘Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take away your crown.’ ”
Straight raised a brow. “Well, yes . . .”
“So my theory was right. I figured the resistance was using imagery from Revelation, especially the beginning, the part about the churches. For example, they might have attacked Sardis Oil in Gulfland because one of the churches of Revelation was in Sardis. The believers connected to that operation picked a medallion depicting a book and light-colored clothes as their symbols. I never worked it out enough to report it to my boss. But it’s true, isn’t it?”
Straight shook his head. “It’s scary how close you came, Paul. But remember, the events in Gulfland and other places were miracles.
Christians never targeted or attacked anything. So no, your theory wasn’t quite right.”
“What did I miss?”
“Think about it. How many churches—or lampstands or stars—come up in that section?”
“Seven?”
“And what seven divisions could Christians be grouped under?”
“Well . . . we are the United Seven States of America.”
“Right. And the affiliations aren’t random. You know history is my game, Paul. Check the history of those seven churches of Revelation and you’ll find that each bears a distinct correspondence to one of our seven states.”
Paul decided that was the most amazing thing he’d heard that night—
even considering he had been abducted and dragged down into a mine.
“Take Ephesus,” Straight said. “It was a port city called the ‘market of Asia’ because it was the most important financial center on the Mediterranean. Besides banking, a major industry was making silver shrines to the goddess Artemis. The Bible tells us that, in addition to believing in false gods associated with silver, so many Ephesians believed in magic that when their divination books were burned, it was as if fifty thousand pieces of silver had gone up in smoke.
“Ephesus remind you of someplace?”
Paul stared, dumbfounded.
“Thought so,” Straight said. “And—just as an aside—remember, in Acts Paul is called upon to revive a man who fell from a third-story window in Troas.” Paul sat back, speechless. “See, Paul, once you start looking for signs that the end is upon us, they’re everywhere.”
* * *
Paul dozed, exhausted. The next sound he heard was the truck’s back door opening. They were in a parking garage.
“There’s a cab outside,” Straight told him. “It’ll take you back to the hotel. I’ll be along later. See you at the tournament in the morning.”
“I almost forgot we came here to play chess.”
Paul found his way to the street, deserted in the wee hours except for the taxi. The driver knew where he was going and had already been paid.
The hotel lobby was empty except for two men reading newspapers. Two men, just sitting in the lobby in the middle of the night? The odds were astronomical. Paul busied himself looking at brochures of local attractions.
Neither man turned a page. Had Paul been found out? He moved to the counter and asked for messages. None.
Paul took the elevator to his floor, but rather than go to his room he slipped into a stairwell from which he had a view of his door. The men never showed. He dead-bolted, chained, and propped a chair against his door, finally able to relax. They couldn’t have been NPO. Too obvious.
Paul napped a few hours, showered, then headed down to meet Straight. He saw no more of the two men. Amateurs.
* * *
Paul couldn’t imagine concentrating enough on chess to have any kind of success Saturday morning. In the hotel ballroom he found his name on a plasma screen, one of fourteen players in the Novice division. Straight was playing a couple of levels higher. Players in the various levels met with tournament organizers for instructions, and Paul eyed the competition.
Many players looked antisocial, even unwashed. Some carried dog-eared paperbacks of chess strategy.
Paul was intimidated and played too quickly, losing two of his first four games and finding himself in the middle of the pack. That was actually better than he had expected, but he was convinced that both of his losses could have gone the other way had he been thinking clearly. He found Straight’s stats and saw that he was faring the same in his bracket.
Paul was grateful for the competition Straight had given him over the last several months. He hadn’t faced anyone yet who could have held his own against Straight.
After a snack, Paul settled down and became the talk of the tournament when he won nine of his next ten, including seven in a row, and won his division. The cash prize was minuscule and wouldn’t pay for dinner, and the trophy was but a toy, but Paul found the experience invigorating. He was surprised at his stamina—that his mind had stayed sharp, that he could actually relax and concentrate.
It seemed Straight, who finished fourth in the tougher division, was even happier about the win than Paul was. “I’m really proud of you, man!”
* * *
Brie and Connor seemed fascinated by Paul’s small, cheap trophy, but Jae quickly excused them. “You can talk to Dad later,” she said. “Run along upstairs and play.”
“What’s going on, Jae?” Paul said when they were gone.
“Oh, Paul! Where were you last night?”
“What do you mean?”
“Where were you until you came back to the hotel alone just before dawn?”
“You had me followed?”
“And I called your room. Till well past midnight. And I had people pounding on your door till all hours.”
“I don’t believe this.”
“Were you with another woman?”
“What?”
“Just admit it, Paul. Don’t you think I know by now? I read her letter.”
“Her letter?”
“Paul, you met her in Washington. And now Toledo too—how can you flat-out lie to me?”
“Angela Barger? You went through my things? I can’t tell you how offended I am, Jae—”
“Oh, you are? Well, here’s how offended I am. School’s out next week, and I’m taking the kids to Washington for the summer. That’ll give us both time to think.”
“If you’d stop yelling and listen for a minute—”
“Listen to what?”
“Jae, that is totally unjust—”
“Truth hurts, Paul?”
“We can work this out.”
“We’re going, Paul. It’s set. The kids are excited.”
Jae asked Paul to call only on Saturdays and only to talk to the kids.
“When I want to talk to you,” she said, “I’ll be in touch.”
And she was gone.
* * *
Alone in the house, Paul hated himself for letting the argument get out of hand. He was ashamed at how things had deteriorated. So his new life didn’t cure everything.
By midweek he had found a distraction, a memo in the office about a case in Las Vegas. Sixteen people had been discovered dead, all of drug overdoses, before an altar under a cross. The deaths had been traced to a self-proclaimed prophet who called himself the reincarnation of Jonah.
Friends of the victims claimed “Jonah” spun a story about having been swallowed by a whale off the coast of San Diego a few years before, then belched up onto shore three days later, suffering superficial burns from the creature’s stomach acid.
While inside the whale, Jonah claimed God had told him to build
a congregation that would have direct access to heaven through the miracle of hallucinogenic drugs. The prophet, according to friends of the victims, also espoused free love, saying God told him this was His intention from the time of creation.
Several hundred people in and around Las Vegas were reportedly linked to the Jonah cult.
“A seriously dangerous nutcase,” Paul told Straight over dinner.
“Imagine if I could bring him down and round up the others. I could save some lives and also get rid of a cult.”
“You’re going to Sin City?” Straight said.
“Early next week. Boss thinks this looks solid.”
Straight sat back and studied Paul. “Better get yourself some blinders, boy. You’re pretty young in the faith to be going there, especially with your family gone. It’s all gambling and sex.”
“I can handle it.”
“Famous last words. Sounds like you’ve decided.”
“I have.”
* * *
That weekend, with time on his hands, Paul decided to finish the task he’d neglected so long: clearing out his mother’s house. Before heading over, he called a realtor to come and look at it on Monday before he left for Las Vegas.
Parking in the drive, Paul sat staring at the compact brick home where he had grown up. The lawn was cut, thanks to the landscaping service, but the shrubbery and flower beds were wildly overgrown. He hadn’t been here since Wintermas, more than six months before. It was the longest stretch he’d ever gone without visiting the house, including his time at college and in the service. How much has changed—everything I’ve ever believed in or even thought I did—since then.
Paul left the car and opened the front door. The air was thick and hot and stale. He moved through the empty rooms and stopped at the door to the basement. It had been six months, but he distinctly remembered locking the basement door—pushing in the button, testing the knob, sealing in the letter, which was either an NPO plant or, as he’d felt then, worse—a shattering betrayal by his long-dead father. Now the door stood ajar.
Paul strained for sounds, then quietly pulled the door to him and locked it. He quickly circled the rooms of the small house, upstairs and down. Nothing. He returned to the basement door, silently unlocked it, and, listening again, made his way downstairs.
The basement looked empty, but he detected a tinge of something out of place in a house that had been shut up for so long: fresh air. He scanned the windows set at the top of the concrete walls. The one closest to the storage space was open.
The boxes were still in the storage space where he had left them, but they had all been rifled and dumped, their contents strewn on the floor. He knelt and discovered the old greeting cards congratulating his parents on his birth.
Who did this? A vagrant looking for valuables? One of his NPO
colleagues, stage-managing a search to look like a break-in? Or—more likely—Jae, opening the window for air, then forgetting it while searching for who knows what after finding Angela’s note?
For two hours Paul sifted through the mess, finally acknowledging his greatest dread: His father’s letter was gone.
22
Paul spent the rest of the weekend packing what remained of his mother’s keepsakes, then made a last walk-through. Nothing seemed out of place upstairs, making him even more suspicious about the basement mess.
Monday he showed the Realtor around and handed over the keys.
By two o’clock Tuesday afternoon, after checking into his hotel downtown on Fremont Street, he stood in the middle of the Vegas Strip.
The Strip dominated most of Las Vegas Boulevard just outside the city limits. It was lined with the biggest hotels in the world, offering twenty-four-hour entertainment, slot machines, cards, roulette wheels, and every other form of gambling anyone had ever conceived. Much of the half million-person population worked in the tourism industry that carried the town. Paul was amazed that so many people would travel so far to the heat of the desert to lose their money.
The instantly recognizable skyline featured two gigantic neon images: Apollo, the god of the sun and music, and Dionysus, the god of wine and carnal pleasure. New to Paul were the suggestive holograms in front of each establishment, featuring what looked like live people engaged in various explicit acts.
Paul had been carefully studying the New Testament, Revelation in particular, the last sixty to ninety minutes before falling asleep each night.
He thought about the parallels Straight had drawn between the churches of Revelation and the major population centers of the USSA. If there was any question about which ancient church correlated with Las Vegas, it was dispelled by Paul’s destination: Thyatira’s.
Paul was jostled during the long walk to the place, the afternoon crowds as thick as they would be all night. He was surprised to see streetwalkers in the light of day and knew they would be even more pervasive after the sun set.
Similar to the others, this casino boasted a hologram depicting a woman who appeared to be losing her clothes as the image turned and danced. But always, just before the most revealing moment, gossamer veils strategically covered her.
Thyatira’s proprietor, a woman who called herself Jezebel, supposedly knew the Jonah character personally. Most of what Jezebel did with her casino was legal in Vegas. But Paul would be on the lookout for irregularities in case he needed to pressure her. He needed her to get to Jonah.
Thyatira’s was the largest casino hotel in the world with more than six thousand guest rooms and a main floor with more acres of gambling paraphernalia than any two other establishments combined. The slot machines and gaming tables all had alluring women depicted on them, and the bordello-like décor with garish reds and pinks accommodated the hundreds of flesh-flashing waitresses servicing the tables. The dealers were all provocatively dressed women.
Paul stopped cold as he gazed out over the floor. One of the girls looked familiar. He moved a few steps and she turned. That profile! Could it be? Impossible.
Paul juked and darted through the crowd, pushing and elbowing and excusing himself, but he kept losing sight of Angela. It had to be her, and yet how could it be? What would she be doing this far from home? Paul had never determined whether she knew the truth about her own father or whether she herself was an underground believer. Regardless, he had never pegged her for the kind of woman who might be found at Thyatira’s.
When Paul reached the main entrance, people were coming and going in a mad rush as if the place had just opened. Angela had seemed to vanish. It didn’t add up. It simply could not have been her.
An entourage swept past surrounding a handsomely and somewhat conservatively dressed woman of about fifty-five carrying a leather portfolio. She wore a lavender suit—tight, short, and flattering—but nothing like the suggestive attire of her employees.
Paul rushed to catch up, but as he edged close enough to call out, her muscle cut him off. “She’s not available,” a beefy, suited man said.
“She’s available to me,” Paul said, flashing his credentials.
The man nodded. “In the office. Follow me.”
By the time they had made it to her office, her bodyguard had whispered in her ear and handed her Paul’s card. She spun and her eyes found him. “I’m not really here today,” she said.
“I’m afraid this can’t wait, ma’am. I just need a few minutes. If you’re not really here, there should be no interruptions.”
Jezebel glared at Paul and turned to her secretary. “I’m not here,” she said, and Paul followed her into her office. He sat on a leather love seat and she in a chair facing him.
“So what does the NPO want with me? I run a legitimate business.”
“I need to know your association with Jonah.”
She rolled her eyes. “If you’re after him, we’re on the same side.”
“It’s known he uses so-called legal prostitutes for his rituals, and no one employs more than you do.”
“Don’t say
‘so-called,’ Agent Stepola. Everything in my place is legal and aboveboard.”
“Fair enough. Does he employ your girls?”
“He’s lured some, yes.”
“You lose any in the recent tragedy?”
Paul had finally gotten to her. Jezebel started to speak, then caught herself. “He’s dead serious about this stuff, you know,” she said.
“Stuff?”
“The religious mumbo jumbo. It helps if his constituents buy into it because it means more money for him. But it’s more than just a gig with him.”
“Ma’am, did you lose somebody?”
Jezebel actually teared up. She tried to speak but just held up two fingers.
“You lost two?”
She nodded and reached for a tissue from her desk. “I told them and told them not to get swept up in it. Most of my girls, far as I know, don’t even do drugs. Or if they do, it’s only recreational. First sign of a junkie, they’re out of here.”
Jezebel balled up her tissue and backhanded it into a basket ten feet away in the corner. “Look, I knew Jonah when he was a two-bit pusher named Morty.”
“Morty what?”
“Morty Bagadonuts was what he called himself then. I think the real name is Bagdona. Mortimer’s always been a lowlife, but he had an angle.
He had a string of girls at the hotels on Fremont until he realized the potential on the Strip.
“I don’t let him have full access to my girls, but what they do on their own time is their business. Legalized prostitution is a tough enough game.
Makes no sense to make the girls push dope too. But if you can get them hooked, they have to deal. That’s part of Morty’s religious thing. There’s the dope—for a price—and there’s the free love—but it’s not really free either. He says God told him while he was in the fish that those are the two ways to Jesus. So pay, shoot, play, and pray.”
“And he’s really into it? It’s not a scam?”
“I’d worry less if it was. C’mon, I sell dreams. You think my real name’s Jezebel? Mary Anderson, Cleveland. You can look it up. People come in here believing they’re going to beat the house, even though they know—they know— everything is tilted our way. Yeah, we need only a few percentage points off the top for every multimillion-dollar twenty-four-hour period, so we let ’em think they’re winning. But both of us know it’s a con.
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