Jerry Auburn came to a halt, albeit reluctantly. 'Something up, Harry?' He knew perfectly well the other hated that name. He nodded at Moyer. 'Hi, Fuzzy,' he said, inwardly pleased at the director's wince.
Harrington Chase hefted his glass up and down a couple of times pontifically. 'We've been mulling over the replacement of Grace Cabot-Hudson, now that she's let it be known she's resigning.'
Jerry said, 'I had been inclined to Dunninger… until somebody got to him.'
'Never cottoned much to Harold myself,' Chase said pompously. 'Kind of a goddamned liberal. Show me a liberal and I'll show you a man on the verge of a coyote Euro-communist. But at least he was a white American, just like us three.'
Moyer looked at Jerry: a policeman's look. 'What do you mean, somebody got to him? Those Nihilist subversives shot him when his people wouldn't pay the ransom. His wife must have thought they were bluffing.'
'So they say,' Jerry nodded. 'Which leaves the field more or less left to Ezra Hawkins and Lothar von Brandenburg, two of the most unlikely candidates for a seat in the Central Committee I could imagine.'
Harrington Chase puffed out his cheeks. 'At least the Prophet is a God-fearing Christian, a white man, and an American. We Americans ought to stick together. We wouldn't want to see a slant-eye like lyeyasu Suzuki, or a nigger like Sri Saraswate, on the Committee.'
Jerry took him in. 'It's never been proven that the Prohpet can read or write. Supposedly, the top echelons of the World Club are composed of highly intelligent, well-educated men and women, not superstition-spouting demagogues.'
'Look, boy, us Americans have a manifest destiny to run this world. It's in the cards. But unless we hold the cards, we'll wind up with the wogs taking the pot.'
The younger man regarded him, doing little to disguise his contempt. 'Harry,' he said, 'do you realize that half the United States population is below average in intelligence?'
The billionaire's eyes all but popped in indignation. 'That's a damn lie!' he rumbled.
Jerry shook his head in pretended despair. 'Your American chauvinism does you little credit, Harry. Of course, half of
The oilman sputtered, then took a heavy slug of his bourbon.
Moyer said, obviously getting it before his colleague did, 'What's that got to do with the Prophet being elevated to the Central Committee, Auburn? It seems to me that having a man of God in our number makes good sense. The fact that the majority of us are among the world's wealthiest rubs some people the wrong way, especially the liberal intellectuals. The Prophet heads the biggest church in the world, and every day it gets larger.'
Jerry turned his gaze to the IABI head. 'And did it ever occur to you, as a fuzzy, that the number of crimes in a city each year is proportional to the number of churches there?'
The other stared at him. 'You must be around the corner, Auburn. The more churches, the less crime.'
Jerry shook his head in sorrow. 'On the face of it, fuzzy, the larger the town is, the more churches there are. And the larger a town is, the more crime there is.'
Harrington Chase said angrily, 'You're getting away from the point, Jerry. The point is, we don't want any more kikes like Meyer Amschel in the Central Committee, and no more chinks like Fong Hui.'
Jerry said, 'We'll see about that when it comes to the vote, Harry. In my opinion, Amschel and Fong may be on the oldish side, and overly conservative, but they're two of the best we've got. And now, excuse me; I want to have a few words with Windsor. Has it ever occurred to either of you that the Graf is so afraid of leaving that castle fortress of his that he always sends a deputy to represent him? What kind of a Committee member would he make if he never bothered to attend sessions?'
Before the arrival of Jerry Auburn, Archbishop Willy Beck and Peter Windsor had been hitting it off jolly well, as the Englishman might have put it. The Graf's right-hand man, now in impeccable evening wear, was a far cry from the languid, easygoing young man of the Wolfschloss. Now, in the view of his peers, he presented himself as the British aristocrat—straight of posture, clipped of voice. His companion was dressed in black and wore the reversed collar of clerical tradition. They were approximately the same age, approximately the same height, but there the resemblance ended, save for goals. Willy Beck, a lifelong evangelist who had first taken the stump at revival meetings in the American Bible Belt at the age of fourteen, had the sanctimonious face of his trade—long, expressionless, save for a sadness which tugged at the heartstrings of his feminine followers. Indeed, his face had been compared to that of Lincoln before the beard. His voice was soft, with a depth of sorrow similar to that of an undertaker. His railings against the evils of drink and tobacco were his trademark, which would undoubtedly have led the faithful to goggle at the Manila cigar he now held in one hand and the glass of that most delicate though strong of spirits, Hungarian barack, in the other.
The Archbishop was saying, 'Yes, you are quite correct. The Prophet foresees, once the World State has come to power, the reestablishment of the Holy Office, the Inquisition— under a more inspiring name, of course. Heretics must be rooted out. At this point it is quite impossible, but once the United Church has become the State Church of the World Government, matters will be different. Since the days of Socrates the organized religions have found that to be the ultimate truth. But now, at this point, we must rely on other means to confound our Godless opponents, and that is why the Prophet sees the need for greater cooperation between our two organizations.'
Peter Windsor said, sipping at his Scotch, 'You put it most interestingly, Your Excellency. In what manner do you think the United Church could be of use to us?'
'In most of the present-day branches of the United Church, my son, we follow the rite of confession. Perhaps a judicious leader might be reluctant to reveal his secrets, but often the same restraint does not apply to his more devout wife. It is astonishing, the information that is revealed in the confessional booth, especially if encouraged by a trained confessor— information that would be priceless to an organization involved in espionage.'
'Bloody marvelous,' Peter Windsor said, lost in admiration of the possibilities. 'And in return?'
The Archbishop's face was sad. 'Alas, my son, in this sin-ridden world the true faith often has what would seem insurmountable obstacles raised by the followers of the Adversary. Such enemies of the United Church would feel the wrath of the heavens. Who knows what might befall a strong official of some false faith who exhorts his fellows to refrain from cooperation with our Holy cause…'
'Chaps such as the Mahdi, I wouldn't wonder,' Peter said.
'Indeed. Our sainted leader, Ezra Hawkins, spent long hours in prayer before coming to the reluctant decision to remove this limb of Satan from the scene, so that his deluded followers might at long last see the true path to salvation.'
'Long hours in prayer?' Peter said musingly. 'I say, do you chaps really find time for that sort of drill?'
Willy Beck sighed. 'Peter, sometimes I am inclined to think that Ezra takes himself a bit too literally in his role of Prophet. It does not do for a religious man, or a politician, to believe too much in his own propaganda. The more one knows his religion the less he believes, if he is a pragmatic man.'
Peter accepted that, pursing his lips. 'However, the Prophet is, shall we say, no longer young. And history tells us that it is often a devoted follower of a great prophet who finally witnesses the flowering of the new religion. It was not Jesus who founded Christianity as we know it, but Paul. And Mohammed never saw Islam spread beyond Arabia. It was the second-generation Moslems who conquered half the known world.'
'A point well taken, my son. And who can tell what the good Lord has planned for the future. But tell me, how is the health of the Graf these days?'
The Englishman shook his head regretfully. 'I am afraid that Lothar is aging rather rapidly, don't you know? Sometimes he seems to make rather ill-considered decisions.'
Archbishop Beck shook his head, also in sorrow. 'Not long for this world, then. However, undoubtedly, when he goes to his reward there will be more youthful hands to take the reins of his worthy organization.'
Peter Windsor fixed his green eyes on the other man's face for a long calculating moment before he said, 'Perhaps we should talk this over in more detail in the near future. I suspect that matters are coming to a head faster than some of us realize.'
It was then that Jerry Auburn came up, recently refilled glass in hand, dark blue eyes with a faint glaze. He said, not quite slurring, 'Hi, Peter. Done in any poor cloddies of recent date? Hi, Willy, saved any good souls lately?'
'All souls are good, my son,' the Archbishop said unctuously.
