dedicated to law. The bottom two shelves, hidden somewhat by my desk, run to hardbound novels and short-story collections. They get read a lot more than the law books.
I always kind of pose when people come in. I place myself behind my desk, put on a pair of reading glasses I got for fifty-nine cents at Woolworths, and pretend to be lost in my perusal of legal documents. “Torts, torts, torts,” I’ve been known to mutter, just loudly enough for my hopefully impressed client to hear.
Jamie opened the door.
Muldaur stood there in a faded work shirt and even more faded work pants. His thick, dark hair spilled over his forehead Elvis-style and his messianic eyes reflected both anger and fear. Oh, yes, I suppose, I should mention the pistol he was holding. It was the kind of handgun my grandfather had, some kind of Colt.
“If this is a stickup,” I said, “you’ve come to the wrong place. I’ve got exactly thirty-five cents and I’m planning to blow that on a soda when I get done working.”
“Turk gave me five dollars for my birthday,” Jamie said. “But I already spent it on a pair of shoes.”
He remained in the doorway, huge and fierce. “I brought the gun so you’d take me seriously.”
“And why wouldn’t I take you seriously?”
“Because nobody else in this town does. They all think I’m kooky.”
“Kooky,” if you’ll recall, is the word of choice for Edd Byrnes, the male beefcake on “77 Sunset Strip,” one of those realistic Tv crime dramas in which the private eyes all drive Thunderbirds and sleep with virgins. The word is irritating enough when the untalented Edd Byrnes says it; coming from a crazed and chiseled Old Testament madman like Muldaur, it was downright comic.
“Why don’t you come in and have some coffee and give your hand a rest? That gun looks pretty heavy.”
“I can make some coffee,” Jamie said.
She had apparently forgotten the day I pulled an exceptionally long afternoon in court. Turk stopped by and they got to necking and everything-I didn’t ask her to detail “and everything” when I grilled her later on-and wouldn’t you know it, somehow she forgot to check the coffeepot and the darned thing caught fire and gutted the pot so that I had to throw it away and buy a new one. I hadn’t gotten around to replacing the coffeepot since. The thing was, the burned-up coffee probably didn’t taste a whole lot worse than Jamie’s regular fare.
“That’s all right, Jamie. Why don’t you just run over to Rexall and buy us each a cup?”
“Gee, Mr. C, I thought you only had thirty-five cents.”
“Just tell them I’ll pay them later this afternoon.”
“Wow, you have a charge account there? That’s cool.”
Bliss comes easily to Jamie.
I watched Muldaur watching her as she disappeared out the front door in her tight blue skirt and even tighter summer-weight sweater, black-and-white saddle shoes with tiny buckles in back, bobby sox with discreet hearts on their sides. Wrapped around Turk’s class ring (from reform school, presumably) there was enough angora to knit a good-size sweater. She couldn’t tell you who John Foster Dulles was or what some guy named Khrushchev did, exactly. But she was well aware of her own considerable charms.
Turk, whom I’d never had the displeasure of meeting, was a lucky kid.
“Nice,” I said.
“What?” Muldaur whipped around as if I’d poked him with a sharp stick.
“She’s a nice-looking young girl.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“I noticed that you didn’t notice.”
He shoved his craggy face forward. “If I put a serpent in your hand, would it find you innocent or guilty of lust?”
I smiled. “Guilty.”
“Well, it wouldn’t find me guilty. I have cleansed my soul of fleshly pleasures.”
What was the point of pushing further? He’d taken more than a passing interest in Jamie’s shapely backside, but why argue about it?
“How may I help you, Reverend?”
“Somebody’s trying to kill me.”
“If that’s true, you should go to the police.”
“If you mean that fool Cliffie Sykes, Jr., I told him about it and he said he didn’t blame them. I’m being followed. I can feel it, sense it. Somebody took a shot at me as I was leaving the church. Can you believe that?
He’s supposed to be a lawman.”
“Any idea who might be trying to kill you?”
“You believe me, then?”
“I believe that you believe somebody is trying to kill you. So I’d like to hear you explain things a little more.”
“I appreciate that.” Then, “I think it’s the Catholics.”
“Ah,” I said, “The Catholics. I see.”
“And the Jews.”
“Ah,” I said. “The Jews.” Then,
“Well, speaking as a Catholic myself, Reverend Muldaur, I doubt the Catholics I know would do such a thing, despite all the really vile things you’ve said about us. And as for Jews, there’re only a few Jewish people in town, and they’re just too nice to go around killing people. Or even threatening it.”
He watched me. “You’re a dupe.”
“A dupe of whose, Reverend Muldaur?”
“The pope.”
“Ah, a papist dupe.”
“You think this is funny?”
“No, what I think this is, is pathetic. You and your people are angry because a Roman Catholic may become president. I hope he does.
I plan to vote for him.”
“And you know how he’ll get in?”
“How?”
“The Jews and their money.”
“I hate to say this but my people haven’t ever treated the Jews very well. In fact, we’ve treated them very badly. Even murdered them. And refused to help them during Ww Ii. So why would the Jews and the Catholics be working together, exactly?”
He leaned back. For the first time, he smiled.
His smile was even scarier than his scowl. “You ever looked in the basement of your Catholic church?”
I returned his smile. “Now that’s always been one of the dumbest conspiracy theories I’ve ever heard.”
“You don’t believe it?”
“Of course I don’t believe it. I was an altar boy. I was in the church basement hundreds of times.”
“You ever hear of subbasements, Mr.
McCain?”
“Oh, the old subbasement routine, eh?”
“You find the subbasement and you’ll find the guns.”
It was an old theory often expressed on rightwing radio out here in the boonies. The international cabal of The Jews (note the capital letters) use the basements of Catholic churches to store their weapons. What weapons and for what reason? Because when the revolution comes The Jews and The Catholics, who have only been pretending to disagree at times, will then rise up and impose a One World government on all right-thinking non- Jews and non-Catholics.
I leaned forward on my elbows. “I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
“You’re just like the others, aren’t you?”
“First of all, Reverend Muldaur, I’m a lawyer. I’m not a bodyguard.”
“You’re also a private investigator.”
