'I know. He also said he was ashamed that he hadn't died trying to save her.'
She shrugged. 'More convincing. I believe he has some kind of belt in karate. But . . .' Nancy shrugged and widened her eyes.
'Five people with automatic weapons-doesn't make much difference what kind of belt you have.'
'I would think not,' Nancy said.
The waiter took our dessert order. Nancy had apple pie and cheese. I had black coffee.
'Why would they take her,' Nancy said.
'Banks says they want to make her one of them.'
'Aggressive proselytizing,' Nancy said. 'But why her, why not me, or you? You look like you might be hard, but you see what I'm asking.'
'Banks said she'd been involved before. `A brief flirtation when she was in college,' he said.'
'And once a Bullie, always a Bullie?'
'I don't know. That's my next stop. I'm consulting a specialist on fruitcakes.'
'Fruitcakes? How unsympathetic a view of religion,' Nancy said.
There was a small swallow of beer left in my glass. I drank it.
'Malt does more than Milton can,' I said, 'to justify God's ways to man.'
CHAPTER 8
The priest was an arrogant one, full of his own knowledge and the pleasures of his impending salvation. But he knew a lot about the Reorganized Church of the Redemption and if I had to suffer a certain amount of foolishness to get the information, I could smile and smile and be agnostic.
'The Bullies,' he said, 'are a macho subspecies of Christianity. They believe in the concept of Christian soldiers and worship the Christ who scourged the moneylenders from the temple, not He who suffered His own crucifixion.'
I smiled and nodded. We were in Father Keneally's office at B.C., a big corner room in one of the handsome graystone buildings on the Quadrangle. On the walls there were pictures of Keneally with Cardinal Cushing, with a couple of former governors, and standing with an arm around the shoulders of a football player named Fred Smerlas. Smerlas was enormous and Keneally was not and the gesture looked strained. The opposite wall was covered with books on shelves and as Keneally talked I had no reason to doubt that he'd read them all.
'Would they kidnap somebody?'
Keneally raised his eyebrows. He was small and neat with an expensive black summer priest suit, and pink healthy-looking skin and crisp white hair cut short. He smelled of bay rum and his nails appeared to have been manicured. A decanter of wine, maybe port, stood on the windowsill and the afternoon sun slanting through it made a purple gleam on the beige Oriental rug that covered the office floor.
'Kidnapping is not part of most Christian rituals,' he said.
I wanted to sigh. It was the kind of answer he'd give.
'Neither was the rack and the strappado, as far as I know,' I said.
The priest steepled his hands and placed them against his lower lip and nodded, smiling slightly. 'You might think of these people as a kind of Christian version of the Jewish Defense League. They are activist. They might use force to achieve the goals of the religion.'
'Is it really a religion,' I said.
'Are you asking me to define religion, Spenser? In one sense a religion is a religion if it says it is a religion. The Bullies believe in a supreme being and a system of conduct derived from that supreme being's teachings and precepts.'
Sigh.
'Religious belief is rather like love,' Keneally said. 'It can manifest itself in various experiential forms.'
'Is Bullard Winston a genuine religious leader?' I said. 'Or is he a charlatan.'
'Power corrupts, Spenser. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Winston certainly appeared sincere at the outset, but now I can't be sure. There was some talk of drug use once, but nothing more than ecumenical gossip. Few men are immune to the temptations that reside in absolute authority. Those who resist most successfully are perhaps the recipients of divine aid.'
Keneally leaned back in his swivel chair and crossed his ankles on the desktop. A fortunate recipient of divine aid. His black oxfords gleamed with polish.
'How does the church feel about Winston's chances for divine aid?'
'There is, in my view, and it reflects the best thinking currently in the church, little justification for the Bullies' militancy in doctrinal sources, in patristic writing, or in scripture.'
'How big,' I said.
'Membership? Perhaps ten thousand nationwide. The founding church is here, in Middleton, and there are mission churches in a number of cities across the country and abroad-somewhere in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, I've heard. It seems to have a good funding base, and seems to be well managed.'
'You have an address for the church headquarters?'
'No, but it is in Middleton and should be listed in the phone book.'
