he's not really an internist at all.'
'Why?'
'My good man,' Jenks said with a hint of his old manner. 'I know more about the thorax than he does. What Merryman doesn't know about internal medicine would fill a library.'
'So what is he?'
'My personal guess is that he's a classic sociopath. But who am I? I haven't practiced psychiatry yet. He could be a hat salesman for all I know.'
'But he takes care of Angel,' I said.
'She's a healthy little girl. They've all been healthy little girls. Most of what a doctor does, you know, is waiting for fatal signs to develop.'
'And then what?'
'He sends the patient to a specialist.'
'And where did you send Sally?'
'Good Lord,' Jenks said. 'Do I really have to tell you that?'
'First tell me what Merryman's real position is in the Church.'
'Well, he's sort of in charge, isn't he?' Jenks said, looking at his wife for support. 'He and Brooks, I mean.'
'Meredith Brooks.'
'Who else? Not that they like each other. Doctors and lawyers, you know.'
'Sssssss,' Sister Zachary hissed.
'Well, my dear,' Jenks said placatingly, 'he's going to find out anyway.'
'Is there a feud?'
'That's one way of putting it.'
'Serious?'
He pursed his lips retentively. 'Perhaps. There is the potential there, let us say, for killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.' He seemed very happy with the phrase.
'How long has he been with the Church?'
'Seven or eight years. He came about a year before we… withdrew.'
'He threw you out.'
'Yes,' Sister Zachary said.
'No,' Jenks said, over her. 'We've explained all this. We left after Anna was killed, and they-by which I mean Brooks-started trying to draft a new Speaker. And then, when they found, or rather created, little Jessica, Merryman came with her, more or less. He was involved with Doris Fram, that tramp. Jessica's mother. Then, of course, he was involved with dear Mary Claire. Dr. Merryman is a man who likes to be involved. I always thought Angel was as dull as dirt,' he added irrelevantly.
'Where's Jessica now?'
Jenks swallowed. 'Jessica? What do you want with her?'
'That's not important. Just tell me where she is.'
He looked at Sister Zachary. Sister Zachary gave a minuscule nod. 'You're going to keep us out of it?' Jenks said.
'If I can.'
He hesitated, then lifted himself off the desk and trudged around behind it. His pants were shiny in the seat. He opened a drawer in the back of the desk and pulled out a slender address book. He riffled through its pages and then looked back up at me.
'You promise,' he said.
'If I can do it, I will.'
'That's not much.'
'It's all you're going to get.'
'Give it to him,' Sister Zachary said fatalistically. 'What else can you do?'
He wrote something on a card and then bustled back around the desk and handed it to me. He looked very nervous.
'Tell me how the Revealings work.'
'I really don't know,' he said. 'Anna was a bona fide channel. I've always assumed that the other two were suggestible enough, and wanted approval badly enough, to hear voices of their own.'
I looked at him skeptically. 'If he knew how to do it,' Sister Zachary said with a bite in her voice, 'don't you think we'd have a Speaker too?'
The two of them glared at each other.
'So,' I said, pocketing the card, 'who'd you sell Sally to?'
Jenks looked surprised that I'd had to ask.
'To Brooks, of course,' he said piously. 'Merryman would have killed her.'
Out on Vermont I squinted into the sunshine and plotted my day. The sky was almost clear for the first time in a week, and the pavement was already drying. Heaven seemed near at hand. It was the kind of day when you could drive forever, which was probably what I was going to do.
I ticked off the possible stops on my itinerary. Get a different car, take Eleanor back home to help her pack, talk to Speaker Number Two-Jessica Fram-and nail Brooks's ears to the nearest wall. The order sounded about right. I wanted to get Brooks at home, not at the office. I didn't think the formidable Marcy would let me back in.
Wrent-a-Wreck on Hawthorne had just opened for business as I pulled in. The manager was a potbellied little man in a tight white T-shirt. The T-shirt said nothing. It was a real, honest-to-God undershirt.
'I didn't think they made them anymore,' I said.
'They're not easy to get, let me tell you,' he said. 'Try to find something white at a white sale. But if somebody wants to write on my chest, let 'em pay me rent, that's what I always say.' He gave Alice an appraising eye.
'Low-rider special, huh? Haven't seen one of these since JFK. What's 'Sweet lice' mean?'
'It used to be Alice,' I said defensively. ' 'Sweet Alice.' The A came off.'
'You want to sell her? I could probably do some business with a heap like this. Penetrate the Cholo market. Big Hispanic bucks in L.A. now.'
'What I want,' I said, 'is to leave her here for a couple of days and drive away in one of yours. Some nice, dull, anonymous, average, medium-size car with no pizzazz and no writing on it and very small license plates.'
'Bank job, huh?' He gave a short barking laugh.
'No,' I said. 'I'm only going to drive it to church.'
Getting Eleanor moved was harder. For one thing, she didn't want to leave the office at that point.
'I just got here,' she said. 'How can I turn around and walk back out?'
'How about I call in a bomb threat and when they evacuate the building you can just get into my car?'
'You remember Jackie Vinh?'
'Sure. She was with your ex-idiot at that Halloween party. What has she got to do with anything?'
'I talked to her this morning. That's why I'm late. She's a nursing student. She said she'd call Mr. Ellspeth today and see if she can help out with Ansel. She's a nice girl.'
'You're not so bad yourself. Let's go.'
'I can't. You'll have to come back.'
'Eleanor, I have a day in front of me that does not make it possible for me to waffle hither and yon. I can manage hither maybe once if the traffic lights aren't against me. Why don't you make out a list of what you need and then give me your key, and I'll drop the stuff by right after lunch.'
'Do you really think this is necessary?'
'After last night, I certainly do.'
'Well,' she said grumpily, 'I think it's melodramatic. And you'll never find everything I need.'
Nevertheless, she gave me the key and a relatively brief list and I headed out toward the beach.
Jenks and Mrs. Jenks had made it pretty clear that there was a major split in the Church and that the main splittees were Brooks and Merryman. If my reading was right, Brooks controlled the dollars and Merryman
