brilliant on the large screen. This was one of the best presentations I’d ever witnessed.
“He wants the weary to remain weary.”
The crowd was murmuring. Who was this terrible individual?
“And he wants the sufferers to keep on suffering.”
Now they were shouting back at the stage. Cashdollar moved to the next podium, held up his hand, and the camera zoomed in on his eyes. Black on the screen. I’d expected animation, a sparkling flash. The eyes appeared to be empty and soulless. But then, hey, this was television. I could have been wrong.
“This man, this instrument of the Devil, has access to your home, your car, your place of business. He comes in and takes control. Every day.” Cashdollar held up his watch and somewhere a camera zoomed in and the watch with its ticking hand exploded on the large screens beside the stage. “Somewhere, at this exact minute, this man is talking to thousands of people, spreading his brand of venom and hate.”
Again there was a hum in the air, voices from the assembled, buzzing, talking to each other, and getting worked up.
“Barry Romans! You know him. Barry Romans. The man is evil, and he stands for everything that we oppose. If you believed in the gospel according to Barry, you wouldn’t be here right now.”
Spontaneous applause, a session that was punctuated with whistling, shouts, and screams.
“What does he say? He says ‘The welfare problem is caused by the blacks.’ That’s right, the blacks. I’m black. Do I appear to be part of the problem?”
They shouted back to the stage. “No.”
“He says ‘We are all ruled by fear. This love thing, this getting along together is a crock.’ He said that, people.”
James leaned over and shouted “This is what keeps ’em coming back every night.”
“Yeah, and the idea that if they agree and give him the change in their pocket they can inherit a fortune tomorrow.”
He scowled at me.
“James, I say we get out of here. It’s going to be noisy, ugly, and I’d just as soon not be a part of it.”
He looked at me, his eyes dancing back to the stage. “All right. I don’t know how far this guy is going to go, but I suppose we should get ready for the crowd. They’re really going to be worked up tonight.”
We worked our way up the center aisle, and I half expected to have the rev call us out and ask us where the hell we thought we were going. It wouldn’t have surprised me.
I looked over my shoulder and immediately worried about turning into a pillar of salt. Some Bible story I’d heard when I was a kid. Cashdollar was waving that gold Bible in his hand and everyone around us was opening theirs. He was asking them to refer to another scripture.
“This is our scripture. In this book, right here. We don’t buy into the gospel according to Barry. No, this, this is the word of our Lord. God’s action is inside this book!”
We made it to the tent flap, and two men in dark suits and matching lapel pins held it open for us. As we stepped outside, I heard the first clap of thunder and the skies opened up. We made a beeline for the truck.
CHAPTER NINE
T hey stayed in the tent. We could see them from our truck, even through the vented window that James had cut in the body of his precious money maker. We could see them through the sheets of rain that poured down outside our little kitchen. They would huddle right on the inside of that huge tent and then a group would make a mad dash for their car. Their van. Their SUV. Their truck or their Cadillac. Then another group would dash to the community of tents and trailers, and then another group. Pulling towels, sweatshirts, anything they had, over their heads. Some of the planners had, of course, brought umbrellas. There was a muddy trail leading from the tent to the paved parking lot, and more than one person slipped and ended up on his butt. It got to be a contest for James and me to see which one would go down.
“The girl in the blue shorts and white blouse.” James pointed as she and a young man came dashing out. “She’s got those floppy sandals. She’ll never make it.”
“My money is on the fat little guy. He’s got on those nerdy white tennis shoes.”
And sure enough, the fat guy went down. Embarrassed, he picked himself up, covered with mud from the waist down, and ran a little farther, slipping again.
“Damn. How much am I down?”
“Seven thousand, James.”
“Shit.”
Then we saw the black limousine pulling around the side of the tent. The windows were tinted, but the license plate told the tale. CSHDLR 1. There must be more where that one came from. The limo inched its way around our truck, and headed down the narrow road that led to the causeway. I remembered the line they used to use when an Elvis Presley concert was over. “Elvis has left the building. Elvis has left the building.” This Cashdollar guy must be richer than Elvis.
“Permission to come aboard.” I looked out the back of the truck, and Crayer stood there, umbrella open and a yellow slicker covering his short body.
“Come on in.”
He jumped up from the step-up, throwing water into the truck, scooted around my serving table, and looked out our side window. “Playing who slips first?” He dripped all over our wooden floor.
James gave him a glance. “It’s actually a real game?”
“Ah, you do enough of these things, everything becomes a game.”
I pulled up a stool and offered it to the wet donut man.
“Boys, I’ve got some very bad news.”
“How bad?”
“Tonight is gonna hurt.”
The rain beat a tattoo on the metal roof of the truck and James stared glumly out the window at the mad dash of worshippers running and sliding to their cars. “I kind of had that feeling.”
“Cash has a saying — ”
“Yeah?”
“The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a saying.” James put his hand out the window, letting the steady downpour soak his palm. “You win some, ya lose some.”
“Well, there’s gonna be taketh and lose tonight.”
I studied our neighbor. “Bruce, you said I could ask you anything, right?”
“About this operation? Sure. Fire away.”
I sat on the edge of my table/counter, a pan of peppers next to me that would probably never see the grill tonight. Heavy rain beat down on the truck and I spoke up to be heard. “Ten years ago, Cashdollar was here, at the park, doing a tent service and a young girl was killed. Were you here then?”
Crayer looked at me carefully, then slowly shook his head. “I came here three years ago, full time.”
“You’d never worked for Cashdollar before?”
He was quiet, his mouth drawn in a tight line. “Yeah, actually I did. Off and on for a couple of years. I don’t see why it’s any of your business, but I could have been here that year. I’ve worked a lot of shows, a lot of carnivals. I can’t remember all of them.”
“So, did you know anything about it?”
“What?”
I gave the situation a two-second review. It couldn’t hurt to ask the man what he knew.
“A seventeen-year-old girl was strangled. And just a couple of years ago, a food vendor died, right here. Do you know anything about these deaths? Just wondering, Bruce.”
He paused. Confusion colored his face. “Are you thinkin’ about what I said yesterday? About the senator getting killed?”
