In the previous installment, the most respected scholars from around the world gathered on a medieval mountainside monastery in the Pyrenees, as the Casaubon Society was now ready to begin work on the Library of All Knowledge, intended for survivors of some future (and perhaps quite imminent) apocalypse who might need to rebuild the world from scratch. Prospério Kárax wasn't sure how well it might go, but as he'd often said, “if one doesn't try, failure will be the only outcome.”
Back in Orient, IA, Sheriff Betty Diddon made a startling discovery which could just blow this whole Trazmo Case sideways, if not wide open, when her deputy, Roger Dett, called with an urgent update.
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[Chapter 19, continued...]
As careers went, N. Ron Steele shouldn't have been surprised at the twists his own had taken in recent years, his father's rise and fall from power and prestige part of the family lore. The important thing to recall was not to let simple failure affect him like it had his father, grinding him down. It was the damn waiting that rankled his butt and the amount of effort it took to claw his way back. In that sense, his grandfather, an especially nasty bastard, was his role model. He always felt the re-inventor should be more highly esteemed than a mere inventor who only came up with the prototype. Re-inventing oneself after failure required more patience and self-awareness than any first-time success. That's where Steele felt himself different: he was a self-made man and owed every bit of it to Dad and Grandad.
The downward spiral happened suddenly for him when he'd been shot in Germany by pesky International Music Police agents who had no business sticking their pesky international noses into a simple internal business matter. All he was doing was tying up loose threads which happened to involve the bungled murder of a proven security threat. If successful CEOs can't shore up their security, what's this world coming to? They had to shoot him in the leg, cripple him for life, then hound him around the world for no reason?
“Four years!” Steele winced at the memory, still in his wheelchair stuck staring across the back yard of his current hideout where signs of an early spring made his allergies all the more intolerable. He had a drink in his hand and the loyal Holly Burton, his secretary for what felt like centuries, seated nearby.
There had been other “undisclosed locations” – like that rundown country house in England not far from where Robertson Sullivan's cousin LauraLynn Hardy was getting married before the IMP ruined that sweet plot of revenge.
Things could've gone on pleasantly enough on that polysyllabic Polynesian island he couldn't pronounce (“too many vowels”) somewhere south of Tahiti, if it hadn't been for that pesky volcano erupting at that very moment. Had the IMP sussed him out, already on their way, tipped off by that pesky Bill Cable, his suspicious IT guy?
After refreshing his drink, Holly – he meant Bertha – wandered off the porch into the sunlight to inspect the dozens of hyacinths (Steele – that is, Ringman – hated hyacinths almost as much as he hated marigolds). It saddened him to see her, so much looser and more familiar at home rather than tightly girded for the office. She'd put on considerable weight in all the old familiar places (as the song went), which made her look considerably older. It was this aging and “plumpification” that made these past four years interminable.
Naturally, his own condition, stuck in this wheelchair, totally dependent on her, didn't help his self-confidence any, a shadow of the powerful figure he'd once been until just recently, but what could he do? He was in no position to replace her with a newer model since, alas, she knew where the bodies were buried.
Polynesia, the land (or rather, ocean) of never-ending paradise, may have been pleasant for some, but for him, the isolation was so complete he was going out of his mind from the interminable boredom. His only companions were Holly and that Cable guy, except for two natives who were so backward they couldn't speak English.
But after they'd evacuated the island (and left the body of Bill Cable behind to be counted among the volcano's victims), here he was back in America's Heartland: it's time to return to life.
A week earlier, at the end of a busy day – who knew it was such work setting up a new scam (clearly, he wasn't getting any younger) – Steele was alone in the living room. Holly was doing the dishes while he browsed through his laptop and accidentally came across an on-line talk show and podcast. It was the voice that stopped him initially since he usually wasn't inclined to listen to these Right Wing Rabble broadcasters, even though he'd always been attuned to their views, especially about the economy. Lately, he realized when it came to what the liberals called “White Supremacy,” he'd think “of course I'm superior” and considered what they called “privilege” was what society owed him because of his success. Yeah, well, unfortunately the trappings of that success were taken away by the IMP and those disloyal losers with Lucifer Darke.
His plan had been to place his company in such a position it'd become the first corporation to run for President in 2016 under “Citizens United” (however you could rationalize giving corporations the vote). That'd all been scuttled, now, and he was hanging on for dear life, forced to place his political ambitions on hold. But once his team was back in control, all this garbage behind him, his future motto would either be “There is no U in TEAM,” or “TEAM – it's all about ME,” whichever.
And there was something about this voice that struck him immediately: it sounded hopeful, like it would always believe in him, like some great cat that would curl up on his lap and purr. It wasn't so much what she said – religious nonsense, aside – as the fact whatever she was saying sounded sexy as hell. He imagined how words dripped from her mouth like honey, convincing him she could twist those words any way she wanted just like that woman who tied cherry stems into knots with her tongue.
For several days, he listened to Savannah Roller's podcasts and drooled over her photographs, this “Evangelical Preacher of God's Almighty Word” with her powerful religious following who promised whatever he needed, she could provide.
Like Grandad always told him, “Ronnie, if you can fool a preacher, you can fool anyone.” And so he called her.
Talking to her, especially once she began to pray for him, Steele felt a faint stirring in parts of his body where, for all these years since he'd been shot, he'd felt almost nothing. It was, the more he thought about it, a quivering in the muscles, that tingly returning to life after long disuse. Once she mentioned tithing, these vague sensations came to a halt, as if faith healing could only be successful if the spirit was willing and the flesh willing to donate enough to her cause.
They talked politics long enough to establish a worldly like-mindedness, and she, sensing this was potentially a person of some consequence, was convinced God could use him – certainly, she could – to spread the word. A huskiness in her voice lit a long-dormant spark, until he realized, if his spirit was weak, certain flesh definitely wasn't.
It wasn't what he'd expect a preacher to say, especially one trying to convert him and heal his unhealing wound, but it was something he'd expect a wheeler-dealer businessman to say, five magic words.
“What's in it for me?”
There was nothing cautious or even skeptical in the way she said it, either, merely matter-of-fact.
They set up a meeting the following week: she'll be visiting St. Louis on her private plane, not too far away. He'd send her his address – “there's even a small airfield down the road.”
It had been enough to establish an understanding. Faith-healing or not, he was already on the road to more than recovery. Through prayer, she could help him regain what had been stolen from him, “God giveth what the Devil hath taken away.” He wasn't sure that's how the Bible put it, but it sounded right.
In return, since he “knew people,” he'd make some calls to his TV network friends, maybe get her a broadcast slot, though he doubted any of them would take his calls after all this.
He did say “I'll make some calls,” not “I'll get you a TV slot.” Besides, they could always pray about it. It was how business worked in the modern world: you offered the premise of a deal, not the outcome of one. And what if it should happen to fall through? Well... hey, you tried.
“Of all the offices in the world, she chose to walk into mine,” Steele thought, and smiled when Holly announced her. Savannah Roller was, he noted in one experienced glance, “a leggy, well-stacked long-haired blonde babe who was maybe a bit too old for Fox News, but that's the way he liked them – with curves.” Behind those ice-blue eyes was a brain (he had less experience evaluating brains), and between those two capricious breasts (perhaps he meant “capacious”) beat a heart to inspire passion in the weakliest of men.
What red-blooded American male couldn't imagine what was between those stupendously calpurnian legs (or was that “callipygian”? – either sounded damned impressive) and without further ado, he felt both flesh and spirit rise beyond willing. Now she's promising to turn him into a man of such political power, he could eventually implement God's Design for Mankind.
Steele had been all eyes as she strode, smiling confidently, toward his desk. He smiled back, now all ears as well. Adjusting himself to a more comfortable position, he wheeled himself out so she didn't think he'd been hiding behind his desk and self-consciously dropped his hands into his lap. “You had me at 'power'.”
Steele spoke firmly into the intercom – “Hold my calls” – then raised his hands.
She'd never mounted a man in a wheelchair before but to those who believe, the Bible said, all things are possible.
Afterward, smoke curling upward from their cigarettes, she stood at the mirror, fixing her dress and adjusting her hair, nothing else out of place, despite the momentary frenzy and heavy breathing of intense passion. For himself, he felt (and felt like he looked) wrecked from the experience, yet couldn't keep his eyes off her legs. She was promising she would turn him into “God's Divine Instrument on Earth” in order to bring about a Christian kingdom, how millions of people would flock to support them and make it possible.
As she continued, he found these pleasant feelings, the warm honey of her words (and more, besides), helped soothe his ego, disquieted only by an undercurrent of unbidden thoughts about to break the surface. How would a preacher and talk-show host help return SHMRG to his control, and from there help with his political ambitions?
He sat back and tried to find a comfortable angle for his hips, wheeling himself behind his desk, business after pleasure, and realized how it's been years his own “divine instrument” has lain dormant. But wouldn't regular appearances on “Vanity's Bonfire” mean coming out of hiding, inevitably vulnerable to the IMP and Darke's traitorous faction?
She needed to expand her talk show from a podcast to the broader medium of television to reach an older demographic. And he needed regular donations to spearhead his campaign to take back SHMRG.
“I've always been an excellent public speaker,” Steele said, certain few would agree. In fact, he had always been terrified of speaking in public, blustering with enthusiasm and whatever thoughts popped into his head. He knew it was threats about employees losing their jobs that kept them in line, not the inspiration of his speeches.
Roller patted him on the shoulder, little tingly sparks coursing throughout his body. “Even Moses,” she said, “had his Aaron. I shall stand beside you to interpret whatever you say into God's own thoughts.”
Even better was her prayer, once she placed her hands upon his head, no matter what he said, no matter whether it made sense or not, or even if it all seemed completely wrong: God would spread a fog across the land with his words so anyone who heard him will believe whatever he says.
There was still the practical matter of how they would join forces (so to speak) on the political front, each one broadcasting their messages, individual and combined, to a new and ever growing audience. The most obvious was, once “Vanity's Bonfire” was syndicated nationwide on TV and radio, his regular appearance as a guest commentator. While Savannah saw her role as an adviser – call her a “spiritual adviser”: all great leaders had preachers by their sides – she would use her influence to advance God's Word in his worldly policies. And while Steele knew his role as the CEO of SHMRG had, in the past, gone largely unnoticed by the general population, Roller pointed out once he was back in the seat of power (he did like the ring of that – “seat of power” – as long it didn't involve a wheelchair) his fortunes would change.
It was not just getting back his chairmanship of SHMRG that mattered and eliminating all the nefarious underminings of that interloper Lucifer Darke, it was shoring up his standing in the wider musical world. It was bringing more music under his control, especially in the pop world, representing bigger names and the most lucrative bands. He also needed some plan to make a killing in the classical market, too (but that's probably not the best term). Alas, Roller's evangelical cronies would be less interested in the hottest pop bands.
As she shimmied herself up onto the corner of his desk, one leg sliding over his own, Ms. Roller looked down at him through her cigarette smoke. “There is one thing to do, immediately.” She began to tell Steele about this humanist cesspool known as the Casaubon Society which was currently gathering somewhere in Spain.
He admitted he'd not heard of it before and proceeded to light another cigarette before remembering he should offer her one as well, even light if for her. “I've been out of the loop...”
Steele wondered if he could feign sufficient interest in her interest in the Society, whatever this had to do with SHMRG.
“Because, you big, soon-to-be-powerful-again lummox of a corporate CEO mindset, don't you see anything that challenges the hegemony of our populist viewpoint is an enemy we must deal with and sooner rather than later?”
Their purpose, she continued, accepting his cigarette while brushing her leg against his – was he feeling any sensation there? (he was...) – was to amass every bit of knowledge that existed about everything in existence. “This would involve science, history, art, anything scholars ever wrote about, to falsify the truth and perpetuate all of history's errors.”
“All that already exists on-line, filled with lots of garbage. What of it?”
Except this single collection, placed in every library around the world, awaited eventual rediscovery after an impending apocalypse, should humanity survive.
“And clearly,” she stressed, as she stood up to smooth down her skirt, “this eventuality cannot happen, another humanist Renaissance reborn. We don't want to destroy it, because it's to our long-range (indeed!) benefit. Scholars loyal to our conservative, populist, primarily Evangelical cause, upholding God's Every Word, must infiltrate this gathering to influence it 'appropriately'.”
“And how do you think I'll be able to do that? I'm not exactly a collector of what you'd call scholars.”
“It's a matter of making connections, which, in corporate-speak, you would call 'networking'...”
As she turned to leave, she shook his hand like they'd struck a deal to divide the Earth between them. “Should you need... further assistance,” her eyes sparkling, “you know how to find me.”
Steele, his muscles tingling, reached for his phone.
“Hey,” Steele crooned, “been a long time. Got a little preposition for you.”
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©2022 by Dick Strawser for Thoughts on a Train
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