THE EYE ALMIGHTY TABERNACLE was four miles from downtown New Orleans, just across the line in San Vincente Parish. Gabby nosed the big convertible past the row of ramshackle frame buildings that clustered on the parish line, and headed for the open country beyond. After a few minutes’ drive, she swung the big convertible off the state road onto a macadam road that wandered back through a clump of trees.
After a moment, the car’s headlights picked up the boarded-up windows of an old paint-peeled white house.
“You sure this is the place, Gabby?” Liddell grunted.
“What do you want, neon lights and a brass band?” The blonde guided the big car around the building and stopped in a weed-choked parking-space in the back. There were a dozen or more other cars huddled there in the darkness. Gabby cut her motor and lights. She snapped on her dash light, consulted a tiny baguette on her wrist.
“Pretty nearly on the head. Eight fifty-five. Let’s go.”
They walked over to a door set in the rear of the building and knocked. The door creaked open, spilled a long yellow triangle of light that seemed to spread across the yard toward the cars.
“Gabby?” A girl asked in a low voice.
“Yeah.”
They stepped in through the door, shut it behind them. The girl was small, mousy. Her eyes seemed to pop as she studied Liddell; her upper teeth were painfully prominent. She pushed a wisp of mousy hair out of her face, tucked it untidily into place behind her ear. She was dressed in a flowing white gown that reached to the floor.
“Be careful, will you, Gabby?” she pleaded. “If Wanda ever found out I passed you through, she’d give me a hard time.”
Gabby nodded. “We’ll be careful, Angie.” She motioned for Liddell to follow her, led the way through what was obviously once a big kitchen, now unused, dust-ridden. As they crossed the butler’s pantry, Liddell became aware of a dull, monotonous beat that made the old place vibrate.
From the pantry, a long corridor ran to the front of the house where a heavy, black-velvet drape sealed off the parlor beyond. In the corridor the monotonous beat was identifiable as the pounding of a drum.
Gabby stopped Liddell at the drape with a tug on the arm. “Just melt into the back of the crowd,” she cautioned. “Nobody’ll notice.”
She pushed back the curtain; they slid through. As they entered the room beyond, the wild beat of the music poured over them, enveloped them with almost physical force.
The ceiling and the floor to the room above had been torn out making the room huge, two-storied. Heavy drapes covered the walls from floor to ceiling, and on the floor a thick pile rug completed the soundproofing.
At the far end of the room there was a small dais; over it a tremendous eye had been painted in luminous paint. It seemed to glare down with personal malice, follow their every move.
The room was bathed in a dim light that transformed the faces of the people scattered around it into leering gargoyles. There was no furniture, but men and women of all ages were draped on cushions scattered around the floor. No one even looked up as Liddell and Gabby entered and found some space in the corner of the room.
Soon a cleverly disguised door to the left of the dais opened; two young café-au-lait colored girls came out, their heads wrapped up in the traditional tignon.
They spread a small tablecloth in the center of the room and placed lighted tallow candles at the corners of it. As a centerpiece, they put down a shallow woven basket filled with herbs, and scattered little white beans and corn around the basket.
An old Negro stood in the corner, astride a cylinder made of staves hooped with brass and headed with sheepskin. With two sticks he started up the monotonous deep-throated beat they had noticed in the corridor. Keeping time with him, another Negro was sawing away at a two-stringed fiddle. It had a long neck, a body about three inches in diameter that was covered with a brightly mottled snakeskin. The third member of this primitive orchestra twirled a long calabash, made of a native gourd filled with pebbles.
The door alongside the dais opened again, and a tall woman came out. She wore a long scarlet robe; her black hair cascaded down over her shoulders. She walked with a peculiar gliding motion, ascended the dais, started to chant a wild sort of ritual song.
“That’s Wanda,” Gabby whispered.
Liddell nodded, keeping his eyes on the scarlet-robed woman. As she sang, she seemed to grow in stature; her eyes began to roll in wild frenzy. Her head started to bob in time with the chant and the primitive wail of the two-stringed fiddle.
The others in the room took up the beat, started to sway in unison, keep time with their hands and feet. One by one they picked up the chant, their bodies swaying in time to the weird and savagely monotonous rhythm of the gourd and drum.
The woman in the scarlet gown increased the tempo; the room became charged with electricity. Suddenly, one of the women let out a little scream, jumped to the middle of the floor, started to twist and dance with wild abandon. One of the young colored girls joined her on the floor, started to parade around with a strangely stamping motion. The beat deepened in intensity.
As the girl in the tignon passed the tablecloth, she grabbed the candles and marched with them in her hands. The white woman followed her. Soon others got up, joined the march around the room.
As the young Negro girl reached the dais, the woman in the scarlet robe gave her a drink out of a gourd. She swallowed some, spat the rest in a mist, holding the candles so as to catch the vapor. The alcohol blazed up in a blinding flare. There was a roar from all parts of the room.
Others jumped to their feet, commenced to move in a circle. The woman on the dais continued to increase the tempo and handed the gourd to each of the dancers as they passed.
The posturing and contortions became more and more abandoned as the dancers circled the tablecloth. From time to time they would reach over, pick up the herbs from the basket or a handful of the white beans or corn, and chew on them.
A young woman sprang from the line of marchers and jumped on the cloth in the center of the floor. Her body started to undulate from shoulders to hips to ankles. The beat of the drum, the scream of the fiddle swelled in volume; her motions became more and more abandoned. Wildly, she tore at her clothes, ripped them from her body. She danced wildly, her hair flying, her body undulating and throbbing in time with the music. Her motions became more and more frantic until suddenly, with a wild scream, she collapsed in a heap on the floor and lay there.
That was a signal for the whole line of marchers to take up her dance. The drumbeat speeded up in intensity; the motions of the dancers kept time. The women tore at their clothes, and entirely nude, went on dancing.
Suddenly, the candles went out, the dim light that bathed the room faded. Only a spotlight picked out the woman in the scarlet gown on the dais. Her eyes were closed; she seemed in a trance.
“Now what?” Liddell whispered.
“You let your conscience be your guide. We’d better get out of here while the lights are out.” Gabby’s voice sounded shaken, and her hand was damp to the touch.
Liddell followed her to the heavy curtain that sealed off the room, slid through. They traversed the corridor and slipped out the back door.
The warm night air seemed chilly after the superheated atmosphere of the orgy they had just left. They crossed to the Caddy. Gabby started it, eased it around the house, and headed for the road.
“Well, what do you think about it?” she asked finally.
Liddell wiped his upper lip with the side of his hand. “It’s not exactly a way to grow old gracefully, is it?” He deflected the wind stream and leaned back, letting the cool breeze blow the bad taste from his mouth. “How long does it go on?”
“Maybe an hour.” She guided the big car back to the state road. “Now what?”
“Is there a place around here where we can kill an hour or so? Maybe have a drink?”
“I think there’s a roadhouse up the road. Just inside the parish line.” She headed for it, eyeing Liddell curiously. “What’s perking on the inside of that skull of yours?”
Liddell shrugged. “I figure on going back to the temple after the party’s over. I’ve got a yen to have a little talk with that black-haired babe that did the chanting.”
“Wanda? Quite a hunk of woman, eh?”
“Quite a hunk.” Liddell nodded and lapsed into silence.
A few minutes’ drive brought them to a large rambling roadhouse set back off the main road. A flickering neon that dyed the branches of the trees and the surrounding lawn red identified it as “The Hideaway.” Gabby pulled the Caddy into a pebbled parking-space and led the way in.
They found a booth near the back of the bar and squeezed in.
A bored-looking waitress shuffled over, dropped menus in front of them, but didn’t seem terribly disconcerted when they told her they just wanted a drink. After she had shuffled back in the direction of the bar, Liddell dumped a pack of cigarettes on the table.
“Ever join in that May dance they do, Gabby?” He hung a cigarette in the corner of his mouth.
The girl selected a cigarette, bent forward, accepted a a light. “Once, just for kicks.” She took a deep drag, let the ‘smoke dribble from her nostrils. “It really gets into your blood. It took days before I could even see straight.”
Liddell nodded. “What’s in the gourd she gives you to drink?”
“Some kind of wine. It’s sweet-tasting, plenty strong.”
Liddell grunted. “Probably spiked with hashish. That gang back there’s higher than the Empire State Building.” He leaned back, let the waitress slide two glasses and two shots in front of them, and waited until she had left. “I don’t know where the payoff is yet, but it looks to me as if the Eye Almighty is just a fancy dope drop.”
Gabby made a moue, studying the carmined end of her cigarette with distaste. “Seems like an awfully complicated way to sell dope. Why go to all that trouble when an addict will save you the trouble by looking you up?”
“What better way to make new customers?”
Gabby considered it. “You think that’s what’s behind the Eye Almighty?” She shrugged. “Funny nobody has blown a whistle on them. You don’t become an addict just by using the stuff once.”
Liddell tasted his drink and approved. “How do you figure the candles being put out after the wild dancing?”
Gabby grinned. “Maybe in deference to the tender sensibilities of any members who aren’t high, they figure the scene should be blacked out to give the others time to get their breath back.”
“Ever hear of a snooperscope, Gabby?”
The blonde scowled, shook her head. “What is it?”
“They developed it during the last war. It’s used for observations in the dark. Uses infrared.” He took a deep drag on the cigarette, blew the smoke in twin streams from his nostrils. “Anybody in that room with a snooperscope could see everything that was going on as clearly as if the lights were on.”
“I’ll bet he was blushing.”
“No, but tomorrow some of those people probably will be. You can also use infrared to take flashlight pictures or even movies in the pitch-dark. And the flash never shows!”
Gabby’s mouth formed a perfect O of awakening. “I see what you mean. That’s the reason there’s no kickback on the orgies and the reason they keep coming back until they’re hooked?”
Liddell nodded, scowling at the glowing tip of his cigarette. “You said it was pretty hard to get into the temple?”
Gabby nodded. “Plenty hard. It’s more exclusive than most clubs.” She chewed on the end of a lacquered fingernail. “You think Alfred is already dead? One of his flock that he’s been shaking down maybe?”
“It could be, but I doubt it, Gabby.” Liddell shook his head. “Anybody weak enough to get sucked into a setup like that is usually too weak to blast his way out. He’s usually more prone to buy his way out.” He drained his glass and signaled for a refill.
“You think Wanda knows anything?” Gabby asked.
Liddell shrugged. “She must have some idea of whether he has any enemies or not. When you work as closely with somebody as she’s been working with Alfred, you have a pretty good idea of what cooks.”
“Maybe.”
“Another thing. So far as I can see, nobody has a picture of this character or any way to identify him. She may be able to help in that department, too.” He took a last deep drag on his butt and chain-lit a fresh one from it. “You’ve seen him. What’s he look like?”
Gabby pursed her lips. “He’s hard to describe.”
“Tall?”
“Fairly tall.”
Liddell sighed. “How tall? Taller than I am?”
Gabby cocked her head, studied Liddell’s heavy-set shoulders, the thick, gray-flecked hair, and made a helpless gesture. “I don’t know. He always wore a white gown. Makes it hard to tell.”
“All right. Skip his height. What would you say he weighed?”
She shook her head. “I don’t have any idea.”
“See what I mean? Go on, describe the rest of him.”
Gabby screwed up her forehead and grimaced in concentration. “He was bald, wore a heavy black beard, black-rimmed glasses.” She racked her brain and finally shook her head. “That’s all I can remember about him,” she confessed.
Liddell grunted. “That makes it a snap. All I have to do is look for a guy who might be shorter or taller than I am. He could weigh anywhere from a hundred to two hundred pounds, he has a beard he could shave off, a bald head he could cover, and horn-rimmed glasses that could be changed into steel-rimmed glasses just by walking into an optometrist’s. Yes, sir. Finding him should be a breeze!”