10

Though he had plenty of time, Finney had less luck getting to know the other contestants. They were not exactly the kind of folks you’d invite to a cocktail party. The Muslim advocate, Kareem Hasaan, seemed determined not to let friendship get in the way of victory. It appeared to Finney that the show’s producers had intentionally played into the stereotype of the combative and foreboding Muslim. Kareem was the largest of the five contestants, a good two or three inches taller than Finney, with ripped muscles that made his black T-shirt look like a Batman costume. Finney guessed the man was about thirty-five, with thick and curly black hair and the dark features of the Lebanese—the identity of his native country was one of the few things Kareem had disclosed during the plane ride.

“Isn’t that where the Hezbollah are from?” the Swami whispered.

But the other thing Finney learned about Kareem didn’t seem to fit the stereotype. He described himself as a “human-rights lawyer,” representing clients who had been discriminated against, including criminal defendants. A Muslim human-rights lawyer. It made about as much sense as a cigar-smoking judge representing Christianity.

If Hasaan won the award for intensity, Dr. Victoria Kline won the prize for aloofness.

“What religion do you represent?” Finney asked.

“None,” Dr. Kline replied.

Finney waited for further elaboration but none came. “All right then,” Finney said. “Wonder what movie they’re showing on this flight?”

“I’m a scientist, Judge Finney,” Kline replied. “I’ll be advocating the position of science, not religion.”

“Didn’t know they were mutually exclusive.” Finney said it with a smile, but a thin one.

“Let’s leave the advocacy for the show, shall we?” Kline asked.

“It’s a good thing she’s pretty,” the Swami whispered later. “’Cause she doesn’t stand a chance at Miss Congeniality.”

The final contestant seemed to fit the mold of his religion better than anyone else. Dr. Hokoji Ando, a bald Asian with heavy glasses, couldn’t have been more than five foot six. “A pint-size Buddha,” according to the Swami, who claimed he’d never seen a Buddhist priest so thin. Though Ando walked with a distinct limp, he still managed to carry himself with a soft-spoken dignity that oozed wisdom. He was the one person on the show older than Finney, though Finney would have bet his life savings on the fact that Ando would live longer. Those Eastern guys never smoke, and they eat all that seaweed, Finney thought. Ando could live to be a hundred.

Most of the trip, Dr. Ando sat alone and meditated.

Not to be outdone, Finney stared out the window and prayed. He prayed for God’s will in this game—a noble prayer but also one he knew would mean victory for his cause. When he finished praying, Finney pondered again his reasons for doing this. The whole experience still seemed so surreal. But he was committed now and knew there was no turning back.

What he had said to McCormack and the others was true—Finney hoped this show might be a vehicle to reach a few members of the next generation. But he had other motivations as well. Part of it was the intrigue. Finney liked nothing better than the competition of a challenging intellectual problem, and what could beat this? But it was more than that. Finney was tired of seeing Christianity represented by those who gave Jesus a bad name. Screaming televangelists. Judgmental legalists. Uncommitted believers who shirked the tough sayings of Christ. He believed a reformed lawyer-turned-judge like himself could do better—or at least no worse.

More important still was the updated diagnosis he’d received just a month ago. The lung cancer had metastasized to his liver. It was, Finney knew, a death sentence with no appeal. “You have six months at the outside,” his doctor said. “Maybe a year with the right kind of chemo.” But Finney passed on the chemo. He wanted to make the last six months count. And that’s what was really driving this; that’s why he was here.

The pilot interrupted Finney’s thoughts with an announcement: “Fasten your seat belts and draw your window shades.” The Gulfstream was about to begin its descent. The contestants, the pilot explained, were not supposed to know where the plane was landing.

After a smooth touchdown, the pilot asked the contestants to stay seated until they received further instructions. A few minutes later, Murphy and his production crew boarded the plane. Murphy surveyed the five contestants, obviously relishing the fact that he knew what would happen next and they had no idea. Finney decided he might as well get used to it.

“I hope you had a comfortable flight,” Murphy said. “Thanks for your patience. We are almost to our destination.”

In his hand Murphy held several black blindfolds. He gave one to each contestant. “The location of our set needs to remain undisclosed for a number of reasons. So you’ll need to put these on until we arrive.”

Finney took a blindfold from the producer and felt stupid. He had signed up for a sophisticated reality show analyzing the world’s great religions, not pin the tail on the donkey.

“Cool,” the Swami said, snapping his on.

Kareem Hasaan frowned and turned the blindfold over in his hands as if he might quit on the spot. “Is this really necessary?” the civil rights attorney asked, his eyes clouding over.

“I’m afraid so,” Murphy said with as much authority as possible. He probably didn’t expect a contestant uprising quite so early. “We’ll make sure your luggage arrives safely on the island with you.”

Kareem looked at the other contestants and then at Finney. Finney shrugged and pulled the elastic over his head.

“Do we get a last cigarette?” the Swami wanted to know.

Murphy thanked the contestants for their cooperation, and then some assistants helped Finney down the steps of the Gulfstream and onto the paved runway. Finney tried to look out the bottom of the mask but could see nothing. He felt the hot and sticky air of some kind of tropical island—no surprise there. The show’s producers had told them to dress casually for the trip and said that the outside temperatures could reach the nineties. It felt to Finney, who was wearing jeans, a T-shirt, and his John Deere cap, as if they had underestimated by twenty degrees.

“We’re going right over this way,” someone said, pulling Finney along. The humid tropical air smelled like jet fuel. Unknown persons loaded Finney onto an aircraft and placed him in a seat next to someone who used too much aftershave.

“Can we take these off now?” he heard Kareem ask.

The answer, in a deep voice that Finney hadn’t heard before, was a gruff “No. We’ll tell you when to take them off.”

Finney’s seat started rumbling as an aircraft engine fired up, and he heard the whir of helicopter blades overhead. The temptation to remove his blindfold was nearly overwhelming, but Finney decided to be a good soldier and leave it on. Before long, he could feel the helicopter rising into the air.

“This is stupid,” Kareem said loud enough to be heard over the roar of blades and engine. But since nobody joined in the complaining, he didn’t say another word the rest of the trip.

Finney estimated that the trip took less than thirty minutes before the helicopter landed. Somebody helped Finney off the helicopter and whisked him away from the bird. This climate seemed identical to that of the last stop, perhaps a few degrees cooler. Finney felt a strong blast of wind as the helicopter took off again and then listened intently as it retreated into the distance.

The stillness engulfed him. For a moment it felt as if Finney were all alone in the warm island breeze. The sounds reminded him of the Virginia Beach inlets on a quiet summer night—the chirping of some kind of cricket, the faint rhythm of ocean waves marching to the shore, the wind rustling through the trees.

“You can remove the masks now.”

Finney’s eyes adjusted quickly to the light as he gaped at his new environs. Blue sky. The beautiful green hue of the ocean. White sand and palm trees a few hundred yards down the hill from the landing pad.

“Awesome!” the Swami exclaimed. “This place rocks!”

Even Kareem let a small smile crease his lips.

“Welcome to Paradise Island,” said their slender host, a woman whom Finney had met before leaving New Jersey. Her name was Tammy something or other. Or it might have been Jamie; he couldn’t remember. She had on a short skirt and a low-cut blouse—a sure sign that the producers intended on using this piece in the first program. Even taking into account the well-known fact that television tended to add ten pounds to a person’s physique, Finney thought their host could stand to put on a few pounds and would still look just fine. A woman’s collarbone should not stick out that much, in Finney’s humble opinion.

Sure enough, the cameras whirred away, recording the contestants’ reactions. Only Dr. Ando seemed not to be excited. He looked around with the same level of detachment you might expect from a Gold Medallion traveler surveying another Holiday Inn hotel room.

“I hope you enjoy your stay here over the next two weeks,” their host said.

“What’s her name again?” Finney whispered to the Swami.

“Tammy,” the Swami said without taking his eyes off the woman. “Awesome name.”

The director shot Finney and the Swami the same look Finney used when people whispered in court.

But Tammy didn’t seem to notice. “As you know, you’ve each been selected—all except one of you, that is—because of your firm commitment to your faith. The nation will be watching to see how your faith stacks up when you encounter—” she paused like an amateur actress trying to manufacture drama—“trouble in paradise.”

Finney thought the line was cheesy, but what did he know about television production? He did know that this moment was staged, and he hated to ruin it, but he just couldn’t help himself. When you’ve got to cough . . . He tried swallowing it and choking it down, but that only made his face red and the urge overwhelming.

He cleared his throat, turned his head, and hacked away, spitting up phlegm in the process. When he stopped, all eyes and most cameras were trained on him.

“Allergies,” he said.

“Let’s roll that one again,” McCormack said with no small amount of annoyance in his voice. “Would you guys mind putting your blindfolds back on?”

It took them four takes just to get the opening scene right, and Bryce McCormack was ready to pull his hair out, long gray strand by long gray strand. Between Finney, who always picked the worst possible moment to cough, and Tammy, who overdramatized every line, the cast would turn Paradise Island into a director’s worst nightmare. There were naturals in the acting business; these folks were not among them.

Tammy had been Murphy’s choice, and Bryce didn’t have the heart or the will to veto her. She had originally garnered her fifteen minutes of fame as a contestant on the fourth season of The Bachelorette. Within six months, the romance that budded on that show fell apart, and Murphy decided to give her a second shot at the spotlight. “A great gimmick,” he told Bryce, “a reality show contestant hosting another reality show.”

It sounded clever at the time. But they had both been regretting it ever since. Next time, Bryce would insist on hiring a professional.