First Johnny had to finish his workday, and Steve had to wonder what sort of world he was getting involved with. Involved wasn’t the right word. On the one hand he was a lawyer doing a job. He needed the job. He needed the client and the money. By working for Johnny, he wasn’t endorsing anything Johnny believed. If Steve were a doctor and Johnny came in for treatment, Steve would have to help him. When he defended a criminal he was bound by the canons of ethics to defend the person with zeal. Doing so wasn’t the same as endorsing the crime.
He walked away from the shop, toward town, figuring to get a Subway sandwich or something, when Neal ran up from behind.
“Hey,” Neal said.
Steve turned.
“You’re starting to get the picture, right?” Neal said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Johnny. He’s a prophet, you know.”
“Prophet?”
“Yes. Someone who gets direct revelation from God. That means you have to listen to him.”
The poor guy. He had that look in his eyes, the gullible-follower look. Steve knew that in prison culture there are two kinds of people, and only two. Those who rule and those who get stomped. The stomped only feel protected when they’re hooked up with the strongest ruler. If they find him, they can become loyal to the point of giving up their minds. That’s what Neal smelled like to Steve.
They’re dangerous, these types, because if you cross the ruler, you cross them.
He was in front of Steve now and didn’t move.
“Is that all?” Steve said.
“You don’t believe.”
“I’m going to get a sandwich. You want one?”
“You have to listen to me. If you don’t, you could miss out.”
Steve slapped Neal’s shoulder. “Thanks anyway, man, I — ”
“He had a prophecy about you.”
Dead seriousness in Neal’s face. Steve waited.
“Johnny said you would come. He said you would bring deliverance.”
“Johnny said that?”
Neal nodded.
“What did he mean, deliverance? From what?” Steve said.
“I don’t know. But you’re here, aren’t you?”
“I’m here because you gave me ten thousand dollars.”
“No, you’re not. You’re here because God meant you to be here. He made you to be here.”
“How did you get here, Neal?”
He didn’t answer.
“I mean, how did you meet Johnny LaSalle, get hooked up with him?”
Still didn’t answer. Which ticked Steve off. “You meet him in prison?”
“It’s not important.”
“Let me decide that.”
“I’m not important. The only thing that matters is Johnny. He’s got the anointing and you’ve got to help him. Don’t mess up. If you do, it’ll be bad.”
“Let me ask you something. I’m sure Johnny won’t mind you telling me about your organization.”
“What’s the question?”
“I did some reading up on Eldon LaSalle.”
“So?”
“He’s quite a controversial figure.”
“All great men are.”
“He’s been tied to things like the so-called Christian militia movement.”
Neal smiled and shook his head. “Man, that is such a crock. You know what the problem is? People don’t know how to think for themselves. They basically buy into all the lies the government tells them, or TV tells them. It’d be funny if wasn’t so sad.”
“But why would people even say that if there wasn’t some basis?”
“Look, man, there’s been people trying to peg us for something ever since the Master put stakes down here.”
“Master?”
“Enlightened Masters are rare, and Eldon LaSalle is one of them.”
“What’s an Enlightened Master do, Neal?”
“Enlightens, fool. He has been given the true Word.”
“Who gave him the true Word?”
“God. Who do you think?”
“How do you know it was God who gave him the true Word?”
“You have to be around him to find out. Once you meet him, you’ll know. You won’t even question it. And once you know, man, you’ll never be the same.”
That’s what I’m afraid of.
“And Johnny,” Steve said. “You say he has some appointment?”
“Anointing. He’s going to carry on after the Master is gone. It’s like Jesus and his apostles.”
“There were twelve of them, weren’t there?”
“Johnny don’t need nobody else.” Neal put his finger on Steve’s chest. “You best remember that. You can’t stay the same. You stay the same and you die. You got to get in the fight. There’s good and evil and light and darkness, and if you don’t line up on the right side . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence, but made a fist.
Then he turned and walked back toward the shop. Steve wondered if he’d just been threatened. Or merely confronted by a guy who had pretty much given up his own personhood to a “prophet.”
It was now two thirty in the afternoon. Soon it would be time for a friendly visit with Eldon LaSalle.
Steve’s stomach did a few half gainers thinking about it.
Steve munched a six-inch turkey breast sub in the corner of a small Subway shop on Main Street. It didn’t go down without a fight. He didn’t feel much like eating, tried not to think about the strangeness of it all, but there wasn’t any way to avoid it. Prophecies about Steve Conroy, the deliverer? It sounded like something out of Ghostbusters. Maybe he’d tell Johnny he was the Key Master and be done with it.
What if his brother was certifiable? Lost in delusion? What then? Would it be better if he’d never heard from Johnny in the first place?
There was a mussed-up newspaper on an adjoining table. The Verner Herald. Steve gave it a quick look, trying to get more of a sense of the place. Small-town stuff. A book fair coming up at the local library. A man named Howard Lochner had landed a twenty-five pound rainbow trout in a local mountain lake. Almost a record, they said.
The door swung open and a bit of LA walked in. Two black kids wearing basketball jerseys. One was the purple and gold of the Lakers. The other was a New Jersey Net. Neither one was exactly Verner attire.
Steve watched them, but not as hard as the manager of the store, a short man with a comb-over who perspired from the forehead. He kept his eye on them as they took their time looking at the menu and cracking a joke only they were in on.
A funny kind of tourist, Steve thought.
He went back to the paper. Exciting stuff. Green Valley Elementary was starting in a week. The president of the PTA, Kitty Bates-Rooney, was looking forward to an “awesome year” because of “the most dedicated teachers in the county, who are already at work preparing for the kids.”
And then she mentioned how everyone was rallying behind Joyce Oderkirk at this “very difficult time.”
Joyce Oderkirk.
Steve pushed the last of his sandwich in his mouth and washed it down with now watery Pepsi. He asked the skinny kid at the cash register the way to Green Valley Elementary. He had to ask again because the kid kept taking glances at the two new customers.
But he finally gave Steve the information in a voice that cracked twice.