Stuff Dreams Are Made Of (6 page)

Another gasp from the crowd. It was almost as if it had been scripted.

At the top of his voice he shouted. “A racist, a coward, a man who believes that the downtrodden deserve, do you hear me, they deserve to be kept in their place. He wants the poor to remain poor.”

The word poor seemed to bounce around the cavernous arena. The glint of perspiration on his face was 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.

They 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?”

“Well, it struck me that Cashdollar has been mentioned in three different killings.”

“Three? I mentioned one, for God’s sake.” Crayer backed up a step, gazing at me with a puzzled look on his face. “Ah, what I said. I meant nothin’. I think somebody took Cash too seriously and maybe shot the senator. But I didn’t really mean that the rev had him killed. Don’t ever get the idea I said that.”

“What about the girl?”

“That was a while ago. Like I said, I don’t remember much about it.”

“Skip was there — here. Right, pardner?” James jumped in.

“Yeah. I was. I met the girl.”

Crayer’s eyes got a little brighter. “Oh? You met the Washington girl?”

I studied him for a moment. He’d perked right up. “Yeah. Her name started with a C I think. Do you remember?” I waited for him to finish it for me. Instead, he shut down.

“No. It was a long time ago.”

“Cabrina. Cabrina Washington.”

He avoided my look. Instead he shook his head again. “I don’t know, okay?”

“I’ve got a friend who says she was Cashdollar’s underage girlfriend.”

Crayer gave me a brief look of recognition, then shrugged his shoulders. “A lot of craziness goes on in a place like this. Not all of it involves the Lord’s work, believe me.”

“So you don’t know if Cashdollar was ever implicated in her death? Or the death of the food vendor?”

He frowned and shook his head. “Hell, no. Why would you say such a thing? Listen, the vendor? It was accidental. I don’t know what you heard, but nobody was involved. A pure accident. And the girl? I told you, it was a long time ago.” The donut man stood up, adjusted his rain gear, and stepped down from the truck. “There’s nothin’ to that. Okay? I’ve got a couple of years on you, son. I don’t think you come into somebody’s home or
business and start asking questions as if the person is a criminal. At least we don’t do that where I come from.” He stared at me. Almost a pleading in his eyes. Then he turned and started back toward the donut trailer. Almost as an afterthought he shouted over his shoulder, “Oh, and by the way, there’s still gonna be a game at Stan’s tonight and you’re invited.”

There was a pounding on the side of the truck and James stuck his head out the vented window.

“Can we get a couple of burgers?”

James gave me a frantic look. “Uh, sure. Let me get some meat on the grill. We just didn’t think with all this weather that —”

“Hey,” the young man stared up at him, water streaming from his long blond hair and down his face. He motioned to the young pregnant girl by his side. “People still got to eat.”

“Nice guy, Bruce.” James was cleaning up the burger flipper, his big long fork, and wiping his hands on his apron. We’d sold about fifty sandwiches. Paid for the space, minus the cost of meat, peppers, onions, buns, plates, gas, potatoes, and, oh yeah — our time.

“Why? Because he invited you down to get your ass kicked again in poker? I thought he was evasive and not that nice at all. What he wanted to do was distance his comments about Senator Fred Long.”

“What do you mean, distance his comments?” James gave me a funny look.

“I brought up the murdered girl, and he immediately wanted to tell me that he hadn’t meant anything about his comments the other night. I mean, he practically accused Cashdollar of killing Fred Long.”

James continued to wipe his hands. A little soap would have helped. “Now that you mention it —”

“So I’m thinking that’s one of the reasons he came over here.”

“What? To tell us the rev was not the killer?”

“Yeah. And he made a big deal of telling me that the vendor death was an accident.”

“Oh, come on. It came up, pardner, that’s all.”

“And when I asked him about Cabrina Washington, he said he didn’t remember much because it has been so long ago.”

“So?”

“And right away he remembers her last name. He says ‘Oh, you mean the Washington girl?’ Like it was on the tip of his tongue. I thought that was a little strange. And he doesn’t want to admit he was working the revival show back then. And finally, he almost warns me about asking too many questions. Did you hear that?”

“Maybe he was right, pard. You were coming down pretty hard on Cashdollar. Was he ever implicated and all that? Maybe it’s best to just drop it.”

“It was a question. That’s all it was. And I never even asked him what he meant when he said ‘I was there when Long was shot.’ What did that mean? Was he there, standing right there? Was he in D.C.?”

“Skip, what’s the last movie you and I saw?”

I stared at him for a moment, thinking. “What the hell does that have to do with the current conversation?”

“Just humor me. What was the last movie we saw, pard?”

“We rented
Disturbia
. And we were talking about it and —”

“Yeah, kind of weak.”

“— and you decided to rent
Rear Window
, the Hitchcock movie. You said
Disturbia
was a really weak copycat movie of
Rear Window
.”

James smiled, shoving his utensils in a drawer beneath the stove. He latched the drawer, took off his apron, and sat down on an upside-down plastic bucket that previously contained thousands of pickles. “I like the fact that you’re one of only three people in the world that like pizza-flavored chips.”

Stupid quote, stupid movie. “
Disturbia
had some weak quotes. I’ll give you that.”

“But
Rear Window
— I love that movie. Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelley.” For a moment he was lost in his James world.

“They’re trying to convince themselves that the lady has been murdered and Lisa says to Jeff, ‘What’s a logical explanation for a woman taking a trip with
no
luggage?’ ”

I had no idea where he was going with this scenario, but I did know Jeff’s next line.

“That she didn’t
know
she was going on a trip and where she was going she wouldn’t
need
any luggage.

“And Lisa says —”

We both said it together. “Exactly.”

“What’s the point of this exercise, James?”

“I’ve got to get you to more comedies, son. You’re taking this conspiracy, this clue thing way too far. The guy is our neighbor. He’s just being friendly. Hell, you’re replaying
Rear Window
and trying to make somebody a killer. You’re spooked about a girl who died ten years ago and a senator who could have had hundreds of enemies. Come on, Skip. Take it easy, my friend.”

“I was there. The night Cabrina Washington was killed. Right here.”