Under the Beetle's Cellar (12 page)

“Oh, God,” Molly panted after three, “will this ever get any easier? And is it worth it?”

“The ultimate eschatological questions,” Jo Beth said, pushing up and down with ease. “You can ask that apocalyptic radio preacher you’re going to talk to later—will there be push-ups in the millennium or will all true believers have muscles given unto them without labor or sweat?”

“I’ll ask him,” Molly retorted. “And how about this one: Do we get new bodies when we’re resurrected, or do we have to keep the same old flabby ones?”

“Well, Mom, I know this: If the world is ending in five days and we’re going to get new bodies, I’d rather go out for pizza than do this crap.”

“Yeah.” Molly was panting so hard she could barely speak. “If he says no push-ups for believers, I’ll convert on the spot.”

The twangy redneck drawl over the phone immediately suggested to Molly a physical type: lean and spare, thin-lipped, squinch-eyed, and balding. “Ah am jet-lagged something awful, Miz Cates. This is not a real good time to talk. It may only be nine o’clock in Texas, but it’s two
A
.
M
. in Jerusalem and mah body thinks it’s still on Holy Land time and ah cain’t keep mah eyes open.”

“Dr. Asquith, I wouldn’t bother you now except that there’s so little time left in this Jezreel matter and Addie Dodgin feels you have some important insights into Samuel Mordecai’s theology.”

“Any dang thing I might know about Mr. D. R. Grimes is strictly coincidental and against mah will. Miz Cates, just what is your interest in this matter?”

“I’m writing an article about Samuel Mordecai for the publication I work for and—”

“What publication is that?”

In her darkened office, Molly stretched out on the love seat. She’d been hoping he wouldn’t ask.
“Lone Star Monthly.”

There was a silence, as though she’d said
Whips and Bondage.

“Adeline didn’t tell me that. You aren’t the same person who wrote that story about two years back, are you?”

Molly closed her eyes. “I’ve written lots of stories.”

“I mean that one on cults in Texas that believe in the Apocalypse.”

“Yes, I did write that article.”

“Well, I have to tell you, Miz Cates, as a rule I try not to argue with or insult ladies, because I honor y’all, but in my opinion, that was a sorry piece of work—un-fair, un-godly, and un-forgivable.”

“In what way was it unfair, Dr. Asquith?” Molly kept her voice even.

“You made it sound like anyone who believes in biblical prophecy and the coming Apocalypse is some crazy prevert like Donnie Ray Grimes.”

“That surely was not my intention, Dr. Asquith. In the first paragraph of that article, I define the difference between a cult and a group of believers who might have a similar eschatology. I would be pleased to discuss it with you and hear your viewpoint.”

“Well, that might be fruitful. I’m coming to Austin tomorrow to have a powwow with the FBI. Late afternoon. Maybe we could talk after that.”

“Yes, I’d like to. What time are you likely to be finished?”

“Shall we say seven o’clock? The bar at Houston’s on Spicewood Springs. How about that, ma’am?”

“That’s fine. Dr. Asquith, before you go, could you tell me something about the Rapture of Mordecai?”

“Oh, were you listening to my radio show?”

“No.”

“I just finished doing it live and it’s carried in the Austin area, so I thought you might have. How do you know about the Rapture of Mordecai?”

“A little from my interview with him and a little from Addie Dodgin.”

“Oh, Adeline … Well, I decided that I’d kept silent too long about the Jezreelites’ Satan-inspired false theology. It gives prophecy a bad name.”

“So you talked about that on the radio?”

“Yes, ma’am. I decided if I can tell it to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, I can tell it to the faithful.”

“How do you know about this rapture business, Dr. Asquith? No one else has mentioned it.”

“Like ah said. Coincidence. Accident. I made a real mistake back some seven years ago. At the Southwest Prophecy Conference, I ran into a young man who looked like an angel come down to earth. We got friendly and one night we got ourselves inebriated. See, I don’t indulge in spirits much and it’s a dangerous thing when I do. Same with him, I
think. His tongue was loosened up and he told me this outlandish tale about him being the Prophet Mordecai who would help jump-start the Apocalypse.”

“What was the tale?”

“Oh, it’s a long story. I’ll tell you tomorrow when we meet. I have got to—”

“Would you just give me a summary of it now? A quick and dirty version.”

He laughed. “Quick and dirty, yes, ma’am. It’s an oral tradition—started during the 1830s, which you probably know was a time of great growth of sectarian invention in this country. A man named Saul Mordecai had a vision on his way to Texas—what he calls a rapture. God told Saul Mordecai he was a prophet who was to start the Apocalypse by establishing a Mordecai line. Not by giving birth, but by choosing the next prophet and telling him about this rapture he’d had and passing on what they call the Heaven in Earth Vatic Gospel of the Jezreelite—a real mouthful, huh? And heretical all the way. It was to get fulfilled in the fifth generation, and that, of course, is our current reigning Prophet Grimes, who believes he’s the Messiah. It’s a long, wild tale, but it has to do with fifty perfect saints of the Apocalypse and earth purification. And that’s really all I know. See you tomorrow evening, Miz Cates.”

Before he could get away, she said, “Dr. Asquith, you disagree with Samuel Mordecai about this human-agency issue, but what about the rest of what he says? About the Apocalypse. Do you believe it’s coming soon?”

He chuckled. “Of course. You obviously haven’t read my books or my newsletters or seen my TV show. That’s my message, my lifework. It’s coming before the end of this millennium, within the next five years. And the strangest thing, Miz Cates, since I got back from the Holy Land last night, I’ve had this feeling that it’s here, that it’s all winding down right now. Can’t you just hear it and feel it?”

“No, I can’t. Describe it for me, so I can understand.”

“Well, it feels like a wind blowing me toward God.”

After she put the phone down, Molly shook her head and murmured into the darkness, “It’s just jet lag.”

CHAPTER

SIX

“Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth.”

R
EVELATION
12:1–4

The house was one of those stark, tan-brick rectangles you find on the outskirts of small Texas towns. It looked like it had been made on a factory assembly line and then installed on a vacant lot that had been scraped clear of all debris. To finish it off, some toxic substance must have been sprinkled on the ground around it to ensure that nothing would grow within twenty yards—no trees, no grass, no flowers, no weeds—just dust and rocks.

Molly was ten minutes early, so she passed the place by and drove on to McDonald’s. The drive to Elgin had been quicker than she had figured, and from her several phone conversations with Dorothy Huff the night before, she had gotten the impression of an elderly woman who would not like people to arrive early—or late—or maybe at all.

Once at the McDonald’s drive-through window, she felt a powerful urge to order an Egg McMuffin, but managed to fight it back by reminding herself that she had already eaten breakfast and that her favorite jeans had been so hard to zip up that she’d peeled them off and worn sweatpants instead. She ordered a large coffee and sipped it sitting in her truck in the parking lot with the air conditioning going full-blast.

The night before, Molly had decided to act right away on Thelma Bassett’s request. She would go see Dorothy Huff, the grandmother who had raised Donnie Ray Grimes to manhood. It was not easy to arrange. When she had called, Mrs. Huff had said she had never talked to a reporter and wasn’t about to start. She had talked to the FBI, but that
was her duty as a God-fearing citizen. She had washed her hands of Donnie Ray Grimes, or whatever name he chose to call himself. Anyway, she was feeling too poorly for any of this. You would think, she’d said, that people would be kind enough to leave a sick old lady alone. Then she had hung up. This was exactly the sort of rebuff that spurred Molly on. She had called Thelma Bassett and asked her to call Mrs. Huff and assure the woman that Molly was not a reporter, but a consultant who was helping Thelma to learn more about Samuel Mordecai so she might know what to say to him, when her chance came. Thelma had done this and added that since Mrs. Huff had been so gracious as to offer her help this was what she could do to help—talk to Molly. Dorothy Huff was no pushover, though; her answer was still no—until Molly promised never to write a word about Mrs. Huff. Molly also had to promise that the interview would not be stressful.

Molly leaned out of the truck to dump the undrunk half of her coffee in the gutter. How would it be possible to talk about Samuel Mordecai without it being stressful to the woman who’d raised him? she wondered.

At ten exactly she rang Dorothy Huff’s doorbell. The gaunt, gray-haired woman who answered the door started speaking immediately, with no greeting or preamble. “Since you’ve drove all the way from Austin, I’m gonna try to get through this, but I don’t know. I just don’t rightly know if I’m up to it.” Her words were directed several feet to the left of where Molly was standing. “Some days is worse than others.” She turned and shuffled in her brown carpet slippers across the sparsely furnished living room. “The knees is just as bad as the sacroiliac today. I knowed from when I first opened my eyes before the sun come up and the pain started in so horrible I tell ya most people couldn’t take it. I never should’ve gotten out of that bed. Anyone in their right mind, sick as I am, would’ve just laid there. But then the good Lord knows not everyone does their Christian duty in this world. I told that poor Mrs. Bassett I wanted to help her and she asked me to talk to you, so talk I will. I never been one to baby myself. Never had that luxury. No, ma’am. Always had too much work to get done, keeping a clean and Christian household.” She stopped near a bulky gold velveteen recliner that faced a television set with a 35-inch screen. “Oh, there it is, hitting me bad—the arthritis, in both knees. Ow, Jesus. All this stress”—she waved a hand in Molly’s direction—“makes it worse’n usual.” She dropped into the recliner with a
ploof
sound. “Might as well take the load off, huh, Mrs. …”

“Cates,” Molly said. “Molly Cates.” The stench of stale smoke and old cigarette butts, only slightly masked by Lysol spray, filled her nostrils, but when Molly glanced around there was no sign of an ashtray or a
cigarette pack, or even a lighter. A secret smoker. “Thank you for talking to me, Mrs. Huff. I sure am sorry to hear you’re feeling poorly.”

“Well, it’s not like that’s your headline news. Been going on a long time now, long as I can remember. But in this life you just have to take what the good Lord shovels onto you. Nothing for it but to grin and bear it.” To demonstrate her fortitude, she grinned in Molly’s direction. Then she relaxed in the chair and her thin lips snapped back to a pursed, sour position.

Molly fought off a sudden impulse to run to her truck and drive away. Everything about this house and this woman made her want to bolt. But Dorothy Huff, however unappealing, was surely going through hell. Molly had recently read an article by the father of a serial killer. He had written that when you’re a parent, you think the worst thing in the world is to get a call in the middle of the night saying that your child has been murdered by a madman. He had learned, to his everlasting anguish, that there was something even worse. Samuel Mordecai’s grandmother, the woman who had reared him, must be experiencing some of that now.

Molly looked around for a place to sit. The only option was a hard-looking brown vinyl sofa pushed against the wall. She sat on the end and said with total sincerity, “This sure must be a difficult time for you.”

For the first time, Mrs. Huff looked directly at Molly. Her thin, horsey face was scored with cruel ruts that all slanted downward. “Well, honey, you just don’t know what difficult is. You raise up a boy best you can, teach him to be a good Christian God-fearing boy, and then something like this happens and people say behind your back, well, it must be that Dorothy Huff didn’t raise him up right for him to go and do a thing like that.” Her mouth tightened up so hard that her lips whitened. “Even though the boy is no blood kin of yours, and you never asked to get saddled with him.”

“Mrs. Huff,” Molly said, “I think most parents who have children over the age of ten understand that anything can happen when you are raising a child. There are so many influences that are outside your control.”

The old woman’s mouth relaxed a fraction. “Well, ain’t that the truth?”

“It was so kind of you to call Thelma Bassett, Mrs. Huff. It meant a lot to her. She’s a fine woman and she needs some help right now. She thinks she might get a chance to talk to … Donnie Ray. You still call him Donnie Ray?”

Mrs. Huff nodded. “When I call him anything.”

“She wants to know what she might say to him that would persuade
him to release the children. She thinks that maybe his being adopted might figure some way in this situation.”

Dorothy Huff looked hard at Molly. “Before this goes any farther, we need to get something real clear. You know I don’t talk to no newspaper or TV people or none of that kind.”

“Yes, you told me on the phone. And I appreciate your—”

“Hold on, missy.” She raised a bony, yellowed palm to Molly. “Just hold on with all your appreciates and such. Let’s get one thing clear. You promised not to talk of this to anyone but Mrs. Bassett. I mean to no one. You clear on that?”

Molly felt bruised by the woman’s bullying manner. “Yes, if that’s what you want.”