Holy Rollers (44 page)

Lisa stopped writhing and said, “Oh, shit.”

But then Waverly turned and said, “Damn it! The door’s open.” She didn’t know what that meant, but if it delayed her arrest she was fine with it. Unfortunately, by the time she was in a seated position and found them again through the crowd, she knew it would be a short respite.

$ $ $

“Mr. LaMarca,” said Agent Tolan as Chase emerged from the basement. “We meet again.”

Chase bowed his head and held his hands out for the cuffs.

“Carrying any stolen cash on you, Charles?”

“No.”

Tolan looked up at the bills that still fluttered through the air. “No, I guess you wouldn’t be. So…see you around, LaMarca.”

As Grant and Farraday emerged, Tolan and Waverly eyed them up and down, but made no effort to stop them. They were a few feet away when Waverly thought to ask, “Any of you fellows see Merribaugh in there?”

“Nah,” said Farraday.

Waverly looked through the doorway, perplexed. “Okay, thanks, Farraday.”

Farraday took a few more steps, then stopped.

“How do you know my name?”

“Because I’m good at what I do, Farraday. Very good. I’m about as good an agent as you were driving a cab.”

“I don’t know if I like you knowing so much about me.”

Waverly smiled. “No one ever does.”

When they were gone, taking Lisa and Constance with them, Tolan said, “I think we lost Merribaugh.”

“He’ll turn up, Ollie. Someday, he’ll turn up. They always do.”

“The first twenty thousand dollars,” said Mary Beth, “Belongs to Lisa.”

“Plus my expenses.”

“Plus her expenses.”

Grant pushed a carefully counted pile of money across the table. “That should cover everything.” If he expected gratitude, he didn’t get it.

“Nice try, Lambert.” Lisa, put a bit more gravel into her voice. “The deal was the bank plus one-third.”

He sighed and pushed another pile in her direction, subtracting a few fifties up his sleeve in the process. She wanted fair, she got as fair as she was going to get.

“See, honey?” said Lisa, who now radiated sweetness. “I told you there’d be a profit.”

Mary Beth eyed the cash. “This ain’t exactly gonna send Louboutin stock through the roof.”

Farraday cleared his throat. “The way I understood this job, I was getting a hundred Gs and Leonard was getting a million-five.”

Grant nodded. “Up until all the money flew away, that’s exactly what you were getting. But now…” He looked at the remaining cash on the kitchen table which would have looked like a lot of money at any other time. “You know how this business works, Farraday. Now Cousin Leonard does, too.”

Farraday did something with his face that could’ve been intended as a smile. “A guy’s gotta try, right?”

“Here’s what I think,” said Chase. “We’ve got about ninety thousand, and six people left to pay off. Meaning we each get…” He divided in his head. “Roughly fifteen grand.”

“No way!” Jared was outraged. He was not about to be short-changed, and he showed it by giving them Outraged Look Number Seven, which he knew was his best. “I was
guaranteed
ten thousand dollars.”

They all looked at each other, but no one said a word.

Finally, Grant slid two piles of bills to Jared, ruefully adding, “I should never try to bluff a pro.”

Leonard started to say, “So that means the rest of us get part of his…” but Farraday shut him up.

Then Farraday took a swig from a bottle of scotch and looked at Jared. “Looks like you did all right for yourself, kid.”

$ $ $

In their bedroom, Lisa pulled her top down, exposing a little bit of black bra.

Mary Beth squealed. “
Lisa!
Please! We’ll be back in New York tomorrow.”

“No, you don’t understand.” She pulled her bra away from her right breast and Mary Beth could see cash stuffed inside, which she did her best to count with a breast jiggling in front of her.

“That looks like five, six thousand dollars,” she finally gasped.

Lisa winked. “Mama provides.”

That night, they had the best sex they’d had in years.

$ $ $

Constance didn’t have hot sex that night—she’d wait until she was back with her girlfriend—but she’d managed to grab a few thousand herself as it fell from the sky, so she considered it a good night.

$ $ $

Leonard smiled. He’d managed to grab
forty dollars
when Waverly and Tolan weren’t looking.
Score!

He hid his ill-gotten gains beneath his Odor Eaters and prayed no one would find it.

$ $ $

Grant and Chase slept fitfully.

There was nothing worse than working a job when their confederates made no money. It was the sort of thing that haunted a professional.

$ $ $

Early the next morning—far earlier than he was used to rising, but ten thousand dollars in cash excited him—Jared walked out to the front porch.

Lisa was there, already on her third cigarette of the morning.

“What are you doing up this early?” he asked.

She glanced at her watch. “It’s eight.”

“I
know
! Up with the chickens!”

“Roosters.”

“Whatever.”

Lisa shook her head. “I cannot wait to see you in thirty years…”

He bounced. “The rest of you will probably be dead by then.”

“Shut
up
, Jared!”

Across the street, Tish and Malcolm walked out their front door. They looked and saw Lisa and Jared. Tish wrinkled her nose.

“I hate that bitch,” said Lisa as Tish got in her BMW and Malcolm kissed her good-bye.

“Wanna give the neighbors a final ‘screw you’?” Jared asked.

Lisa flicked her dead cigarette onto the lawn and lit another. “That depends on what you mean.”

Tish backed her car onto Old Stone Fence Post Road, threw it into gear, and sped down the street.

“I’ll be back when I’m back,” he said. He took a few steps off the porch and turned to her. “Call Tish in ten minutes and tell her the house is on fire.” He paused and winked. “Because it will be.”

Twenty minutes later—ten minutes for Tish to drive out; ten more for her to drive back—the neighborhood exploded.

Lisa, taking a break from smoking, nodded approvingly as Jared raced home to safety wearing only a pair of briefs, the rest of his clothes in one hand and his sneakers in the other.

The entire neighborhood could hear the screams. “I’ll kill you, Malcolm! I’ll kill you, you faggot!”

Ms. Jarvis was a few doors down in one direction, Mr. Scribner a few in the other. They pulled out their cell phones and dialed.

Chase LaMarca stepped out onto the front porch and stretched. He noticed that Jared was virtually naked, but Jared did little that surprised him.

“What’s going on?” he asked mid-stretch.

“Mmmm…nothing,” said Jared. Innocent Angelic Look Number Two was on his face.

$ $ $

“I kind of feel bad,” said Lisa, looking out the front window with Grant. Some people were still packing, but it wasn’t her fault they were inefficient. She’d been packed for hours.

Grant held one lacy curtain to the side. “Faggots are your neighbors.”

“Huh?” asked Chase, somewhere behind them.

“That’s what it says on the sign one of ’em’s holding. Scribs, I think. And Herren and Ford are…” He peered through the glass. “Looks like they’re peeing on Tish’s lawn.”

Farraday shook his head. “Frat boys.”

They heard the
whump-whump-whump
of luggage bouncing off steps and soon Mary Beth and her heavy suitcases were in the foyer.

“Ready to go, princess?” asked Lisa.

To which Mary Beth said, “Get me the fuck out of Deliverance Country
now
.”

Another
whump-whump-whump
. It was Jared. He shrugged when he saw the near riot outside.

“Sorry. Not my fault.”

Lisa agreed. “Nope. Not at all.”

Grant stepped away from the window. “Okay, then. It seems our work in Nash Bog, Virginia, is done.”

The newscaster read soberly from his script.

“Sources say United States Congressman Donald Skinner of New Hampshire is under investigation by the FBI for his role in the financial corruption scandal centered on religious powerhouse Dr. Oscar Hurley and his Virginia Cathedral of Love. Skinner is a prominent member of the House leadership and has recently been mentioned as a possible vice-presidential candidate.

“You may also recall that Skinner was in the news just last week when his car was stolen from a hotel valet queue, where he was attending an ex-gay conference sponsored by Hurley’s ministry…”

$ $ $

“My name is Daniel Michael Rowell. I am employed as press secretary to United States Senator Gordon Cobey of Ohio.”

They’d never watched C-SPAN. Never even knew C-SPAN existed, for that matter. But ever since the debacle at the Virginia Cathedral of Love—which was followed by the revelation that the FBI and IRS had been investigating Hurley, which was followed in turn by the revelation that one shaken-down U.S. senator from Ohio had finally had it and launched his own personal investigation of Hurley—they’d been hooked.

“There’s a familiar face,” said Grant, lying in bed next to Chase as they watched DVR’ed testimony on TV that night. “First time I’ve ever seen someone on TV I’ve already seen naked.”

Chase pulled the sheets close around him and studied Dan Rowell’s image on the screen. “He doesn’t seem like Jared’s type. He looks fat.”

Grant cast a sidelong glance at Chase. “Jealous?”

“Of course not. Why would I be jealous? Especially of a fatty.”

Grant kept his smile to himself.

Dan Rowell’s congressional testimony that day was a follow-up to Senator Gordon Cobey’s exhaustive narrative—backed up with documents and recordings—of the long history of blackmail and extortion undertaken by Dr. Oscar Hurley and the Rev. Mr. Dennis Merribaugh. Dan’s role was to flesh out the evils of Project Rectitude and the Beyond Sin conference. It was all mostly irrelevant, if prurient. He
claimed
Merribaugh sought sex from participants at his ex-gay conferences, but couldn’t prove it. He refused to name names, except—at Jared’s insistence—that of Louis Lombardo, who promptly denied everything. And the allegedly molested possibly ex-gays had refused to come forward.

Finally, the senator from Mississippi who’d been chairing the hearing with a decidedly pro-Hurley bias gaveled Dan Rowell right out of the witness seat.

“Good,” said Chase, when the gavel rapped.

Another sidelong glance. “Still jealous?”

Chase gave Grant a reassuring smile and a kiss on the lips. “I have nothing to be jealous about. I just thought the fat guy was a waste of time, is all.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Not that Senator Cobey himself had a lot to offer a few days earlier. Yes, he had dates and times and recordings and documents, but it was almost beside the point. The FBI and IRS already had their hooks in Dr. Hurley and the Rev. Mr. Merribaugh, so anything Cobey could add would be icing on the cake.

And that cake had already been baked and was ready to be served.

$ $ $

The man on the treadmill had been watching the pudgy, bearded man desperately puffing away on the stationary bike in the mirrored wall of Dick’s Maxi-Fitness, one of the less popular health clubs in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He’d started watching to see how long the guy would hang in there; after a half hour, he admired his commitment.

But now eighty minutes had passed, and the man on the treadmill was starting to think the guy on the bike might be crazy. Was he one of those people who thought he could lose all kinds of weight almost instantly? On a
stationary bike
?

After another twenty minutes that was exactly what he thought. The man on the bike was drenched with sweat, gasping…and, sadly, would no doubt reclaim those lost calories with the next tuna fish sandwich. Even though he was himself maxing out his own cardio session, as the Dick in Dick’s Maxi-Fitness, he should know.

He looked up at the television mounted on the wall. He didn’t want to witness the inevitable heart attack.

A man’s face flashed on the screen. The caption underneath read D
ENNIS
M
ERRIBAUGH:
S
OUGHT IN
M
ULTIMILLION-DOLLAR
S
CAM
.