Under the Beetle's Cellar Read online

  “No, it certainly isn’t.”

  “I’ll try. At the Milwaukee Zoo—I’m from Milwaukee, did you know that?”

  “No.”

  “Well, at the Milwaukee Zoo, where I used to hang out when I was a kid, in the primate house, there’s a sign on a cage that says: ‘the most dangerous animal in the world.’ When you go over to look in, there’s a mirror in the cage and you see yourself reflected.”

  Molly nodded. “Amen,” she said.

  He finished off his beer with a very long swig. “Yeah. And a twenty-year-old Texas boy may be the prime example of that species.”

  “And that’s the lesson Walter Demming learned in Vietnam?”

  “One of them.”

  “What happened to teach him that lesson?”

  He held the beer can up in his right hand and with a single squeeze crumpled it into a ball as easily as if it were a piece of paper. “That I’m not going to talk about,” he said in a quiet voice. “So don’t bother asking again.”

  Molly found herself making a mental note, in boldface, to do just that—ask again. When people said they absolutely would not talk about a certain subject, they usually came around to talking about it at great length. “All right,” she said. “Something I was wondering about—Walter went to Rice for two years, so he must have been a good student. How come he ended up driving a bus?”

  “That question disappoints me, Molly,” Jake said. “It suggests a conventional turn of mind that defines a person by what he does to make a living. Anyway, he hasn’t ‘ended up’ yet—not unless as we speak he’s dead.”

  Molly studied the man sitting next to her with renewed respect. “I agree. It is a disappointing question. I could defend myself by saying I write for an audience made up of a bunch of yuppies and they will be wondering about that. Of course I would never use that as an excuse.” She smiled at him. “But I wish you’d answer the question even though it is obnoxious.”

  “Okay. You might say by way of explanation that after Vietnam, Walter dropped out.”

  “He dropped out?”

  “Yeah. And in Walter’s case dropping out was major, a crash, like falling from the sky and landing splat on your head. Yeah, he dropped out with a vengeance. Driving a bus is what he does to make money. It’s not what he does.”

  “What’s the real thing he does?”

  “Well”—he looked at her for a moment as if he were considering something—“I could show you. I think you’d find it interesting. But we’d have to drive out to his house.”

  Molly found her pulse quickening. “I’d like to.” She kept her voice even.

  “I have a key. I need to check on things anyway. Miss Shea is keeping an eye on the house, but I’d like to check.”

  “When would you like to go?”

  “How about now?”

  Molly checked her watch. “Oh. I can’t. I have a date with my daughter in a half hour, and a telephone interview scheduled after that. Could we do it tomorrow?”

  “Sure.” He sounded disappointed and Molly was tempted to change her plans, but Jo Beth would be on her way already, and the phone interview with Dr. Asquith was important.

  “I’m planning to drive to Elgin in the morning,” she said. “How about late afternoon? I could pick you up around four.”

  “I’ll be here,” he said.

  She dropped the two empty beer cans back in the cooler and closed it. “You haven’t told me the other vows that Walter took.”

  “Let’s save them for tomorrow.”

  “Okay.” She picked up the cooler and was about to turn away when she added, “You said you were short on groceries, Jake. Tomorrow’s my shopping day. Are there some things I could pick up for you?”

  He looked up at her with interest. “That’s a nice offer, but could we stop at a store on the way home from Walter’s? Then I could do my own shopping.”

  She wondered how the logistics of his getting around would work. “Sure.”

  “And don’t worry. I can get in and out on my own. I’ll just need you to help with the chair.”

  “Okay. See you tomorrow.” She turned and walked toward the truck.

  “Oh, Molly,” he called out, “maybe you could leave that cooler with me till tomorrow.”

  She took the cooler back to him, wondering if your tolerance for alcohol was lower if you had no legs.

  “Set it down there on the chair, please, so I can reach it,” Jake told her. “Like you said, it sure is one fine evening to sit out here in the shade and drink a beer or two.”

  The music seemed louder than usual and the pace faster. “Down and up,” Michelle bellowed from the platform in front as she demonstrated proper squat form with her hands on her narrow hips. “Squeeze it all the way up. Imagine you’re picking bluebonnets with your glutes. Down, grab it with your behind, and pull it up by the roots. Don’t let your knees get past your toes. Lower it, squeeze it up. Again. Again.”

  “Picking bluebonnets with your glutes!” Molly Cates said to her daughter. “It’s illegal to pick bluebonnets—with any part of your anatomy.”

  “Gross,” said Jo Beth Traynor, “but I wonder if it could be done. We could try. You know how people go out and take photographs of their children in the bluebonnets? Maybe—”

  “Okay, feet parallel now,” Michelle yelled over the thrum of the music. Glutes back and down, way down, and squeeze it up. Pick those bluebonnets!”

  Molly watched herself in the mirrored wall. It was the one time you could stare at yourself in a mirror for an hour and not feel like a total narcissist. You were supposed to use the mirror to keep checking out your form on the exercises. Over the two years she and Jo Beth had been doing this class, Molly had been watching with pleasure as her upper arms took on shape and firmness. Push-ups paying off. It wasn’t hard to see why people enjoyed bodybuilding.

  “Okay,” Michelle yelled, “now add a pelvic thrust to it. Squat down, thrust forward, and pull-l-l up.”

  Molly smiled at herself in the mirror; it sure did look ridiculous. Was the fight against gravity worth this indignity?

  She looked at Michelle’s perfect, tanned, and muscled forty-seven-year-old legs in the orange Day-Glow very-short shorts and decided it was. Surely human vanity was one of the strongest forces in the world.

  “So, Mom,” Jo Beth said, “are you going to go out there to Jezreel and hang out with the barbarian hordes of reporters?”

  “Definitely not. I can see it better on television.”

  “Dad seems really down about it. Frustrated like I’ve never seen him.”

  “Yeah, he does.” Molly thought about the last time she’d seen Grady Traynor, her ex-husband and current lover. Five days ago, when he’d had a rare day off. Grady’d been stressed, angry, and exhausted. A homicide lieutenant with the Austin police, for the past six weeks he’d been on a team consulting with the FBI agents who were camped out in Jezreel trying to negotiate the release of Walter Demming and the eleven children. As the longtime head of APD’s hostage-negotiating team, Grady Traynor was considered skilled and experienced in the field, but nothing had prepared him for Samuel Mordecai. In the long weeks of negotiations, they had gotten zero concessions.

  “And, Mom,” Jo Beth said over the throbbing music, “he’s worried about leaving Copper alone so much while he’s still just getting adjusted.”

  “Oh, God. That dog.”

  “Mom, he’s a retired public servant.” Jo Beth’s eyes shone with mirth.

  “He’s a vicious cur, a drooling, crazed sociopath. I don’t understand this. Your father has never showed the slightest interest in dogs and now in mid-life he takes on this demented beast.”

  “Mom, he was a hero, and they were going to kill him.”

  “I know, honey, but—”

  “Yeah, he’s developed some bad habits. So he deserves a bullet in the brain? Well, I think it’s wonderful of Dad to rescue Copper and I’d really like to help, but Java and Luna have major problems with him.�
��

  “Of course they do. They’re sane dogs, basically. A bit rambunctious, but—”

  Michelle yelled, “Get down into those legs now, lower! Quads parallel to the floor.”

  Jo Beth bent her legs lower. “Dad was really hoping you might help out since you have that nice safe side yard and you’re at home working and you could—”

  “No. Jo Beth, this is unfair. I do not want a dog, any dog, but I particularly do not want that dog. And I really don’t understand why your father committed to this.”

  Jo Beth smiled an indulgent smile. “Well, Mom, consider this theory of mine: Maybe Dad’s trying to build a family unit and he thinks this might help knit you together.”

  “Whaaat?” Molly was stunned—on several levels. She didn’t know where to start in refuting this wild theory. “Jo Beth, that’s crazy. First of all, he doesn’t want anything of the sort. Second, if he did want that, the last thing that would work is to bring a vicious attack dog into the equation. And third, he knows that, after three failed attempts at matrimony and domesticity, I’ve renounced both. He knows that. I will never set up housekeeping again. Not with a man. And not with a dog. Never.”

  “Never? If I’m remembering correctly, that’s what you said last week about writing about Jezreel.”

  “That’s different. I have to earn a living. My boss gave me an assignment and helped me to see that it makes sense for me to do it. And now that I am, I find myself getting into it. It’s going to be okay.”

  “Well, I think the same thing would happen with Copper. He’d be fine with a little—”

  “No!”

  From the front of the room, Michelle was shouting out, “All right, let’s go to the floor! Push-up time!”

  Molly and Jo Beth both arranged towels on the floor and got down on their hands and knees.

  “Knees apart, abs in tight, backs straight. Let’s do thirty for starters,” the instructor yelled over the pounding beat of salsa played in an aerobic tempo.

  “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.”

  REVELATION 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.