Sacred Page 8

  He woke me at seven in the morning by throwing snowballs at my window until the sound reached my dreams and I was yanked from a walk in the French countryside with Emmanuelle Beart and thrown into a muddy foxhole where the enemy was inexplicably catapulting grapefruits into our midst.

  I sat up in bed and watched a hunk of wet snow splat into my windowpane. At first, I was happy it wasn’t a grapefruit; then my head cleared and I walked over and saw Richie standing below.

  The miserable bastard waved to me.

  “Grief Release, Incorporated,” Richie said as he sat at my kitchen table, “is one interesting organization.”

  “How interesting?”

  “Enough that when I woke my editor up two hours ago, he agreed to give me two weeks off from my column to research them and a five-day, front-page, lower-right-corner feature series if I come up with what I think I will.”

  “And what do you think you’ll come up with?” Angie said. She glared at him over her cup of coffee, her face puffy and hair hanging in her eyes, not at all happy to greet the day.

  “Well…” He flipped his steno notebook open on the table. “I’ve only perused the diskettes you gave me, but, Christ, these people are dirty. Their ‘therapy’ and its ‘levels,’ from what I can see, involves a systematic breakdown of the psyche followed by a fast buildup. It’s very similar to the American military’s concept of break-’em-down-so-you-can-build-’em-back-up approach to soldiers. But the military, to give them their due, is up front about their technique.” He rapped his notebook on the table. “These mutants, however, are another story.”

  “Example,” Angie said.

  “Well, do you know about the levels—Level One, Two, et cetera?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, within each of these levels is a set of steps. The names of these steps vary depending on what level you’re at, but they’re all essentially the same. The object of these steps is ‘watershed.’”

  “Watershed is Level Six.”

  “Right,” he said. “Watershed is the alleged goal of everything. So, to reach Total Watershed, you have to have a bunch of little watersheds first. Such as, if you’re a Level Two—a Desolate, say—you go through a series of therapeutic developments, or ‘steps,’ by which you reach ‘watershed’ and are no longer Desolate. Those steps are: Honesty, Nudity—”

  “Nudity?” Angie said.

  “Yes. Emotional, not physical, though that’s accepted. Honesty, Nudity, Exhibition, and Revelation.”

  “Revelation,” I said.

  “Yes. The ‘watershed’ of Level Two.”

  “What’s it called in Level Three?” Angie said.

  He checked his notes. “Epiphany. You see? It’s the same thing. In Level Four, it’s called the Unveiling. In Five, it’s Apocalypse. In Six, it’s called the Truth.”

  “How biblical,” I said.

  “Exactly. Grief Release is selling religion under the pretext of psychology.”

  “Psychology,” Angie said. “Which is, in and of itself, a religion.”

  “True. But it isn’t an organized one.”

  “The high priests of psychology and psychoanalysis don’t pool their tips is what you’re saying.”

  He tapped his coffee mug into my own. “Exactly.”

  “So,” I said, “what’s their objective?”

  “Grief Release?”

  “No, Rich,” I said. “Burger King. Who are we talking about?”

  He sniffed his coffee. “Is this the extra-caffeine kind?”

  “Richie,” Angie said. “Please.”

  “Grief Release’s objective, as far as I see it, is to recruit for the Church of Truth and Revelation.”

  “You’ve proved their connection?” Angie said.

  “Not so as I can print it yet, but, yeah, they’re in bed together. The Church of Truth and Revelation as far as we all know is a Boston church. Correct?”

  We nodded.

  “So how come their management company is out of Chicago? And their real estate broker? And the law firm which is currently petitioning the IRS for religious tax-exempt status on their behalf?”

  “Because they like Chicago?” Angie said.

  “Well so does Grief Release,” Richie said. “Because those same Chicago firms handle all their interests, too.”

  “So,” I said, “how long to link the two in newsprint?”

  He leaned back in his chair, stretched and yawned. “Like I said, at least two weeks. Everything’s buried in dummy corporations and blinds. At this point, I can infer a connection between Grief Release and the Church of Truth and Revelation, but I can’t prove it in black and white. The Church, anyway, is safe.”

  “But Grief Release?” Angie said.

  He smiled. “I can bury them cold.”

  “How?” I said.

  “Remember what I told you about all the steps in each separate level being essentially the same? Well, if you look at it from a benevolent point of view, they’ve found a technique that works and they just utilize it with different degrees of subtlety depending on the level of grief the particular person is suffering.”

  “But if you look at it less benevolently.”

  “As any good newspaperman should…”

  “Goes without saying…”

  “Then,” Richie said, “these people are first-class grifters. Let’s look at the Level Two steps again, bearing in mind that all the other steps in the other levels are the same thing under different names. Step One,” he said, “is Honesty. Essentially what it says—you come clean with your primary counselor about who you are, why you’re there, what’s really bugging you. Then you move onto Nudity, which is stripping your entire inner self bare.”

  “In front of whom?” Angie said.

  “Just your primary counselor at this point. Basically all the little embarrassing shit you hid during Step One—you killed a cat as a child, fucked around on your wife, embezzled funds, whatever—it’s all supposed to come out during Step Two.”

  “It’s supposed to roll off your tongue,” I said. “Just like that?” I snapped my fingers.

  He nodded, got up, and refilled his coffee cup. “There’s a stratagem the counselors use in which the client disrobes, as it were, in pieces. You start by admitting something basic—your net worth, perhaps. Then the last time you told a lie. Then maybe something you did in the last week which you feel shitty about. And on and on. For twelve hours.”

  Angie joined him at the coffee maker. “Twelve hours?”

  He grabbed some cream from the fridge. “More if necessary. I’ve got documentation on those discs of these ‘intensive sessions’ lasting nineteen hours.”

  “Is it illegal?” I said.

  “For a cop it is. Think about it,” he said and sat back down across from me. “If a cop in this state interrogates a suspect for one second over twelve hours, he’s violated the suspect’s civil rights and nothing that suspect says—before or after the twelve-hour point—is admissible in court. And there’s a good reason for that.”

  “Ha!” Angie said.

  “Oh, not one you law-and-order types like all that much, but let’s face it: If you’re being interrogated by a person in a position of authority for more than twelve hours—personally I think ten should be the limit—you’ll stop thinking straight. You’ll say anything just to end the questions. Hell, just to get some sleep.”

  “So, Grief Release,” Angie said, “is brainwashing clientele?”

  “In some cases. In others, they’re accumulating vast stores of private knowledge about their clients. Say you’re a married guy, wife and two kids, picket fence, but you’ve just admitted you go to gay bars twice a month and sample the wares. And then the counselor says, ‘Good. Excellent nudity. Let’s try something easier. I have to trust you, so you have to trust me. What’s your bank PIN code?’”

  “Wait a second, Rich,” I said. “You’re saying this is all about getting financial information so they can, what, embezzle from thei
r clients?”

  “No,” he said. “It’s not that simple. They’re building dossiers on their clients which include complete physical, emotional, psychological, and financial information. They learn everything there is to know about a person.”

  “And then?”

  He smiled. “Then they own them, Patrick. Forever.”

  “To what end?” Angie said.

  “You name it. Let’s go back to our hypothetical client with the wife and kids and covert homosexuality. He moves from nudity to exhibition, which is basically admitting ugly truths in front of a group of other clients and staff. From there, he usually goes on a retreat to property they own in Nantucket. He’s been stripped bare, he’s a shell, and he hangs out for five days with all these other shells, and they talk, talk, talk—always ‘honestly,’ laying themselves bare over and over in an environment controlled and protected by Grief Release staff. These are usually pretty fragile, screwed-up people, and now they belong to a community of other fragile, screwed-up people who have as many skeletons in their closets as they do. Our hypothetical guy, he feels a great weight lifted. He feels cleansed. He’s not a bad person; he’s okay. He’s found a family. He’s reached Revelation. He came in there because he was feeling desolate. Now he doesn’t feel desolate anymore. Case closed. He can go back to his life. Right?”

  “Wrong,” I said.

  He nodded. “Exactly. He needs his new family now. He’s told he’s made progress, but he can slip anytime. There are other classes to take, other steps to follow, other levels to reach. And, oh, by the way, someone asks him, have you ever read Listening for the Message?”

  “The bible of the Church of Truth and Revelation,” Angie said.

  “Bingo. By the time our hypothetical guy realizes he’s part of a cult and going deep into hock with dues and tithes and seminar and retreat fees or what have you, it’s too late. He tries to leave Grief Release or the Church, he finds he can’t. They have his bank records, his PIN, all his secrets.”

  “You’re theorizing here, though,” I said. “You don’t have hard proof.”

  “Well, on Grief Release, I do. I have a training manual for counselors which advises them specifically to get financial information from their clients. I can bury them with that manual alone. But the Church? No. I need to match membership rolls.”

  “Come again?”

  He reached into the gym bag by his feet, pulled out a stack of computer paper. “These are the names of everyone who’s ever received treatment from Grief Release. If I can get a copy of the membership rolls of the Church and match them, I’m on my way to a Pulitzer.”

  “You wish,” Angie said. She reached for the list, rifled through it until she found the page she wanted. Then she smiled.

  “It’s there, isn’t it?” I said.

  She nodded. “In black and white, babe.” She turned the sheaf of paper so I could see the name halfway down the page:

  Desiree Stone.

  Richie unloaded nine inches of hard-copy printout from his bag and left it on the table for us to sift through. Everything he’d found on the discs so far was there. He also returned the discs, having made copies for himself last night.

  Angie and I stared at the stack of paper between us, trying to decide where to start, and my phone rang.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “We’d like our discs,” someone said.

  “I’m sure you would,” I said. I dropped the mouthpiece to my chin for a moment, said to Angie, “They’d like their discs.”

  “Hey, finders keepers,” she said.

  “Finders keepers,” I said into the phone.

  “Have any trouble paying for things lately, Mr. Kenzie?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You might want to call your bank,” the voice said. “I’ll give you ten minutes. Make sure the line’s clear when I call back.”

  I hung up and immediately went into my bedroom for my wallet.

  “What’s wrong?” Angie said.

  I shook my head and called Visa, worked my way through the automated operators until I got a person. I gave her my card number, expiration date and zip code.

  “Mr. Kenzie?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Your card has been revealed to be counterfeit.”

  “Excuse me.”

  “It’s counterfeit, sir.”

  “No, it’s not. You issued it to me.”

  She gave me a bored sigh. “No, we didn’t. An internal computer search has revealed that your card and number were part of a large-scale infiltration of our accounting data banks three years ago.”

  “That’s not possible,” I said. “You issued it to me.”

  “I’m sure we didn’t,” she said in a patronizing singsong.

  “What the hell does that mean?” I said.

  “Our attorneys will be contacting you, Mr. Kenzie. As will the Attorney General’s Office, Division of Mail and Computer Fraud. Good day.”

  She hung up in my ear.

  “Patrick?” Angie said.

  I shook my head again, dialed my bank.

  I grew up poor. Always afraid, terrified actually, of faceless bureaucrats and bill collectors who looked down on me from above and decided my worth based on my bank account, judged my right or lack of right to earn money by how much I’d started out with in the first place. I worked my ass off over the last decade to earn and save and build upon those earnings. I would never be poor, I told myself. Not again.

  “Your bank accounts have been frozen,” Mr. Pearl at the bank told me.

  “Frozen,” I said. “Explain frozen.”

  “The funds have been seized, Mr. Kenzie. By the IRS.”

  “Court order?” I said.

  “Pending,” he said.

  And I could hear it in his voice—disdain. That’s what the poor hear all the time—from bankers, creditors, merchants. Disdain, because the poor are second-rate and stupid and lazy and too morally and spiritually lax to hold on to their money legally and contribute to society. I hadn’t heard that tone of disdain in at least seven years, maybe ten, and I wasn’t ready for it. I felt immediately reduced.

  “Pending,” I said.

  “That’s what I said.” His voice was dry, at ease, secure with his station in life. He could have been talking to one of his children.

  I can’t have the car, Dad?

  That’s what I said.

  “Mr. Pearl,” I said.

  “Yes, Mr. Kenzie?”

  “Are you familiar with the law firm of Hartman and Hale?”

  “Of course I am, Mr. Kenzie.”

  “Good. They’ll be contacting you. Soon. And that pending court order better be—”

  “Good day, Mr. Kenzie.” He hung up.

  Angie came around the table, put one hand on my back, the other on my right hand. “Patrick,” she said, “you’re white as a ghost.”

  “Jesus,” I said. “Jesus Christ.”

  “It’s going to be okay,” she said. “They can’t do this.”

  “They’re doing it, Ange.”

  When the phone rang three minutes later, I picked it up on the first ring.

  “Money a little tight these days, Mr. Kenzie?”

  “Where and when, Manny?”

  He chuckled. “Oooh, we sound—how shall I put it—deflated, Mr. Kenzie.”

  “Where and when?” I said.

  “The Prado. You know it?”

  “I know it. When?”

  “Noon,” Manny said. “High noon. Heh-heh.”

  He hung up.

  Everyone was hanging up on me today. And it wasn’t even nine.

  10

  Four years ago, after a particularly lucrative case involving insurance fraud and white-collar extortion, I went to Europe for two weeks. And what struck me most at the time was how many of the small villages I visited—in Ireland and Italy and Spain—resembled Boston’s North End.

  The North End was where each successive wave of immigrants had left the
boat and dropped their bags. So the Jewish and then the Irish and finally the Italians had called this area home and given it the distinctly European character it retains today. The streets are cobblestone, narrow, and curve hard around and over and through each other in a neighborhood so small in physical area that in some cities it would barely constitute a block. But packed in here tight are legions of red and yellow brick rowhouses, former tenements co-opted and restored, and the odd cast-iron or granite warehouse, all fighting for space and getting really weird on top where extra stories were added after “up” became the only option. So clapboard and brick rise up from what were once mansard roofs, and laundry still stretches between opposite fire escapes and wrought-iron patios, and “yard” is an even more alien concept than “parking space.”

  Somehow, in this, the most cramped of neighborhoods in the most cramped of cities, a gorgeous replica of an Italian village piazza sits behind the Old North Church. Called the Prado, it’s also known as the Paul Revere Mall, not only because of its proximity to both the church and Revere’s house, but because the Hanover Street entrance is dominated by Dallin’s equestrian statue of Revere. In the center of the Prado is a fountain; along the walls that surround it are bronze plaques testifying to the heroics of Revere, Dawes, several revolutionaries, and some lesser-known luminaries of North End lore.

  The temperature had risen into the forties when we arrived at noon, entering from the Unity Street side, and dirty snow melted into the cracks in the cobblestone and puddled in the warps of the limestone benchtops. The fresh snowfall that had been expected today had turned into a light drizzle of rain due to the temperature, so the Prado was empty of tourists or North Enders on their lunch breaks.

  Only Manny and John Byrne and two other men waited for us by the fountain. The two men I recognized from last night; they’d been standing to my left as John and I dealt with Officer Largeant, and while neither was as big as Manny, they weren’t small either.

  “This must be the lovely Miss Gennaro,” Manny said. He clapped his hands together as we approached. “A friend of mine has a few nasty welts on his head because of you, ma’am.”