Deathgrip Read online

  His curling smoke kept wafting into her face, and he snubbed the cigarette out. Seemed the courteous thing to do.

  “If I let you know what’s going on, can you guarantee me that I’ll remain totally anonymous?”

  Mike nodded, promised.

  “And if you’re not busy tomorrow, I can even show you.”

  Chapter 18

  Paul was a concert veteran; dozens, if not hundreds. See them all, you eventually see all kinds of audiences. Tuesday night, the tenth of September, at Cervantes Convention Center, was little different, and that was a surprise.

  He’d been expecting Donny Dawson’s Arm of the Apostle rally to feel something like a regular church service, scaled up several times. But no, the crowd was here to pay adoration to the man, here to cheer his words, to curry his favor, to applaud his miracles. Here to witness a spectacle to remember and cherish, and think back upon with pride, saying, “Yes, I was there. I saw him.”

  They had sung hymns, had clapped and cheered, had wept openly with splendor in their eyes. Paul, nine rows back, could feel the sweeping tide of emotion tugging him, despite wanting to maintain an open mind. Easier said than done, once you were here and submerged into the experience. Like trying to walk against an ocean current. Instead, you had to surrender and go with the flow.

  They were in the Center’s main hall, the floor covered with ranks of folding chairs. Dawson conducted his service from a stage built up from the floor, accessed by tiered steps on both sides. Near front and center stood a modest pulpit, but he spent little time behind it. Purple backdrops ran the length of the stage, festooned with the gold ARM OF THE APOSTLE banner. Low plants squatted on either side of the stage, mingling with PA speaker cabinets. Near the back sat a miked piano that had been given a workout earlier and a synthesizer that, via the PA, rumbled like a cathedral organ.

  After a soloist had soothed them all with her sweetest of voices, Donny had taken over. Trademark white suit, pacing every inch of stage he could get to, dramatically trailing a microphone cord and milking it with every bit as much skill as Roger Daltrey at the peak of The Who. Maybe better. Daltrey could send a crowd of fifty thousand to its feet, packing around the stage. But Paul had yet to see a rocker reduce his throng to tears of rapture. The Beatles didn’t count.

  Man, is this guy ever good, Paul thought, for while the effect came through on TV, the airwaves still diluted it. No way could four cameramen seize that palpable energy generated between Dawson and his crowd, back and forth in a kinetic frenzy that knew no downslide. The crowd had become a psychic generator, and Dawson the spark plug.

  And to wonder what it felt like being up there, oh, just incredible. Paul thought back to the winter, newly arrived at KGRM, when the station had promoted a concert at a riverfront club called Mississippi Nights. David Blane had suggested Paul introduce the act and make the preshow announcements. A PR move, primarily, to disassociate him from his former station and christen him as a newborn KGRM personality. Paul had happily done so, and while roadies performed last-minute rites and waitresses worked the capacity crowd of one thousand, he took the stage. Lights died, and there he was, burning in the center of a spotlight, hyping the crowd and they were eating every word. As much as he loved being on the air and knowing the unseen were tuned in, this was better. The give and take was immediate; only the dead could miss it.

  And it wasn’t even him they had paid to see. How much greater the high to stand before the throng and know you’re the draw.

  The sermon had gone on for over an hour, full of the amens and hallelujahs Dawson called for, and he played them like a master. Then a squad of ushers worked the crowd with large plastic buckets, passing them along the rows for an offering, and Paul watched a staggering amount of cash empty from wallets and pockets and purses. Not only cash, but prewritten checks and jewelry and the odd gold coin or two. He threw in a twenty before he even realized it was leaving his hand, but at least he didn’t feel like an outsider. Something to belong to, the hive.

  At last, though, time for the miracles.

  “Oh, I tell you,” Donny thundered from his perch at the lip of the stage, one arm raised to Heaven. “I feel a lot of love here in St. Louis tonight. A lot of love of the spirit! And the devil hates that, yes he does! Tell you what I’d like you to do out there. I want you to turn to your neighbor, and I want you to say, ‘God loves you and I love you too,’ and then I want you to hug your neighbor. Because when you’ve got a friend in the Lord, you’ve got a friend for life. Amen! Hug a neighbor and hurt the devil!”

  Galvanized into action, devil-stompers one and all, whirling one to another. Paul felt somebody latch happily onto his arm and spin him into hers. A stout woman, solid as a fireplug with rouge and lipstick, brassy hair piled atop her head.

  “God loves you and I love you too!” she spluttered, her smile a red crescent moon, and she crushed him with a hug that squashed her mammoth breasts to either side.

  Paul wheezed out the same, then stumbled from her arms into the subdued embrace of a girl of perhaps nineteen, who shyly looked askance and blushed, and this was all exceedingly weird. Here they were, strangers, no need to brave rejection. Donny says it’s okay. The ritual embrace, the litany of love on command, and then Donny took charge again.

  “You know why I had you do that? Do you know? Because I wanted you to get to know those around you a little better. Because if this group of fine people here tonight becomes anything, I want it to become the most gracious crowd it can be. Because I know, I know, that some of you out there are hurting.” His voice had suddenly shed the earlier glee, turning somber. “Amen to that one, right?”

  Pin-drop silence, vast and enormous, with a few scattered amens rippling in response.

  “Some of you out there are suffering. And the devil rejoices in that, my friends, he claps his hands and twitches his pointy little tail at every ache and pain to enter your body. So if you see that your neighbor is in pain, have a little more sympathy. And have a little more faith. Faith that DOCTOR JESUS IS GOING TO BE DOING SOME HEALING HERE TONIGHT, HALLELUJAH!”

  The response was massive, human thunder, the answer to “play ball” at the World Series. Cheers of hope and triumph as the synthesizer unleashed a whirlwind of musical celebration. Poised between crowd and musicians, Donny Dawson lifted his face to the heavens, the microphone to his lips.

  “There’s a Leonard Dixon here tonight, isn’t there?” he asked, and from somewhere behind Paul came a screechy affirmative. Slight commotion as the man worked his way toward the aisle, and spattered applause from those around him. “Come on down front, Leonard, let us all see what you look like.”

  A stringy old fellow with an ear-to-ear grin, he looked to have lived a hard old life of toil. Blue mechanic’s shirt with oval namepatch. Down front, a pair of burly ushers came from one side and followed him up the stairs, and they halted before Donny.

  “Leonard Dixon,” Donny mused, cocking his head to the sky beyond the rafters. “Four-sixteen Chesapeake Avenue, Maryland Heights? This is your address, isn’t it?”

  Leonard gaped, astonished, and could only nod.

  “Good heavens, man, can’t you see what those cigarettes are doing to your insides?”

  Leonard hung his head in shame, and Donny thrust the microphone before his face.

  “I — I’ve tried to quit smoking,” the man stammered. “The doctor, he tells me—”

  “That’s Doctor Storment, isn’t it? Of course it is. Leonard, God’s already told me your problems. You’ve got lung cancer, don’t you now, Leonard?” Donny’s voice was that of a disappointed father.

  With hangdog shame, Leonard nodded.

  “Well Leonard, Doctor Jesus is here tonight and he’s here to let you walk home a changed man. You may have brought your ills on yourself, but leave it up to Jesus and He’ll take them away.” That voice, now a sunrise of optimism. “Sounds like a pretty good deal to me, Leonard! How’s that sound to you?”

  Face strea
ked with tears, the man nodded, burbling words the mike did not pick up, then he clasped his knotty hands together.

  “Well amen, now we’re getting somewhere!” and Donny leaned in to plant his free hand in the center of Leonard’s chest, fingers splayed. “LET’S BURN IT OUT RIGHT NOW!” A shout, then a shove. “AND IT’S DONE! HALLELUJAH!”

  Leonard’s knees buckled and the crowd went berserk as he fell backward into the waiting arms of the two hefty ushers. He quaked, then got back on his own two feet to perform an impromptu jig of elation. Tears streamed from behind black-framed glasses, and he left the stage to strut back down the aisle, into the welcoming embrace of family and brand-new friends.

  He was the happiest man Paul had ever seen, something had truly happened to him up there, and by then it was time for the next, and the next…

  And Paul wondered: Would the man in white call him up as well? He had filled out a card upon arrival, printing name and address; one more mailing list awaiting him, he figured. But another line asked if he had any special prayer concerns, and he had written, I feel like my soul is coming apart. No exaggeration after a three-day weekend spent in contemplation of life and death and their place in his hands. Heady stuff, leading nowhere, like chasing your tail.

  All he wanted was a little counseling from the one man he knew of who might understand the turmoil in his life. Didn’t seem too much to ask for, certainly not with bosses drowning themselves and neighbors turning inside-out at his touch.

  touch

  Donny had gone through an entire front row of people confined to wheelchairs, ultimately hopping into one and letting its former occupant push him back to the steps. He mounted the stage, sweat dripping from his brow, and let them all know he was just getting warmed up, plenty more work to be done, amen.

  “Who is Paul?” Donny barked into the mike. “Paul Handler? Where is he? Ah, there you are!”

  He was on his feet and wading for the aisle, the response smooth and automatic, as if command had bypassed brain, gone straight to legs. The rows of folding chairs had gotten very cockeyed by now, and he could feel the gaze of hundreds, thousands, their acceptance of him as a fellow struggler in the ocean of life, lucky enough to have been thrown a line.

  Striding down the aisle, lighter than air, Can’t believe I’m doing this, trying his best to harness whatever mechanism had been turned loose within him. He had to stand out, make himself worthy of Dawson’s post-rally time, because obviously the man couldn’t meet with everyone seeking a private audience.

  Earlier in the day, Paul had contemplated electricity. How it could kill if absorbed in a sufficient jolt. Or merely catch your attention, a harmless static charge. Couldn’t he liken his own newfound talents to electricity? Sometimes flowing out, sometimes in. Sometimes helping, others harming. Were that the case, surely it could be restricted to a benign spark, oh please.

  Paul felt the eyes, the camera lenses upon him. Felt the presence of a flesh-and-blood man who had until now been confined to TV. A man who smiled down, welcoming him to the world of the saved…

  And Paul began to mount the steps.

  He loved St. Louis and they loved him back, and Donny Dawson was in peak form to prove it. This audience had him feeling as though they were his home flock and he their pastor. Money buckets brimming, the healed collapsing left and right in fits of ecstasy, into the arms of Ricky and Robby. The two catchers kept them from cracking their skulls on the stage. Bad business.

  “Next one, this one looks good,” Gabe’s voice in his ear, the tiny receiver. “Name’s Paul Handler.”

  “Who is Paul?” Donny barked into his microphone. “Paul Handler? Where is he?” Donny scanned the crowd with his practiced eye. There, ten rows back or so. “Ah, there you are!”

  “This is his prayer need,” Gabe said, and Donny cocked his head, tuning in to Heaven’s wavelengths, “‘I feel like my soul is coming apart.’ That’s it.”

  “Come on up here, Paul, you’re among friends tonight,” said Donny, and wouldn’t this be a simple one. Not a single physical symptom to worry about.

  The man was moving down the aisle, bordered by applauding spectators, and what a surprise when he drew near. Younger than expected, perhaps mid- to late twenties. A fractured soul sounded more like the ailment of an old soul, but it takes all kinds.

  He wore gray slacks, a pastel blue shirt with narrow tie, a bit out of keeping with his unkempt bedhead of hair. At any rate, a nice visual change from the elderly and frail who had comprised the bulk of tonight’s callouts.

  “Paul, I can feel your pain all the way over here,” Donny said as the fellow ascended the stairs. Held out a welcoming arm, drew him closer. “I can sense a troubled spirit as easily as I can a leaky faucet, because the happiness that’s rightfully yours is just draining away bit by bit, isn’t it, Paul?”

  The young man nodded, face a study in worried fascination, of bearing the weight of worlds upon his shoulders. He didn’t need divine inspiration to discern that something was eating this fellow from the inside out.

  “Well, Doctor Jesus is a specialist in the spirit as well as the body, I’m happy to tell you. He’s a general practitioner with a specialty in every field, and He’s reaching down to you right this very instant…”

  On and on, hoping to coax a burst of joy from this Paul Handler. Unlikely that Ricky and Robby would be needed for this one, no paroxysm of elation and collapse, he was still so somber, now come on Paul, you can do better than this—

  And then, most unexpected, the young man leaned forward, eyes sharpening, and his voice barely audible, “I have to meet with you after the service.”

  Now this wasn’t a part of the script. Not to worry about it being heard, Donny had always had the foresight to use a unidirectional microphone, and it was pointed at his own mouth. But this kid’s agenda could be problematic. Keep it moving.

  “I want you to take hold of my hand, Paul. I want you to take hold of this hand and feel the strength of the Lord flowing back into you and renewing the spirit inside you,” and all was well again, for the young man obeyed, and Donny slid his hand into Paul’s smooth grip…

  Felt him squeeze briefly…

  And the unexpected grew by leaps and bounds. This was like shaking hands with a live wire, a split-second flash of light inside his eyes, inside them, and it felt as if every ounce of flesh and blood and bone had been freed of gravity. Overcome, swamped with a sense of well-being that was anything but, because coming out of nowhere like this it could only be terrifying.

  And with no one to catch him, Donny Dawson fell smack on his ass.

  Glancing with stupefaction into Paul Handler’s gently smiling face — He knows what he’s doing! — Donny found that countenance almost ancient in terms of self-awareness. Yet childlike in its sense of accomplishment. No mean-spirited delight, this. And more — relief?

  Donny had felt nothing quite like this since a long-ago day in Alabama.

  The professional showman within took over, all the instincts surfacing — he’d better bounce back and cover for this colossal blunder. The longer he stayed down on the stage, the heavier his foolscap would become.

  “I tell you, I’m feeling the hand of the Lord at work tonight!” He bounded to his feet and forced a little laughter. “Sometimes He’s got to reach right down and cuff you on the back of the head to get your attention, can you give me a hallelujah?”

  The catchers were hustling the fellow offstage, and thankfully he was putting up no fuss. Just smooth things over, let the nervous laughter and applause trickle through the crowd. No problem, folks, minor unforeseen turn of events, but life goes on.

  Donny slapped his tongue on automatic for the next couple of minutes, then let the song leader take over the proceedings. He went behind the backdrop to gulp ice water, kept asking himself just what in the name of merciful Heaven could have happened out there? The implications were too enormous to fathom all at once. True, he had been hoping — expecting — to find some
thing on this tour, but nothing could have prepared him for the wallop of Paul Handler’s touch. This, from a young man who looked so deceptively ordinary.

  Gabe maneuvered back to find Donny minutes later. He was spending the healing segments locked into a private room while manning the transmitter to Donny’s earpiece and watching the rally on a closed-circuit monitor. Mandy’s former province.

  “Donny?” Gabe’s features were pinched into a mask of concern. “Are you okay?”

  Donny loosened his tie, gulped more water, while on the other side of the stage and backdrop, the crowd was in the midst of a rousing rendition of “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

  “What happened to you out there?”

  Donny, shaking his head, “I’m not sure. I — I grabbed his hand, and it — it felt like I’d been shocked. But it didn’t hurt. Just the opposite. Gabe, it was incredible. He did it on purpose for some reason, he knew exactly what he was doing. You couldn’t see his eyes, but I could, I could see it in his eyes.”

  Gabe frowned, cautious. “But why? What was he after?”

  “He said he wanted to see me after the crusade. And Gabe? I think that would be a good idea. Do you remember what he looks like, where he was sitting?”

  “Yes. I do. Ninth row.”

  “Good. Good. I don’t want him to walk out of here tonight without knowing where to find us later. All right?”

  And Gabe, ever the obedient servant, nodded.

  The only way Paul had figured he would ever see the inside of a suite at the Hyatt on Market Street was by invitation. Maybe he was adding prophecy to his list of talents, for here was where his private audience with Donny Dawson would be granted. One media personality to another.

  Fourth floor, definitely upscale, and he rapped the suite door with his knuckles. It was answered by the same guy who’d winnowed him out of the audience back at the rally, a humorless sort, with razor-styled hair and a wide, grim mouth.