Much Ado in Maggody Read online

  But what he hoped for was a clear, concise recitation of how witches got naked and smeared sacrificial blood on their breasts and danced around until they collapsed in a sexual frenzy. Brother Verber needed to know all the details just in case the women across the street started doing it and he was called over to try to save them. He wasn’t going to be able to save them if he didn’t have an idea of what they were doing. And he surely needed to know what all they did once they were in this sexual frenzy, and if they had orgies with demons or waited in line to be serviced by a high priest in a goat mask. A drawing, or better yet an actual photograph of this wickedness, would be invaluable.

  Brother Verber realized the back of his pajamas were getting sticky from sweat. The mobile home sat around all day building heat and was reluctant to do much releasing until way late. He opened a window and returned to the couch to study his book. Why, he wasn’t at all sure he’d recognize a sexual frenzy if he saw one, much less some priest fellow with a mask and, one would hypothesize, an organ befitting his station and therefore alarming to the hussies waiting for it. Begging for it.

  He mopped his face and took a swallow of iced tea. The heat was making it awful hard to concentrate on the material at hand. But he owed it to his flock, and those women across the street in the bank lot were likely to rip off their clothes any time now. Brother Verber intended to be ready when the time came.

  Kevin Buchanon thought for a minute that he smelled smoke. He sniffed long and hard but decided he was imagining things and flipped to the next page in the catalogue. Those fellows at Pro Bass came up with the darnedest things, Kevin told himself, totally awed by the lures that duplicated the movement of live fish and came in five colors, including chartreuse and white pearl.

  While he tried to think of a chartreuse-colored fish, he caught another whiff of smoke. Mebbe Mr. Bernswallow’s visitor was smoking a cigarette, or even Mr. Bernswallow himself, ’cause he was in a downright weird mood and liable to do weird things—like suggesting Kevin abandon his post and leave the bank unguarded just when all that confusion was going on in the parking lot.

  Why, Kevin wouldn’t do anything irresponsible like that. He was obligated to guard the bank, which he was doing by staying in the bathroom for an hour with the catalogue. It wasn’t any overwhelming hardship, for sure, and fit right into his regular schedule. His ma had told him time and again that it was important to be regular. Kevin had taken that bit of wisdom to heart.

  7

  Earl Buchanon was the first to notice the strange glow coming from inside the bank. It was a reddish color, kinda like what there’d been the night he and some of the fellows went to the topless bar outside Farberville, and lucky they did because a week later it was locked up tighter than a seed tick on a groundhog’s ass and liable to stay that way till kingdom come or the sheriff got run out of the county, whichever came first.

  But that glow had come from the colored lights on the edge of the stage. Earl couldn’t for the life of him figure out why they’d put those lights inside the bank. It wasn’t like anybody’d guzzle two-dollar-and-fifty-cent bourbon and Cokes to watch Miss Una peel off her cardigan or to see Oliver’s bony knees when he paraded around in those baggy plaid shorts. Earl didn’t even want to think about that.

  None of the women were taking any notice, he thought with a scowl. They were all too busy visiting like it was before prayer meeting on Wednesday night. Like the damn missionary society having one of their godawful tea parties. Like the veteran’s auxiliary at their annual rummage sale.

  Earl nudged Jeremiah McIlhaney, who was brooding worse than a hen on a dozen goose eggs, and said, “’Member when we went to that topless bar over near Farberville?”

  “I seem to recollect something about it.”

  “And they had those lights that made the women look all rosy?”

  “Yeah, they were rosy, all right. Just like cherry tomatoes waiting to be pinched.” Jeremiah hitched up his crotch and smiled, but just for a second before resuming his scowl. “What’s gotten into those women? The next thing we know, they’ll be chewing tobacco and demanding urinals in their public bathrooms. Mark my words, Earl, some woman’ll up and run for President one of these days. Can you imagine some fool woman boo-hooing to the damn Communists instead of nuking the holy shit out of the them?”

  Earl glanced back across the street at the front window of the bank, just to make sure he hadn’t been seeing things. “But at that topless joint they had spotlights with colors in them, right?”

  “I wasn’t looking at the damn fool lights,” Jeremiah said, still staring across the road like he hoped Millicent would feel his eyes blazing into her and git herself home where she belonged, which was actually what he was doing, albeit without any measurable success thus far.

  “Well, take a look over yonder at the bank window. It’s got that same funny glow.”

  Grumbling, Jeremiah did as ordered, and about swallowed his chew. “Holy shit, Earl! That’s not some topless-bar stage light, fer Chrissake! The damn bank’s on fire!”

  That caught everybody’s attention and sent everybody storming across the road like a pack of wild dogs. The women all spun around, no doubt thinking the boxer (shorts) rebellion was beginning, but the yells and jabbing fingers finally convinced them to look over their shoulders in time to see a lick of fire in the lobby.

  All of them knew what sort of thing to shout—“Fire! Fire!” being real popular—but then they mostly stumbled into everybody else in the confusion. Earl tripped on the leg of one of the card tables and went face down in the gravel. The mason jar with the marigolds barely missed Elsie McMay, who was clutching her bosom and doing her best not to hyperventilate. Ruby Bee told one of the hippie women to run over to the Emporium and call the volunteer fire department in Emmet, but she was having trouble catching her breath too. Joyce Lambertino was a hairsbreadth away from hysteria. Estelle was staggering around like a buck-eyed calf, demanding that someone do something afore the whole durn town went up in flames like the great Chicago fire.

  The only motionless person was Dahlia O’Neill, who could have passed for one of those marble statues in a museum, or maybe two or three of them. Her eyelids were going pretty fast, and her mouth was getting rounder by the second as certain things sunk in. At last she found her voice and screeched, “Kevin! Kevin’s in there! You got to do something!”

  Eilene Buchanon grabbed Earl’s collar and yanked him up. “She’s right! Kevin’s the security guard. What if he’s in there? You got to save him, Earl! You got to save Kevin!”

  “Kevvvin!” Dahlia wailed, louder than a freight train in a tunnel. “Kevvvin!” She thudded toward the front of the bank, paying no mind to the ground quaking under her feet or the way she knocked Truda Oliver into the side of the station wagon. “Kevvvin, I’m a-comin’ to save you!”

  The lobby was now filled with flames, and smoke began to roil into the parking lot. Right square over the front entrance a finger of fire shot up, and seconds later a good half of the roof was burning to beat the band. Ruby Bee gaped, then came to her senses and dashed after Dahlia, who by now had made it to the sidewalk in front of the door.

  “You can’t go in there,” she panted, hanging on for dear life to Dahlia’s massive arm.

  “I got to save Kevvvin.”

  “You can’t go in there. You’re liable to catch yourself on fire. Besides, Kevin probably went out the back door as soon as he saw the fire. He wouldn’t stay inside to act like some fool hero, would he?” Ruby Bee immediately regretted the question, meant to be rhetorical. Kevin Buchanon had done some of the county’s all-time foolish things. If they gave ribbons at the county fair for out-and-out foolishness, Kevin would have a whole clothesline of blue ones. She dragged Dahlia back a few steps. “In any case, you can’t go in there. Look, the front’s burning like a fire in a cotton gin.”

  Carolyn skittered up to them. “Did someone call the fire department?”

  Ruby Bee dug her fingers into Dahl
ia’s flesh, just in case the girl tried to do something from Kevin’s repertory, and said, “I sent one of the hippie women to the Emporium. Emmet’s no more than six miles away, and they ought to show up as soon as everybody yanks on his britches and boots.”

  “At least there’s no one in there,” Carolyn said.

  “Kevvvin! I got to save Kevvvin!” Dahlia howled, getting all worked up again. She tried to pull her arm free, but Ruby Bee wasn’t having any of that.

  “Is someone in there?” Carolyn gasped.

  Before Ruby Bee could answer, a minor explosion sent a blast of heat into their faces. They stumbled back, swatting at embers that stung like a cloud of mosquitoes. “Nobody’s in there,” Ruby Bee said as she brushed frantically at her good navy blue skirt.

  By this time everybody had stopped squawking and was gathered at one side of the parking lot. The building was a goner; that much everybody agreed on. Whether Kevin Buchanon was in there or not was open to differing opinions. Earl said Kevin valued his hide enough to get out, but Eilene wasn’t convinced because she was his ma and knew him better than anybody. Millicent McIlhaney said in a real firm voice that she didn’t think for one second that he was in there. Darla Jean McIlhaney, who’d been in high school with Kevin, felt obliged to say she doubted Kevin had a quarter of the sense God gave a goose and sure as hell could be in there, slinging cups of water at the fire or spitting on it. Jeremiah McIlhaney dragged her to one side to tell her to mind her language if she didn’t want to get whumped upside the head. Darla Jean started crying, which sent Millicent over to tear into Jeremiah for acting like a bully when Darla Jean was just trying to be helpful.

  The Emmet fire truck pulled into the lot before the McIlhaney family came to blows, although a lot of time was wasted due to the station wagon being in the way, not to mention the cots and card tables. It didn’t help when the volunteer firemen came roaring up in their trucks and tried to find places to park without blocking the highway more than they had to. Eventually things got organized and the firemen started ordering everybody back and pulling out hoses. In order to make up for her thoughtless remark, Darla Jean went up to Eilene and offered to search the parking lot behind the bank to see if Kevin might have come out that way and passed out in the ditch, because smoke inhalation could kill you jest as fast as fire.

  Eilene started bawling. Earl was about to pat her on the back when Elsie McMay flew into him for making poor Eilene cry. The dark-haired hippie woman said loudly to no one in particular that men in Maggody were nothing but ignorant, pinheaded slime balls, and that didn’t please Raz or Perkins or Jeremiah or any of the others who’d happened to overhear the comment.

  After a few minutes of dialogue, the parking lot was as hot as the interior of the bank, although at a less tangible level. Over toward the sidewalk Dahlia was wailing, Ruby Bee was clucking, and Carolyn was wringing her hands and praying there wasn’t any way she could be held liable if the village idiot had opted to broil himself inside the bank.

  Mrs. Jim Bob sat on the edge of the sofa, a cup and saucer balanced on her knees. Her best tea service, the one with the lavender rosebuds, which she’d inherited from her great-aunt, was on a tray on a nearby table, along with an extra tea bag and a little plate of lemon slices. “You must do your Christian duty, Jim Bob,” she said, well into the second hour of the lecture. “Arly Hanks has closed her eyes to the wickedness going on right here in Maggody, and you have an obligation to just go down there and tell her she’s fired. Tell her we don’t need that kind of police protection. Tell her we need a chief of police who believes in traditional values and patriotism and motherhood. I have never been comfortable with her as chief, because it’s not a fitting job for a woman in the first place. She orders people around with an arrogance that defiles the laws of God. She just needs to get herself married and settled down to raise a family. Then she’d understand her true purpose in life.”

  Jim Bob was sprawled in the recliner, a half empty beer can balanced on his gut. The only thing on the table next to him was a dog-eared TV Guide. He surreptitiously checked his watch. “I don’t know if I’m empowered to up and fire her out of the blue,” he said. “It may say somewhere in the town bylaws that I have to call a special meeting or something like that.” He held up a hand before she could leap back in. “I’m not saying I won’t get together with the council and discuss Arly’s future. In fact, I might just drive over to Larry Joe Lambertino’s and see what-all he thinks. Roy’s in town, although I heard someone at the launderette say old Harry Harbin’s off visiting his daughter in Miami Beach. Ho’s still hoping for parole, and Jesse’s back in the home, gumming oatmeal and talking to hisself. It’s gonna be right hard to get a quorum.”

  “I am not at all interested in your quorum,” Mrs. Jim Bob said with a sniff. “I am concerned with those scandalous women what think they can do this dreadful thing across the street from the Voice of the Almighty Lord Assembly Hall. Why, they might start screaming their filthy lies in the middle of Sunday morning services. Brother Verber is scared out of his wits they’re practicing witchcraft right where all the impressionable youth can watch them.”

  Jim Bob gave her a hooded look. “I heard how he’s all worried they’re going to get naked and smear blood on their bodies. I heard he’s real hot to trot over at the drop of a girdle.”

  There was a semipregnant pause. Mrs. Jim Bob selected a crescent of lemon and dropped it in her tea while wondering what-all he had heard. At last she clattered her spoon in the teacup and banged it down on the tray. “Well, of course he’s worried,” she snapped. “Wouldn’t you be if you were a minister of the Lord and women right out of your own congregation engaged in that sort of evilness?”

  “I’d be over there faster than a bat outta hell.”

  “I do not permit profanity in this house.”

  Jim Bob chugged his beer, struggling with the lever until the chair was upright, and did his best to suppress a belch (bodily functions ranking up there with profanity in terms of popularity in the Buchanon household). “Tell you what, I’ll swing by Larry Joe’s and discuss this Arly situation with him. That way we can present our conclusion to the council at the next meeting, if we can’t get everybody together before then. Don’t wait up for me; I may be late and I wouldn’t want you to be too tuckered out tomorrow to go to the county extension club meeting. I know how dearly you relish those meetings.”

  Mrs. Jim Bob looked a little suspicious, but she didn’t say anything, and Jim Bob stepped lively out to the garage. He didn’t feel safe until he was driving down Finger Lane, and only then did he scrabble under the seat to find the half pint of bourbon he kept for emergencies. It did a lot to perk up his spirits, and he was lost in moist thoughts of cute little Cherri Lucinda as he turned onto the highway.

  And saw the fire.

  “Damn to hell,” he muttered. Cherri Lucinda was always ticked off when he was late.

  Brother Verber jerked his eyes open. It was no time for dozing, he told himself with a snort. He needed to focus all his mental and moral energy on how he was going to handle the womenfolk if and when they commenced their depravities. At the first hint of wicked ritual in the making, he would snatch up the Good Book—his best defense against any personifications of Satan—and march right over to them. They’d be prancing around a bonfire, he imagined, with blood dripping off their exposed bosoms and streaming down their bellies like dark red rivers. Sinful, curling, twining, ruby-colored rivers that flowed straight to eternal damnation, among other destinations.

  Unless he could save them. With prayer—that went without saying. Yessirree, a hefty dose of fire and brimstone. With a stirring sermon about their evil, pagan, naked ways that were sending them on the express elevator to hell. Why, they’d all just hang their heads and beg for him to cleanse their flesh of sacrificial blood.

  It occurred to Brother Verber that he might need another weapon in his battle against the devil: a towel, so he could wipe away that disgusting blood a
nd restore them to piety and remorse. He went over to the kitchenette and found a dish towel. As he went to put it by the door, he caught himself mopping his forehead with it. Mercy, it was hot. He opened the door to let in what breeze the good Lord might provide his humblest of servants.

  The good Lord seemed to have been occupied elsewhere, but what Brother Verber saw more than made up for the slight. Beyond the corner of the Assembly Hall was the flickering glow of a fire. A bonfire. The heathen ritual had begun, and right while he was priming himself to save their souls and cleanse their bodies. He was so excited he nearly fell over the coffee table in his rush to his bedroom. It wouldn’t do to berate the naked, frenzied women while wearing pajamas dotted with beribboned teddy bears. He’d laid out his clothes earlier in hopes the good Lord would set off the heavenly smoke alarm and send him into battle. He hopped around on one foot and then on the other to get his trousers on, silently mouthing his opening accusations and subsequent warnings of the black, gaping abyss in front of them that led to you know where.

  Panting something fierce, he hurried into the living room, snatched up the Bible and the dish towel, and stumbled down the steps of the trailer. Surely he would be there in time. The good Lord wouldn’t play any practical jokes on his faithful servant, who once a month sent part of the Sunday morning collection to little orphans in Africa or some place like that. Surely the good Lord was smiling down real kindly on someone with the courage to meet the devil worshippers and fight for their souls.

  Once around the corner of the building, Brother Verber stopped for a second to compose himself, then bravely lifted his eyes to meet the wickedness square on. His face crumpled like a wadded-up tissue as he realized that the bank was on fire and all the women were standing around fully clothed.