Holy Terror (24 page)

Conor cleared his throat. ‘So … what do you want me to do?' he asked, hoarsely.

‘Well, there's one thing in particular,' said Dennis Evelyn Branch. ‘Several owners of those safety deposit boxes have been kind of wary about handing over so much money until they see you in person. We already have most of the money we need, but we're talking about an extra fifteen to twenty million dollars, and I'd hate to lose out on those funds if we have the means to lay our hands on them.'

‘And you want me to
help
you? Forget it.'

‘Oh, you
will
help. No question about it.'

‘And what if I refuse?'

‘You won't refuse.'

‘I'm refusing now. It's going to be difficult enough to prove that I didn't have anything to do with this robbery, without actively extorting money on the strength of it. Do you know what it's like, walking around the city knowing that you could be shot on sight at any second, and never know what hit you?'

‘Well, that's pitiful. It is. But you should think of yourself as a martyr. We're all martyrs to something, Mr O'Neil. I've been a martyr to eczema all of my life. But I think of my eczema as a constant reminder from God that – even though He's empowered me to carry out His will – I shall never be perfect, as He is. It's all for the greater good, Mr O'Neil. I may be asking you to make a small sacrifice, Mr O'Neil, but what's that, when it's going to help to bring about
the greatest crusade since the beginning of Christianity.'

‘I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Reverend Branch, but the answer is no, I'm not going to help you. No way. What do you want the money for, anyhow? More bombs? Do you think I could live with myself if I helped you to kill some innocent women and children?'

‘In this case, Mr O'Neil, I don't think you have a choice.'

The two black-suited men in the comer stopped murmuring and looked toward Branch expectantly. Pork Knuckle rose from his seat and came to stand close to Conor's shoulder.

After a calculated pause, Dennis Evelyn Branch stood up too. He reached up and slowly took off his blue sunglasses. Underneath, his eyes were bright pink, as pink as a rabbit's, with only the tiniest dots for pupils.

‘I was chosen by the Lord for a special mission in this life,' he told Conor. ‘The Lord spoke in my ear and gave me a personal dispensation to do whatever I deemed necessary in order to build for Him the greatest temple that the world has ever seen.'

He came closer, and touched his forehead with his fingertip. ‘Not a temple of brick, or stone, not at first, although there will be one, when my crusade is over. I'm talking about a temple in the mind – a temple to which the whole world belongs. And I'm telling you, Mr O'Neil, that temple is going to be built, and I'm going to be the builder of it, and you will do whatever I say until that day comes about, because the Lord wills it.'

Conor said, ‘Why don't you kiss my ass?'

Dennis Evelyn Branch gave him a wavering smile. ‘Not to my taste, I'm afraid. But I think I have something to
your
taste. You must be hungry.'

‘I'm fine, thanks.'

‘No, no. I insist. No guest of the Reverend Dennis Evelyn Branch can possibly leave without being offered some refreshment. And maybe, once you've eaten, you'll find that you have a different view of things. Less
self-centered
, know what I mean? Some people have to be
taught
to devote themselves to God.'

He popped his fingers and at once the tall, ascetic-looking man went across the living room and pushed open a squeaky swing door that led to a brightly sunlit kitchen. Dennis Evelyn Branch said nothing while they waited, but continued to stare at Conor with his bright pink eyes, not blinking once.

‘I'd better warn you,' said Conor. ‘There's nothing that you can do to me that's going to make me change my mind.'

‘Well, we'll see,' said Branch.

He beckoned to Pork Knuckle. The man came up behind Conor and, without warning, seized his arms. Conor tried to twist around and throw himself sideways, but Dennis Evelyn Branch swung his arm back and slapped his face, hard, in a shower of dead skin. Pork Knuckle wrenched Conor's arms around the back of the chair and fastened them together with handcuffs.

‘Don't you go riling me, Mr O'Neil,' trembled Dennis Evelyn Branch, raising a single cautioning finger. ‘The Lord has a terrible temper when He's
riled, and I'm the Lord's own instrument.'

‘That's a pretty good catch-all excuse for behaving like a sociopath,' Conor retorted. He could still feel the awful scaliness of Branch's palm against his cheek.

Pork Knuckle knelt down beside the chair and lashed Conor's ankles together with wide black Advance industrial tape. At the same time, the tall, ascetic man came out of the kitchen holding at arm's length a tall glass screwtop jar, with a label for kosher dill pickles still on it.

‘Did you ever read Leviticus?' asked Dennis Evelyn Branch. ‘
Yet these may you eat among all the winged insects: those which have above their feet jointed legs with which to jump on the earth. But all other winged insects are detestable to you
.'

He held the jar up in front of Conor's face. ‘What do you think?' he said. ‘Do you think these are detestable enough?'

Inside was a crawling, jerking confusion of shiny brown cockroaches, scores of them, their antennae waving, their legs sliding uselessly up against the glass.

‘Lunch,' said Dennis Evelyn Branch.

Conor struggled wildly, rocking his chair from side to side in an effort to wrench himself free. But Pork Knuckle gripped his shoulders and he couldn't even tip the chair over.

‘Let me loose, you freak!' Conor demanded.

‘I can't do that. Not until I have your solemn promise that you'll assist us, in any way we ask you.'

Conor hadn't often felt helpless. Once, he had been caught by three suspicious mafiosi who had tied him up in a garage in Queens and doused him in gasoline. He felt the same kind of desperation now: the same kind of breathless panic.

‘I'm not agreeing to anything. Two people died because of you.'

‘Oh, yes. A treacherous security officer and a low-life thief. You should be glad for them. Anybody who dies to help my crusade will find his place in Heaven.'

‘You're crazy.'

‘You think so? You really think so? That's what they said about Jesus, isn't it? He's crazy, that's
what they said. But they don't say that now, do they? And they don't accuse
Him
of being a murderer, in spite of all of the millions of people who have died in His name.

‘It's quite possible that many more will die before my crusade is complete. Many, many more. But you don't have to be one of them.'

‘Go to hell.'

Dennis Evelyn Branch unscrewed the lid of the jar full of struggling cockroaches and said, ‘Unpleasant little suckers, aren't they?
Periplaneta americana
, introduced from Africa, in spite of their name.'

‘You can skip the natural history lesson. You're wasting your time.'

‘They have a particularly nauseating smell of their own, don't they?' said Dennis Evelyn Branch, wafting the jar under Conor's nose. Conor caught the oily, brownish odor of cockroaches, and twisted his head away.

Branch nodded to Pork Knuckle. Pork Knuckle seized Conor's hair and pulled it back so hard that he felt his scalp crackle, and a fiery pain all over his head. Then, with his other hand, Pork Knuckle gripped the sides of Conor's jaw, pressing the nerves so that he couldn't help but open his mouth.

‘My friend here used to be a psychiatric nurse,' smiled Dennis Evelyn Branch. ‘He has the knack of feeding your reluctant eater.'

‘
Ggahh
!' Conor gargled, trying to clench his teeth shut.

But the tall, ascetic man came up to him with a plastic funnel in his hand, and held it over his wide-open mouth.

‘I'll bet you're thinking to yourself, “He's not going to do this … he's just trying to scare me some.” But, you know, I'm not even going to give you the chance to change your mind, because you've had your chance. You've had three chances, and just like Peter you've denied your Lord every time.'

He said, ‘Carry on, Tyrone,' and the tall, ascetic man forced the plastic funnel into Conor's mouth, knocking it hard against his teeth and scratching his tongue. As it scraped the back of his throat, he gave a dry, agonizing heave, and then another, and another.

Conor tried to bite at the funnel but Pork Knuckle was still pressing the nerves at the side of his jaw and he was almost completely paralyzed. He tried to thrash his ankles but the industrial tape was stuck too tight.

‘Maybe I ought to say a few words,' said Dennis Evelyn Branch. ‘After all, these are God's creatures, too, however much we revile them, and now that they're going to meet their Maker, we shouldn't let them go unmoumed.'

‘
Nggguhhh
…' choked Conor. He gagged and gagged and his stomach let out a deep groan of sheer revulsion.

Dennis Evelyn Branch shook his head and said, ‘Mmm,' in satisfaction. ‘This is such an effective form of persuasion. The Klan used to use it to discourage liberal-minded newspaper editors, but don't let that put you off. It works in ninety-nine per cent of cases; and the other one per cent who manage to tough it out can easily be made to change their minds when you mention the magic words “cockroach
enema”. Great idea, isn't it? Cheap, practical, and
organic
, too.'

‘
Aggh! Ggahh
!'

‘Here,' said Dennis Evelyn Branch. He lifted the jar so that Conor could clearly see the cockroaches trying to climb up the side of the glass, their leathery forewings flaring every now and then, their antennae desperately waving. Conor closed his eyes, and tried to close his throat, too. But he heard Dennis Evelyn Branch shake the jar over the funnel, and he distinctly heard a few of the cockroaches rattle against the plastic.
Oh, God, no!
They dropped helter-skelter into his throat, their legs and their wings tickling his esophagus. He heaved, and bile gushed out of the sides of his mouth, but he couldn't stop himself from swallowing at least six or seven cockroaches, and another one was caught frantically flailing its legs in his windpipe.

‘
Aaagggh
!' he shouted, cackling for breath.

Dennis Evelyn Branch peered at him from only three or four inches away – so close that Conor could see the dry flaky skin inside his nostrils. He tried to think of the stories that Father O'Faoghlin had taught him, all about tortured saints. Saints who had plunged their hands into burning braziers, rather than recant their beliefs. Saints who had been hoisted aloft on spears, still proclaiming their love of God while the pointed steel penetrated their entrails. It had been Father O'Faoghlin more than anybody else who had taught him the meaning of justice, and why justice was worth suffering for.

‘You're the stubborn one, aren't you?' said Dennis Evelyn Branch. ‘Stubborn like all of your faith. You
wait until my great crusade. You wait until the cloak of death sweeps over you all! Then we'll see how stubborn you are.'

His pink eyes wide with evangelical glee, he shook the jar a second time, much harder, so that dozens of cockroaches dropped into the funnel. They thrashed and struggled and clung together, but Dennis Evelyn Branch flicked the side of the funnel with his finger to dislodge them. They dropped into Conor's throat in a wriggling mass. He didn't want to swallow. His neck muscles ached from the effort of not swallowing – but then Pork Knuckle suddenly released his grip, and his first reaction was to take the whole throatful down into his stomach.

His eyes bulged and he arched his back. Dennis Evelyn Branch stepped away, circling the jar. ‘You
still
refuse?' he crowed, at the top of his voice. ‘Look at him here, everybody! Did you ever see such stubbornness? Are you still going to refuse me, Mr O'Neil? Or are you going to help me to fulfil the Lord's great plan?'

Conor shook his head wildly from side to side.

‘What does that mean?' insisted Dennis Evelyn Branch. ‘Is that a no, you're not going to refuse me? Or is that a no, you're not going to help me?'

Conor's head was bursting and he couldn't even think. He was whining for breath and his stomach muscles were churning so fiercely that he felt as if a truck were rolling over him, backward and forward. He shook his head again, and the tall, ascetic man took the funnel out of his mouth.

‘You give in?' asked Dennis Evelyn Branch. ‘Is
that what you're telling me? You're going to help us out?'

Conor tried to speak but then he spewed a fountain of coffee and bile and cockroaches all over himself. Most of the cockroaches were still alive and they scuttled across his knees and dropped onto the wooden floor. He coughed and coughed, and spat, and coughed again, and at last he managed to dislodge the last cockroach out of his windpipe. He sat with his head lowered, sweating, shivering, and still trying to spit out the taste of cockroach.

Dennis Evelyn Branch replaced his blue sunglasses with the same slow-motion flourish with which he had taken them off.

‘You want
seconds
, Mr O'Neil? There's a few left here in the jar. It seems a shame to let them go to waste.'

Conor shook his head. He wasn't going to be able to stand any more of this. He had to think of another way to deal with Dennis Evelyn Branch. Like so many sociopaths, he thrived on outright defiance: it excited him, it empowered him, and God alone knew what he was going to make Conor swallow next.

‘Well, well. Praise the Lord. You don't know how glad I am that you've seen reason.' Dennis Evelyn Branch shook the rest of the cockroaches onto the floor and stepped on them, a little crunching tap-dance. ‘As I said before, it isn't much I'm asking you to do. Just meet a few people, do a little business, and keep yourself alive and out of the clutches of the law until we're all done here in New York, and the money's all been transferred.'