Save Johanna! (3 page)

Once David understands that most of the legwork is done except for some interviews with the women, he’s certain to feel less anxious and then, perhaps, less negative. Two-thirds of the work is going to be done right here at home. He’s going to love that.

One look at his stricken face across the table and I know I’m going to have to do some very fancy convincing. But I will because he’s extremely important to me. Both of them are, David
and
the book.

“Yes, the main character is Avrum Maheely,” I say to David, “but the fabulous thing is that most of the research is finished. Now all I have to do is sit down and write it.”

I can’t say he’s overjoyed, but his face does relax a bit, and the conversation moves on. I figure I’ll tell him about Swat and Imogene later, when he’s come around a little more.

I explain that I hope to capture the essence of the Maheely-type personality and find out whatever it is that gives him such terrible power over people.

“He’s insane,” Laurence says with disgust. “He’s an animal, that’s all he is.”

“You can’t just dismiss him like that,” I say; “he’s got to be explained so he can be understood.”

“Why? The guy’s an aberration. A freak. They all are.”

“They’re not all insane, and neither are their followers,” I say. “That’s just a superficial analysis, and it’s worthless.”

“It may be a fast answer, but I think it’s the right one,” Claudia says. “I agree with Larry. They’re insane. Joey, you just don’t realize how many nuts are walking around loose. My God, take a walk down Broadway sometime. And it’s getting worse.”

I run into this attitude all the time, and I try not to get impatient. But they don’t even make an attempt to understand. “I’m not saying these are normal personalities,” I say. “Sure, they’re abnormal, but don’t be foolish enough to think they’re insane. Insane is incompetent. Not functioning. And God knows, these people are functioning at a terrifying level. Can’t you see that?”

“Joey,” says Claudia, “you sound like you’re defending him. He’s slime. He doesn’t deserve it.”

“It’s not a question of defense. I’m simply trying to look beyond and find out what causes the Maheelys and their adherents. There are going to be more Jonestowns, more kids lost to cult groups and instances of brainwashing.” I’m feeling very uncomfortable because David hasn’t said a word. I press him. “David?”

“There’s no question that mind control is always a danger,” he answers, and I relax a little, “especially today with all the new sophisticated psychological methods at our disposal. I just wonder if Maheely is the right point of attack.”

“Of course he is,” I say, trying to control the touch of irritation I’m beginning to feel with all of them. “He actually did it, and we have to find out how and why.”

Laurence reacts to my irritation with a bit of his own. “I see you doing that same old liberal hogwash. We must understand the criminal mind. Have pity for good old Joe Bananas, somebody hid his teddy when he was four.”

“I say fry ’em all!” Roger jumps in.

“Come on, Roger.” Mary Gail giggles and gives him a light poke on the shoulder. “Don’t fool around. Johanna is serious, and her knowledge of Maheely is on an entirely different level than ours. Once you’re aware of different levels in people you can never define them the same way again.”

“Maybe the real story isn’t Maheely or Jones but the people who need them,” Claudia says; “maybe it’s only another religion.”

Louis, who’s been silent up to now, joins in. “That’s just what it is.”

We’re all surprised.

“They all start as cults, and if they last long enough they become accepted religions.”

“It’s true,” Mary Gail says. “Look at the Quakers. They were considered a cult and thrown out of England.”

“So I was right,” Claudia says. “Not bad for an atheist.”

“Except that the Maheely-, Manson-, and Jones-type cults are really antipodes of most of the other developed religions,” Louis continues.

“Think of it as black magic versus white magic,” Laurence says, and Mary Gail accuses him of reducing everything to an ad campaign, but Louis says that it’s a fair statement. “The black magic part is a perversion of Christianity because it’s based on death, while good religion is based on life.”

“Christianity is filled with death,” I say.

“But that’s a different concept,” Louis says. “In Christianity the dying is done ritually rather than literally, leaving the people free to pursue life. Death is handled by Christ.”

“Maheely thinks he is Christ,” I say.

“Christ is authority. Maheely is power.”

Laurence wants to know what the difference is, and Louis says that to his mind authority is the ability to come to terms with self and have standing with others. “Power preys on those unable to come to terms with themselves.”

I have to agree. “Maheely’s followers are perfect examples of incomplete development, of adults without maturity.”

“Not uncommon,” Laurence says. “I know a lot of people like that. And I think most of them work for me. How about you, Roger, what do you think?”

But Roger has been involved in his own arrested development. “Deal!” he says, and the conversation stops as we all look at him in great surprise. He has cleared off the entire table, taken every dish into the kitchen, given out chips, mixed the cards, and dealt for dealer. Surely Roger doesn’t do that much at home in a year. Everyone has to smile. And the tension of the conversation softens into good humor and busy pregame preparations.

“I’m afraid to look in the kitchen,” I say as we all move over to the poker-cum-dining table.

Claudia points to the stack of chips in front of her seat. “Is this twenty dollars’ worth?” she says, digging into her pocketbook for her money.

Roger nods his head yes, and everyone starts pulling out twenty-dollar bills and throwing them in front of me. The banker is traditionally the host or hostess.

There’s a spate of drink filling, coffee getting, chair adjusting, and general getting down to business.

Claudia antes fifty cents and deals out five-card stud. High only. Roger’s pair of aces takes it. I love it when Roger starts off winning.

The game meanders along with five-card, seven-card, and then the wilder games start slipping in. I get wiped out in a game called the Good and the Bad, where your entire hand can change radically on the last card. The last card canceled out a pair of wild cards that would have given me a royal flush. Now all I can make is a nine low. All the bets are in, so there’s no point in dropping out now. If I’m lucky everyone else will go high, and I’ll steal half the pot.

I’m not lucky. A perfect low splits with four kings, and I throw in another ten dollars.

Poker is banter, nonsense chatter that belies the utter seriousness of the action. When you play with the same people all the time you begin to think you know more about them than you really do. For example, Mary Gail, so sincere, so pure that you are dead certain she would never bluff, and it is just that kind of information that can kill you. This time it happens to David. He goes out with three tens against what looks certain to be a straight in front of Mary Gail. It turns out to be a two-three-four-five-jack.

Time moves quickly in poker games, and soon two hours have passed.

Laurence and Mary Gail are well into the Courvoisier, David is happy with his beer, and the rest of us, excluding Roger who never drinks when he gambles, are enjoying some weed. The game moves along pleasantly for me. David and Claudia are holding their own; Laurence is winning; Louis, Mary Gail, and Roger are losing. Louis is down the most, probably about fifty dollars. No one is bleeding badly, only minor cuts.

The atmosphere is easy and friendly. Everyone, even the losers, likes being here, likes each other and the specialness of the game. I guess it’s almost like a club in its exclusivity. The group rarely changes. Occasionally, when someone can’t make it, we bring in the second string. They’re perfectly nice people, those second-stringers, but it’s like the Indian caste system, they know they can never move up.

At two o’clock we deal around once more to Laurence, cash in our chips, and end the evening. I come out twenty-two dollars ahead. Roger noses out Louis for big loser of the night. I always tell David Roger’s happier that way. It makes him feel more secure. He probably thinks he deserves to lose, and who knows, maybe he’s right.

Roger leaves first because he’s the only one who has any distance to travel. It’s not terribly far, only to Queens, but he has little patience for amenities past the poker table. Queens is about the only concession he’s given to his wife, Sandra. Since he’s so rarely home she insists on being close to her family, who all live in some place called Rosedale. I don’t know anything about it, and I’ve never been there. Sandra has come to holiday parties and she’ll be invited to our wedding, but I suspect she hates us all for keeping Roger away from home. Or possibly she appreciates us more than we know.

Mary Gail lowers the lights, and the group rises almost in unison amid groans and chatter and in the dimness appears to be some many-headed giant that slowly breaks apart, then one by one, two by two, drift into the living room taking the seats they usually take, probably a vestige of some territorial incentive.

Now the conversation just marks time, very small talk, its only purpose to postpone the inevitable leaving, the cutting off of friendship’s warmth and comfort. If only they could sit silently for a little while, enjoying the good feeling, but even with close friends, there must always be talk long after there’s anything left to say.

Tonight I want them to go. I want to be alone with David. I sense his disquiet, and I want to assure him and myself that I’ve made the right move.

Finally, my friends make ready to leave. It takes them a full ten minutes of last-minute preparation, just-remembered questions, information, gossip, and then suddenly, in a matter of seconds, they’re gone and we’re alone.

There’s an awkward silence that I try to fill with busy cleaning up. With my back to David, I start to pile empty plates, moving them uselessly from one place to another, when I feel his hand on my shoulder. I turn around into his arms. David’s lips are always soft and his mouth gently passionate, but tonight the kiss is more tentative than sensual.

He moves his face back slightly, enough to look down at me, and he caresses my hair as I hold him tightly. I love this man very much.

“I just don’t like it, Jo, no point in pretending that I do.”

“But I told you, most of the research is over. How can there be any danger when all I am going to do is sit home and write?”

“I don’t know . . .”

“If you really don’t, then I think you’re being unreasonable.”

“Maybe we should have worked this out before.”

“Okay, we didn’t, so let’s do it now. What’s your real objection?”

“The most important one is that I feel there might be danger.”

“Oh, come on, David, Maheely’s in prison for a very long time, maybe the rest of his life, and the others are essentially followers and, without their leader, impotent.”

“You’re wrong, Jo, they’re still very much a menace and especially dangerous because they don’t follow any of the accepted rules. It doesn’t matter that Maheely’s locked away; he’s alive, and his influence over them is still powerful.”

“I think you’re exaggerating his strength.”

“Maybe, but there is a risk because you can’t be certain. And then there’s the other consideration, you going back down into the pits of that netherworld all over again for at least a year. . . .”

“No more than ten months.”

“OK, ten months. The point is, would it produce anything worthwhile? I personally don’t even think the basic idea is all that salable.”

“Neil thinks it is.”

“Well, I don’t agree, but that’s just my opinion.”

I can’t help getting annoyed because I know he’s absolutely wrong, and I tell him, “Well, I do, definitely.”

Now he’s annoyed. “OK, and that’s why you’re doing it, but I think you could have warned me.”

“I guess I didn’t because I already knew your reaction.”

This has degenerated into an argument, and I didn’t want it to. “David,” I say, trying to soften the tone and show him what it really means to me, “this project is crucial to me. It’s my first step into fiction, and if it works it’ll broaden my territory immeasurably. I believe in its possibilities and I want very much to do it, but it loses so much for me without the feel of your support behind me.”

He turns away and, shoving his hands deep into his pockets, walks across the room. I know he’s upset, but it’s a choice I had to make. Now he turns around and comes back to me. He’s understood. “You’re right,” he says, “it is your decision. You’re the expert. You wouldn’t tell me how to run my law practice, and I shouldn’t try to tell you your business. Johanna, I want to be behind you, you know that, but this damn thing makes me uneasy. It always has, right from the beginning when you first started with that creep. I don’t know why, but there’s always been something about your involvement with him that disturbs me. Who knows, maybe underneath it all I feel somehow threatened.”

“By Avrum Maheely?”

“Am I crazy?”

“Completely. But my kind of crazy.” And I put my arms around his waist and hug him as hard as I can.

“Hey! You got some grip there, kid,” he says, kissing my head. And together we walk off into the sunset—or down the hall anyway.

I begin my novel the next day. There is no point in putting it off, not if I expect to finish it in ten months. When the need for more legwork arises I’ll simply have to interrupt the writing, but I must get started now. Neil thinks I ought to call it
A
Study in Terror,
but that sounds too schoolbookish to me. The best I can come up with so far is
Souls in Darkness;
not great, but for the time being that’s my working title. I’ve been organizing my notes for a couple of weeks now and have a fairly workable outline. I sit at my computer and more or less allow my mind to go blank. What I am waiting for, of course, is the telephone call telling me I have won the two-million-dollar lottery so that I will never have to write another word or work another day in my life. The phone, alas, is silent. With a mighty sigh, I begin.