The Whole Truth (15 page)

This country was formed for the white, not for the black man! And looking upon African slavery from the same standpoint held by those noble framers of our Constitution, I for one have ever considered it one of the greatest blessings (both for themselves and us) that God ever bestowed upon a favored nation.

The darkies cannot fend for themselves. We have given them a better life upon our shores. We have taken them from Africa and given them civilization. If they go free, they die!

A racist's creed. Not worth the staples that held it together. More of the same through the rest of the short book. It didn't have much . . . what was the term, literary depth? Mostly long-winded reflections on the superiority of the white race.

Steve flipped to the last page.

So ends all. For my country I have given up all that makes life sweet and holy, brought misery upon my family, and am sure there is no pardon in Heaven for me, since man condemns me so. I have only heard of what has been done (except what I did myself), and it fills me with horror. God, try and forgive me, and bless my mother. Tonight I will once more try the river with the intent to cross. Though I have a greater desire and almost a mind to return to Washington, and in a measure clear my name, which I feel I can do. I do not repent of the blow I struck. I may before my God, but not to man. I think I have done well. Though I am abandoned, with the curse of Cain upon me, when, if the world knew my heart, that one blow would have made me great, though I did desire no greatness. Tonight I try to escape these bloodhounds once more. Who, who can read his fate? God's will be done. I have too great a soul to die like a criminal. Oh, may He, may He spare me that, and let me die bravely. I bless the entire world. I have never hated or wronged anyone. This last was not a wrong, unless God deems it so, and it's with Him to damn or bless me.

For a long time Steve sat there trying to figure out what this meant for the one who really mattered, his brother. How much of this drool would Johnny agree with? Something else was bothering him about this book. He couldn't quite figure out what. It was like a distant voice echoing through a forest, where you can't quite make out the words.

Could a son entirely escape a father's influence? And just how much influence did Eldon LaSalle have over his son?

Who was this man?

Steve went to the computer and Googled. There was a Wikipedia entry on him, with a boxed text above it stating, “The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page.”

Eldon Longtree LaSalle was born on August 12, 1930, in Montgomery, Alabama. His father, Homer L. LaSalle, was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1893. His mother, Margaret Watts, was born in Christiansburg, Virginia, in 1912. Both of LaSalle's parents had a rich ancestry tied to the “Old South.”

LaSalle was a brilliant student from an early age, but appears to have had trouble in high school. He allegedly beat another boy almost to death over an insult. The result was his expulsion from school. His father enrolled him in military school in 1946. After graduation he received a scholarship to attend Duke University. He graduated with a degree in mathematics in 1952.

Later that same year he married a cousin, Patricia Farrell. The marriage ended in divorce in 1960.

Sometime during the early 1960s, LaSalle became associated with Frederic Cleveland Hayes and his American Nationalist Party. Hayes, an early collaborator with George Lincoln Rockwell's American Nazi Party, broke ranks with Rockwell in 1961. LaSalle was arrested numerous times in the next several years, most notably for violence in opposition to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s march on Selma, Alabama, in 1965. Shortly after his release, LaSalle went into seclusion and began formulating a religious view he dubbed “Eugenotheism.” The philosophy was an eclectic amalgam of Christian, Manichean, and scientific thought.

In essence, LaSalle began to teach that God is an all-encompassing power of light opposed by an equally strong power of darkness. The universe is thus a battleground between the two, and the forces of light must continue to progress, in an evolutionary sense, toward perfection. To LaSalle that meant purging the population of racial and mental impurities.

In 1970 he established a church in California, with himself as the head. He ran afoul of the IRS, which asserted that the church was little more than a tax dodge. LaSalle made millions in donations which, according to the IRS, he used primarily to fund a lavish lifestyle. After a ten-year legal battle, LaSalle was convicted of tax evasion and sentenced to eight years in prison. The conviction was later overturned by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. It was while he was serving part of his sentence that LaSalle wrote a small book,
Booth
Speaks
, which became popular among white-supremacist groups.

LaSalle has kept a low profile in recent years. He has been accused at various times of leading a cult, a Christian militia, and a polygamous sect. None of these charges appears to have been substantiated.

A blood-warm disquiet snarled around Steve's stomach. He had never been one for guilt by association, but this was a little too close to home.

There was still something extra bothering him about the book
Booth Speaks.
He looked at it again, read the last page one more time. That's when it hit him.

I bless the entire world.

Somebody else had said that to him. His brother, the first time he saw him in prison.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Gincy arrived at Steve's apartment at six, half an hour after Steve called him. The monkey was whispering again, telling Steve what a prize jerk he was for trusting a con named Johnny LaSalle with a father like Eldon.

Didn't help to argue, to scream inside that Johnny could be innocent in all this, could be a victim himself.

The monkey did not care for fine points, and when it turned to screeching, Steve called Gincy, because if he didn't he knew he'd fall big-time.

He wanted Gincy there, not just on the phone. Something about Gincy's disposition always calmed the beast.

“Let's get out of here,” Steve said as soon as Gincy walked in. “Let's drive, go see a movie or something.”

“Got a better idea,” Gincy said, flashing his famous smile.

“What?”

“Trust me.”

Gincy he could trust. They piled into Gincy's red and white MINI Cooper. Gincy's weightlifter arms seemed bigger than the car. He popped in a U2 CD and said, “So what's going on in that lawyer head tonight?”

“I got a new client,” Steve said.

“Oh yeah?”

“Only this one's a little different. It's my brother.”

“Your brother? I thought — ”

“It's him. The one who we all thought died.”

“Wow. How'd you find him?”

“He found me.” Steve told him the story, and about Eldon LaSalle and
Booth Speaks.
Gincy took it all in without comment.

When Steve was finished, Gincy said, “One day you think all those guys'll have dried up and blown away. Then you find out there's enough people who still think this way that you want to get yourself a gun and get ready for when they come for you.”

He paused. Bono filled the space for a minute.

“I remember a Klan rally when I was a kid,” Gincy said. “Right in our town. A town where my daddy was on the fire department. I remember him telling me to stay in the house. I remember him getting down the shotgun. And I remember his face. He wasn't scared. He was disgusted.”

“So what do I do about my brother?”

“You talked to him about it yet?”

“No.”

“Then you talk to him. You be up-front.”

“And if I find out he's just as bad as his old man?”

“Maybe you're the one who can get him turned around. Maybe that's why this has all happened. God works like that.”

“Not exactly great work, if you ask me.”

Gincy finally pulled into a lot at the park by his own apartment. Steve was greeted by the multicolored lights and giddy screams of —

“A carnival?” Steve said.

“Hey,” Gincy said, “Cotton candy is the single most underutilized antidepressant in America. Let's go get ourselves some pink happiness and walk around.”

“
Carnival
?” Steve put his head back on the seat. “Oh man.”

“What?”

“I asked Ashley to marry me at a carnival. Shall I just shoot myself now?”

“Oh man, I didn't know!”

“Why should you? You have a shotgun in the trunk, I hope?”

“Will you knock it off?”

“A .22? Anything will do.”

“Shut your pie hole, Dilbert.” Gincy sometimes called him the name of the well-known comic strip character to jolt him out of complacency.

Then Gincy was out of the MINI Cooper and on his way toward the lights.

Steve paused, then decided walking was preferable to car sitting. He caught up with Gincy at the entrance.

“Is this great or what?” Gincy said, waving his arms at the attractions.

Steve said, “What makes you so happy all the time?”

“I have my reasons, and — ”

“Well, cut it out.”

“Cut out being happy?”

“Don't you realize there's only a certain amount of happiness in the world?”

“Huh?”

“Yeah. The amount of happiness is constant and has to stay in balance. So every time you smile, somewhere in the world a unicorn's getting punched in the face.”

“No such thing as unicorns.”

“Oh? Maybe you've made them extinct with all that gladness.”

“Let's get some cotton candy, boy.” Gincy clapped Steve on the shoulder. Hard. The slap made a popping sound. They did get their pink confections, then walked the carnival. Kids were everywhere, playing games and riding rides and hanging onto balloons and whining at their parents. Real Americana. Something Steve and Gincy had both missed.

They were near the Ferris wheel. It was stopped, and a couple of kids at the top looked down, screaming.

Gincy faced Steve. “Is there anything else you want to tell me before we venture on?”

Steve looked at the ground.

“Steve, what's going on?”

“I met a girl,” Steve said.

“Whoa.”

“She works for me.”

“And you want it to be more than that, huh?”

Steve said nothing. He felt like screaming, like the kids on the Ferris wheel.

“Who is she?” Gincy asked.

“Law student from DeWitt. There's something else about her.”

“Now what?”

“She's pretty religious.”

“She's pretty and religious?”

“Okay, yeah.”

Gincy started laughing. He rocked back and let it go. “I love it!”

“What's so funny?”

“God has a sense of humor, maestro. I mean, here you are, Mr. Hardcore Atheist, Mr. I-Can-Do-It-All-Myself, Mr. There's-NoHigher-Power, and God hooks you up with a religious chick.”

“Don't get all giddy about it. She wants to keep it strictly business.”

“But you don't?”

“I don't know, I — ”

“Oh man! Look at that.”

He pointed to that sledgehammer attraction. “Remember those cartoons where the guy knocks the bell off, he hits it so hard? That's your stress level, dude.”

“It's not that bad.”

“Your divorce final?” Gincy asked.

“Almost. And Ashley wants me to move my stuff from the house.”

Gincy got his serious sponsor look. “You been going to meetings?”

“Here and there.”

He put a hand on Steve's shoulder. “Anything else you want to tell me? Aliens landing in your apartment maybe?”

“Isn't that enough for one night?”

“You got it.” Gincy made a hunk of cotton candy disappear. “You're under a lot of stress. Maybe more than when you got hooked on blow. It's all coming back.”

They moved on, past the milk-bottle pyramid and ping-pong-ball-in-the-cup game.

“So what's your advice, sponsor of mine?” Steve said.

“My only advice is the same as always. Give up.”

“Excuse me?”

“Give up. Quit trying to do everything on your own. Go to God. That's how — ”

“Not tonight, man.” Steve tossed the rest of his cotton candy into a trash can. “I've had to look out for myself for twenty years.”

“And what's come of that?”

What Steve didn't need right now was another one of Gincy's higher-power lectures. They were near one end of the carnival now. At a ride called the Zipper. Gincy turned to Steve, his eyes reflecting the red, blues, and greens of the carnival lights.

“You ever been on that?” Gincy pointed at the Zipper.

“What? No. I hate those rides.” The Zipper went around in a fast, tight oval, almost like a small Ferris wheel. But as it did, each individual car — more like cages — spun around too. “If I got on that thing I'd color the inside pink.”

“You afraid?”

“I just don't like 'em,” Steve said.

“You have to take a risk in this life, bub. It looks scary to you, but it'll take you to a whole new level. And faith is the same way.”

“I'm fine where I am, feet on the ground.”

“I don't think you are.”

“When did you get a license to practice psychotherapy?”

“The day I met you, man. Wait here. And think about what I just told you.”

Gincy licked the last of the cotton candy from the paper, tossed it into a can, then handed a ticket to the guy running the Zipper.

TWENTY-EIGHT

“The big question,” Sienna said, “is whether the church should incorporate as a 501(c)(3) or not. The main advantage is that it's easier for people to give tax-deductible gifts. But there's a theological question.”

She'd arrived at Steve's office at two minutes before three on Friday afternoon. Looking good in gray business casual. He poured them a couple of Diet Cokes from the little refrigerator, then sat at his desk. Her printed memo was in front of him. He'd read about half of it. The point was, she was here.