Free Try Fear by James Scott Bell Page B

coming.”
    “Of Jesus?”
    “What do you mean by
Jesus
?” he said. “Do you think Jesus is some person dropping out of the sky, or is he a universal spirit?”
    “You tell me,” I said.
    “We are the Universal Worldwide Church.”
    “Sort of redundant, isn’t it?” I said.
    “What is?”
    “If it’s the universal church, that includes the world already.”
    He just looked at me.
    “So do you have any celebrity clients,” I said, “like your competitors across the street?”
    “Sure. But I can’t tell you.”
    “Uh-huh. Confidential, right?”
    He nodded. He looked like a peacock nipping at water.
    “So I guess you’re not all that credible with the tourists yet. You need a celebrity.”
    His ragtag acolytes were crowding in. Like this was going to be a show.
    “Are you familiar with the Demiurge?” Sonny Moon asked with a smirk, as if I wouldn’t have a clue.
    “Sure,” I said. “It’s a term I believe first used by Plato. Later, by Plotinus. Right?”
    That set him back a little. “Very good, but that’s not the only place. The Gnostics identified the Demiurge as the Yaweh of
     the Old Testament. They thought he was evil, because the world he created was evil. Now, if you were to make a movie about
     the Demiurge, who would you have play him? Christopher Walken, of course. No question about it. Chris Walken looks evil, but
     in fact he is good.”
    I said, “People actually pay you for this?”
    One of his disciples, a girl with a railroad spike through her lower lip, said something in what sounded like a clicking African
     dialect. Then I realized it was a tongue stud clacking on her teeth. Anyway, what she said sounded like an insult. I think
     she was suggesting I try rectal-cranial inversion.
    “Far be it from me to criticize the free exercise of religion,” I said. “But maybe a little truth in advertising would help.”
    “What do you mean by that?” a woman with a hawkish nose said.
    I said, “Why do you think gas stations are advertised in the Yellow Pages under service stations?”
    They all looked at me like I had issued a Zen koan. Maybe I had.
    “Because,” I said, “our commerce depends on the benign lie. If you drink the right beer, you’ll get the right chicks. If you
     take our pill, all your problems will be solved. And the idea is to get the money to flow to the top. And the Rev here is
     the top of this particular chain.”
    “Man,” he said, “did you come down here just to take me on? You don’t look the part.”
    “I’m always interested in what people think,” I said. “Especially if they’ve set up a business.”
    “Not business. Religion.”
    “Oh right. So it’s tax free.”
    He smiled. His little friends laughed. Like he was the cleverest thing on earth.
    “I’m also interested in where you were on the night of January thirtieth,” I said.
    “Why would you be interested in that?”
    “Because somebody died.”
    “That’s news? People die all the time.”
    “Carl Richess only died once.”
    The Rev didn’t change expression. “Is that someone you know?” he said.
    “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
    He shook his head.
    “He’s somebody you’d remember,” I said, “because you had some fights with him, when he was with Tim.”
    The Rev’s eyebrows twitched. His plume shuddered a little. “Who are you?”
    “Somebody who is in search of all truth. Now, why don’t you tell me where you were on January thirtieth?”
    “I don’t got to tell you nothin’.”
    “Suddenly you’re talking street?”
    Railroad Spike Girl said, “He don’t got to tell you nothin’.”
    “World without end, amen,” I said. “Only maybe the cops would like a word with you.”
    “Look, man, what do you want from me? So I knew Carl, why should I tell you about it? You come to my house and practice deception.
     That’s the evil in you. I can get it out if you want me to.”
    “I can get it out all on my own,” I said.
    “I haven’t