Judas Church

Episode 8

Chapter 22

A tall, silver-haired man pulled his sleek, black Audi into the turnabout in front of a two-story mansion on Baltimore's east side. He got out and looked around slowly. He had no reason to think he was being followed but it didn't hurt to be careful.

He rang the doorbell, and a moment later, the butler appeared. "Here to see Mr. Wexson?" he asked.

"Yes," the tall man said stepping inside the anteroom where the butler took his jacket and hung it on a peg on the wall.

"Mr. Wexson will be right out," the butler said. "You may wait in the living room."

A few minutes later, a portly, serene-looking man with snow white hair — Arnold Wexson — opened his palms in greeting as the tall, silver-haired man entered his office. "Welcome, welcome," Wexson said. His voice was melodic and grandfatherly. "Tell me, what has been happening?"

The porter brought two cups of still-steaming chamomile tea and a small bowl of sugar. Wexson picked his cup up and took a long sip, apparently unaffected by the searing liquid heat that swam down his throat. He raised one white, bushy eyebrow in expectation.

"Haven't you heard?" the silver-haired man said stirring a spoonful of sugar into his own cup and taking a sip. "Don't you read the news?"

"I have no time for that," Wexson said with a wave of his hand. "I want to hear all about it first-hand."

"Well, the first phase of the plan is well underway," the silver-haired man said. "Johnny Dunmore was an easy target. With just a little bit of prodding, he went over the edge, and now with this new reality show — which was an unexpected windfall, by the way — he will be a consistent pain in the neck for Pastor Taylor."

"Pastor?" Wexson chuckled. "I'm sure we're still agreed that won't be the case for long."

"Yes, yes," the silver-haired man blushed. "But not too fast. Now, about phase two. Everything is going somewhat — "

"Somewhat? Are we in trouble?"

"No, no, we aren't. It just seems as though someone tipped off the pastor about the new hire."

"That can't be good," Wexson said rubbing his knuckles.

"No, but it seems as though he talked the pastor into keeping things silent for now. What we need to do is find out who snitched and make sure they keep silent." The silver-haired man fell silent and seemed to lapse into deep thought. Then he said, "We can't allow anything to threaten the cause."

"Exposure may be a good thing," Wexson said after a moment. "It's time for the world to see the true colors of these Bible-thumping bigots."

The silver-haired man frowned at Wexson's strident tone. "Remember," he said, "this is my crusade. I came to you. We are going to take things slowly or I will call everything off. My call."

"Your call?" Wexson scoffed. "You dream too small, Sean. You may carry out your little plan. But I am working on a much bigger one."

Chapter 23

Late Friday, at my planning team's weekend meeting, one of the staff informed us that she thought it would be unwise to continue Glinton Sanford's project.

"Why?" I said.

"We got a letter from someone threatening a lawsuit against us and Sanford if we go ahead with his marketing campaign."

"We've gotten those before," I said.

"Yeah, but if these people are as deep-pocketed as Sanford says they are, we could be in for a lot of trouble. It's not just one entity we would be going up against here," she said.