Rescue

answer.
    Now she canted her head to the door. “Nobody’s listening out there. I guarantee it. And this room’s real soundproof. Take my word on that, too.“
    I said, “The parents. How do you fool them?“
    A frown. “We don’t. Not really, I mean. We have stringers out there, like Lonnie—Axel’s brother?—even Axel, when things slow here. They find the boys, we pay them a bounty for each one they bring in. Would you believe Royel insists that it be three thousand dollars? We wouldn’t have to go half that for trash like the Severns, but... Anyway, we tell the parents the boys are going to a study center, and that’s it.“
    “That’s it? The parents never follow up?“
    “Uh-unh. But you got to remember, that’s not so surprising now. The families are some of the true believers, and they’ll truly believe just about anything Royel tells them. So, if the boys are still needed for ‘educational’ reasons down here, just a personal letter from ‘The Reverend Wyeth’ is all it takes. Plus, I think the boys are an embarrassment for a lot of the parents, and they feel like probably they’re better off without the boys being a burden around home anymore.“
    I thought about the impression I’d had in the Haldons’ house, finding myself sick to be agreeing with her. “But when the boys never—“
    “I don’t see why you are so interested in them. Maybe Royel’s right. Maybe you do have the devil in you.“ The coy look and a milkmaid bend at the waist. “How about you put a little of your devil in me?“
    “Your husband wouldn’t mind?“
    “Never crosses his mind.“
    “What about Whit Tidyman?“
    The coy look got frosty. “Smart isn’t always such a good thing to be, honey.“
    “Tidyman the new Royel?“
    Her features screwed up. “He is not! I’m the new Royel, or I will be, once I get to be more and more of the show, TV-wise. That’s the future, whether Royel likes it or not. Cable and satellite hookups, not tent shows in parking lots with skeeters and snakes.“ The frosty look melted. “So, how about it? They say your last experience is your most... powerful one.“
    “Thanks, but I haven’t got a hundred on me.“
    Lutrice seethed.
    I said, “Oh, did I aim too high?“
    “Axel’s gonna have a real good time with you.“
    “Lutrice, let me tell you something. He was anyway.“
    Straightening herself up, Wyeth smoothed out the dress and shook the hair until it fell just so. Then she went to the door.
    I decided to ask again the question she’d cut off. “Lutrice?
    “Too late.“
    “Lutrice, you said before that your husband didn’t always have this obsession. How did it start?“
    She stopped, then turned back toward me. “I wish I knew to tell you, honey, and that’s the God’s honest truth. Royel, he was always hung up on the Bible, and when things started going wrong for him down there—his little thingie, I mean, when it just started to go flip-flop instead of work right? Well, he remembered he’d been talking to these choirboys the day before, down here on a tour, like, without their parents, and Royel’d given each of them a hug. One of the boys—they were from Georgia, I believe, maybe Alabama— anyway, no matter. This one boy had the mark on his face, the strawberry kind, and Royel was reading the Scriptures that night, trying to figure out why he’d ‘failed in his husbandly duty,’ you might say. Well, Royel hits on that passage about the Mark of Cain, and he convinces himself that the boy practiced some kind of deviltry on him. So Royel goes and gets that boy out of his bed and brings him here—that chair, but it wasn’t all bolted down and strapped like it is now. Royel talked to that boy all night long. ‘Inquisitioned’ him, you might say. And the boy—well, he must have been awful scared, and he just just up and died of shock, I guess.“
    “He died?“
    “Yes, and that left me with a pretty mess, too, I’ll tell you. But Cody and Axel were around to help with the body, and I was able to smooth it over with the parents—I came up with a story about him drowning, some money changed hands. I told you the parents just don’t care sometimes, and the authorities never did get called into it. Even after all that, though, Royel’s thingie didn’t start working right again, and he decided he needed to do things more... ceremoniously, like. So Cody and Axel bolted and strapped that chair you’re in, and Royel started inquisitioning