Read Online Under the Beetle's Cellar by Mary Willis Walker - Free Book Online

What do you think of that idea, Molly?”
    Molly thought it sounded like insanity. “The negotiators would never let you do that. One of their cardinal rules is no exchanging of hostages.”
    Thelma’s face mottled. “You don’t strike me as someone who is interested in rules. I’m interested only in getting my daughter out of there alive. I don’t give a fuck what their rules are.”
    Molly, feeling chastised, nodded. “You’re right that children being abandoned by their mothers is a theme with Mordecai. It makes more sense if he was adopted—this imagery about being set adrift, like Moses. It must feel like that to be put up for adoption.”
    “Yes. I think so. Will you play the rest of it?” Thelma pointed at the tape player.
    They sat in silence for an hour listening to the rest of Samuel Mordecai’s fiery sermon about corruption and prophecies that had been fulfilled.
    When it was finally over, Molly let out one shaky breath of relief and rewound the tape.
    “What was he doing during this?” Thelma asked. “From the sound, he moves around all the time.”
    “Yes. He paces the room the whole time he’s talking. Lots of energy. He gestures a lot.” Molly used her index finger to stab the air. “Like that, and he tugs at his crotch and runs his fingers through his hair. He’s always on the move, twitchy in the extreme. Posing like a rooster, or a rock musician. And he rarely pauses for breath, so getting a word in, even if you aren’t scared and cowed like I was, is impossible. The only way is to talk right on top of his words. It’s almost impossible to talk to him.”
    Thelma was taking it all in, nodding. “I’ve seen it with the negotiators.” Her watch emitted a little beep and she glanced down at it. “Oh, damn. I need to run. I wouldn’t go, but it’s TV—Channel 33, which he watches.” She rose to her feet. “Molly, may I ask you a favor?”
    “Of course.”
    “You see now what I’m after. Would you go talk to Miz Huff for me? Ask her how I might reason with her grandson? I’d go but I have to be here. I want him to see me everywhere, on TV, in his dreams, hear me on the radio. I want him to know he can’t get away from me.”
    “I was planning to talk to her anyway. I’d be glad to ask her that. Give me the phone number and address and I’ll go tomorrow.”
    Thelma pulled a small red notebook out of her bag, looked up thenumber, and gave it to Molly along with her own phone number. “Call me when you get back.”
    Molly walked her to the door and, on an impulse, hugged her. Thelma was an armful, an earth mother, solid. “I’ll be thinking about you, Thelma. I don’t pray, but if I did, I’d pray for you and Kim.”
    “I appreciate that. If you have any more ideas, call me, Molly.”
    Molly watched her walk down the hall, her left shoulder weighted down by the heavy bag. She sighed. Ideas—yes, she thought she just might have an idea coming up. It was just a whisper in her ear, a cold tingling in the back of her brain, nothing she could put into words yet, just that restless old feeling of an idea forming.

CHAPTER
FOUR
“And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.”
R EVELATION 20:1–2
    The sound of the Bible slamming shut jarred Walter Demming back from planting geraniums in the huge terra-cotta pots on Theodora Shea’s south-facing terrace. The sun had been beating down on his bare back and his fingers were sunk deep in the damp, cool earth. He returned reluctantly and found himself sweating in the stinking air of a buried bus, with eleven hungry, frightened children, listening to a madman.
    “You heard it here!” Samuel Mordecai shouted. “We’re on a collision course with destiny!” In the enclosed prison of the bus his voice reverberated. He glistened with sweat; it had soaked