went on up to Harvard and now you're some kind of fuckin' atheist. You're a big-time science lover, bragging on it all the time, they tell me. You're getting to be a big influence around here. And you are not a friend of God and His people."
Raff squeezed silently past LeBow and Rainey and walked toward the exit. The automatic rifle fire started up again.
LeBow shouted after him, "You're one of the deceivers! You're working for the Antichrist and maybe you're too stupid to know it. You're pulling people away from God's Will and God's Word!"
Raff reached the door to the outside, but LeBow caught up with him, and now said in a normal voice close to his ear, "You better listen to me, Raphael. You better change your ways while you still have time!"
35
RAFF EXITED HENRY'S Guns and Shooting Gallery and walked on down Oak Street as fast as he could without breaking into a run. He turned onto Bledsoe Street and continued until he reached the entrance to the Sunderland Office Building. He squeezed into the elevator, which was crowded with employees returning from their lunch hour. Arriving at the executive office floor, he waved away a staffer trying to hand him a file folder, went into his office, closed the door, fell into a swivel chair, and speed-dialed Bill Robbins.
The answering machine announced that the journalist was in the field on assignment and would be back the next day. He didn't like cell phones: "It scares the birds." Raff then remembered that Robbins was with a small group of ecologists visiting the Red Hills, just north of the Mobile-Tensaw Delta. They were going to explore a backcountry tract containing remnant old-growth pine savanna and hardwood-clad ravines.
Raff left a message, "Hey, Bill, must talk. Please call. Urgent."
There was nothing left for him to do for the while except try to calm down. He walked back out of his office, collected the file folder, walked back in, and put it on top of papers already stacked on his desk. He stared at the pile several minutes, keeping his hands folded in his lap. Then he got up and walked over to the window. Looking out at nothing in particular, he mentally rehearsed his bizarre encounter with Reverend Wayne LeBow. That resulted in no new insights. After a while he sat down again at his desk. This time he buried himself in paperwork.
Late that night, while Raff was getting ready for bed and distracting himself with a WBC welterweight championship fight on television, Robbins finally called. He said he was dead tired, begged off, and offered to come over first thing the next day.
Early the next morning they met for breakfast in the first-floor cafeteria of the Sunderland Office Building. As soon as they were settled, Raff said, "I think I just got a death threat." He then gave as verbatim as possible an account of his conversation with Wayne LeBow.
"Well, congratulations. You just met the Sword of Gideon," Robbins said. "I remember I warned you about those people before. Now it looks like they think you're a pretty important guy around here and want to do some pushing around. I know that outfit a little. Rob Davis, on Channel Eight News, talks about them once in a while. LeBow is your classical egomaniac rabble-rouser of the kind that spring up like mushrooms around here. He's actually pretty well educated. He spent a couple of years at Auburn University, can you believe that? With a major in religion studies. He's not a real minister, at least not ordained by any place I ever heard of. He's actually a guard captain at the Monroeville Prison. I hear he's always jabbering at the inmates about finding Jesus. He just took over a little church near there. What's its name?"
"Church of the Eternal Redeemer, I think he said."
"Yeah. Well, anyway, LeBow's a piece of work. But you know, he's not that far out down here in South Alabama. A lot of the country people, not to mention working folks in and around Mobile too, have more or less the same ideas. Jesus is coming in our lifetime, and we better be ready. It's called the Rapture. The ones who've been saved will go right up bodily, Jesus leading the way. LeBow's just taken the prophecy to the extreme. What's worrisome is he's getting aggressive and he's pulling in a lot of followers. That little church is packed every Sunday. He's building a cult,