All for a Story (3 page)

Her thoughts carried her all the way through Mrs. Grayson’s cozy parlor and up the steps to her own apartment, where she came to a sharp, startled stop at the sight of a familiar form crumpled in the doorway.

“Trevor?”

At her voice, the boy lifted his head from where it had been buried in his arms. His eyes were red, ruining any chance of hiding the fact that he’d been crying the tears he seemed now determined to fight.

“Oh, Miss Bisbaine. Have you heard?”

“Obviously not.” She held out a hand to help him up, trying not to lose her own balance in the process. “Did the offices burn down or something?”

“Worse than that. It’s Mr. Moore.”

Mr. Moore. Her boss. Editor in chief and owner of
Capitol Chatter
. A small man with a bald pate fringed with hair the same length, volume, and consistency as his eyebrows. Constantly trudging, troll-like, through the tiny third-floor offices, leaving a trail of ashes from his perpetual cigar as he chomped and moaned about the lack of decent violence and vice in this hick town. He was fond of saying —daily, loudly —that all the real corruption was up there on Capitol Hill, and he was stuck with a bunch of hacks too stupid to know it and a load of readers too stupid to care.

“Did he drop dead yet?”

Trevor’s eyes grew to saucers. “Who told you?”

Take the adventure, heed the call, now ere the irrevocable moment passes! ’Tis but a banging of the door behind you, a blithesome step forward, and you are out of your old life and into the new!

KENNETH GRAHAME

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

MAXIMILIAN MOORE’S SECRETARY, Ida, had taken the telegram over the phone, and he read the message now written in her precise, efficient hand.

Edward Moore deceased. Request you come at earliest convenience to settle affairs.

Precisely who had sent the telegram was unknown. He hadn’t any other family. No cousins or siblings anywhere. Uncle Edward had been his father’s only brother, and Max an only child —his parents now deceased.

He walked over to the window and leaned his head against the cool glass, feeling very alone despite the manic activity on the street three stories below.

Three soft knocks and a muffled “Mr. Moore?” from the other side of his door sharpened his attention.

“Come in.”

Ida’s comforting, homely face poked through.

“My condolences, Mr. Moore, on your loss.”

“Thank you, Ida.”

“But he’s in the arms of Jesus now.”

Max folded the slip of paper smaller and smaller. He’d never heard his uncle Edward say the name of Jesus with any reverence, and his church affiliation seemed to be confined to the National Cathedral. Not attending, just a correspondence of letters and clippings during its construction. Still, it was not his place to judge the fate of any man’s soul, and he quietly affirmed Ida’s prophecy.

He took off his glasses, sending the whole office into a blur, and gave them an unnecessary cleaning with his handkerchief.

“Is everybody assembled in the conference room?”

“Almost everybody.”

He didn’t need to see Ida’s face to visualize the look of thinly veiled contempt.

“Now, Ida, careful, careful. She does sign the paychecks, you know.”

“With a solid-gold pen, if she could.”

He chuckled and put his glasses back on, bringing the small, tidy office back into focus. “Call for me when she gets here.”

“But you know she hates not to be the last to arrive. Likes to make an entrance, that one.”

“Indulge me. I’m in mourning.”

“Of course, Mr. Moore. I’m so sorry. My condolences, again.”

In this short span of time, sweet Ida had offered Uncle Edward more kindness than the man himself had ever extended. And just
what his “affairs” consisted of Max could only guess. The last he knew there was some sort of a small trade paper,
Capitol
. . . something —the name was on the stationery on which he’d written his annual brief Christmas note, as had been his habit since the death of Max’s parents. For a man in publishing, Uncle Edward had very few words of comfort; in fact, at the moment, Max couldn’t recall a single one.

He rolled down his shirtsleeves, fastened the cuffs, and was sliding his arms into the sleeves of his suit jacket when he heard her voice, strident and commanding, from the other end of the hallway.

“Ten fifteen is
not
ten o’clock, and we will
not
begin the meeting without Mr. Moore.”

He was giving his lapel a final brush when the door burst open, and the woman herself —Aimee Semple McPherson —filled his office in a wash of silk and fur. The rest of the world knew her as Sister Aimee, world-renowned evangelist, the woman who had literally driven from shore to shore preaching revivals, winning souls to Jesus out of the spiritual fear of his imminent return.

“Good morning, Aimee,” he said, as if her presence on the third floor were an ordinary occasion.

“Everybody’s assembled in the conference room. Everybody.” She was a small woman —smaller than anyone would imagine, having first seen her on a stage. Her dress and fur both her signature white, her face glowed with a healthy tan, and the tips of her fingernails deep red as she ticked off the list of those waiting downstairs. “Mr. Todd with the new cover, Mr. Crowley from sales and subscriptions, a few gentlemen from the radio, Mr. Lundi —everybody. We seem, however, to be missing our editor, which, in light of the fact that we are attempting to publish a
magazine
, seems to be a great, gaping maw. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Sister Aimee hadn’t built an empire by having people disagree
with her, so Max slouched a bit, hoping to appear humble, and held forth his message.

“I’ve had a bit of bad news this morning. My uncle back east —he’s passed away.”

An immediate change came over Sister Aimee as she breached the space between them and grasped his hand in hers —icy cold despite the fur. She lifted her other hand high as she bowed her head in prayer.

“Father in heaven, I come before you on behalf of this man, asking for strength and comfort in this hour of need. May you carry him through this season of mourning. . . .”

Max stood, open-eyed and fascinated. His heart joined the prayer, but his mind drank in this vision. She was America’s Angel, a woman who’d stood in front of millions of people, and here he was, a private, unworthy recipient of her intercessory power. People lined up around the block outside of her church, the Angelus Temple, with scant hope of such an opportunity.

Upon Sister Aimee’s amen, he closed and opened his eyes and said, “Thank you, Aimee,” with the appropriate warmth.

“Of course,” she said, releasing him. “Now, we’ve business to attend.”

He followed her out of his office and down the hall, staying two steps behind her clattering little shoes not out of deference but out of habit. The hall opened up to a wide, winding staircase, which she descended like royalty —one hand gliding along the polished-to-silk banister, the other poised to wave at the people below. To think, she’d walked all the way up just to fetch him.

Given the expanse of the lobby, one would never guess that the offices above it were so small and cramped. The vast whiteness of the walls was interrupted with large, impressive paintings of
biblical scenes. The ceiling stretched to the second story, where a skylight assured warmth and perpetual sunshine.

Max nodded at the two young women seated behind the enormous mahogany desk, pleased with the sweet, giggly way they returned his greeting. Tanya, one was named —the one with the soft brown curls pinned just behind her ears. And the other? Serena, perhaps —something exotic. She was newer and hadn’t yet learned all of the details that came with being in the employ of Aimee Semple McPherson, because she held her smile a little too long and let the giggle out a little too late to capture it completely behind her hand.

Without warning, Sister Aimee stopped in front of him, almost causing him to run straight into her fur, and placed her hands on the desk.

“Serena,” she said in that eerie, maternal tone she affected when addressing an underling of any kind, “do you honestly think that is the best way to comport yourself at a place of business, especially when you are representing the business of God Almighty?”

Poor Serena —yes, he’d remembered —looked toward the other girl and, stricken with confusion, said, “I’m sorry?”

“Give her a break, Aimee.”

She whirled on him, and for a moment he enjoyed a hero’s status as the pretty Serena sent a grateful smile from behind Sister Aimee’s elbow.

“Are you encouraging this young woman’s flirtatiousness, Mr. Moore?”

“Perhaps I am,” he said, growing bolder.

“At least have the decency not to indulge in such right under my nose,” she said, but a tug of a genuine smile was already forming. “And not on my time clock.”

He sent Serena a wink —something he’d done fewer than a dozen times in his remembrance —and followed Sister Aimee through the lobby to the conference room, where yet another impressive piece of furniture, this time a massive oak table, dominated the room. Twelve chairs were spaced evenly around it, ten of them filled with men of all ages and shapes. Two were empty. One conspicuously so, as its back rose high above the others at the head. The other, his, fifth down on the left. It could have been filled by anybody or, Max was certain, left empty, and no one would be the wiser.

“My apologies, gentlemen, for starting late,” Sister Aimee said, heading for her seat with the assurance that somebody would be waiting to go through the gentlemanly ritual of holding it out for her. “Mr. Moore has had some disturbing news from home —home, was it? —and we have been in a time of prayer.”

Max made his way to his own seat, saying, as both apology and explanation, “My uncle passed away.”

As a single unit, they nodded, expressing as much sympathy as each was capable. These were, after all, businessmen —lawyers, radio-air salesmen, publishers, public relations managers. Even the artists in their midst were of a commercial ilk, creating on command and within a specific frame.

Here he had brought all his journalistic dreams, heeding a call from one of Sister Aimee’s varied pulpits where she spoke of bringing the Word of God to those who might never hold a Bible. A magazine of Truth for Today, its audience the very Bride of Christ. The title —the
Bridal Call
. When he had worried that he, a bachelor and a young one at that, might be unworthy of editing such a publication, she’d laid her hands on his head and anointed him, declaring him equally worthy and chosen and hired.

And then he’d taken his spot at the table, much as he did right now.

Sister Aimee led them in an opening prayer, as she did every meeting —every gathering, in fact —and this time he dutifully bowed his head and closed his eyes, lest somebody else equally bold catch him in his disrespect. He even joined his mind and heart to her words as she acknowledged God and his power and sovereignty in their lives and homes and streets and government.

“Reaching to the height and breadth and depth of our humble temple, in the waves that carry your message through the air, in every word and page of our magazine, we dedicate the hours of our days . . .”

She never spoke that she didn’t sound like a million lost souls would find their way to salvation through her voice.

Max didn’t need salvation, not in the same way Uncle Edward did. He tried to imagine Uncle Edward sitting in this chair, his fingers stained with ink, the iron-colored rim of hair tufted in all directions from being pulled asunder with each new idea. He would have lasted about thirty seconds into Aimee’s prayer before pushing himself away from the table and declaring it was time to stop yammerin’ already and start talking about how they were going to fill twenty-eight pages when the presses rolled next Tuesday. The publishing world had been his life —no formal education, no family of his own. Just one failed enterprise after another. Rags and tabloids, most of them. Now he was dead, and a slip of paper in Max’s pocket summoned him to handle the last of the man’s follies.

He shifted in his seat, the resulting creak and squeak the only sound, as Aimee’s prayer had called them all to a silent search of hidden sin.

She ended with a plea to God that he would grant them
wisdom and fervor as they waged battle in his name, just as she always did, yet when Max finally opened his eyes, nothing seemed familiar. Or, if familiar, not comfortable. He was not a small man, but never before had the wooden armrests on the chair felt so confining. A sharp pain formed between his shoulder blades as he tried to fold himself to fit, and soon the only solution to his discomfort was to back away from the table itself and rest his elbows on the empty blotter in front of him. Such posture would have earned him a stern look from his mother, and so it did from Sister Aimee, who glowered from five seats up.

“Shall we begin?” Her question cut straight to him; he listlessly folded and unfolded Ida’s message while all around him papers were shuffled and pens uncapped. Sitting directly at Aimee’s right was Roland Lundi. Small and slick, his exact position in Sister Aimee’s army remained somewhat a mystery —something between a servant and a squire. A well-dressed toady. He handed her a page of neatly typed notes before settling back in his seat, his responsibility complete.