THE MCJ

THE ADVENTURES OF CHRIS JOHNSON, ANGLICAN INVESTIGATOR

Chapter 1 - An Old Flame

It was hot.  Brutally hot.  It was the sort of steaming hot Missouri day that would make you punch a frail, sickly nun if she looked at you funny.  Sweat started doing a Niagara Falls down my back when I lifted my leg from the ground to the first step to my second-floor Webster Groves office.  Well, I thought, no one's coming in today.

Somehow I made it upstairs without passing out, sat down behind my desk, flipped on the air conditioner and glanced through the mail.  No bills; that was almost like free money these days.  I'd just finished paying off several "Final Notice" tabs and figured that if anybody wanted any money from me right now, they'd have to sell my truck for the parts or take one of my kidneys. 

Not that my kidneys would be worth much, if you know what I mean.  Then I looked up, saw a woman standing in the doorway and knew that the rest of my year was shot.

Her name was Nicole.  We had an intense thing once.  Interesting girl, Nicole.  Legs up to here and by "here," I mean way beyond your reach.  A face and body that could shoot you down before the line even got out of your mouth.  The sort of beautiful woman who can turn a man into a babbling, drooling idiot just by looking at him.

She dumped me way back when.  I found out when I went by her place one night and her mother, who didn't like me, answered the door.  With barely stifled delight, Nicole's mom told me, "Nicole's moved to New York, Carl."

"Chris."

"Whatever.  She asked me to tell you that she's sorry but she wants more out of life than you can give her.  She said she still really likes you but only as a friend."  And that was that.  Except for the long bender I went on shortly thereafter.   Might have been a week, I don't know. 

Now Nicole was back and suddenly I was really glad I'd just bought more bourbon because I figured I'd be hitting it real hard real soon.   "Long time," I said with no emotion whatsoever.

"Didn't have to be," Nicole replied.  "I invited you to the wedding."

She'd married some rich stiff from the Hamptons.  "I was busy that weekend."

"With what?  Buying a new liquor cabinet?  Did a new shipment of grain alcohol come in?"

"What the hell do you want?" I impatiently asked.

"Mind if I sit down?"

"It's a free country," I replied, taking a bottle of Jim Beam and two glasses out of a drawer.  "Had any breakfast?"

"It's nine o'clock in the morning, Chris."

"Suit yourself."  I dropped one of the glasses back into the drawer and poured myself a stiff one.  "What can I do for you, provided that you brought a whole lot of money along?"

"My employers want to hire you for a very special case."

"Who are you working for these days?"

"The Episcopal Church."

Damn.  "Sorry the marriage didn't work out.  What happened?  Hubby do his secretary or something?"

The hurt look in Nicole's eyes made me want to take out my Heckler-Koch and blow my brains out.  "How did you know?" she asked in a tone somewhere between hatred and fear.

"You aren't wearing a wedding ring.  And nobody takes a job with 815 unless they really need the money."

"Wow.  Anyway, the Episcopal Church wants to hire you."  She forced a smile.  "They heard you were the best."

"The Episcopal Church, huh?"  I reached behind me and pulled a file out of my file cabinet.  "You're right, Nicky.  I'm the best private Anglican dick out there.  I've done four jobs for ECUSA and all I've gotten in return are three the-check's-in-the-mail and one Johnny the D coffee mug. 

"Really amuses the power company when you try to pay your bill with one of those."  I threw the file on my desk.  "ECUSA isn't my problem anymore, babe.  If 815 wants me, they're going to have to pay in advance and we're talking Diocese of Utah endowment money here." 

"Will this be enough?"  Nicole showed me a certified check with my name on it for more money than I'd seen in ten years.   Her voice wavered ever so slightly.  "Please, Chris.  We need you." 

You had me at "please," I thought, as my guts dropped completely out of me.  Something was terrifying her.  "All right," I said, walking over to my window.  "Spill it."

"From one end of this country to the other, bookstores and libraries have been attacked.   Something like 140 documented cases and who knows how many others the authorities don't know about.  Barnes & Noble, Borders, independents, church book stores, every kind.  

"Public libraries, school libraries, university libraries, all of them have been hit.  In each attack, morning employees came in to discover that every single book in their store or their collection was replaced by books written by a single author."

"Who?"

It took her a very long time to get it out.  "Spong."  Nicole shivered with fear.  "I'll...I'll take...that...bourbon now."

I poured her one, refreshed mine and paced around the office.  "Lovely.  I guess he read that David Brooks column in the New York Times and went ballistic.  Didn't Griswold warn the media about what happens when you write about Anglicans?"

"I tried to tell him.  We need your help, Chris.  We all need your help."  She looked like she was about to cry.

"Easy, kid," I said, stroking her cheek with my index finger in that roguishly charming way I have. "I'll fix this.  I'm the best there is, remember?" 

---

Chapter 2 - An Old Enemy

But after two weeks of pounding the pavement and drinking enough Episcopal coffee to turn my stomach into fine leather, I didn't feel like the best there is.  My usual sources told me nothing.  Even Athanasius had come up dry.   

And Nicole was starting to panic.  "Attacks are picking up, Chris.  They're all over the world  now.  The Bodleian Library was hit last evening.  There are all kinds of rumors going around and people are getting really scared.  The UN called the White House, the White House called us demanding answers and we can't sit on this much longer.  You've got to do something about Spong before he takes us all down."

Suddenly it hit me as if a NatCat gargoyle had fallen on my head.  "International," I murmurred.  "That's it!!"

"What's it?"

"It's not Spong I'm after."

"What are you talking about?"

"Is Frank there?  Put him on.  Now."

"Uh...okay."  After a minute or so, Frank Griswold picked up the telephone.  "Hello.  This is Frank Griswold, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the United States of Amerca and I just want to tell you how pleased I am that you've..."

"Stick a sock in it, Grunderman."

"Griswold."

"Griswold.  One question.  Who's got the Johnny the D pulpit gig this coming Sunday?"

"Johnny the...?"

"St. John the Divine!!"

"Oh.  I believe I do.  Since the service will be nationally-televised on all the major networks, as part of our new outreach program, I'll be preaching on the fascinating subject of..."

Like fingernails on a chalk board.  "What did I just tell you about talking?!  Listen up.  You're off the card effective immediately.  There's going to be a new main event."

"Now you wait a gosh-darned minute.  You can't decide who gets to..."

I squeezed my cell phone so hard that a button I never use flew off and almost killed a pigeon.  "Let me bottom line it for you, Grinderswitch."

"Griswold."

"Griswold.  If you want me to help you with this little Spong problem you're having, then SHUT THE HELL UP, tell ENS that there's going to be a guest preacher at Johnny the D this Sunday and take the rest of the week off!  Got it?!"

"Oh...uh...okay, sure, certainly.  Who is it going to be?"

"Tell Nicole that I'll call her back with the details in a few minutes."   I hung up and dialed Canada.  "Binky?  I'm calling in a favor." 

---

Chapter 3 - An Old Friend

Working undercover as an usher, I surveyed the cathedral crowd as it walked in.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  I heard a few people wonder aloud why a conservative like Kendall Harmon would be preaching that day.  But otherwise there was nothing unusual about the crowd at all except for the old lady who came in wearing hip-hop gear and a baseball cap on backwards.  "Sup, dawg?" she asked as I handed her a program.

"Who in the world was that?" a man asked me.

"Catherine Roskam, your Suffragan Bishop."

As the processional hymn began, I walked slowly up a side aisle and studied the crowd.  The usual lot of Johnny the D NYC lefties, some of whom seemed to wonder why I was there.  But no Spong.  I heard a rumble off in the distance.  I figured it was construction guys trying to catch up.

During the collects and readings, it occurred to me that maybe this wouldn't work.  But just as the gradual hymn(God of Our Fathers, especially selected by me) began, I heard a commotion in the narthex followed by an unearthly shriek that literally made the entire cathedral shake. 

I turned and saw something that looked like a ten-to-fifteen-foot-tall and almost as wide John Shelby Spong advancing up the center aisle.  "Out of my way, fundamentalist bigots!!  That pulpit is mine!!  MINE!!" it screamed.

"Oh my God!!" someone screamed.  "It's a giant Jack Spong!!"

"That isn't Jack Spong!"  I shouted.  "That's Jack Spong's ego!"

At that, terrified parishioners began running in all directions.  Up front, Frank Griswold screamed like a little girl and dove behind the altar.  Shouting, "Yo, yo, yo, this is whack!" for some reason, Roskam tried to hide behind a chair.   It was absolute chaos in Johnny the D. 

If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs, then you've got a decent shot at making it in my line of work.  Fighting my way to the center aisle, I stood in front of Spong's rampaging ego and reached my hand into my jacket.

"You disappoint me, Johnson," Spong's ego cackled.  "If you shoot me, I'll become a martyr in the secular media and a thousand times stronger than I am now!"

"Do you really think I'm that stupid?"  I replied.  "I left my gun at home.  I just wanted to reaquaint you with an old friend."  I took out a copy of the 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer and threw it at him.  "Read, mark, learn and inwardly digest that!!"

At the sight of its deadliest enemy, Spong's ego screamed again, only this time with terror.  When the book struck it, Spong's ego began to dissolve.  "NOOOOO!!  NOOOOO!!  GET IT OFF ME!!" it screamed as it frantically tried to make it to the exit.  It never made it, dissolving into a pile of dust just before it got to the narthex.  And then there was silence.

I walked over to the dust pile and picked up my book.  "Call the sexton," I said to a stunned and frightened usher.  "And tell him to bring a vacuum cleaner."

---

Epilogue

As I leaned against the wall watching New York's finest taking statements and Red Cross and Salvation Army workers trying to comfort people, Frank Griswold approached.  "How...how...how did you know?"

"Easy.  As soon as Nicole told me the attacks had gone international, I knew that Spong's ego had gotten loose.  I figured it wouldn't be able to resist the fact that a conservative would be preaching at a nationally-televised Episcopal service."

"I don't get it.  I don't see Kendall Harmon anywhere."

"Dr. Harmon's a busy man, Frank.  If he had to fly to New York every time you screw up, he wouldn't be able to do his own job.  So I had you plant that story in ENS then I got hold of my sources in the legitimate Anglican media and spread the word that an orthodox Episcopalian would rip ECUSA a new one on national TV.  The threat alone was enough to smoke Spong's ego out."

"So Spong's ego is defeated?"

"You never really defeat Spong's ego, Frank.  But it shouldn't bother you for a while."

"Well.  Thanks.  Thanks for everything."

"Don't mention it.  And try to be a little more careful next time."

I spent the next week or so getting awards and ticker-tape parades and having people shower me with money and appearing on television programs so I didn't get back to the office for a while.  When I finally did, after wading through reporters, autograph-seekers and movie people, I had a whole lot of phone messages on my machine.  Most of them just wanted to tell me how heroic I was. 

One didn't.

"Chris," said Nicole.  "I don't know whether Frank told you this or not but I've quit ECUSA.  Lately, I've been doing a lot of thinking about a great many things.  And a great many mistakes I've made.  Bottom line is, I'm moving back to Webster Groves, I'm going to get a job back there and I'm going to stay at my sister's until I can find a place of my own.

"Now...um...I know I don't have the right to ask you for another favor, but my plane gets in Friday morning about 10:00.  I don't really want to take a cab but everybody I know is busy.  Is there...um...any chance you could give me a ride to my sister's from the airport?"

I stared at the answering machine for a long time.  Finally, I picked up the phone and dialed the White House.  "White House," someone answered.

"This is Johnson.  Give me the President."

"Oh my God, it's you.  This is such an honor, Mr. Johnson."

"I know."

"The President is in a very important meeting with the Vice-President right now, Mr. Johnson.  Can I give him a message?"

"If you'd be so kind.  I'm due in Friday morning to get the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  But tell the President that he's going to have to reschedule the ceremony.  Something's come up."