The Teratologist Read Free Page B

I’ll bet,” the barmaid chimed in. “I’ll bet you never get lucky.”
    “ I got lucky today, didn’t I? I met you.”
    The barmaid rubbed the corner of her eye, with her middle finger.
    “ You’re right,” Bryant agreed. “It’s your karma.”
    Westmore didn’t argue. “All right, there’s some historical info available about the guy, we know how old he is—oh, and I heard he wasn’t married.”
    “ Nope, never been. No kids, no rumors about girlfriends, stuff like that. A year ago there was an unauthorized biography. The hack who wrote it claimed he interviewed lots of people who went to school with Farringworth, and they all said they never saw him with a girl.”
    “ Maybe he’s a balls-across-the-nose kind’a guy,” Westmore eloquently suggested.
    “ No, because no one ever saw him with a guy, either.”
    “ If I had Farringworth’s loot I’d have every girl in the Atlanta Cheetah Club living with me, but this guy’s never even been seen with a chick?”
    “ Odd. The guy who wrote the bio said he dug back further but found nothing about his family background, either. And there aren’t any photographs of him. College graduation pic says photo not available.”
    This perked Westmore up. “So I’ll be the first—“
    ” The first guy to officially take his picture for any public forum.”
    “ What about the book? Weren’t there any pictures of him in that?”
    “ Nope.”
    “ Shit, I didn’t even there was a book about the guy.”
    “ Well, there wasn’t, really. This is just stuff that the author told me, some old putz down in St. Pete.”
    Westmore was confused, a fairly familiar condition. “Fill me in. There was a book or there wasn’t?”
    “ This guy wrote one, got a contract for it but when Farringworth heard about it, he paid the publisher ten times their projected net profits to not publish it. At least that’s what the writer said.”
    “ Farrington sounds like some kind of gunned-up Howard Hughs, recluse to the max. Then all of a sudden he agrees to be interviewed for our magazine?”
    “ Change of heart, who knows,” Bryant said, “or cares?”
    “ Yeah, and—Christ.” Westmore looked up dreamily. “I’ll be the first to get a picture of him. Why me?”
    “ Maybe it’s your karma,” Bryant alluded. “And as for the details, I guess we just sit here and wait till his people pick us up.”
    Westmore looked at his K-Mart watch. “I can’t wait too long. I want to get this done quick. My flight out is at eleven, and I want my bad-karma ass right back in this bar by seven-oh-five.”
    “ Seven-oh- five? ” Bryant questioned.
    “ The Yankees play Boston tonight. Come on, man, get with it. The Yankees, the Yankees .”
    “ Yeah, but look what’s playing now.”
    On the TV in the corner, a CNN newswoman was reciting the day’s lead story: “—when pictures of Father Thomas Corelli arrived in the mailboxes of every registered member of St. Simon’s Church. Corelli was a well-regarded pastor at the largest Catholic Church in Texas when he took a leave of absence early last month, according to diocesan authorities. However, police authorities say that the pictures depict Father Corelli engaged in various sex acts, though they wouldn’t comment further, nor would the Diocese…”
    “ Looks like the Cat-Licks are taking on the chin again,” Westmore said.
    Bryant added: “Not just the Catholics. Last week there was that report of sex videos being delivered to a local TV station in Tennessee. The videos showed a guy sodomizing a collie, and the guy was a big wheel minister for the Baptist Church.”
    Westmore gaped. “You’re shitting me.”
    “ No, don’t you watch the news? There’ve been several things like that going on the past few months. Another one in South Carolina, too, some Evangelist guy. Mpegs showed up on the internet. Same deal with all of them, they’d all either gone on vacation, or had a leave of absence. Organized religion is