Sacred

“Revelation,” I said.

“Yes. The ‘watershed’ of Level Two.”

“What’s it called in Level Three?” Angie said.

He checked his notes. “Epiphany. You see? It’s the same thing. In Level Four, it’s called the Unveiling. In Five, it’s Apocalypse. In Six, it’s called the Truth.”

“How biblical,” I said.

“Exactly. Grief Release is selling religion under the pretext of psychology.”

“Psychology,” Angie said. “Which is, in and of itself, a religion.”

“True. But it isn’t an organized one.”

“The high priests of psychology and psychoanalysis don’t pool their tips is what you’re saying.”

He tapped his coffee mug into my own. “Exactly.”

“So,” I said, “what’s their objective?”

“Grief Release?”

“No, Rich,” I said. “Burger King. Who are we talking about?”

He sniffed his coffee. “Is this the extra-caffeine kind?”

“Richie,” Angie said. “Please.”

“Grief Release’s objective, as far as I see it, is to recruit for the Church of Truth and Revelation.”

“You’ve proved their connection?” Angie said.

“Not so as I can print it yet, but, yeah, they’re in bed together. The Church of Truth and Revelation as far as we all know is a Boston church. Correct?”

We nodded.

“So how come their management company is out of Chicago? And their real estate broker? And the law firm which is currently petitioning the IRS for religious tax-exempt status on their behalf?”

“Because they like Chicago?” Angie said.

“Well so does Grief Release,” Richie said. “Because those same Chicago firms handle all their interests, too.”

“So,” I said, “how long to link the two in newsprint?”

He leaned back in his chair, stretched and yawned. “Like I said, at least two weeks. Everything’s buried in dummy corporations and blinds. At this point, I can infer a connection between Grief Release and the Church of Truth and Revelation, but I can’t prove it in black and white. The Church, anyway, is safe.”

“But Grief Release?” Angie said.

He smiled. “I can bury them cold.”

“How?” I said.

“Remember what I told you about all the steps in each separate level being essentially the same? Well, if you look at it from a benevolent point of view, they’ve found a technique that works and they just utilize it with different degrees of subtlety depending on the level of grief the particular person is suffering.”

“But if you look at it less benevolently.”

“As any good newspaperman should…”

“Goes without saying…”

“Then,” Richie said, “these people are first-class grifters. Let’s look at the Level Two steps again, bearing in mind that all the other steps in the other levels are the same thing under different names. Step One,” he said, “is Honesty. Essentially what it says—you come clean with your primary counselor about who you are, why you’re there, what’s really bugging you. Then you move onto Nudity, which is stripping your entire inner self bare.”

“In front of whom?” Angie said.

“Just your primary counselor at this point. Basically all the little embarrassing shit you hid during Step One—you killed a cat as a child, fucked around on your wife, embezzled funds, whatever—it’s all supposed to come out during Step Two.”

“It’s supposed to roll off your tongue,” I said. “Just like that?” I snapped my fingers.

He nodded, got up, and refilled his coffee cup. “There’s a stratagem the counselors use in which the client disrobes, as it were, in pieces. You start by admitting something basic—your net worth, perhaps. Then the last time you told a lie. Then maybe something you did in the last week which you feel shitty about. And on and on. For twelve hours.”

Angie joined him at the coffee maker. “Twelve hours?”

He grabbed some cream from the fridge. “More if necessary. I’ve got documentation on those discs of these ‘intensive sessions’ lasting nineteen hours.”

“Is it illegal?” I said.

“For a cop it is. Think about it,” he said and sat back down across from me. “If a cop in this state interrogates a suspect for one second over twelve hours, he’s violated the suspect’s civil rights and nothing that suspect says—before or after the twelve-hour point—is admissible in court. And there’s a good reason for that.”

“Ha!” Angie said.

“Oh, not one you law-and-order types like all that much, but let’s face it: If you’re being interrogated by a person in a position of authority for more than twelve hours—personally I think ten should be the limit—you’ll stop thinking straight. You’ll say anything just to end the questions. Hell, just to get some sleep.”

“So, Grief Release,” Angie said, “is brainwashing clientele?”

“In some cases. In others, they’re accumulating vast stores of private knowledge about their clients. Say you’re a married guy, wife and two kids, picket fence, but you’ve just admitted you go to gay bars twice a month and sample the wares. And then the counselor says, ‘Good. Excellent nudity. Let’s try something easier. I have to trust you, so you have to trust me. What’s your bank PIN code?’”

“Wait a second, Rich,” I said. “You’re saying this is all about getting financial information so they can, what, embezzle from their clients?”

“No,” he said. “It’s not that simple. They’re building dossiers on their clients which include complete physical, emotional, psychological, and financial information. They learn everything there is to know about a person.”

“And then?”

He smiled. “Then they own them, Patrick. Forever.”

“To what end?” Angie said.

“You name it. Let’s go back to our hypothetical client with the wife and kids and covert homosexuality. He moves from nudity to exhibition, which is basically admitting ugly truths in front of a group of other clients and staff. From there, he usually goes on a retreat to property they own in Nantucket. He’s been stripped bare, he’s a shell, and he hangs out for five days with all these other shells, and they talk, talk, talk—always ‘honestly,’ laying themselves bare over and over in an environment controlled and protected by Grief Release staff. These are usually pretty fragile, screwed-up people, and now they belong to a community of other fragile, screwed-up people who have as many skeletons in their closets as they do. Our hypothetical guy, he feels a great weight lifted. He feels cleansed. He’s not a bad person; he’s okay. He’s found a family. He’s reached Revelation. He came in there because he was feeling desolate. Now he doesn’t feel desolate anymore. Case closed. He can go back to his life. Right?”