Grace

by Howard Owen

  Maybe, though, this time they have reason to believe. Maybe this time they won’t get played for suckers. I want to believe that Sam McNish will treat them right.

  The crowd is not all of one race, still something out of the ordinary in Richmond. And, to my amazement, there in the back of the room I see Laquinta Cole, sitting with her daughter and remaining son and dressed to the nines.

  There’s a piano down there, maybe borrowed just for this occasion. The congregation sings a couple of the hymns you only sing at Christmas, and then it’s over. The whole service doesn’t last fifty minutes.

  But near the end, before the benediction, Sam says he has one more announcement to make.

  He asks me to stand.

  “This man,” he says, “saved me. Without him, I would still be in the city jail. He believed in me. He had faith.”

  He leans forward a little so he can look me in the eye.

  “Willie Black,” he says, “I have faith in you too.”

  I mumble something and wonder what the hell he means, then sit down.

  I manage to wade through the people who want to thank me for getting their pastor out of the slammer and wish me well. It’s something journalists don’t experience very often. Frankly, it makes me a little uneasy.

  I manage to catch Laquinta and her kids as they’re walking out the door.

  She thanks me too.

  “You’ve done a lot for us,” she says, “for our whole family, in this terrible time.”

  There isn’t much I can say. I talk to a lot of people who have just been robbed of loved ones. Telling them things will get better or you know how they feel is a bunch of bullshit.

  Outside, as I’m opening the car door for Cindy, I look over and see, leaning against the Explorer, Big Boy Sunday. Then I realize the little man with him is Shorty Cole. Shorty’s still got a court date in January over l’affaire Dominick, but things could be worse. I wave from a distance. Shorty waves back. Big Boy nods. They must have driven Laquinta’s family over here and then waited outside for them.

  “Who was that?” Cindy asks.

  I tell her it’s somebody I want to keep happy.

  By the time we get back to Peggy’s, it’s after one, and everybody’s waiting for us before digging in.

  “You did a good thing, Willie Black,” Cindy whispers to me as they’re passing the turkey around.

  Maybe I did, I think, as I lean down and kiss the top of her head. Maybe I did.