The Angels' Share

by R. R. Irvine

  “And Charlie?” Traveler said.

  “He doesn’t care,” Bill said, speaking for his Indian companion as usual. “He says the Navajos have been living in hell ever since the white man arrived.” He pointed at the nearest of the lobby’s Doric columns and then raised his finger, as if following the path of the marble to the vaulted ceiling overhead. There Brigham Young led a wagon train across the length of a depression-era fresco. “Religion in the hands of a white man is a dangerous thing, Charlie says. God is—”

  “Moroni,” Barney interrupted, “would you care to flaunt the Word of Wisdom and join us in a cup of coffee?” He never joked about church commandments in the presence of those who might be offended.

  “It’s too hot,” Traveler said.

  Barney handed him a paper cup anyway. It smelled of wine.

  “Charlie spiked it,” Bill explained as he disbursed sticks of spearmint gum, the usual remedy against the smell of sin in Mormon country.

  Today Bill was wearing khaki shorts and a T-shirt that said PRAY FOR SALVATION on the front. Usually he wore long robes to go along with sandwich boards. He was Traveler’s height and thin everywhere except his stomach.

  Bill gulped his coffee and said, “Sodom and Gomorrah is at hand. When that happens I’ll take my rightful place as true prophet.”

  Traveler only grunted. He‘d heard it all before.

  “Don’t look so skeptical, Moroni. This time it’s true. Even Charlie agrees.”

  Everyone looked at the Navajo, whose expression might just as well have been carved on a cigar store Indian.

  Bill said, “Lead the way, Charlie.”

  The Indian hitched his Levi’s and headed for the revolving door, an art deco relic from the thirties. Traveler followed in his aromatic wake, a mixture of alcohol, tobacco, sweat, and hair oil. Barney and Bill brought up the rear.

  The Navajo stopped in front of a newspaper rack that was chained to a lamp post at the corner. Behind the plexiglass cover a huge black headline declared: WOMAN BUTCHERED.

  As Traveler stared at it, heat from the sidewalk came right through the soles of his shoes. Charlie, who was wearing moccasins, began shifting his weight from foot to foot and humming as if he were performing some kind of ritual dance.

  Traveler leaned over to read the small print but it was hidden beneath the fold.

  Charlie held his hand out like the experienced panhandler he was. Traveler filled his palm with loose change. The Indian nodded and pounded the rack with his fist until it sprang open, providing him with a free copy of the Tribune’s street edition.

  As soon as Traveler accepted the newspaper, Charlie pocketed the coins and then danced down the block toward West Temple Street, quickly disappearing around the corner.

  “Godspeed,” Bill murmured before standing on tiptoe to read over Traveler’s shoulder while Barney, a foot shorter, began pounding on the newspaper rack in hopes of freeing his own copy.

  Despite the size of the headline, the story was only four single-sentence paragraphs.

  A savage killer struck early this morning, brutally stabbing a young woman to death in Glendale Park on the west side of town.

  Police say the partially clad woman, as yet unidentified, may have been the victim of some kind of ritual mutilation.

  Tests are still being conducted to determine if the murdered woman was sexually molested.

  Officer Tim Marshall, who discovered the body when responding to an anonymous phone call, told the Tribune, “I’ve never seen anything like it. And I hope I never do again.”

  “You see,” Bill said, “God has turned his back on Zion.”

  Traveler, whose feet felt as if they were on the verge of broiling, only shook his head. Arguing with Bill never got him anywhere.

  “My turn will come.” Bill laid a hand across Traveler’s shoulder. “The Sandwich Prophet ruling in Zion with my own version of the Angel Moroni at my side.”

  With his other hand, Bill gestured to Barney, who reluctantly allowed himself to be taken under the prophet’s wing.

  “My faithful flock,” Bill said.

  Traveler ducked free. “Someone’s chasing your first apostle.”

  Despite the heat, Charlie was loping toward them up South Temple.

  “They’re gaining.” Barney pointed at the two young men in suits and ties who were close on the Indian’s heels.

  “I recognize them,” Bill said. “They and their kind prey on Lamanites.”

  Traveler raised his eyebrows at Barney. They both knew that The Book of Mormon referred to Indians like Charlie as Lamanites, declaring them to be direct descendants of the lost tribe of Israel. Jesus was said to have honored the Lamanites by journeying among them as the great white God Quetzalcoatl.

  “Come on,” Bill said, trotting forward. “We’ve got to save him.”

  Timing was such that they all met in front of the Chester Building, even the two pursuers, who were totally out of breath and sweating so badly their gray suit coats were soaked through around the armpits. In this kind of desert heat such dress marked them as either FBI agents or Mormon missionaries, both of whom traveled in pairs, adhering to strict codes.

  Looking at these two, Traveler decided they were too young to be anything but agents of faith.

  Charlie whispered something in Bill’s ear.

  “They picked Charlie up going into the Era Antique Shop,” Bill relayed.

  Charlie confided something else.

  “They interrupted his pilgrimage before he could provide an offering for our church.”

  Traveler resisted the temptation to translate that, since the look on Barney’s face said he already understood. Charlie thought the white man owed him a living, so he helped himself by shoplifting wherever the pickings were easiest.

  “Local missionaries are the worst,” Bill rambled on. “Since they never leave Utah, their targets are more limited. Seeing Charlie must have been like manna from heaven.”

  “He didn’t have enough time to whisper all that in your ear,” Barney complained.

  “We have our own language.”

  The two missionaries were staring at Bill’s T-shirt.

  “We know you,” one of them said.

  “They think I’m the devil,” Bill said, looking pleased.

  “I’m looking for a missionary who’s here in Salt Lake,” Traveler told them. “Maybe you know him. His name is Heber Armstrong.”

  The pair stepped back almost in unison. The look in their eyes said it was Traveler who was the devil, not Bill.

  3

  THE ADDRESS Suzanne Farnsworth had given Traveler lay high on the city’s north bench, on 8th Avenue between F and G streets. To get there Traveler drove toward the Wasatch Mountains, whose glaciered peaks reminded him of the crusted jaw of some ancient carnivore. Brigham Young, fleeing from religious persecution in Illinois, had crossed those heights at the head of a pioneer wagon train in 1847. For years afterward the Wasatch served as a barricade against his eastern enemies, better than any manmade citadel. On the west lay another vast barrier, the Great Salt Lake. Between the two of them, he built his city. His glory, the faithful called it, a town laid out according to holy logic, with all life radiating out from its hub, the temple. Even the street names were part of his religious master plan. Those directly adjacent to the temple were named East Temple, North Temple, West Temple, and South Temple. Next came First East, First West, First South, and First North. Farther out were lettered streets and avenues, a rational progression all the way to the city limits. Recent years had brought with them the secular chaos of progress, until now Brigham’s city was called Greater Salt Lake, with over a million people and everything that went with them.

  By the time Traveler found the number he was looking for, a red warning light glared from the Ford’s dashboard. The car was overheated and so was he. When he stepped out onto the street the asphalt felt gummy underfoot. He estimated the temperature at a hundred and five.

  The house was one
of those bleak two-story brick bungalows so common to the Avenues, built to survive winters instead of scrutiny. Erected on rising ground, it had small windows, a gray tar-paper roof, and a rickety wooden stairway clinging to one outside wall. Some time in the distant past it had been converted to a duplex.

  A wooden porch in need of paint, with a waist-high railing, ran across the front of the house. The porch roof, supported by white columns that looked vaguely Ionic, provided a balcony for the second floor. At the moment, the house was closed against the heat, with shades drawn at every window.

  The backyard, part of which Traveler could see down a long grease-spotted driveway, was dominated by a magnificent elm tree. At the point where its lowest limbs branched out from the trunk, a good-sized tree house had been built. Though dilapidated by time and tilted by tree growth, the structure still looked impressive. It had a pointed, churchlike roof, complete with a wooden cross at its apex. Its one window, opaque with grime, was long and narrow, as was the door, still in place despite being out of plumb.

  As a boy Traveler had longed for such a hideout. He was mulling over the trees of his youth, comparing them with the elm, as he mounted the steps to the front porch. He failed to notice the man in the wicker chair until he stood up.

  Traveler tensed. “Is this the Armstrong house?”

  The man looked Samoan, or maybe Tongan. Both countries were prime target areas for Mormon missionaries. Both produced big, tough men, like the one facing him. Whether missionaries recruited them out of religious zeal or to fill the ranks of Brigham Young University’s football team Traveler didn’t know. This one ignored the question.

  “BYU?” Traveler guessed out loud.

  The man, who was the right age to play football, nodded. He had a fifty-pound edge on Traveler, who himself weighed close to two twenty.

  “Samoan?” Traveler said.

  The nod gave way to a negative headshake.

  The last Tongan that Traveler had played against in professional ball bit when the referees weren’t looking.

  “You look like a tackle,” Traveler said.

  “Nose guard.”

  “And here?”

  “I keep my eye on things.”

  “By that I take it you mean the Armstrongs.”

  The Tongan folded his arms, quite an achievement considering how much muscle got in the way.

  “Are they home?”

  “Go ahead and knock. I won’t stop you.”

  The door opened before Traveler had time to raise his hand. The woman who stood there, squinting at him against the sunlight, was using both hands to tuck strands of gray hair beneath a wig of shiny red curls that bounced with a life of their own.

  “Mrs. Armstrong?” he asked, reading her as grandmother instead of mother.

  “That’s right.”

  “I’m looking for Heber Armstrong.”

  The porch creaked as the Tongan shifted his weight.

  “His fiancé has asked me to help find him,” Traveler added.

  A man appeared at Mrs. Armstrong’s shoulder. He glared at Traveler. “Just who the heck are you?”

  Traveler removed his wallet and displayed a photostat of his license.

  “Heber’s our son all right,” the man admitted.

  Traveler had been expecting a couple in their forties, maybe even late thirties. After all, Mormons married young, so it wasn’t uncommon for missionaries to have parents still bearing offspring. But the Armstrongs were well beyond that age. Sixty, he estimated, with the same kind of worn-out, depression faces that haunted the farms of southern Utah.

  “I’ve never seen a private detective before,” the man said. “Except on TV.” He had the look of someone who’d recently lost weight. His T-shirt, stained around the armpits, was too big for him. So were his work pants. His slippers were mashed down around the heels.

  He held out a leathery hand. “I’m Klaus Armstrong. You might as well come in. Isn’t that right, Doris?”

  His wife answered with a glare hostile enough to make the Tongan flex his muscles.

  “The longer we stand here,” Klaus said, “the more heat we let inside.”

  “We don’t have to talk to him.” Mrs. Armstrong adjusted her wig with a jerk hard enough to start its Shirley Temple curls vibrating again.

  “Come on, Mother. I feel sorry for that Farnsworth girl.”

  “You feel sorry for everyone but me,” she said, but moved out of the way so Traveler could step across the threshold. As he did so, the Tongan went back to his porch chair.

  Klaus led the way into a small, darkened living room. “We don’t like turning on the lights in this kind of weather. It’ll be a scorcher in here soon enough.”

  As soon as Traveler found his way to an overstuffed chair, he closed his eyes to help them adjust to the gloom. He didn’t open them again until Klaus said, “I never thought to see a private eye here in Zion.”

  The Armstrongs had arranged themselves side by side on a sofa facing him. Flanking the sofa were end tables crammed with photographs in stand-up frames. Every available surface in the room—the TV, the mantel, the bookcase—were similarly arrayed. He assumed all of the photos to be pictures of Heber, though the childhood poses bore little resemblance to the young man in Suzanne Farnsworth’s snapshot.

  “Tell me what’s being done to find your missing son,” he said.

  Klaus started to speak but Doris silenced him with a jab of her elbow. “Suzanne phoned here yesterday. She didn’t have the courtesy to come in person. No, indeed. Nobody in that family has set foot in this neighborhood since they moved to The Cove. They’re too good for the likes of us now.”

  “Now, Mother,” her husband chided.

  She gave him a scathing look. “I’ll tell this detective the same thing I did her. If our son had come home, don’t you think we’d know it?”

  “That wasn’t my question.”

  “You’d think our son had committed a crime or something. But I’m his mother and I know better. He‘s a victim, not a criminal. You can be sure of that.”

  “I was told that he disappeared while on a mission. Is that correct?”

  She pulled a tissue from the neck of her faded housedress and dabbed her nose. “As soon as he went missing, they told us to prepare for the worst. I won’t do that. Not ever. My boy will come home to me. A mother knows such things.”

  She lowered her head, allowing her husband to speak. “Everybody—the police, the church—said the same thing. When someone disappears you’ve got to figure the worst. We’d go to England and look for him ourselves but we don’t have the money, not after paying Heber’s expenses.”

  That, Traveler knew, was the Mormon way, parents and friends paying for a missionary’s work so the church itself would never be out of pocket.

  “Suzanne Farnsworth is certain that she saw your son here in town two days ago.”

  “Hot flashes, if you ask me,” Doris said.

  “Now, Mother,” her husband said, taking hold of her arm. “Be charitable. It’s probably just wishful thinking on Suzanne’s part. We can’t blame her for that.”

  The woman broke free of his grasp to wander around the room, fondling one framed photograph after another. She kissed the one that showed her son in a Little League uniform.

  “Heber was a late-life child,” Klaus explained. “We’d just about given up having children when he came along.”

  His wife clasped the frame against her bosom. “We never stopped praying then and I won’t stop now.” She sank down on her knees. “We named him after one of our beloved prophets in the hope that the church would be his true calling.”

  “Don’t get the wrong idea,” Klaus said. “He was a regular kid. He played baseball all the way through high school.”

  His wife nodded. “That was part of God’s plan. When our Heber got to England he organized a team to attract young people. It was a wonderful success. He set a record for conversions in a single day. I have a letter from his mission lea
der that says so.”

  Klaus’s fingers intertwined as if preparing for prayer. “His third baseman was the first to join the church. Soon after, the whole team did. Heber had no way of knowing that one of their parents would attack him.”

  “He was fighting the Lord’s battle,” Doris added.

  “He had no choice. He had to defend himself.”

  Until that moment Traveler had never considered the fact that each convert left behind family, friends, and clergymen, any one of whom might decide to retaliate against Mormonism. It was as good a motive as any for Heber’s disappearance.

  “He broke the man’s nose,” Klaus added with a sense of pride. “There was threat of a lawsuit but nothing came of it.”

  “Did your son have any close friends here in the neighborhood?” Traveler asked.

  Husband and wife exchanged questioning glances. It was Klaus who said, “They’re all away on missions except one.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Ned Cody, but he’s lost his way from the church.”

  “He works at the Dairy Queen on Eleventh East,” Doris said, as if that were hell itself.

  “And the Tongan outside?” Traveler asked.

  Cartilage popped in her knees as she struggled to her feet. “He‘s a friend of our bishop who needed a place to stay for the summer. We’re letting him live in the apartment upstairs.”

  “In this kind of weather,” her husband went on, “the heat up there is unbearable. That’s why he spends most of his time on the front porch. Even that gets too hot in late afternoon when there’s no more shade.”

  “He looks like a bodyguard to me,” Traveler said.

  Mrs. Armstrong turned away, pretending to dust her photograph.

  “Or a jailer,” Traveler added.

  Klaus, though appearing to stare Traveler in the face, focused somewhere else in time.

  “Did your son live here at home before he left on his mission?”

  The woman spun around. “He didn’t live with that girl, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I was just wondering about his room, that’s all. I thought maybe I could see it.”

  “Why?”

  “If I’m going to look for him, I’d like to know him a little better.”