The Angels' Share

by R. R. Irvine

  “I thought we should talk to the Farnsworth girl before leaving town.”

  “I don’t remember being consulted.”

  “They live in The Cove. We can pick up the Bonneville Freeway from there.”

  Martin sucked a breath as if preparing to argue. But a fit of coughing doubled him over. Half a minute went by before he calmed enough to swallow another mouthful of medicine.

  Traveler pulled over to the side of the road and stopped. “I think I’d better take you home, Dad.”

  Martin’s answer was to make a show of sniffing fumes from the open bottle. “Here I am, a sick old man on my way to be cured by faith healers and you’re making detours.”

  Traveler forced a smile. For the first time all day Martin sounded like himself.

  “Are you drunk?”

  Martin held a cupped palm in front of his face and blew into it, as if trying to smell his breath.

  “Here,” Traveler said, handing over a package of spearmint gum.

  With a grin, Martin fed a stick into his mouth and began chewing elaborately. After a moment he breathed into his palm again. “There’s nothing like the smell of a Jack Mormon.”

  “You’ve never been a member of the church in good standing, so you don’t qualify.”

  “Are you sure of that?”

  “Don’t go maudlin on me and start confessing the sins of your youth.”

  “That’s no way to speak about your mother.”

  “You’d better give me that medicine for safe-keeping.”

  “You drive, I’ll drink,” Martin said, but screwed the cap on just the same and slipped the bottle into the glove compartment.

  Once Traveler was back on the road, his father said, “Claire is a lot like your mother was, you know.”

  Traveler took his eyes from Thirty-third South long enough to check his father’s expression. But Martin was leaning back against the headrest with his eyes closed.

  “They were both lost to us right from the beginning.”

  Traveler stared straight ahead.

  “Kary was so beautiful.” Martin seldom referred to his wife, Traveler’s mother, as Kary. “Like Claire, she could stop a man’s heart.”

  They were passing Twenty-seventh East, heading up into the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains. Though the temperature was still in the high eighties, the gray granite peaks, Brigham Young’s barrier against his eastern enemies, looked cold and uninviting.

  “Unfortunately, it wasn’t my heart she was interested in,” Martin said, stretching until his hands touched the windshield.

  “I know the feeling.”

  “I’ve never given you advice about women before, have I?”

  “Not in so many words.”

  Martin chuckled. “Don’t worry. I’m not about to start now. Still, speaking as a detective, have you ever thought of hiring one of our colleagues to keep an eye on Claire? That way, the next time she calls you’ll be one up on her.”

  “She goes a month between calls sometimes. I couldn’t have her followed that long.”

  “Kary taught me enough about women to know that Claire’s not going to wait that long, not after today’s performance. You can take my word for it.”

  “Rest your throat, Dad.”

  “If a son’s going to tell his father to shut up, that’s as nice a way as any to do it.” Martin settled back in his seat and pretended to snore.

  Traveler turned right on Wasatch Boulevard and then left on Millcreek. The community known as The Cove was nestled at the base of Mount Olympus, part of the western face of the Wasatch Mountains. They were well over a mile high at this point, more than a thousand feet above the valley floor, and the air was a good five degrees cooler than downtown.

  The Farnsworth house had attempted a modern style but concessions to Utah’s winters had destroyed the effect. Too much gray brick and concrete had seen to that.

  Traveler, with Martin at his side, rang the bell. A moment later the drapes on a front window parted and Suzanne Farnsworth peered out. Her face, which showed no signs of recognition, disappeared when Traveler smiled.

  Nothing happened for nearly a minute. Traveler was about to ring again when the inner door opened. The screen door, of heavy aluminum that would convert to a glass storm door in winter, remained in place.

  “My father’s at work and my mother’s at the store,” she said.

  “This is my father, Suzanne. We’d like to talk to you.”

  “My father doesn’t want me letting people in when I’m here alone.”

  “We can talk out here if you’d like.”

  Traveler and Martin backed away from the door so she wouldn’t feel threatened. She joined them on the concrete slab that served as a walkway.

  “I need to know more about your fiancé,” Traveler said.

  “Like what?”

  “You told me that he called himself a missionary of the damned in his last letter.”

  She nodded.

  “Did he often write things like that?”

  “Of course not.”

  “What would make him do such a thing?”

  Next door a neighbor came out and started watering, an obvious ruse to eavesdrop.

  “You’d better come inside,” Suzanne said.

  She held the door for Traveler and his father, leaving it unlocked as if to make escape easier if need be, and then ushered them into a living room that smelled faintly of chocolate. The room itself was large, a good twenty by thirty feet, with light-brown wall-to-wall carpet, over which clear plastic runners had been laid creating paths to other rooms. The furniture looked brand-new and gave the impression of having been selected from black-and-white catalog photographs, with a resulting mix of colors that clashed violently. The white plaster walls were uncluttered by paintings or other decorations.

  Traveler and Martin sat on a maroon davenport facing a feather-rock fireplace in which nothing had ever been burned. Directly in front of them a glass-topped coffee table held carefully arranged magazines, The New Era and Improvement Era, both church publications. Suzanne settled into an adjacent chair, matching the sofa in style but whose color reminded Traveler of a soda fountain drink of his childhood known as a Green River.

  “You were about to tell me why your fiancé might call himself a missionary of the damned.”

  “But I don’t know.”

  “Was it a religious statement on his part?”

  “We’re both members of the church. We didn’t need to talk about it.”

  Martin spoke for the first time, his voice hoarse. “Young men about to go on missions usually talk about their work.”

  Suzanne blushed and looked away. “We were in love. When we were alone we necked. I wanted to get married right away, but Heber said the mission came first. He could quote Joseph Smith by heart, you know. He made me learn it, too.”

  She paused. Her head tilted to one side as if she were listening to something beyond their hearing. “ ‘Go in all meekness, in sobriety, and preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified; not to contend with others on account of their faith, or systems of religion, but pursue a steady course. This I delivered by way of commandment, and all who observe it not, will pull down persecution upon their heads, while those who do, shall always be filled with the Holy Ghost; this I pronounced as a prophecy.’ ”

  Suzanne ducked her head as if embarrassed by her performance, then reached beneath her chair and brought out a box of chocolate-covered cherries. She popped one into her mouth before absently offering the box to Martin and Traveler. Both declined.

  “He sounds like a religious young man,” Martin said.

  “Heber’s parents expected it of him. So did my father.” She fed another chocolate into her mouth.

  Traveler picked up a copy of Improvement Era. The mailing label was addressed to Bishop Newell Farnsworth. “Has your father ever tried other religions?”

  She swallowed abruptly. “Is that some kind of trick question?”

  “He intr
oduced us to a man called Orson Pack and made certain we all shook hands.”

  “Uncle Orson, you mean.

  Both Traveler and his father nodded.

  “We’re on our way to see him,” Martin clarified. “At least I am.”

  Suzanne put her chocolates down on the coffee table and stared at him intently for a moment. “He‘s really my father’s uncle, but I call him Uncle just the same. He‘s been spending the holidays with us as long as I can remember. Every Thanksgiving he brings pies he makes himself from home-grown pumpkins. Heber met him here on Thanksgiving two years ago. They talked for hours.”

  “What about?” Traveler asked.

  She blushed again. “I didn’t hear all of it. I was helping Mom with the food and washing dishes most of the time. But they talked about God a lot. Once, when they didn’t know I could hear them, I heard them discussing sex. Uncle Orson wanted Heber to think about what he was doing.”

  “In what way?”

  “He knew Heber and I were lusting after each other.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that,” Martin said.

  “Uncle Orson doesn’t believe in sex or children.”

  18

  THE CITY of Provo, thirty-five miles south of Salt Lake, is the home of Brigham Young University. It was also the birthplace of Traveler’s father who, once they were inside the city limits, insisted that they pull over to the side of the road and listen for meadow-larks. Their song, he’d been saying ever since Traveler could remember, sang the praise of his hometown.

  Martin whistled a meadowlark’s tune and then, as always, sang the words he said went with it. “Provo is a pretty little place.”

  There was no answer to his call. The only birds in the neighborhood were sparrows, and they weren’t singing.

  “This all used to be open fields,” Martin said, staring up at Mount Timpanogos, an 11,750-foot peak in the Wasatch Front that overshadowed Provo. “I remember hiking on the glacier up there as a kid. There was nothing like it. The air was crisp and clear. It was like that down here, too. I could smell the mountain pines every day when I was walking to school.”

  Martin searched for his youth with a deep breath. What he found sent him back to the car for a swallow of cough medicine.

  “That was before the steel plant got built,” he explained when he came up for air.

  Traveler grunted and started driving again. Their destination, the Missionary Training Center, was, like most Mormon architecture, plain and functional. So were the young men in evidence. They all had short hair and wore two-piece suits with white shirts and ties.

  “It reminds me of the army,” Martin said. “You go ahead and take care of your business. I’m going to walk around for a while.”

  “Listening for meadowlarks?”

  “You never know.”

  Traveler watched until Martin turned the corner and disappeared from sight. His chances of finding meadowlarks were about as good as Traveler getting what he wanted out of the bureaucracy inside.

  The only security in evidence was a waist-high counter. Behind it were several desks, each with its own computer terminal and operator typing in information, and a middle-aged man whose face looked too innocent to be anything but a bishop in the making.

  “I’m Elder Dixon,” he said. “May I help you?”

  “I have a nephew who’s overseas on a mission. I haven’t seen him in years and wanted to find out how he’s doing. Or if he needs anything.”

  “Are you talking about a donation?”

  “I have my checkbook with me.”

  “What is your name, sir?”

  “Martin Armstrong,” Traveler improvised. “My nephew is Heber Armstrong, named after the church president and prophet.”

  “Do you understand how we work?”

  “It’s been a long time,” Traveler said, as if implying that he had once been on a mission himself.

  “Here at the center we’ve taken a page from the military. We look upon this as boot camp for God’s recruits. Our missionaries are cut off from the secular worries of the outside world. Their only concern is to work hard in the name of the Lord. After all, we have very little time to get them ready for foreign service.”

  “It must be difficult teaching language and custom.”

  The elder’s nostrils flared as if he’d caught the scent of sin, like cigarette smoke, clinging to Traveler.

  “Our studies here concentrate on memorizing appropriate areas of The Book of Mormon. Surely you know that. The techniques of door-to-door salesmanship must be taught. You can’t count on people to recognize the truth without a fight.”

  Traveler hoped a nod would suffice.

  “Each of our missionaries is endowed with the Holy Priesthood and is sent forth as a minister of the restored Gospel of our Lord and Savior. Now, what was the name of your nephew again?”

  “Heber Armstrong.”

  Elder Dixon relayed the name to one of the young men, who immediately began typing information into his computer terminal.

  While they were waiting for the information to be processed, the phone rang. The other young man in the office answered. “It’s for you, sir,” he said to Dixon.

  He squinted at Traveler before turning away to pick up the receiver. A moment later he swung back to look Traveler up and down. “He‘s about six feet four inches tall, maybe two hundred and thirty pounds. Dark hair. Blue eyes. Strange blue eyes.”

  The elder stopped speaking and began to nod. When he hung up the phone a few moments later, his hands were shaking. “Are you going to leave or should I call the police?”

  Traveler handed the man a business card and quoted The Book of Mormon on his way out. “ ‘Yea, verily, verily I say unto you, if all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever.’ ”

  Martin was waiting in the car.

  “Did you hear any meadowlarks?” Traveler asked.

  Martin whistled as if checking pitch, then sang, “Provo is a pretty little place.”

  Traveler shook his head. “We’d better get going. I don’t want to hit the High Uintas in the dark.”

  19

  THEIR ROUTE took them northeast on Highway 89, a steady climb into the Uinta Mountains. When they’d left Provo at five in the afternoon the temperature had been eighty- four degrees. By the time they reached Kamas at the edge of the High Uinta Primitive Area two hours later, the Jeep’s heater was having a hard time keeping them warm.

  They filled the gas tank at the Chevron station and asked direction to the Saints of the Last Day.

  The attendant, a weatherbeaten man wearing a blue baseball cap with BYU lettered in white on the front, gave Traveler a funny look and shrugged. “Only thing I know for sure is that we’re getting snow tonight.”

  “In July?”

  “When you’ve lived in these mountains as long as I have, mister, you’ll know better than to count on it being summertime.”

  “If you’ve been here so long, you ought to know where we can find the Saints.”

  He scratched one of his dark, shaggy sideburns. “If you was LDS, you’d know a Saint when you saw one.”

  Martin stepped in front of Traveler and said, “I’m on my way to meet with Brother Orson Pack. Maybe you’ve heard of him.”

  The attendant took off his cap, exposing his shiny bald head. “You looking for a cure?”

  “What I’m looking for is information.”

  “You might try the café,” the man said, running a hand over his head before pointing down Kamas’s main street. “You can’t miss it. All the sinners eat there sooner or later.”

  THE KAMAS CAFÉ was written in blue neon. Coors Beer blinked in red. Cigarette smoke mixed with the smell of hamburgers and French fries billowed out when Traveler opened the door.

  Inside there was standing-room only and enough noise to make conversation impossible at anything but a shout. Men and women were lined two deep along a bar
that ran the length of the building, which was knotty pine from floor to ceiling. Judging by the looks of the rough-hewn wood, the café went back to the days when Kamas had been carved out of the surrounding forest. The same wood had been used to build booths along the two walls on either side of the bar. Tables lined the other wall. One of them, the table nearest the jukebox, had two people—a man and woman dressed in cowboy hats, jeans, and boots—and four chairs. Martin went over to them and bent over the table until his head was only inches from theirs. After a moment, he glanced back at his son and waved at him to join them.

  “Meet the Hansons,” Martin bellowed as soon as Traveler sat down. “Gwen and Lester. They’ve invited us to share their table.”

  Both had the bloated look of beer drinkers, with red, fleshy faces as bright as the Coors neon outside.

  The woman, somewhere in her forties, leaned so close Traveler could taste her perfume. “Your father tells us you’re a professional football player.”

  Beneath the table Traveler clenched his fists. His father knew how much he hated playing the good old boy in bars, slapping backs and trading memories. They inevitably led to pain, and sometimes violence.

  “That was a long time ago,” he said through his teeth.

  His father smiled apologetically, pointed to his mouth, and chewed up and down to show he was hungry.

  A sudden lull in noise level made conversation possible at something less than a holler.

  “Goddamn,” Lester said. “I remember you now. One crazy fucker on Monday Night Football. Named after an angel, someone said once. But you played like the devil.”

  Gwen’s eyes brightened. “You still look good enough to play.” Her long red nails, nearly an inch beyond her fingertips, clacked on the tabletop.

  “Crippled some poor bastard, didn’t you?” Lester went on.

  “Is there a waitress?” Martin asked. “Or do you have to get your own food around here?”

  “I’ll put in a word for you,” Lester volunteered. “What would you like to eat?”

  “What’s good?”

  “Nothing. But everybody comes here for the burgers anyway.”

  “Two burgers it is then. And two beers.”