The Overseer

by Conlan Brown

Devin stepped out of the coffee shop, moved to the trunk of his car, and popped it open with the remote on his key fob. Hannah was still inside, using a restroom.

  His phone chirped in his jacket. “Hello?” he said, phone at his ear.

  “Devin Bathurst.”

  Devin frowned in confusion, recognizing the voice. “Mr. Goldstein?”

  “It’s been awhile,” Clay Goldstein said from the other end of the line, voice enigmatic and strangely neutral.

  “It has been awhile,” Devin said, trying his best to get the other man to betray something in his tone. “The meeting in San Antonio, right?”

  “That sounds about right,” Clay Goldstein said with his usual casual tone. “It was the night everything went bad. Morris Childs went missing, and there was the incident between Henry Rice and Blake Jackson.”

  “Blake Jackson killed Henry Rice,” Devin said unceremoniously, seeing if his lack of finesse might draw something out in Clay’s voice.

  “That’s right,” he replied, strangely jovial, “but I didn’t call to reminisce.”

  “OK,” Devin replied, hesitantly, still deeply confused. “Then how can I help you, Mr. Goldstein?”

  There was a belly laugh from the other end of the line.

  Devin cracked an awkward smile, feeling like the butt of some kind of joke. “Is something funny, sir?”

  “Don’t call me sir. My father was sir.”

  “Very well.” Devin nodded. “Mr. Goldstein.”

  “And don’t start that either,” he said sternly. “It’s Clay, got it?”

  “OK.” Devin paused. “Clay. How can I help you?”

  “I don’t need your help,” Clay said with a certain charismatic warmth. “I’m calling because I am going to help you.”

  “Vincent Sobel made it very clear that—”

  “Vince,” Clay grumbled, “is getting a little ahead of himself.”

  Devin shut the car trunk. “What do you mean?”

  “We can discuss that later,” Clay assured. “Right now you need to get to Nevada, and you need to get there fast.”

  Devin glanced from one side of the street to the next, seeing if anyone was watching him. “What makes you think I want to go to Nevada?”

  Another solid belly laugh. “You forget that I see things as they’re happening. I may be in California, but I can still see you in the moment. And I know what you want.”

  Devin looked around the street, trying to spot anyone who might be watching him. A man glanced up at him from a park bench across the street.

  “That guy doesn’t work for me,” Clay said.

  Devin shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do.” Clay laughed. “And why do you shake your head when you’re on the phone?”

  “What do you want?” Devin demanded, turning his back to the street, speaking intensely into his phone.

  “What about you?” Clay asked. “What do you want? The sale is the day after tomorrow, and driving will take too long.”

  “You don’t see the future,” Devin said sternly. “How do you know when the sale is?”

  “Because you know. And I also know how to use the Internet.” Clay laughed. “This is the twenty-first century, you know.”

  Devin considered for a moment. “And you want to buy me a plane ticket to Nevada?”

  Another enigmatic laugh. “How does a charter jet sound?”

  John Temple wandered the halls of the hotel. Thoughts of Trista filled his head—none of them fully formed or coherent.

  How long had the thought of her been haunting him? Like his own shadow. He couldn’t seem to shake the thought of her. The desire that he had tried so hard to pray away, think away, wish away—escape. He knew that the only way to ever rid himself of his desire of her was to find comfort in God. To turn to the Word.

  “God,” he muttered the address. There was no auditory response—but God didn’t work that way. God spoke to his soul. Right?

  He stepped into the elevator and punched a button with his thumb.

  The thought of Trista’s touch. Her skin. The smell of her hair. God’s love for him was so much more real than all those things— the taste of a kiss, the feel of her arms—all of that was less meaningful than believing in a very real, very personal God.

  Wasn’t it?

  Wanting anything more than his Savior was a sin. Idolatry.

  Wasn’t it?

  “God?” he said again, nearly pleading. He couldn’t feel anything.

  The elevator doors opened, and he walked into the casino, walking through the jumbled forest of sensations. Jingling bells. Bright lights. The smell of alcohol and cigarettes.

  The kaleidoscope of sensations passed him by as he walked through the thicket. More hallways passed, a nagging feeling of need filling him and gutting him all at once.

  A hotel restaurant—he wasn’t hungry. That wasn’t what he needed. His attention moved: a hotel bar.

  John stopped, staring at the establishment. Whatever it was that he needed seemed to pull him toward the place. He took a step forward. The place was dimly lit with a circular bar surrounding a spirelike collection of alcohols in white-lit glass. Dark brown wood covered the curved walls, though they could hardly be seen through the dim light.

  He tried to remember the last time he’d had a drink. He drank lightly in foreign countries at times when it would be considered rude not to, but he’d avoided alcohol ever since he’d overdone it in college. But now he felt a desire to wash away every feeling. Everything he’d spent so much time longing for being thrown, literally, into his arms—then torn away.

  He sat down at the bar—empty except for a man in a white suit, sitting around the corner.

  “Can I get you something?” the bartender, a college-aged guy with a goatee, asked.

  John stared at him, wanting to order something that would make him forget.

  He shook his head instead. “I’ll just have a Sprite.”

  The bartender nodded. “Anything else in that?”

  “No.” John shook his head again. “Just the soda.”

  “OK,” the bartender acknowledged, reaching for a plastic cup.

  John Temple hung his head, staring at the bar, running fingers through his hair.

  “You,” a bright voice with a slight country twang laughed from the end of the bar, “must be the only other liquor-free man in this entire city.”

  John looked up to see the other man, dressed in a white suit, looking at him. “I guess so,” John replied with the most sincere smile he could muster at the moment.

  The man got up from his bar stool. “My name is Dalton,” he said with a cheerful smile, moving toward John. “Dalton Waters.” His hair was styled, jaw square. Midforties. Blue shirt with an open collar under his pristine-white jacket. A handsome man with a big smile and a mouthful of dazzling teeth. He thrust out a hand for shaking.

  “John Temple,” he replied, reaching out. His hand was pumped by Dalton’s viselike grip.

  Dalton let go and sat down next to John. “So what brings a nondrinker like you to the city of sin?”

  John shifted awkwardly in his seat, not entirely certain he wanted company. “I’m here to help a friend.”

  “Now, that is neighborly,” Dalton said with his distinct country charm. “What kind of help?”

  The bartender handed John his drink in a smallish plastic cup, three-quarters full of ice. “It’s kind of personal,” John said, not making eye contact.

  Dalton laughed. “There’s a lady involved,” he said with a self-assured nod.

  John cleared his throat, hiding an amused smile, studying Dalton’s amused smirk. He waited a moment, debating in the recesses of his mind, then nodded. “Yeah,” he said, taking a sip of his soft drink, “there’s a woman in the equation. What made you think that?”

  Dalton shrugged. “You’re alone in bar—which a nondrinker would only go to for a couple of reasons—a temporary crack in his resolve, or
serious boredom. Both are the result of avoiding something.”

  “And how do you know that reason is a woman?” John asked, confused.

  “Just a hunch, really,” Dalton said with a shrug. “And you still have a hint of lipstick on your face, which I’m doubting is native.”

  John laughed nervously and wiped his face with the back of his arm.

  “You’ll have to forgive me,” Dalton said with a continued smile. “I was a pastor in another life. I’m used to seeing people who need to talk.”

  “And you think I need to talk?” John asked.

  Dalton smirked. “You’ve been kissing a woman, yet you’re sitting in a bar all alone. I’m supposed to believe that everything went according to plan?”

  John smiled, took another sip of his soda, and realized it was already half gone. “So you were a pastor?”

  “Seven years,” Dalton said with a nod. “I’m an accountant now but still a deacon for my church. But you’re changing the subject, John.” Dalton leaned close, suddenly a bit more serious. “May I call you John?”

  “Sure,” John said.

  “So,” Dalton asked as if it were all obvious, “what’s on your mind?”

  “I just feel stupid,” John said, shaking his head.

  “OK,” Dalton said.

  “I should find fulfillment in my relationship with God, right?”

  “Ah,” Dalton said, nodding. “So you’re a religious man?”

  “Sort of,” John acknowledged. “I’m a follower of Christ.”

  Dalton clarified. “So, Christianity is your religion?”

  “Well,” John said seriously, “Christianity isn’t a religion; it’s a relationship.”

  “Oh,” Dalton said, taking a casual sip of his own drink. “And what makes you say that?”

  John frowned, not certain what this guy was getting at. “My belief in God and my practice of faith is the product of my relationship with Christ, not some list of dos and don’ts.”

  Dalton laughed for a moment, then leaned in, touching John on the shoulder. “Son, Christianity is a religion. It’s on the list of world religions, and it got on that list for good reason. And your failure to recognize that, son, is where you’re running afoul.”

  “No.” John shook his head. “Following Christ is a relationship, and that’s what makes it different from every other religion on the face of the earth.”

  Dalton leaned back, spreading his hands grandiosely. “Christianity is not a religion; it’s a relationship?” He shook his head. “That’s a slogan, son. A PR statement designed to make a religion more pleasant to the unreligious.”

  “But Christians respond out of God’s love for them,” John argued, “not out of an attempt to earn it.”

  Dalton cleared his throat. “Son, it doesn’t matter if you pray to the east, feed rice to a statue, dance for rain, or have a ‘quiet time’ with God and sing bad acoustic rock songs—they are all actions meant to worship a god or gods.”

  “I don’t agree.” John frowned, wondering how he’d gotten drawn into this. “Christians—true Christians—aren’t motivated by the same things.”

  “Maybe”—Dalton shrugged—“but probably not. What you’re spouting is a list of slogans and bumper stickers.”

  John thought for a moment. “Christian chic,” he said absently, remembering the phrase from somewhere else.

  “Christian chic.” Dalton smiled. “That’s a good term for it. But Christianity is better because it’s the truth. And you’ve really got to get to the basics—the fundamentals and beyond— to really follow God through religion, or He is never going to be able to use you.”

  John sat for a moment, thinking, considering everything that was being said to him. “Do you think that’s my problem? That I haven’t embraced religion enough?”

  Dalton was quiet for a second. Then he took the last sip of his soda and set the empty plastic cup on the bar. “I think God brought you here, to this moment, and it’s my job to tell you what the Lord told me—that He wants to bless you. But you’ve followed Him only so far and stopped short.”

  “Where do you think I’ve fallen short?” John asked, studying the other man.

  “I just met you”—Dalton shrugged—“your walk with the Lord is between you and Him. All I know is that there aren’t any riches or blessings or glory in wandering into a bar with a woman’s lipstick smeared on your face.”

  John let his forearms rest on the bar, shoulders relaxing as he considered what was being said to him. This man knew that God had brought him here, knew that something was wrong. Perhaps this was the place where he needed to be. Maybe this was what he needed to learn. Maybe this was his chance to truly listen to counsel. Not just on personal things, but also on the nature of God and faith. “What do I need to do?”

  “You need to follow the Lord more nearly,” Dalton said definitively. “We all do.” He tipped his cup back, crunching a cube of ice. “You can always do more. Give more. Sacrifice more.”

  “Like what?” John asked, feeling as if he somehow belonged— that he’d found someone who understood him.

  “Read your Bible more. Tithe more. Serve more. Sacrifice more of the worldly things that distract you from the Lord. Do more good and less evil,” Dalton said in a nurturing tone. “It doesn’t matter who you are—there is always some way that you are holding back from the Lord—and you will never be of any use to Him until you’re willing do everything that He asks of you.”

  John found himself hesitating to agree. “It’s just that now is such a—”

  “We always want to put things off. But when the Lord comes back—and it’s going to be soon—and you’re standing before Him, what do you want to hear: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant’? Or ‘You could have done more’?”

  John sat for a moment, letting it all sink in.

  Dalton spoke before John had any response. “Of course you want to be right with God. That’s why you’re here—now. You know you’re holding out on God, and you’re slapping Him in the face and mocking His sacrifice of Jesus on the cross by not being your absolute best for Him.”

  John felt something in the pit of his stomach—a sickening feeling. He felt a kind of disgust—a feeling he couldn’t find a word for. Conviction, he thought. The feeling was conviction. It was God telling him to do more—that was it; it had to be. Regardless of his personal feelings, it was still counsel. Important counsel on an important issue.

  He thought of Angelo’s warning about Trista, that the Thresher was seeking to kill her. Maybe this was the answer. Maybe this was the way to save her—to renew his devotion to God.

  He turned to Dalton. “What about you?” he asked. “How are you following God more closely?”

  Dalton’s smile seemed to fade a bit. “I’m following God with everything I’ve got.” His tone became more somber with every word. “There was a time when I gave God only the table scraps of my life—but then I started to follow Him. Truly follow Him.” Dalton turned his head, watching the hotel foot traffic pass outside the bar. “Then I stepped onto a narrower path and felt the presence of God for the first time ever. But it faded over time. But each time my path narrowed a little more I started to feel Him again.”

  “And?” John asked, still searching for the answer to his original question.

  Dalton continued to look out of the bar. “And now I’m getting ready to make the biggest sacrifice of my life.”

  Whatever it was that John felt, the sensation was growing stronger. He studied Dalton’s features for a minute: an intense look of resolve. John spoke. “What do you hope to do?”

  Dalton traced the grain of the bar’s wood with his ring finger. “I’ve come here to fight the devil,” he said with a grin.

  John tried to process the words. “How?”

  “Ancient monks,” Dalton said, “used to come out into the desert—what they referred to as the wilderness—with the specific intention of doing battle with the devil.”

 
“Really?”

  Dalton nodded. “They believed that the demons lived in deserts—not unlike the one we’re in right now. They swore off the civilized world and went out into the wilderness to test their strength. I’m doing the same.”

  John thought for a moment, reevaluating everything about Dalton Waters. And yet he seemed fully together—handsome face, perfect hair and teeth, pristine suit. He seemed sane enough. “How?” John asked.

  Dalton smiled—small and discreet, almost mischievous. “You have time to go for a walk?”

  “I’m still not certain I understand,” Hannah said as they pulled up to the small private airport.

  “Neither do I,” Devin said without taking his eyes from the road, maneuvering his car gently.

  She sat quietly while Devin parked the car, watching him steer with precision. They were walking toward the paved airstrip when she finally spoke. “Do you think this might be some kind of trick?” she asked, hoisting a duffel bag over her shoulder.

  “It may very well be,” Devin agreed, placid as ever.

  Hannah didn’t want to seem critical or rude, yet she spoke her mind as tactfully as she knew how. “Does it seem wise to do this if you have doubts?”

  The small charter jet, parked on the landing strip, seemed to grow in size as they got closer. “There’s obviously tension between Clay Goldstein and Vince Sobel. I don’t know if Clay is trustworthy, but this may still be an opportunity.”

  Hannah kept walking. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend?”

  Devin nodded without saying anything, arriving at the jet’s open hatch.

  “Mr. Bathurst?” the pilot asked. Devin nodded again. “Right this way.” They stepped onto the plane and were shown to their seats.

  Hannah sat, buckling herself in, one of the flight crew taking her bag. The contents included a change of clothes that Devin had bought her at a department store and the handguns that he had found at the motel—something she was hesitant to see in the hands of someone else. Her attention shifted to the jet door as it was lifted up, her last chance to get off the plane slipping away. One of the crew pulled the door snuggly into place, then latched it. Whether she liked it or not, she was committed now.