Father Barnes must have sensed the very same thing, his quick pace placing him in front of the men outside the bar entrance first as I struggled to catch up to him. I watched with a mixture of panic and confusion as the priest withdrew his gun and held it in his right hand as he addressed the men.
“Go with God gentlemen! And I promise, if you even think of touching my truck over there, you will be going with God very-very soon! Am I making myself clear?”
The mouths of the five men fell open, their eyes wide as they stood in stunned silence. Finally the shortest of the five stepped forward, a Hispanic man no older than thirty. His dark hair was shaved close to his scalp, a single, black, tear drop tattoo placed below the corner of his right eye. A gold crucifix hung prominently around his neck.
“You really a priest?”
Father Barnes nodded, his voice a low growl.
“Yes I am, son.”
The man stared back at the priest, glanced at me, and then looked over at the parked pickup truck.
“Ok, I’ll keep an eye on the truck for you if you say a prayer for my grandmother. She’s dying of the cancer, you know? Can you do that priest? We have a deal?”
Father Barnes’s demeanor immediately transformed from one of dangerous aggression to compassion. In that brief moment, I saw him as a simple and caring servant of God.
“What is your grandmother’s name, son?”
The Hispanic man lowered his eyes to the ground, the love of his dying grandmother threatening to overcome him.
“Antonia Molina, Father. She raised me since I was a little chico, you know? She always tells me I got to get right with God. She just told me that tonight before I went out, and now here you are, a priest, in a place like this? So maybe, maybe it means something huh? Maybe you can pray for my nana, huh?”
The priest’s eyes softened as his right hand rested atop the Hispanic man’s shoulder.
“I will pray for your Antonia tonight my son. And I will pray for you as well.”
Father Barnes turned to me and motioned to follow him inside. As I passed the group of men, I noted the appreciative smile from the grandson of Antonia Molina as he watched the priest enter the bar. The man appeared quite willing to defend the pickup truck with his life.
The interior of the Black Cat was even more depressed than the outside suggested. Its low ceiling made the place feel cave like, and the badly stained, torn and frayed reddish carpet only added to the mood of hopeless regrets and desperation. The patrons assembled were an assortment of young and old, but all sharing a common thread of appearing quite lost, their eyes hidden behind a haze of alcohol, drugs, and barely contained aggression.
“THIS is where Gabriel is supposedly living? The guy you say helped you come up with an anti-cancer treatment?”
Father Barnes was intently scanning the room, trying to spot Gabriel.
“Actually, this is exactly the kind of place I could see Gabriel calling a temporary home. Even when he seemed upbeat, happy, there was always a darkness to him, a permanent kind of melancholy. Like I told you Mr. Bennington, toward the end, I was seriously considering having him evaluated. The man, for all of his intelligence and attempts at good intentions, is a mess emotionally. He needs help.”
The priest continued to look around the room, and then pointed toward a narrow hallway to the right of the bar.
“That has to be the way upstairs to the apartments. Let’s go.”
As we made our way toward the hall, I sensed several pairs of eyes watching us closely. A heavy set, bearded man moved from behind the bar to intercept us before we reached the hallway, his right hand pushing back against the priest’s chest.
“You two look lost. You need directions on how to get the hell out of here?”
Father Barnes smiled back at the bartender, and pointed toward a stairwell that was now visible at the end of the hallway.
“Just here to see a friend – church business.”
The bartender crossed his arms over his chest, looking back at Father Barnes with open disdain.
“Oh, is that right? Well, you won’t find no god or religion here priest, so how about you just move your ass on out of here before you get hurt.”
I stepped forward, deciding to engage in something of a bluff.
“We’re associates of Ivanka and Arman Vetrov. They sent us here to check in on someone we believe is living upstairs.”
The bartender stared at me, his eyes narrowing.
“You know Arman? You and this priest? Bullshit.”
Good, Arman has a presence here. I figured he had to show up from time to time if Ivanka was sending some of her girls here for Gabriel. I can use that to scare the hell out of this wanna be thug bartender.
“Yeah, I know Arman. We’ve done some work together. And Ivanka is a good friend of mine. So like I said, we need to check upstairs, ok? Now if you want to try and stop us, well, I’m gonna have to let Arman know that, and things are gonna get rather uncomfortable for you real soon. Unless you think Arman has gone soft or something? If so, I can tell him that too.”
I watched with satisfaction as the bartender glared at me, his inaction proof he was no longer so certain whether or not we knew Arman and Ivanka, and that uncertainty was going to be enough to let us pass.
“Who you trying to find up there?”
The priest took a step toward the bartender, his face just inches from the man’s dirty, tobacco stained beard.
“That’s our business, so we done here?”
The bartender paused, teetering between wanting to attack, and fearing potential repercussions from Arman.
“Whatever, man. Knock yourself out.”
The bartender stepped aside to allow the priest and myself to walk past him into the hallway and toward the awaiting stairs at the other end.
We passed a single door to our right first, the bathroom, apparently used by both men and women. The smell of piss and shit permeated the hallway.
‘How in the hell do people live like this?”
The priest paused at the foot of the stairs to look back at me.
“These poor souls aren’t living. They’re zombies, moving in place amidst the deadly routine of drink and drug, trapped in wretched, twisted cages of their own making.”
“Yeah, and that leaves me still wondering why this Gabriel of yours is hanging around a place you admit is a hellhole.”
Father Barnes took a step up and then turned back to me once again.
“First, Mr. Bennington, Gabriel is not MINE, understood? Second, as I already stated, it is the very nature of this place that I am certain attracted him here. He, like them, is a lost soul in need of desensitization, so what better place than this to hide himself among the damned?”
I shook my head while holding my hands out from my sides.
“Hey whatever, Father. Let’s just go check that room and get the hell out of here.”
At the top of the stairs was another narrow hallway, which had the added bonus of smelling of rotting garbage and rodents. I made a mental note to let Ivanka know just how disgusting and dangerous this place was. If she were to see it, there was no way she would be conducting any business here.
“Ivanka said room three was at the end of the hall.”
The priest walked purposefully toward the end of the hallway, knocking lightly on room three’s door as he stood waiting for a response. When none came, he knocked again with considerably more force.
“Gabriel, it’s Father Barnes! I need to speak with you!”
We both waited silently, as the stench of the hallway seemed to grow heavier, pushing down upon us. The priest placed his hand on the door knob and attempted to turn it, but found the door locked.
“Looks like we go back downstairs and camp out for a while, see if he shows up.”
The priest was about to reply when both he and I turned toward the sound of approaching footsteps coming up the stairs. A tall, very thin man appeared, his unkempt, coal black hair hanging
in a tangled mess over his shoulders. He wore a long, dark overcoat, and deeply scuffed, military styled boots.
My eyes locked with the stranger’s, which appeared oddly translucent. Perhaps a trick of the poor lighting? I could hear Father Barnes whisper a name as the man stared back at me, a thin smile forming on his lean, gaunt face.
“Gabriel.”
19.
“Hello, Victor. Who’s your friend?”
Father Barnes took a slow, half step forward, clearly believing Gabriel would take flight at any moment.
“This is Frank Bennington. We’re trying to save a life, Gabriel. My research, they shut me down.”
Gabriel issued a brief moment of soft laughter, the sound momentarily drowning out the more mundane noise of the bar patrons in the room below us.
“I told you they would do that, Victor, but you were too busy pretending to be God, thinking you had discovered the answer to the riddle. Your pride has brought you here, and now you ask for help from one you would have locked away in a hole, left to live out the remainder of his days poked and prodded, tested and questioned. I came to you as a friend, an admirer of your work, your dedication, your willingness to see outside the box of established medicine and greed approved mandates. And yet, despite our success, despite my help, you thought me a threat? A danger? You forsake my good intentions Victor. So go, you do not belong here, and I have little patience to pretend otherwise.”
I knew the priest wanted me to keep quiet, but if this guy was able to help us save Dedra, I wasn’t about to just hang back in the shadows and see how the reunion between Father Barnes and Gabriel turned out.
“Look, there’s a woman dying. She needs the treatment Father Barnes was providing her, but he doesn’t have access to the formulation, but he said you might remember.”
Gabriel’s right hand flashed upward, his pointer finger jabbing several times against the side of his temple.
“Oh, I remember all right. I remember EVERYTHING!”
I stepped past the priest, not looking to see if he approved of my doing so.
“Good, then you can help us to save this woman. Please, she needs our help.”
Gabriel closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then lifted his head upward so his eyes were looking directly at the low ceiling above us.
“Oh, I am sure she does, Frank Bennington, but she is but one of many. This world cries out for such help, every second, of every minute, of every hour, of every day. Right now a child is dying in the arms of its mother, or a mother is dying in the arms of her child. War, famine, disease, these are but the all too predictable results of existence. So why should I care for a single woman’s demise? Is she any more important than all those others? Are you? I grow so tired of this world and its pain, and the never ending arrogance of human kind.”
I glanced toward the priest, who gave his head a slight shake as if to say, “I told you so.” Gabriel was proving as mentally unbalanced as Father Barnes had warned.
“Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.”
Gabriel’s soft laughter again reverberated against the narrow walls of the hallway.
“You quote scripture to ME, Victor? Such arrogance!”
The priest took several steps down the hall, his eyes flashing with the rage building within him.
“And you would deny the truth of that scripture, Gabriel? You have the power to help save a life! It is your duty to do so! Enough of your bullshit! Enough of your words! Be angry with me – fine! But don’t allow that anger to be taken out on the life of another who needs your help. That is a sin against God.”
Gabriel’s head lowered, his eyes looking out from under half lowered lids, the same thin smile he had first greeted us with showing itself once again.
“And what do you know of God, priest?”
Father Barnes took two more steps toward Gabriel, his voice lowering to a near whisper.
“I know enough that He wants us to help when and where we can. Despite whatever feelings you have regarding me Gabriel, you know I’m right when I say you should help us to help this woman. And not just her, but this will eventually allow us to help others as well. Isn’t that what you wanted all along? Isn’t that why you showed up at my lab in the first place - to help others?”
Gabriel looked past the priest toward me, his opaque eyes seeming to swallow the dim light of the hallway instead of reflecting it.
“And what of you, Frank Bennington, do you presume to know the will of God?”
I stood to the right of the priest and shook my head.
“Hell no, I don’t even presume to know myself. I figure God and me will square up someday, hopefully further up the road, but until then, I’m just happy to roll my old ass out of bed in the morning, have a decent meal, a nice Scotch, and if it’s a real good day, a good woman to share it with. Guess I’m a simple pleasures kind of guy, you know?”
Gabriel clapped his hands together, delighted at my response, his thin smile growing wider, exposing a row of jagged, mismatched, nicotine stained teeth.
“Oh I like you, Frank Bennington! Finally, a bit of honesty between us! Now I’m interested! Yes, I think I would like to talk to you! Victor, wait for us downstairs, your friend and I are going to have a conversation in my room, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll decide to help this poor woman you speak of.”
I could sense the priest preparing to refuse Gabriel’s request. Turning to face him, I whispered my own demand.
“This isn’t your call, Father. He wants to talk, fine, that’s what I’m doing. If it means we have a chance to save Dedra, then that’s what’s gonna happen. So you do as he says, and go downstairs and save some souls, or have a drink, or whatever you got to do to pass the time.”
The priest glared at Gabriel, who remained standing at the top of the stairs, and then whispered back to me.
“He’s dangerous, unpredictable, possibly psychotic. I don’t like the idea of you being alone with him.”
I shrugged and smiled.
“Father Barnes, I spent many years handling the careers of politicians. Dangerous, unpredictable, and possibly psychotic was pretty much a typical workday for me.”
The priest’s concern for my well being remained undeterred.
“Here, at least take my gun.”
I pushed the weapon back toward Father Barnes.
“I think it’s better you keep that with you downstairs. I’ll be fine Father, really.”
I turned to see Gabriel making his way toward us, his body seeming to grow larger with each step, the shadow of his passing filling the hallway around him. Then he stood directly in front of us, his face appearing even more shockingly thin and malnourished than it had from a distance. Gabriel was at least half a head taller than the priest, though possibly just half Father Barnes’s weight. The long overcoat hung on his narrow, bony shoulders like it would on a coat rack.
“Right this way, Frank Bennington.”
Gabriel strode toward the door to room three and withdrew a key, unlocking the door and then disappearing inside.
The priest’s right hand clamped down onto my left shoulder, his powerful fingers like a vice.
“Watch yourself. If you’re not back downstairs in thirty minutes, I’m coming up, and if that door is locked, I’ll be breaking it down.”
I gave the priest a short nod and then moved to the half open door of Gabriel’s room. It was dark inside, and no sound of Gabriel could be heard, though my mind pictured him standing very still on the other side of the door waiting for me to enter, that odd, thin smile creeping across his face.
Maybe I should have taken that gun after all…
20.
“Welcome to my little cave of contemplation.”
Gabriel’s arms opened with a flourish, each hand extended toward opposite walls of the small room. There were very few furnishings. A narrow, single mattress bed was placed against the far right wall, and next to that, a rickety three l
egged wood table atop which was an already open, half empty bottle of red wine, and an old coffee can being used as an ash tray. A government banned, single overhead, incandescent bulb lit the room, casting a faint yellow glow onto each of the walls, nearly all of which were covered with sheets of paper: articles, photographs, and handwritten notes. Neatly stacked piles of paper, books, newspapers, and magazines covered much of the dirty, faded wood floor. One portion of the wall to my immediate right had a large, brightly colored poster of the Eiffel Tower. The small space reeked of cigarettes.
Private Detective: BENNINGTON P.I.: A thrilling four-novel political murder mystery private detective series... Page 44