“I hear that.”
“Find Hope and tell her to bring you out of here through the Revelation Road. Take the girl somewhere where Soto won’t find her. Leave the church and its safety up to me.”
Sister Hope was kneeling in the corner of a doorless white stone room carved out of the inner wall of the courtyard. He suspected that she was praying for the spirits of eaten children.
“Hope,” he said softly.
She stood up automaton-like and turned her huge head and face toward him.
“Yes, Brother?”
“Frank told me to ask you to get Ms. Milne and show us the way out down something called the Revelation Road.”
“Certainly.”
Hope walked across the yard with measured steps and climbed a rough-hewn ladder up to the second tier of the fortress wall. Then she disappeared within the catacomb inside.
Xavier sat at one of the outside tables and wondered about the inevitability of a violent death.
He had always been a fighter. Ambidextrous, naturally strong, and bathed in the hormonal chemistry of rage—he had never backed down and rarely lost a contest. This state of being for him was natural, like rats in an alley or the sun chasing after the moon. He didn’t realize that he was an evil man until the day that he and Frank sat and talked in that dark bar. He wasn’t able to remember most of the words that passed between them. All he knew was that he’d follow Frank anywhere. Right after that initial meeting Frank took Xavier up to Seabreeze City to spend three weeks in a solitary fourth-floor room that faced the ocean. Food and drink were brought for him at regular intervals and there was a bathroom down the corridor.
He met with Frank every Wednesday and Saturday and sat on the back pew at the services on Sunday. He attended the Expressions but was asked not to speak or comment.
He was instructed in how to pray by giving life to the Spirit rather than asking for boons, apologizing for being human, or thanking the Infinite for being.
He disliked Guillermo but still considered him a brother. They were all on the same page of damnation and they all worked hard to dispel the stench of their lives.
Soto might have shot him in the main hall; or Ecks might have killed the cop. But these actions were not from hatred, not hatred of each other. And even if they despised each other they were still brothers—even in conflict.
Xavier smiled and shook his head.
Always give yourself enough time to reflect, Frank had said on more than one occasion. The Infinite always takes the right step. We are like the Infinite, only infants that are, ever so carefully, experimenting with first attempts at walking.
“Mr. Noland?”
Doris Milne was wearing a green dress with yellow polka dots that came down just below her knees. The neckline was high and the sleeves short. Her pumps were medium gray and she carried a small pink suitcase that Xavier did not remember bringing.
“Where’d you get the bag?” Ecks asked.
“Sister Hope gave it to me. I didn’t have anything the right size.”
Hope was standing there behind the girl.
We are all sinners, Frank said at some point in every sermon. Xavier understood this claim more and more each day.
Inside Frank’s antechamber, behind an antique African tapestry depicting an early European settlement somewhere on the Ivory Coast, was a doorway that Xavier had not seen before. The tapestry was composed like a rude painting, with some people made from white cloth and others rendered in red. Frank had explained that the red people were the whites whose skin flushed under the strong African sun.
“And the white ones are black like me,” Ecks had said.
“Amen, Brother.”
The doorway led to a ladder that carried the trio down forty feet or so to a wide tunnel that had been excavated and reinforced decades before.
“Bootleggers once used this route to move their liquor and guns,” Hope said.
“You mean this wasn’t always a church?” Xavier asked.
“It was always a house of worship,” she replied. “Sometimes their intentions had gone astray.”
The tunnel went on for nearly a mile until they came to another ladder. At the top was a door that was disguised from the outside as a stone slab. They exited into a cave where the smell of the ocean was strong.
Outside, from behind a stand of coastal mugwort brush they came to a parking lot not twenty feet from the sand beach. The lot was made for eight or nine cars but there was only one vehicle there—a dark green 1961 Cadillac with its stubby fins and heavy white shark form.
“This is the minister’s private automobile, brother,” Hope said. “He asks everyone who borrows it not to dent it—if possible.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“It’s only a car,” Hope said.
Knowing her past, Xavier thought that he understood what she meant.
“So,” Xavier said as he drove the Fleetwood in heavy morning traffic down the coast highway, “how did those two thugs know to come to the house?”
“What?”
“Come on now, Doris. Two men came to the Culver City house to remove evidence and burn the place down. They even had a plastic body bag with them.”
“Did you kill them?”
“I’m asking the questions.”
“I … I knew somebody was coming but I didn’t call them.”
“You knew that they’d get rid of your aunt’s body.”
“She called them. She told me that they were going to do scorched earth on the house.”
“What about the body bag?”
“Isn’t that obvious? That was meant for me.”
“The note came from your hotel.”
“Auntie had a whole stack of that stationery. If you have the note you can see that it’s in her hand. Anyway, I don’t know how to write.”
“So you figured they’d take Sedra out with the bones. That way there’d be no evidence against you.”
“I didn’t know what would happen, not exactly. It was her plan.”
“But her death was definitely first-degree, premeditated murder.”
This time Doris merely nodded.
“You’re a very dangerous woman, Ms. Milne. And, you know, coming from me that’s saying something.”
“I did what I had to do,” she said in an odd tone.
“Did your aunt Sedra used to say that?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“How many of the children buried in the vault did you kill?” Xavier asked.
“None.”
“You sure?”
“I helped Sedra kill the two men and a woman, but the children were either sick or they got in trouble. One came to us with a broken arm and Sedra told me to kill her but I said no.”
“And what about the adults?”
“She’d tell me to drug them, then use the bat.”
“How old were you?”
“I was thirteen when we killed Mr. Moulton.”
“Who was he?”
“Him and Brayton used to bring babies together every few months or so, but then Mr. Moulton wanted to bring us kids on his own. He didn’t know that Brayton had a deal with the people Sedra used to find the kids’ homes. When Mr. Moulton brought us his first kid without Brayton, Sedra told him that they’d celebrate the new arrangement with a glass of wine. She told me that when he started talking funny, I should run out and hit him with the bat or he’d kill us all.”
“Why did you kill Sedra?”
“Because she was going to kill me. Because she said we were going to go away but I knew I didn’t have a passport and she had always said that she couldn’t take me anywhere without a passport.”
“Do you feel guilty about killing her?”
Doris turned her head to regard her new acquaintance.
“No,” she said. “I’m scared to be alone. I don’t have a passport or anything.”
“Had you been thinking about killing Sedra before yesterday?”
“
I thought about it. I thought that if she ever tried to kill me or anything that I’d have my bat. I used to practice hitting a tree in the backyard sometimes, and if she ever asked me why I’d just say that I wanted to be ready if she needed me to use it again.”
“Why did you worry about her hurting you? You said you thought she loved you.”
“When she’d drink she’d tell me she had done terrible things. She never said what exactly. She said that if I ever knew what she’d done, she’d have to kill me so that I would never say. She said that because I was an accomplice in what we did to those people she didn’t have to worry about that, but the other things …”
For a time after that they sat in silence. Doris turned away, then rolled down her window, allowing the smell of the sea to rush in. Unexpectedly the odor calmed Xavier. He hadn’t realized that he was getting riled listening to the crazy logic of the young woman’s life—not until the atmosphere of salt and sea wrapped around him.
Taking in long breaths, Xavier felt a wolfish smile form on his lips. This, he knew, was a kind of anticipation, the way he felt before he and Swan would go out and transact business.
“You bruised my chest,” Doris said, looking out her open window.
“Huh?”
“When you hit me at the house.”
“I was trying to break your jaw.”
“Are you going to have sex with me?”
“What?”
“Sex.”
“You keep asking me that,” he said.
“Men always want to have sex. Aunt Sedra told me so.”
“She also said that your parents were dead and that they didn’t want you back.”
“So?”
“She lied. Everything was a lie. That house, the adoptions, you needing a passport … Everything she told you was untrue. So if you want to know the truth, just think of what Sedra told you and the opposite is the right answer.”
Doris turned in her seat, bringing her left thigh up to lie flat on the emerald cushion. The skin flashed white beneath the green of her hem.
“I’m not wearing my panties.”
“Oh?”
“And I shaved my pussy so there’s only a razor line of hair pointing down at the clit. The hairs fan out like a feather.”
Suddenly Xavier yanked the steering wheel to the right. The Cadillac jerked and Doris yelped. Two cars behind honked long and loud but Ecks paid them no heed. He pulled off onto a slender shoulder perched twenty feet or so above the beach.
He turned like she had, pulling his right knee up, revealing a portion of his sheathed knife.
“Listen here, girl. You need to understand something. Most men are walking down the street not thinkin’ nuthin’ special. Pizza they ate last night. The ache in their gut. Maybe they’re worried that they’re gonna get fired or found out. They see a young thing like you and they might think, ‘Hey, she’s pretty,’ and walk on. But you come up and start talkin’ about your panties, pussy, and clit and they will get a hard-on. They will. But not ’cause they want sex—it’s because you want them to want to have sex. That’s what your aunt taught you. She taught you how to be a whore.
“Whores make men want to have sex and then they get paid for givin’ it. Whores do that. The only woman I want to have sex with wants to have sex with me. If she don’t want it, I don’t want it. You understand that? It’s not a trade-off but a give-off.”
It was then that Xavier realized that Doris was trembling. He had lost his temper again. He had crossed the line that Father Frank had drawn for all the parishioners of his church.
“I’m sorry,” he said, sitting back against the Fleetwood’s door.
“A-a-about what?”
“I just got mad there. Instead of makin’ me want sex you got me mad. Pretty young woman like you should be all nervous about what’s under your dress and in a man’s pants. It should make you giggle and blush.”
Xavier turned back to the steering wheel, looked over his left shoulder, and pulled out into the crowded highway. A car or two honked briefly but there was no collision.
A few minutes later she said, “Sometimes Sedra made me be with men that hit me.”
“Do you remember Brayton bringing you three blond baby boys?” he replied.
“Yes.”
“You do?”
“It was a few weeks after Little Mr. Smith died. I remember that they were so cute, but I wouldn’t give them names because of how hurt I was over the baby dying.”
“What happened to the boys?”
“People came and took them.”
“All three together?”
“No. They each went with someone different.”
“Do you remember anything about the people they went with?”
“Can I come stay with you if I promise not to talk about sex?”
“What?”
“Hope said that you were taking me someplace to hide while you found out what to do about Aunt Sedra and the house.”
“No, baby. I mean … yeah, I am gonna take you someplace, but you can’t be with me. All the women stay with me got their panties on … at least at first. No, you can’t stay with me.”
“I have underwear in my bag.”
“Do you remember anything about who took those boys?”
“There was a nice couple. I think their name was Brown, something like that,” she said. “If I promise to be good can I stay with you?”
“No.”
“I don’t remember hardly anything else. I think one of the boys was taken by a man. He smelled like perfume and had a light suit. I remember all three boys were wrapped in these blue-and-brown-checkered blankets.”
“That’s good enough for now. It was a long time ago.”
“I really want to stay with you.”
“I know. But you don’t have much experience. You’d want to stay anywhere after Sedra’s. Where I’m going to take you is the perfect place for you to begin to learn all the things you don’t know.”
The Hammer and Nail hardware store was on Santa Monica Boulevard in the middle of West Hollywood. Xavier found a parking place down the street and carried Doris’s pink suitcase as they walked in the front door.
“Hey, sailor,” a recorded male voice said suggestively when they set off the electric eye.
It was a normal hardware store dealing in metal fittings, power tools, and screws and nails of all types and sizes.
On the left side of the spacious room was the sales counter. Behind this stood a tall, powerfully built pink man whose lips were thick and roughly in the shape of a heart.
“Ecks,” the man said.
“George,” Xavier Rule replied.
“Who’s your friend?”
“This is Charlotte.” It was a name they agreed on a few minutes before parking. “Frank needs for her to lie low for a few days. And you shouldn’t tell anybody—especially no one from the congregation.”
“Okay. And you know she’ll certainly be safe in my house.”
“Charlotte, this is George Ben,” Xavier said. “You two have a lot in common—you both like men.”
“Girl, you look too cute in those polka dots,” George said, and for the first time Doris smiled without a self-conscious look in her eye.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Forgive her if she doesn’t know how to act, George. She’s led a very, very sheltered life.”
“In the closet, huh?” the big pink man said.
“Under a trapdoor at the back of the old coats,” Xavier said, “with a padlock on either side.”
“Don’t you worry, Charlotte. You and I will be best girlfriends.”
Doris’s eyes creased and Xavier had one of his rare laughs. He turned to leave but Doris grabbed at his sleeve.
“George has my phone number,” the gangster said. “If you need something you can call me anytime.”
“I’ve never slept anywhere but Sedra’s house and the Federal,” she said.
“There’s a whole ne
w world out there. And one thing’s for sure—no one will hurt you with George Ben on your side.”
“That’s a fact,” George said.
Doris looked between the two men, released Xavier’s sleeve tentatively, and brought her hands together.
“If you call me I’ll come,” Xavier promised before walking out the front door.
“Hey, sailor,” the recorded voice said.
Xavier liked Frank’s dark green Fleetwood almost as much as he did his pink, sea green, and chrome Edsel. Old classic cars delighted him. The only things he felt unambivalent passion for were gaudy clothes, fighting, and classic cars. He had tried to change but even that late morning, climbing over the mountain through the canyon, he found himself luxuriating in the driver’s seat and wanting to resurrect Sedra so that he could slap her face.
Down the canyon road, then a short jaunt on the freeway and Xavier found himself in Pasadena. It wasn’t long before he parked in front of a big house that looked like a miniature baronial estate on Galleon Drive.
Upon getting out of the car he paid momentary obeisance to the lovely eighty-two-degree Southern California day. The sky was blue and the fat palm tree in the Berbers’ front yard seemed lively enough to pull its shallow roots out of the soil and do a jig.
The lawn was so green that it looked painted, and the flat-faced violet flowers that grew on vines clinging to the trellis of the front porch gave the vague impression of laughing faces.
Southern California didn’t seem to be on the same planet that New York City inhabited. The days were longer and the nights shorter. People smiled more and cared less. And in Los Angeles there was more of a chance of you disappearing with no one noticing that you were gone—or remembering that you’d been there at all.
Xavier walked up the six white steps to the wide porch and advanced on the closed door.
“Can I help you?” a voice to his right said.
Ecks turned but all he saw were two wicker chairs facing the flowering trellis. They were old, weather-worn chairs fitted with faded cushions.… Slowly a shape came into view; an elderly man was seated in the nearest straw throne. He was so thin and wan that he blended into the washed-out fabric like a chameleon might subtly come to resemble branch and leaf.
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