Double Down (Raven McShane Mysteries Book 4)

by Stephanie Caffrey

  After lunch, I found myself braving the heat and strolling down to the Fashion Show Mall where most of the employees in the Nordstrom shoe department knew me by name. Over the years, I’d convinced myself that I didn’t have a shopping problem because I only owned about thirty pairs of shoes, which meant most of the time I didn’t buy any. Half the ones I bought, especially if I’d had a glass of wine beforehand, I returned to the store, no questions asked. And some of the other ones I’d even sold on eBay, often getting more than a hundred bucks a pair. So I was no hoarder, no reckless spender of ill-gotten money, but just a girl who liked to keep her feet reasonably happy.

  But I wasn’t fully in the mood, it turned out, and walked out of there without any bags dangling from my arms. I was still bothered by the problem of Laura and the minister when a crazy idea popped into my head. While baking in the sun at a stoplight, I whipped out my phone and dialed my bouncer-MBA friend Carlos.

  “Want to go to church?” I asked.

  Silence.

  “It’s for a job. I need to check out the pastor,” I explained.

  “No,” he said simply.

  “You didn’t even ask when or where or how much,” I pointed out.

  “My girlfriend has this thing, you know,” he said.

  “About me?”

  “Yes, about you. She thinks I like you.”

  I chuckled. “Well, you do. So what? Are you married? Do you have a spine?” The light turned green, so I walked and taunted. “Tell her I need you. She’s got to know there’s no funny business going on, right?”

  “There’s not?” he shot back. He was referring to a night a few weeks earlier when I’d invited him up to my apartment for a late-night visit that I’d sorely needed at the time.

  “Just tell her,” I said insistently, studiously ignoring his question.

  His sigh was audible even over the heavy Saturday afternoon Strip traffic. “Ok,” he started. “Where and what time?”

  “Tonight, five o’clock. At The Meadows Worship Center. You can pick me up,” I said, cheerfully.

  I could almost hear his eyes rolling, but he restrained himself and wisely kept his mouth shut. There was some kibitzing in the background, and then he got back on the line. “She said it’s all right, but you have to start paying me more.”

  Now it was my turn to sigh. He’d fooled me, albeit briefly, into thinking that something other than money was the issue. “No way man, I’m paying you too much as it is. I have other people I can call,” I bluffed.

  “Like who?”

  “Like the other PI I work with. He’s got bigger muscles than you,” I taunted, not exactly truthfully. “And you think Ryan wouldn’t kill to come along with me?”

  “Ryan from work?” He asked.

  “Yes. He’s been pestering me for weeks,” I said, not exactly truthfully. Ryan had jumped into my head because he was my favorite bouncer, not because I was his favorite dancer.

  Silence ensued.

  “You there?” I asked.

  “Yeah. I can’t do it. Go ahead and call Ryan,” he said.

  My face flushed a deep color of red, the way an amateur poker player looks when his bluff has unexpectedly been called.

  “Um, okay,” I said softly, dumbfounded. “I will. I’ve got his number right here,” I lied again. “Have a great afternoon with what’s her name.”

  “Sofia,” he muttered. “Later.”

  The line went dead as I turned west to get to my condo. Wow, I thought. I had always assumed that I basically owned Carlos, that he would answer to my beck and call on a moment’s notice due solely to his unnatural interest in my body. He had never made any secret about his lust for me, but I guess I had taken him for granted.

  Or not. My phone, still in hand, buzzed insistently.

  “I’ll pick you up at 4:30,” said a resigned voice.

  “Perfect,” I said, stifling my glee. I didn’t want to rub it in his face because calling me back must have been one of the hardest calls he’d ever made. Lust conquers all.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Carlos was early, so I invited him up.

  “This is too nice for you,” he said matter-of-factly. The last time he’d been up here, he hadn’t noticed a thing. “You must make more in tips than I thought!” He was staring out my floor-to-ceilings at the Strip a few blocks away. After shaking his head in mock disgust, he started meandering towards my bedroom.

  I coughed loudly, signaling he shouldn’t proceed.

  “Whatever,” he muttered, giving me the you crazy look. “You have any food?”

  “Sofia doesn’t feed you?”

  He frowned. “I’m the cook, actually. And I don’t live with her, either. We just, you know, hang out a lot.”

  “Um hmm,” I said. “I might have something in the fridge.”

  Too late, I realized my fridge was a veritable museum of junk food, most of it classics from the eighties.

  “You really eat this stuff?” Carlos asked, holding up a can of Cheez Whiz.

  “It’s just for parties,” I said, shifting on my heels. “You know, you spray some on a Ritz and put a jalapeno on top. Easy as pie.” I wasn’t about to tell him that I’d sometimes make myself Cheez Whiz and turkey sandwiches. With sauerkraut, on a pretzel bun.

  Now he was fondling my oversized jar of dill pickles. “You know that a single pickle has an entire day’s supply of sodium?” He was beginning to sound like a twit.

  “Put those back,” I ordered. “Don’t be bad-mouthing pickles in my kitchen.”

  Now he was on to the mayonnaise, holding up two squeeze bottles of regular and spicy. “What does this go on?”

  “Never mind,” I said, slamming the fridge door. “You want a rice cake to snack on? Well, I don’t have any. You want a kale salad? I’m all out. You want goji berries? I don’t even know what color those are. So it’s Cheez Whiz or a pickle. Take your pick.”

  Naturally, I momentarily entertained the idea of putting Cheez Whiz on a pickle. I filed that away for future reference.

  “Nah, I’m good,” he said, looking somewhat frightened. “Let’s get to church.”

  When we got downstairs, Tommy the valet gave Carlos the once-over and then fixed me with a quizzical look which I interpreted as amazement that a bimbo like me would actually be in the company of a well-built young man on a Saturday night. Granted, it was only four thirty in the afternoon, but still.

  Carlos put his jet-black, stick shift Mustang into gear and pulled out loudly, probably charmingly unaware that his car would fail to impress the valets who were standing around scratching their butts. They were used to Bentleys and Benzes with the occasional Porsche or Audi thrown in. American-made cars were a curiosity at best.

  I gave Carlos directions, and we made our way through thin traffic down to the sketchy neighborhood where the church was located.

  “I’ve got a building just up that street,” Carlos said, pointing. He was something of a wannabe real estate mogul, working on his MBA at UNLV by day while he worked as a bouncer by night. And somehow, he’d saved up enough cash to buy a few apartment buildings along the way.

  “You have a lot of slum properties?” I asked indelicately.

  He sniffed. “This ain’t no slum,” he said, butchering his grammar for effect. “You want to see a slum? I’ll show you the first place I bought. Most of the renters pay by the week. It’s more of a hotel than anything else.”

  I shrugged, not wanting to get him started. Apart from the size of his biceps, real estate was his favorite topic of conversation. I liked the guy more than I let on, and I found his ambition sexy, but I would have been more interested in discussing dental tape or tax accounting than apartment buildings.

  We pulled into the church’s lot, which was about half full. A surprising diversity of parishioners were making their way into the church—Koreans, Latinos, a few people who looked African, and a spate of boring white folks. The one thing they had in common was that they looked unusually
happy to be there.

  We got inside and were immediately pounced on by a bubbly young African woman named Korangi, who’s somehow managed to encapsulate her life story into about thirty seconds of heavily accented English. I wasn’t sure how she knew we were new to the church, but she did. She solemnly pressed pamphlets into our hands and gave us both hugs.

  Before we could utter more than a peep, Korangi waved over a tall, older man who was also beaming. He was balding and had the look of a college professor, with a graying ponytail and spectacles, except that he was dressed in khakis, like an archeologist.

  “More victims,” he joked, his eyes dancing across our faces. “My name’s Paul. Come. Follow me.” Ever the cynic, I wondered how many times he had jokingly referred to newbies as “victims.”

  Paul led us through a thickening throng of people who were milling about in the rear of the church. We headed down a long corridor which then took us right into the wide open amphitheater-like church. It was bigger inside than it looked from the outside. A dozen or so immense columns held up the ceiling which soared thirty or more feet above us, cresting in countless peaks that all drew the eye towards a fresco of Jesus dying on the cross which adorned the ceiling across the front one-third of the church.

  Paul showed us to a special section that was cordoned off by a gold colored rope.

  “This is the VIP section,” he smirked, no doubt recycling another joke. “When mass gets started, you’ll see why.” Paul’s eyes were twinkling. He shook our hands, welcomed us again, and then left us alone.

  There was a couple in front of us who was busying themselves by tending to their infant girl and making cooing noises at her. They couldn’t have been happier to be there.

  I elbowed Carlos. “Is this some sort of cult, you think?” I whispered.

  He frowned. “What makes you say that?”

  “Well, everyone’s so…friendly. It can’t be real.”

  “I thought you were religious,” he said.

  “I am. But not like this. It’s more of a private thing with me,” I explained.

  “Whatever,” he said. “People are different. My mom’s church is a lot like this. They keep trying to get me to join.”

  “And why don’t you?” I asked.

  “I might, someday. Good way to make business connections.”

  I elbowed him again, this time, more firmly. “You’re going to go straight to hell,” I hissed.

  He chuckled out loud, causing the dad in front of us to look up. “And you’re not?” Carlos whispered.

  He had a point. We sat in silence for another five minutes or so, at which point the lights dimmed and came back on, like at a play or symphony. And then the lights dimmed and stayed low. That got the increasingly large crowd to hush with an expectant buzz rippling throughout the room, and then the music started. It wasn’t an organ but a concert grand piano elevated on the stage and highlighted by a half dozen spotlights, played by an impossibly beautiful brunette of about eighteen. Soon enough some drums joined in, illuminated by a single spotlight, and this went on for another few minutes, the drums backing up the pianist but staying out of her way. A bass guitar then a lead guitar, and then two dozen members of the choir, previously unseen, suddenly began glowing under yet another spotlight as they joined in, their bright-blue gowns iridescent under the glare.

  I had to admit, it was quite a show. We were all standing up, almost involuntarily swaying to the music, which got more and more feverish until finally, the man of the hour showed up. Like a boxer entering the ring, the Reverend Owen Clavette stalked down the main aisle from a previously invisible location in the rear of the church, shaking hands with some parishioners on the aisles and fist-bumping others. His face was all smiles, his teeth gleaming, the part in his hair so crisp that he must have used a ruler, and his face, dimples and all, had a ruddy glow to it, highlighted by the spotlight that followed him down the aisle. His gray suit was immaculately tailored to his athletic if not shortish body.

  The stage was empty apart from a stool with a glass of ice water perched on it, almost like Clavette was going to do a stand-up routine. Even a cynic like me was looking forward to hearing what this guy had to say, that is if he ever made it up there. He was still bogged down in the aisle, fist-bumping and high-fiving parishioners, almost like a president walking into the congressional chamber to deliver a State of the Union address.

  “This is nuts,” Carlos murmured. He was ice-cold, not buying it.

  “I kind of like it,” I admitted. “I mean, check out that guy’s suit! It’s glistening. Probably silk mixed with some high-end cotton.”

  Carlos craned his neck around to look again.

  “You just like him because…” he trailed off.

  “He’s hot?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “Never seen a hot reverend before,” I admitted. “But you got me.” As he finally made his way up to the stage—it was hardly an altar, as I understood the term—I couldn’t help admiring his TV-anchor looks. He took a sip of water and scanned the crowd, which I estimated to be somewhere around eight hundred. The ambient lights slowly brightened but not so much so that there was any doubt as to who was the star of the show. The spotlight remained on the reverend, keeping up with him as he paced back and forth with the pent-up energy of a caged tiger, still remaining silent.

  It was an old trick, I knew. The Romans had done it. Countless politicians and entertainers had done it. Even Hitler had done it, often arriving an hour or more late to his own rallies just to get the crowd into a state of rabid anticipation. And now Owen Clavette was doing it, pacing around, looking thoughtful, gazing out at the crowd but not saying a word.

  A buzz started near the rear, and it quickly spread.

  “What are they saying?” Carlos asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  As it got louder, I could tell that the chant had a long e in it, but that was it.

  “Breathe,” Carlos said.

  “I am.”

  He elbowed me. “No, I mean they’re saying ‘breathe’.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  He shrugged.

  I looked up and caught Clavette looking down at us, the members of the “VIP” section, seeing if the chant, seemingly spontaneous, had any effect on us. I tried to act duly impressed.

  The whole crowd was into it now, and Clavette began stalking back and forth on the stage, lifting his hand to his ear, begging the crowd for more.

  “Breeeeathe!” they said, almost in unison, repeating the word over and over in response to the minister’s encouragement.

  “Louder!” he demanded.

  “Breeeeeeeathe!”

  “Louder! So the Lord can hear you!”

  “Breeeeeeeeeeathe!” they cried. I looked around and saw a few tears on people’s faces. Many had planned ahead and held handkerchiefs in their hands.

  “Once more!” he bellowed.

  “Breeeeeeeeeeeeeathe!” the crowd groaned, deeper this time.

  “Let us all breeeeeeeeeathe!” Clavette bellowed. “Breathe in the word of Jesus. Breathe out the temptations of the dark one!’

  “Breeeeeeeathe!” the crowd rejoined.

  “Let us all breathe in the good works of our neighbor, and breathe out the lies of Satan!”

  “Breeeeeeathe!” once more. The pitch was frenzied.

  “Let us all breathe in the kind words of strangers, and breathe out the taunts of our enemies!”

  The music started up again, beginning with the bass drum and then the bass guitar, aiding the crowd in reaching its preservice climax. The reverend was sweating already, looking serious and almost possessed by a higher power, a mission to cast out demons and save souls. He seemed to have the weight of the parish on his shoulders.

  The choir started up again, and the reverend began whipping up the musicians, cajoling them to play louder and with more passion, gesticulating at them and repeatedly placing his hand to his ear. The c
rowd began clapping, sporadically at first but then in rhythm, somehow knowing exactly how to play its own important role in the spiritual bacchanal taking place on the stage.

  I even found myself clapping, that is until Carlos turned and gave me a you gotta be kidding me kind of look.

  I sighed and toned it down, but it was impossible to resist participating. The music, the crowd, the minister—it seemed to meld us all together and create a real feeling of community, as though we were a single cohesive unit, standing, clapping, and singing together. It was fun.

  At last, after reaching its climax, everything wound down. In unison, the choir members threw their hands in the air, the music stopped, and the lights cut out. Even in the dark, I could see the crowd still standing, catching its collective breath, with some of the members dabbing handkerchiefs at their eyes. I took a deep breath, and then the lights came back on.

  Rev. Clavette had used the moment to give himself a mini makeover. No longer bathed in perspiration, he was as dapper as the moment he’d entered. He allowed himself a self-satisfied smile as he gazed out on his flock, and then he began reciting one of the day’s Bible readings from memory. It was a passage from Luke in which Jesus shames some of the disciples for their pretensions.

  “Do you know anyone like that?” he asked. “Or maybe you’re the one with the pretensions?” the reverend asked playfully. The crowd chuckled appreciatively.

  This went on for a solid half hour, a virtuoso performance of memorized scripture followed by commentary that made you think the two-thousand-year-old texts had been written with you in mind. The Rev was impressive, and when I glanced to my side, I even caught Carlos paying attention a few times.

  The service ended almost exactly an hour after it began if you didn’t count the ten-minute “concert” that followed it. Almost everyone remained in the auditorium, although people were milling around and chattering. There was a distinct buzz in the room, almost a kind of afterglow that had people’s faces blushed and smiling, even more than before the service had begun.