More Church Folk

by Michele Andrea Bowen

  “Yes, Flowers, I do attend church services.”

  “Then where is your church home?”

  “Huh?”

  “Your… church home? You know—the church where you hold your membership.”

  “Oh… yeah… that. I attend the Washington Cathedral,” Greg told him, wondering why black folks from traditional Southern communities believed that having a “church home” was as important as having a Social Security number.

  Denzelle just looked at his superior officer with his mouth hanging open before saying, “Sir, you go to that fancy church in D.C. that they make the president go to for those special services they sometimes make us watch on TV?”

  “They don’t make the president go to the church,” Greg told him.

  “Yes, they do. Well, let me put it this way, if I were the president of the United States, they would have to make me go. ’Cause that is the only way I’d sit through that. I want some meat and potatoes when I go to church. I want to be set on fire with the Holy Ghost. I want to go where I can stand up and praise the Lord. Because my God is an awesome God and He is worthy of my praise!”

  Greg didn’t know what to say. His colleagues in D.C. had told him that Flowers was as much a preacher as he was an FBI agent, and could have a Jesus fit on you at a moment’s notice. He finally said, “Flowers, do you honestly believe that your church is where it’s happening where God is concerned?”

  “Yes sir, when my church is doing what the Lord has called it to do, it is definitely where something wonderful is happening in the Kingdom of God. We love the Lord so much that we don’t mind praising Him, singing with fire and the Holy Ghost, shouting, and getting slain in the spirit. And we love the Word, we love to pray, and we love to have the Word given to us in such a way that we leave so on fire for the Lord that we want somebody else to have what we have—salvation and the Holy Ghost.

  “Plus, I don’t want my God to be a God of my intellect, sir. I’m reborn of the Spirit. And I don’t care if I look foolish, or country, or peculiar when I think of His goodness, of all He’s done in my life, and how He has brought me through, and then get so happy I might be inclined to run all over the church.

  “I am not trying to be rude or ugly to you and your church, sir, but the few times I saw one of those services, something was missing for me. I mean everything was done right, the choir could obviously read music very well, and it was clear that the man preaching had gone to one of those fancy, smart white-boy divinity schools and earned several degrees.

  “I listened to that sermon and knew that man had done a lot of research on the scripture he used, read some of the text in Hebrew, and had done a bunch of extra reading on the subject that came from the scripture. But laaawwwdddd if that sermon wasn’t as dry as those bones Ezekiel was talking ’bout in the Old Testament. Ooooohhhh… weee!!! I mean old boy was working it and he was so dull I was about to fall prostrate on the floor and holler out, ‘Take me, Jesus! Just forget about the Rapture and come and take me NOW!!!’

  “And get this, sir, I wasn’t even there. So I know what it must have been like for the poor people in that congregation—especially the ones who were in the front row. You know they couldn’t let on that the sermon was boring because that preacher and all of those highly musically trained choir members would have seen them doing it.”

  Agent Gregory Williams was hollering with laughter for the second time today. He was beginning to love being in Durham, North Carolina, which seemed to be light-years from the world he had moved in farther north in D.C. And his D.C. wasn’t even the real D.C.—the Chocolate City D.C. Agent Williams’s D.C. was the capital D.C. and the Georgetown D.C.

  “So are you going to find a better way to go in and get the folks you’re after, sir, without having to get people like my grandmother so mad, she and her girls take you down with prayer and speaking in tongues?”

  Greg smiled as he put two high-powered rifles and three boxes of ammo on the card table. He had rented out this one-bedroom apartment not too far from one of the rougher projects. Folks had told him that it was rough over here and he had laughed. How rough could it be in a sleepy, midsize Southern city like Durham, North Carolina? But Greg had had to eat crow over that one.

  Durham was a very pretty city with a host of amenities, as well as all kinds of quaint and charming places. The people were congenial. And for the most part it was a relatively safe city when compared to larger, more congested, and more urban types of places. But there were some hot spots in this bustling Southern town that were off the chain. And this particular area of the city was a hotbed of all kinds of activities that kept him gainfully employed.

  “You crazy, man. You know that, right?” Greg said to Denzelle, who smiled and said, “Naw, what’s crazy is moving into this place.”

  “Looks like something out of a movie, don’t it, Flowers?” Agent Williams said.

  “A horror movie,” was all Denzelle said as he checked the scope on his gun. He was from Durham, an FBI agent, and he still didn’t like coming to this spot. He said, “Sir, how are we going to do this?”

  “Right down here, where we are.”

  Denzelle was confused. He wasn’t quite sure what Agent Williams meant. Greg caught that and said, “Two of the Dinkles’ flunkies are coming here.”

  “Boss, how did you manage that? Rico Sneed and Kordell Bivens are some punks. They are too scared to come here,” Denzelle said.

  “Yeah, that they are. But they are more scared of those Dinkles than they are of coming here. See, Rico, with his dumb self, skimmed $2,500 off the top of those white boys’ money and got caught.”

  “Dang, boss. How dumb can a man get?”

  “Pretty dumb, Denzelle. Honestly, I don’t know how Rico went that far with those Dinkles. I don’t think Kordell and Rico knew just who the Dinkles were. They actually believed that Harold and his brother Horace were some crazy, good-time, beer-guzzling mountain boys who liked making some extra tax-free money on the side. Never occurred to them that these two brothers were setting up an entire operation on this side of town, and had cut a deal to be the main suppliers with some people most folk don’t even know exist.”

  “I see.”

  A fist pounded on the heavy door that had been built in an earlier time when folks actually cared about having a real front door.

  “Do I need to go in the back?” Denzelle asked. “You know they think I’m just a preacher.”

  “Well, it’s high time they found out otherwise. I need Rico and Kordell to get to the Dinkles. And they will be real upset when they see you. They’ll be scared not to talk when they stare down the barrel of an FBI agent’s gun, who is a preacher in the very denomination they have been trying to dupe with this WP21.”

  They pounded on the door again, only this time it was harder and louder. Denzelle opened the door with the gun in his hand, trying not to bust out laughing at a very stunned Rico Sneed. He moved aside, and Rico and Kordell brushed by him as if they were super-bad. But Denzelle knew they were scared when Rico’s eyes started darting around, trying to look into the apartment to see who else was there, and Kordell kept licking his lips, trying not to look around as Rico was doing.

  Denzelle waved them all the way into the apartment. When Rico figured out that that the Dinkles were not there, he figured it was safe enough to “get bad.”

  He puffed up some hot air in his cheeks, and growled out, “What you doing here, preacher?”

  Hmm, Denzelle thought, maybe the negro has at least one ball. He said, “My man, Rico Sneed. I was just about to ask you the very same thing.”

  Kordell, on the other hand, wasn’t trying to get bad with this preacher. He had not missed the two guns on each shoulder holster Denzelle was wearing. Kordell couldn’t believe Denzelle Flowers moved in the world like this—Bible in one hand, piece in the other. He thought, Bishop Hemphill sure did a piss-poor job giving us the skinny on the enemy camp. This preacher is walking around this room like he is John Shaft.
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  He took a harder look at the good Rev. Flowers, and wanted to slap himself. That boy was a fed. Kordell had believed that their current circumstances couldn’t get any worse. But right now, looking at this federal agent let him know that things could get much worse.

  Rico was Kordell’s boy, but he had messed up big-time. Rico could do some stupid stuff. But he’d never done anything that would put them in danger. He had made a horrible mistake when he messed with the Dinkle brothers. Kordell had never been all that gung ho about doing business with those white boys because they struck him as being kind of crazy. Plus, he was very uncomfortable with white boys who had top-of-the-line combat gear but had never served in the armed forces.

  And if that was not bad enough, the reason they were in some deep funky stuff with the Dinkles was that Rico had gotten beside himself over a piece of tail. Kordell almost hurt Rico himself when he discovered that the fool had skimmed $2,500 off the top of the Dinkles’ money so that he could impress a woman.

  Rico had met the woman in Atlanta, gone bonkers over her, and then proceeded to run his credit cards past their limits trying to make this woman think he was a high roller. Then, if that was not bad enough, Rico was still pretending to be seriously involved with his Durham woman. He couldn’t just up and quit that girl because he believed he had found something better. That girl worked at IBM, and had just put in an order for Rico to get his hands on a top-of-the-line computer system and printer at a bargain-basement price. Plus, she had gotten him a system on loan until the one he was buying was ready to be shipped to his house.

  This was not the time for Rico to get so excited over that new tail that he made this girl mad enough to pull the plug on everything. The new woman, who mistakenly believed that her worth was much higher than it was, was getting impatient to be recognized as Rico’s woman in public. She complained that her quality of life was being diminished because she couldn’t tell the world that Rico Sneed was her man.

  Kordell had just rolled his eyes in disgust when he heard that silly woman tell Rico, “I mean it’s like this. My friends and family and coworkers are all watching me, and seeing me glow and smile and looking my absolute best. They want to know what is going on with me. It’s a shame that I am this happy, looking this good, and I can’t even tell anyone that it is all because of you, my king.”

  What had made Kordell almost hurl his dinner across the room was figuring out how deeply in debt “my king” was as he tried to make the new woman happy, because he had to wait until the new computer came before he broke up with the old woman. That $2,500 had been spent on plane tickets to Durham, hotel stays, candlelight dinners at expensive restaurants, and a shopping spree at Crabtree Valley Mall in Raleigh.

  Not only was Rico in debt, they were in danger of being seriously injured or even killed by two very crazy and disgruntled white boys with mob connections they hadn’t even known existed at that level with folks in North Carolina. And now they had just stepped up in a deeper mess, listening to Dotsy Hamilton and Grady Grey.

  Those two slick players had tricked them into believing that by coming to this scary apartment they would find a safe and secure resource to help them get back that money. Instead they were standing face-to-face with some brothers who were now flashing FBI badges. If Kordell hadn’t been so in love with things of the world, he might have asked that gun-toting preacher if he could tell him what he needed to do to get saved.

  “Dotsy and Grady didn’t say anything about meeting with a preacher and a cop,” Rico said, his bottom lip jutting out and nostrils flaring as they did when he wasn’t happy about the way things were going. He couldn’t believe that they had been set up like this.

  “Dotsy and Grady had better not have said anything, either,” Denzelle told him.

  “Who are you to give directions to Dotsy Hamilton and Grady Grey?” Rico snapped in that loud and nasty voice that always helped to put him on the outs with folks.

  Denzelle laid his FBI badge on the table. He walked over to where Rico was standing and got up in his face. He said, “Who I am is no concern of yours. But looka here, playah. You really need to be worried about that $2,500 you owe those crazy white boys, who are on their way down here from the mountains to collect on your debt.”

  Rico heaved air out of his mouth as if he was getting angrier by the second. But Denzelle knew that was nothing but hot air needing a release. Rico could heave and ho all he wanted to but Denzelle knew that fool was terrified. He should have been scared, too. The Dinkles were dangerous men, and they had some very scary connections. The two things a black man did not need to do to Harold and Horace Dinkle was to take their money and then put them at risk for being investigated by the feds.

  “That’s why—” Rico started, then stopped when he saw Kordell shaking his head. It was true that they had come here thinking they were going to get in on some kind of deal to earn that $2,500 back with a few extra bucks on the side. But these two men were not the kind of contacts who were interested in providing that kind of opportunity.

  “You need to be more like your friend here,” Greg Williams said, after being content to remain silent and get a handle on these two jokers. He didn’t know how they had been stupid enough to think that they could get in bed with the Dinkles and not get screwed.

  “Who the hell are you?” Rico bellowed, ignoring the sharp poke Kordell had just given him.

  “Your worst nightmare and best chance out of this mess,” Greg answered him, as he laid $1,500 on the table between the four men.

  Just a few hours ago he had met with Grady Grey and Dotsy Hamilton. They were crooks. They were not killers, they were not drug dealers, they didn’t bother innocent and law-abiding citizens, and they were not enemies of the state. But those two brothers were definitely on the wrong side of the law, and didn’t seem inclined to cross over to the right of crime anytime soon. Yet in spite of those obvious shortcomings, Greg Williams liked them. Now, he wouldn’t hesitate to arrest Grady and Dotsy. But he still liked those two brothers.

  That is more than he could ever say about Rico Sneed and Kordell Bivens. Greg Williams couldn’t stand them. They managed to remain safely behind the line on the right side of the law, even though they were covetous, liars, greedy, and filled with lust. But even worse, they bothered innocent people because they were too scared, too dumb, and too jive to go after the kinds of folk that the Grady Greys and Dotsy Hamiltons dealt with on a regular basis.

  “What’s that for?” Kordell asked carefully. He was afraid of this brother, who looked as if he could blow you away with a gun in one hand while holding a big, fat turkey club sandwich in the other.

  “You,” Greg told him in a cold and hard voice. He was not playing with these jokers and wanted information that would help him nail this case. He was up for promotion, and this case was the one that would get him over the hump. Greg Williams was tired of answering to those white boys, and wanted to move up the ranks to reduce the number of white folk he had to do the FBI-agent shuffle for.

  “We need $2,500,” Rico interjected, trying to sound tough, even though he was worried, and with good reason. Harold Dinkle had told him that he would shoot his black ear off his head if he didn’t bring him his money—and that was just for starters.

  “What you need is some daggone sense,” Denzelle said. He was tired of fooling around with Rico Sneed, Kordell Bivens, and the rest of those idiots who had caused this problem in the first place. If he’d had his druthers he’d have just beaten the information out of them and threatened to kill them if they were stupid enough to tell anybody. Not that he’d actually kill Kordell and Rico. But he sure would do enough to make them think he’d kill them.

  “Forget you, man,” Rico said. “I’ve had enough of you and will…”

  Denzelle whipped his Magnum, and not his standard-issue weapon, out of the shoulder holster. He stuck the gun up Rico’s nose.

  “Will what, Rico? What you gone do? Huh… huh?” he snapped in a cold and deadly
voice.

  The barrel of that gun was cold. Rico took in shallow breaths through his mouth. He was scared to breathe through his nose—might inadvertently cause that gun to go off.

  Denzelle started laughing, took the gun down, and checked to make sure the safety was still on. He said, “You are such a punk, Rico.”

  Rico was relieved to have that gun out of his nose. But he was pissed that Denzelle had played him like that and called him a punk. He stepped up on Denzelle and pushed him, heedless of Kordell’s calling his name and telling him to stop.

  Denzelle didn’t move. He held his place and hoped that Rico would not push him again. But Rico was stupid and not one to stop when he was ahead. Denzelle remembered his mother once saying that Rico Sneed was like one of those serial killers you read about—wouldn’t stop until somebody stopped him.

  Rico pushed Denzelle again, harder, and then grabbed a pistol off the table and pointed it at Denzelle.

  “Put the gun down, Rico,” Greg Williams said calmly, without even making a move to his own gun. He knew that this Rico was posturing because Denzelle had called him a punk. But he didn’t want this fool to start thinking he was in the Wild West and try to shoot somebody, and then get his ignorant self killed for real.

  “Shut up,” Rico ordered, “and give me the rest of my money.”

  Agent Gregory Williams got real quiet. He couldn’t believe that this fool had tried to go gangster on them. Not only was Rico no longer getting the rest of his so-called money, now he wasn’t going to get that $1,500. And he was going to tell them what they wanted to know, if he didn’t want to have some sociopath named Goldie, Machete, or Sliver as his cell mate.

  Denzelle didn’t blink. He whispered a prayer and before anybody knew it was holding a gun with a silencer on it that seemed to come out of nowhere. Kordell was real scared because he knew that FBI agents were not supposed to carry guns with silencers. He had really underestimated the good Rev. Flowers. Who knew that Denzelle was a weapons freak, who got excited at just the thought of firing a gun? Rev. Flowers didn’t need any WP21—a gun in his hand could do the job for him any day.