I swallowed. Someday I would confess to Siobhan just how connected we were. “She’s a prostitute,” I admitted.
“You two have been involved.”
“The inflection of a question is absent from your voice,” I said.
“So it is.”
“It’s a complicated relationship, Siobhan.”
“I’m noticing a trend.”
I nodded, at a loss for words.
“Thank you,” she said, piercing the silence.
“What for?” I managed.
“I heard what Cherie said, about you giving her the flyer. You care about Renny.”
“I told you I did.”
“Sometimes I have to actually see things to believe them.”
“Ye’ of little faith.”
“I have faith in you, Shell. Despite myself, I do.”
“The inflection of sincerity is present in your voice,” I said, smiling.
“So it is.”
I looked into her eyes. This time I was able to hold the gaze. “The guy in the car…boyfriend?”
“You’re still stuck on that?”
“I’m sorry. You’re right. Now is not the time. Forget I asked.”
“No.”
“What?”
“He isn’t a boyfriend. I’m a free agent.”
“Emphasis on free,” I said, smiling.
She smiled back. “Nothing as obvious as money left on my nightstand. I deal in the currency of dinners, Broadway shows, flowers, thoughtful cards…jewelry. Typical of most women.”
“Nothing typical about you,” I said. “I’m glad we can joke about this.”
“The moment needs a degree of levity.”
The moment. That sobering thought eased me back to reality. I looked toward the restaurant. “Cherie’s taking too long. I’m going in to check things out. I’ll leave the car running. If there’s any issues…drive away.”
“Renny’s my cousin, Shell. I should—”
“Drive away,” I said firmly.
“Have I thanked you?” she asked, the beginnings of wetness making her eyes shine.
“A moment ago,” I said, trusting myself with just those three words, and exiting the car immediately after I said them. I eased the driver’s-side door closed behind me and walked across cracked pavement toward the restaurant. My steps had the precision of a soldier in formation.
Cherie wasn’t inside.
The place was tiny. Two abused tables surrounded by a pair of even worse chairs. A guy with a scar from forehead to chin on one side of his face was sitting lazily in one of the chairs eating a Jamaican beef patty. His skin was the color of ink. Teeth adorned with platinum bling I noticed as he smiled knowingly in my direction. The nail of his right pinky was the length I would expect from a vain woman.
“We know one another?” I asked him.
“Nah, nah,” he said with little conviction.
“You’re smiling at me awful hard.”
“Post-coital bliss,” he said.
“What?”
“Those the only big words I know, chief. Don’t ask me to give you a definition, either. I turn mighty ignorant if I have to explain myself.”
“Right,” I said, through with talking to him. “You can get back to your Jamaican beef patty now.”
“Empanada.”
“Right,” I said, and looked away.
“And now’s when you completely turn your back on me and ask the woman behind the counter if she saw a white girl up in this piece. A little rough around the edges. About five-five. Blah, blah.”
I wheeled around to face him again. “Where is she?”
He nodded at a door I had not even noticed. Restroom. “Probably gargling or some shit,” he said. “She was fumbling for a small bottle of green mouthwash in her pocketbook when I stepped back out here.”
“You need to chew all of your empanada. I’m having some trouble understanding you.”
His ever-present smile widened. “Who the fuck is Renny? Cherie sure is hot to know how to reach him.”
“What’s your name?” I asked calmly.
“Drummer,” he said. “Ask around about me.”
“Count on it.”
The restroom door creaked open. Cherie stepped out smoothing her clothes, pausing like a broken battery-powered toy once she noticed me.
Drummer said, “There she is Miss America,” in a singsong.
“I told you to wait outside, Shell,” Cherie said.
“Shell one of those hardheaded types,” Drummer said from over my shoulder. “Gotta bump his head a few times before he learns anything.”
I willed myself to ignore him.
“I didn’t want it like this,” I said to Cherie.
She bolted for the door. I allowed her to make it outside, then turned back to my new friend. “See you around, Drummer.”
“Count on it,” he said, smiling still.
Cherie stood outside with her back against the building, eyes closed, left hand balled in a tight fist. She was shaking. I moved beside her and started to say something.
“I’m numb to it,” she said, cutting me off. “Once you become numb, it’s not very difficult anymore.”
“I didn’t want it like this.”
“Take my hand.”
“What?”
“Take my hand.”
I reached for her hand as directed. “My left,” she stammered, holding up the fisted hand.
I took it.
“Open the fingers,” she said.
“Cherie…”
“Open them.”
I pried the fingers apart. A wad of brown, commercial bathroom towel fell to the ground. “Renny’s location is on that,” she said. “Drummer told me there is a guy on the first floor you should not turn you back on. Other than that the house is full of a bunch of burn-outs.”
“Cherie…”
“Take it and go. I’ll find my way back home.”
“I’m not leaving you out here.”
“I’m not getting back in your car.”
“Then we’re at an impasse.”
“We’re not,” she said, shaking her head. “Siobhan’s waiting on you.”
“I don’t want to leave you out here,” I said in a shamefully weak voice.
“You’re a man of honor with no honor, Shell. I remember you telling me that once.”
I nodded.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Go.”
I hesitated before bending to pick up the bathroom towel. “I didn’t want it like this, Cherie,” I said for the third time.
“Yeah, well…”
“I appreciate your help, though.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” she said, “but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t ever try to contact me again.”
“I’m not good with goodbyes, Cherie.”
“Don’t think of it as a goodbye. Think of it as a lifetime commitment to never speaking or seeing each other ever again.”
What could I say to that? I walked back to the car.
“What was that about?” Siobhan asked as I settled behind the wheel again.
I didn’t answer.
Couldn’t.
TWENTY-NINE
CRACK HOUSES ARE AN American invention. Old, often abandoned or burned-out buildings in inner-city neighborhoods where drug dealers and users buy, sell, produce, and use illicit drugs with those of a likewise spirit. Despite the name assigned to these houses the drug of choice isn’t always crack. In fact, I’d say the drug of most promise is one of hopelessness. This specific crack house was a four-story building condemned by the city of Newark. I didn’t know this one in particular, but I knew the type. Inhabitants subsisting on their drugs and canned vegetables. Buckets of water spread throughout to use in worthless toilets. Holes in the roof. Bedspreads covering door-less entries. Dog and human feces in the hallways. Soggy floorboards on the verge of collapse.
Siobhan and I idled in the car outside, looking unbelievingly at wh
at lay ahead. I’d told her of Cherie’s sacrifice on the ride over. We’d talked about that for a while, avoiding as best we could any talk of what we’d actually find when we arrived at the address written on the crumpled bathroom towel. Now the moment was upon us. “If he’s here then he’s beyond help,” Siobhan said.
“No one is beyond help.”
“I know you want to believe that.”
She’d moved to the front seat, and even though the divide between us could be measured in inches I suppose she never felt more alone. That pained me.
“I’ll go in and look around for him,” I said. “Same deal as before. I’ll leave the car running. If there are any issues…drive away.”
“What do you think will happen with Nevada?”
“I’m not thinking about that at the moment, Siobhan.”
“It’s as hopeless as this,” she said, nodding at the crack house, “isn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” I heard myself say in a tone with a dreamy, faraway quality.
“There’s a part of me that wonders what will happen once you’ve found Nevada. Isn’t that terrible?”
“Life is a wonder. I don’t see any problem with you wondering about Nevada.”
“Let me be clearer. I’m talking about what will happen with us,” she said.
“Oh.”
“Terrible. Right?”
“I’m a mess when it comes to women, Siobhan.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
“And yet I can’t help but think about making a mess with you. You affect me.”
“Sounds very appealing, Shell.”
“See what I mean? That didn’t come out the way I intended.”
She chuckled. A miracle considering where we were.
“This is going to sound utterly ridiculous,” I said. “And it’s a completely inappropriate time to bring it up but—”
“I think I’m falling in love with you,” she blurted.
“Reading my face again,” I said, smirking and shaking my head.
“Those are my words to you, Shell.”
“Oh.”
“It must be all of the crack in the air,” she joked a beat later.
“Must be.”
“Let’s go.”
“What?”
“Let’s go,” she repeated.
“What about Renny?”
“Some things are best left dead,” she said, shaking her head behind the words. “Abuela’s been through enough. She has buried Abuelo and Renny in her heart already. It’s a long road back from this place and I’m just not sure her heart can endure the journey.”
“You’re sure about this?”
“I’m not sure at all. We know how to get back here if I change my mind, though.”
“He could be gone then.”
“He’s gone now,” she said, smiling sadly.
“I wish I could let go like that.”
“Then you wouldn’t be who you are and I probably wouldn’t have fallen for you.”
I nodded. “Go to church with me.”
She laughed lightly. “That’s pretty random.”
“Bishop Donald Theodore Holliday,” I said. “I want to take a look at the man. He’s involved in this mess with Sweet and Nevada.”
“See? Letting go just doesn’t suit you.”
“I won’t argue that point.”
“Smart move.”
“And, Siobhan…”
“Yes?”
“For the record: I’d do my best to clean up any mess I make with you.”
She smiled again. “Promises, promises.”
Hours later, I actually did let go, a song of triumph rumbling from deep in my chest as I made love to her for the first time.
THIRTY
IN THE OLD QUARTER of East Jerusalem in Israel there is a wall measuring one hundred and eighty-seven feet in height, and almost seventeen hundred feet in length, built of thick, corroded limestone. It is a sacred place for Jews in particular, and a gathering spot for people of all faiths to come and pray, wail, or slip prayers written on paper through the wall’s fissures. In the Jewish tradition it is known as the Western Wall or Kotel, while Christians have taken to calling it the Wailing Wall. The Temple of Faith, Bishop Donald Theodore Holliday’s church, boasted a ten-foot-high replica of the wall right in the sanctuary. There were also laptop jacks built into the pews so worshipers could download sermons, and headphone hook-ups offering simultaneous translation of the service for those that didn’t speak English. The church literature we were handed when we arrive claimed a seating of 4,200 and most of the seats today were taken up. The literature also categorized the church as a multicultural, non-denominational house of worship. We were shoulder-to-shoulder with not only bankers and lawyers and other professionals but also the badly downtrodden and broken. All seemed equally welcomed by the church staff and regular congregants. I suspected this open-mindedness trickled down from the esteemed leader, the Bishop Donald Theodore Holliday himself.
He was as impressive as the church structure itself. Well over six feet, bulky, nattily dressed. His skin was a warm brown to match his folksy, rhythmic voice. A chart of his sermon would’ve confounded the most accomplished mathematician as the Bishop moved from singing to shouting to even whispering with what would seem spontaneous chaos to some but struck me as purposeful.
Despite the assignment of guilt I’d already placed on the Bishop, by sermon end my skin was damp and charged with an electric buzz like none I’d ever experienced before. I glanced at Siobhan and recognized the same overheated calm I was experiencing. It took her great effort to conjure a smile. She followed it with a shuddering breath.
“That was…” she began.
“Powerful,” I finished.
“I’m seriously thinking about maxing out my credit card in the lobby.”
Tapes of sermons, NY Times bestselling books, DVDs of Christian-themed movies with secular popularity—all created by the mighty spirit of Bishop Donald Theodore Holliday—were for sale in the lobby. The lines out there were choked with people.
“This man is dangerously powerful,” I said.
“And I’d never even heard of him before yesterday.”
I glanced around at the sanctuary. Not one slice of its real estate was empty of a person. The Bishop’s empire was bursting at the seams. He’d have to expand soon. “You’ll be hearing more from him,” I said.
“I don’t want this man to be immoral,” she whispered.
“I know what you mean.”
“What now?”
“Time to rattle the cage and see what scurries out,” I said.
“You think you stand a chance of actually speaking with him?”
I smiled. “Very good chance.”
“That’s right…I noticed how involved you were with the Wailing Wall. You must’ve missed the wall of security around the stage.”
“I saw them.”
“So…what? You think if you ask nicely they’ll allow you a moment with the Bishop?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Ask nicely? I thought you knew me better than that.”
“COME.”
Six five, easily two-fifty, he looked like the new breed of tight end in the NFL. Strong, freakishly athletic, violent at his core. An earpiece trailed from his ear and disappeared down the collar of his starched white shirt. His hands were the size of a frying pan. When he was a child, I would bet he didn’t even smile when his mother tickled his stomach.
“You seem upset,” I said to him. “I don’t know if I should go anywhere with you.”
“I was willing to allow you to walk of your own volition, sir. Would you prefer I personally move you?”
“Volition? Brawn and brains. I’m impressed. I would love to be further impressed by seeing you personally move me.”
“This is a place of worship, sir. You’ve stirred the pot enough to have an opportunity to speak with the Man. Why turn this into something ugly I’ll have to pray forgiveness for later?”<
br />
“Shell…”
Siobhan’s pleading voice brought me down several notches. Still, I knew aggression would be vital in keeping me from falling under the seduction of Bishop Donald Theodore Holliday. If nothing else, his sermon had sharpened my understanding of that fact. He was powerfully dangerous, as I’d said.
“You lead and we’ll follow,” I said.
He gestured toward a door and followed on our heels. The door was surprisingly heavy and led into the bowels of the church. The corridor reminded me of a hospital’s in length if not décor. Plush carpet covered the floor, the walls were made of marble, and polished wood doors introduced several executive-style offices. We reached the end—a door marked simply Bishop—and was welcomed inside.
Bishop Donald Theodore Holliday had shed his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. He’d loosened his tie as well and was reclined in a leather chair with his hands laced behind his head.
He didn’t bother smiling as we walked in to the office, simply nodded toward the two unoccupied chairs in front of his large desk. A smallish cashew-colored man stood in the space just beyond the Bishop’s shoulder. He held a walkie-talkie in his right hand, pressed to his chest, and stared at me with animal intensity.
The smallish man was the first to speak. “You called the church a moment ago?”
“I did,” I admitted.
“From the sanctuary?”
“Yes.”
“I understand you said some very disturbing things to our secretary.”
“You understand correctly.”
“Do you know where you are?”
“Yes.”
“Do you recognize the sacrilege in what you’ve done?”
“I don’t see it from that angle. I’m here to speak with the Bishop, by the way, Mister…”
“Noah Avery. I’m Bishop’s personal assistant. I strongly advised Bishop that we have you arrested. Fortunately for you Bishop is benevolent in his forgiveness.”
“That so?”
“Do you not understand the privilege of having his ear, Mister…”
“Shell.”
“Mr. Shell, your tone and attitude are very troubling to me.”
I looked away from Noah Avery, focused my attention on the Bishop. “You feel the same way, Frederick Eikerenkoetter? Are my tone and attitude troubling?”
Triage: A Thriller (Shell Series) Page 26