Angel Fire

by Lisa Unger

  The thought of the night he was shot about a year ago always filled him with yearning for Lydia.

  He took a bullet, the only one of his career, in the shoulder during the apprehension of a child-killer he and his partners had been hunting for a year with the New York City Police Department. The chase led them to the rooftops of the projects in the South Bronx on a moonless rainy night. Younger and faster than most of the men working the case that night, Jeffrey found himself alone on the building-top, gun drawn, the rest of the team a good minute behind him, running up fifteen flights of stairs. The faces of the murdered and missing boys were burned into Jeffrey’s mind, and he was more than determined to bring their tormentor to justice. The rooftop was a black field of shadows, doorways, and ventilation shafts, any one of them a place to hide. The street noise, even twenty floors up, made it impossible to hear the labored breathing or the shuffle of footsteps that might give Jeffrey the advantage of knowing where the perp hid. Jeffrey’s mistake, of course, was that he wasn’t afraid at all. Had he been, he would have been more cautious. Instead he rounded a corner too quickly and came face-to-face with the criminal, who fired a round at him. Luckily the bastard was a bad shot, and instead of getting Jeffrey in the head, the bullet passed through his right shoulder, just to the right of his protective Kevlar vest. The other men on the team took the killer down.

  He didn’t remember much else until he awoke hours later in a hospital bed, feeling heavily drugged and vaguely aware of a dull pain in his shoulder. It took him a second to remember what had happened and where he was. The room was dim and the heart monitor beeped steadily. Lydia must have been standing there in the doorway for a moment before he turned his head and saw her. He remembered thinking that he was dreaming. The lights behind her glowed like a halo around her head. She looked so beautiful and strong, her long black hair spilling over her shoulders, her white T-shirt clinging to her breasts. He smiled dreamily, wanting to take her into his arms.

  Suddenly she seemed to lose her strength and leaned against the doorjamb, closing her eyes. When she opened them again, tears spilled down her pale skin. In all the years he had known her, he hadn’t seen her cry since the death of her mother. Now she looked frightened and helpless, like the child he remembered. He struggled to sit upright.

  “Lydia, I’m fine.”

  She walked into the room and sat in the chair by his bed. She took his good hand tightly and pulled it to her face. She held it there with her eyes squeezed shut, as if she were praying. They both knew she crossed the line that moment. He had realized as he lay there, his throat dry with emotion, that he had crossed it long ago.

  He was moved to silence by her tears. He wanted to beg her to stop before his heart broke but, at the same time, her tears were answering a question he had never asked of her. He had always known that she cared for him deeply and, in a way, relied on him. He knew he was the only one she truly allowed into her life. But he was never sure where her feelings began or ended. She had always maintained a protective distance from him, appearing and then disappearing from his day-to-day life. As she sat by his bedside, bathing his hand with her tears, she closed that distance.

  She had said to him once, “Never love anything so much that if fate snatches it away, your whole world turns black.”

  He knew it was too late for that now—for both of them.

  “Lydia, I’m okay,” he repeated softly. He lay very still, afraid to move his hand, afraid she’d let it go.

  She searched his face to see if he was lying. Then she nodded and sat back in the chair, keeping her hold on his hand. He watched as she struggled to recover herself. Her skin was flushed, she stared away from him. Anyone else would have thought her face lacked emotion, her small features were taut and still. But her gray eyes told the tale to him alone.

  “Don’t you ever die on me, Jeffrey. Don’t you ever,” she whispered.

  She seemed not to be able to stop the quiet, choking sobs that shook her shoulders. He would almost rather take another bullet than ever hear that sound again.

  “Lydia,” he began, the words he had wanted to say for years on the tip of his tongue.

  She stopped him. “Don’t, Jeffrey,” she said gently.

  He let it go, too afraid to go forward. They sat in silence, hand in hand, until he drifted off to sleep.

  She stayed with him in his midtown apartment for almost a month. She cleaned, she cooked, she nursed him with a tenderness he wouldn’t have believed of her. Not that she was a cold woman. But getting close to her was like trying to get a bird to eat out of your hand. You had to hold that bread crumb out consistently and for a good long time before you earned enough trust to approach without generating a flight response. She slept in his guest room, though she had her own apartment in New York City overlooking Central Park West. She stayed until he became restless to go back to work and she was satisfied that he was well.

  Then Lydia left, went off to Europe to find out if Esmy von Buren was really killing her own children as her former mother-in-law suspected. Jeffrey didn’t try to make her stay, just kissed her lightly on the mouth.

  “I’ll always be here, Lydia.”

  “So will I.” And she flashed him a rare smile.

  He strapped himself in now, and was glad to see that the door had closed but no one was sitting beside him, even though he probably would not at any point “take off his seat belt and move freely about the cabin” as the pilot would blithely suggest. Didn’t people know about wind shears?

  The plane began taxiing down the runway, picking up speed. He wondered, as he had wondered a thousand times, what would have happened if he had pushed her that night in the hospital. It might have taken only the slightest nudge. Perhaps she would have opened to him like a hothouse orchid. Or perhaps she would have shattered into a thousand pieces, like a carelessly handled porcelain doll.

  But as it was, since their month of living together almost a year ago, she’d put more distance between them than ever. At the height of the FBI investigation of Esmy von Buren, which Lydia had been responsible for getting started, she called him almost every day, but they spoke only about the case. He’d seen her only a handful of times when she returned to New York for Esmy’s trial. Then, two months ago, with Esmy tried and convicted of three counts of murder and Lydia’s article turned in to New York magazine, Lydia took off. She left a message on his home machine, though she could have easily reached him on his cell phone.

  “I need a rest after this case. Christ, I’m exhausted. I’ll call you. Take care of that shoulder.”

  The plane was racing down the runway, doubling its speed by the second and making his adrenaline pump. He let his head be pushed back by the force of takeoff and closed his eyes as he felt the wheels leave the ground. Why had she stopped him when they were so close? The last safe moment had passed between them—there was no real pretending to each other that their relationship ended with friendship. But he would rather see her preserved in the environment she created for herself than watch their relationship crumble if he came too close. So he endured the painful distances and the torturous closeness. He would continue, he knew, to come when she called.

  chapter eight

  The Church of the Holy Name was dimly lit by the fading sun as Lydia entered. Awed by the hush of the sacred room, at once she felt like a child and an intruder. She consciously pushed the vivid images of her dream from her mind. Still she felt a flutter of nerves in her stomach. She kept expecting to see her mother. Why did you come here now? she asked herself, as if something outside her had made the choice to stop suddenly on her way to the airport.

  As she walked cautiously down the center aisle toward the altar, the old, immaculately polished wood floors groaned loudly beneath her lizard-skin boots.

  “Is someone here?” Juno Alonzo materialized in a doorway that had been empty a moment ago. He was a tall man, almost six feet, and thin. His eyes seemed fixed on her—jet pools in a landscape of strong but gentle fea
tures. Full, red lips sloping into a square jaw, chiseled cheekbones leading to a high, deeply lined brow. But his face was more than the sum of these parts. There was something mesmerizing about it, like a portrait come to life. He was easily the most beautiful man—in an ethereal, almost angelic way—she had ever seen. She had the urge to confess all her sins to him and do penance in his arms.

  He spoke again. “Hello?”

  “Mr. Alonzo?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Lydia Strong.”

  “The writer?”

  “Yes.”

  She wondered for a moment if he would treat her with suspicion and then turn her away as he had to other writers who came to interview him. But instead he smiled and approached her with his hand outstretched in greeting, as if he had been expecting her.

  “A pleasure, Ms. Strong. My uncle has read your work to me from magazines and I’ve listened to you interviewed on National Public Radio. I had heard you had a home in the area.”

  When she took his hand in hers, he covered it with his other, gently pulling her closer to him. It was a warm and powerful grip, full of a strange energy that made Lydia flush and smile lightly in spite of herself. They stayed like that for a moment longer than would have seemed appropriate in another context. And as she stood captivated by his unseeing gaze, her small hand folded in his large one, she was tempted to believe what she had read about Juno. She wondered suddenly if he did have the power to enter people’s dreams. It was a ridiculous thought but it stayed with her. She would give anything to have one last chance to talk to her mother, to say good-bye, to say she was sorry … for what, she didn’t know. She would give anything to show her mother the accomplishments she had made in her career, to hear that her mother was proud of her. Would it cause her mother pain to know she wasn’t married, that she never went to church? Would Marion be angry or disappointed? Lydia wanted to know these answers so badly sometimes.

  She looked at Juno, searching his face for some hint of the supernatural. Like what—some kind of glowing tattoo—a third eye? she thought. But even her own internal sarcasm couldn’t dampen the irrational and inexplicable feeling of hope that welled in her. And the images from her dream haunted her, were a tune stuck in her head, repetitive and annoying.

  “Please, sit down, Ms. Strong. Tell me what I can do for you.” He led her to a pew with his hand on the small of her back. “I assume you are here to talk about Christopher Poveda.”

  “Who?”

  “The boy who died recently of leukemia.”

  “Actually …”

  “Sometimes God calls his children home, Ms. Strong. And there is nothing on earth any of us can do.”

  “I’m sure that’s true, Mr. Alonzo. But I am here to ask you about Lucky, the boy’s dog you found dead in your garden.” She felt uncomfortable as she watched his face darken, aware and a bit ashamed that her interest must seem sordid to him.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you have any idea how the dog got there?”

  “There are many people who believe that I have the power to heal. But there are many that disbelieve it—vehemently. These types of people have perpetrated acts of violence against me and this church in the past, may God forgive them.”

  She listened carefully to his words and his voice, listening for a note out of key that would signal to her that he had something to hide. One of the first things she had learned at the FBI academy, being one of the few authors ever allowed to attend, was that most liars gave themselves away without ever saying a word. She scrutinized him openly, looking for a tapping foot, a clenching fist, any revealing unconscious bodily movement. But he was solid, fixed. He concentrated on his words, choosing each carefully, speaking slowly. He seemed to speak as some people wrote, picking words specifically for their nuance and rhythm.

  “So you imagined that to be an act of vandalism. Someone expressing anger that you were unable to heal Christopher?”

  “I can’t imagine why anyone else would have done such an awful thing.”

  “Forgive me, but it doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense. Why would you kill one creature to express rage that another could not be saved?”

  “It’s a good question and one I have been asking myself since I fell upon the dog’s body.”

  Usually, skepticism of others was part of Lydia’s natural state of existence. The words people spoke, the faces they wore in public, were rarely the path to the truth about them. The inconsistent phrase, the shifting gaze, the unconscious movement were much more certain, though more subtle, indicators of the real story behind the face. She was looking for any of those things now. Hoping for one, in fact. Because as much as the possibility that this man was a psychic and a healer had appealed to her just moments earlier, now she inexplicably wanted him to reveal himself as a fraud.

  “May I see where you found him?” she asked, though she wasn’t sure what she could possibly find there.

  He led her through the church, again with his hand on the small of her back. It was an odd gesture, at once intimate and authoritative. His large hand made her feel small and, as a result, vulnerable and a bit shepherded. She wondered if this was a consciously manipulative action on his part.

  He held the back door open for her and she walked into the lush garden. She hadn’t noticed it before, but in the center, nestled in a bed of leafy green fernlike plants was a small statue of the Virgin Mary holding the Baby Jesus. Standing about three feet tall and carved from some type of pink marble, there was something unusually beautiful about the sculpture. Lydia found many of the images of Madonna and Child to be cold in their religiousness, as if the emotional bond between mother and son had been forgotten. As if His sacred destiny made it that He was never Mary’s child. But He was once just a baby boy adored by his mother, wasn’t He? This had always bothered her about religion. It seemed to Lydia that someone had taken all the humanity out of it. But the face of this Virgin statue was etched with motherly adoration, a loving smile playing on her lips, her eyes brimming with emotion at the baby nestled secure and sleepy in her arms.

  “This statue is remarkable,” said Lydia.

  “So I’m told,” answered Juno. “My uncle, the priest who heads this parish, is a sculptor. He mainly works in wood. There’s a case at the back of the church that holds the crucifixes and rosaries he makes most often. The statue was a bit of a departure for him. He made it when we had the garden built.”

  Though beautiful, the garden seemed neither as fecund nor otherworldly as it had in the dark or in her dream. But the flowers were meticulously tended, with not one weed pushing its way through the dirt. The earth looked as if it had been recently turned, as it was wet and black as tar.

  “This garden is quite lively for something found in the fall, not to mention in the desert.”

  “We have volunteers that tend it with great attention. I understand they do a phenomenal job. Though, of course, I’ve never seen it myself. Their scent provokes in me the imagination of color. So wonderful.”

  He looked almost rapturous for a moment. Lydia found herself assailed by a flash flood of doubt. She was always suspicious of euphoria. She considered it a state natural only to psychotics and idiots. And he did not seem to be either. But, she considered, he was a blind man of tremendous faith who had likely never strayed far from the church or the yard where they stood. The world was probably quite a different place for him than it was for her. She wondered what it was like to have such faith, to be moved to joy by the imagination of color. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt joy—in fact, wasn’t sure if she ever had in her adult life.

  “Have you lived at this church all your life, Mr. Alonzo?”

  “Yes, I was raised here by my uncle. Our quarters are behind the church. I suppose it’s an unusual situation, but I help him with the business of the church and accompany him with my guitar at mass.”

  “And heal the sick?”

  It was a guerrilla tactic, she knew, to lull pe
ople into security with innocent questions and then drop from the trees with something more direct. Juno laughed a little and shook his head. It was a laugh of resignation, with just a hint of annoyance.

  “Like I said, Ms. Strong, there are people who believe I have that power.”

  “What do you believe?”

  He leaned against the doorjamb and appeared to be looking above her for the answer. “I believe that God can heal. People have claimed, though I myself am unconvinced, that my touch has helped them. But I believe that if even one in a million people are helped or believed they are helped by my touch, what right do I have to turn anyone away? There are far fewer people who come now. And you are the first writer I have spoken to in over a year. Only to say what I have just said to you.”

  “How can it be that you don’t know if you have this power or not?”

  Juno paused, as if considering whether to answer her or not. Lydia knew reporters had tried and failed to get him to tell them as much as he had already told her. Maybe he had sensed that her interest as a professional wasn’t in his curious abilities, and that is why he was so open. She didn’t think she would get any more from him and was surprised when he then went on to tell his story.