by Paul Bishop
Ferris swore when she saw Rhonda with Hammer standing next to her.
“How did you follow me here?”
Neither detective answered her. Instead they concentrated on the man with her.
“Father Romero,” Hammer said. He shook hands firmly with the man standing in front of Ferris.
“Señor Hammer,” Father Romero said. His smile was small, but genuine. “And the lovely Detective Nails.” He stepped forward to give Rhonda a hug. “How nice to see you.”
“A smooth shifting of gears, Father, but somehow I think our turning up is more awkward than nice for you.”
Father Romero waggled his palm from side to side. “Perhaps, but I have always found we have shared a voice of reason in the past. Let us hope this time is no different.”
Romero was a short, slender man dressed in black slacks, black shoes, and a black cleric's blouse with the traditional white collar at the throat. His shoulder-length, tar black hair hung loose around his face. In his fifties, he had angular cheeks ravaged by the pock-marks of youthful acne.
An outspoken civil rights activist, Romero was well known in the community. Usually, he was a moderate, but he was also a champion of sanctuary for Central and South American political refugees. In such cases, he was known to push politics and the law to the limit.
Hammer and Nails had met him on several occasions. In two particular incidents, their paths had crossed to mutual satisfaction. The first was during an internal affairs investigation involving a ring of cops shaking down illegal immigrants. The second was when a refugee seeking sanctuary had committed a double murder as the result of a love triangle. Their relationship remained tenuous, but there was mutual respect on both sides.
“I'm sorry, Father,” Ferris said. Her face was red, from either anger or shame. “I tried to be sure nobody was following me.”
Father Romero turned to Ferris and patted her gently on the back. “Don't berate yourself. I know these detectives well. There was nothing you could have done. They are like bulldogs. They would have arrived here sooner or later. Perhaps it is best they have come now.”
“Father, what is going on?” Rhonda asked.
Romero spread his hands in an odd gesture. “A long and sordid tale, I'm afraid.”
“We've got time.”
“Yes, but we don't. We are preparing for a dangerous intake. If you delay us much longer, you could put lives at risk.”
“Can we help?”
“As detectives or as concerned friends?”
“Does there have to be a difference?”
“I'm afraid so.”
Ferris reached out and grasped Romero by the arm. “Don't trust them. They're cops. They will screw us over.”
“It's too late, Ferris,” Romero said. “Bianca died an ugly death. The railroad may already be compromised. We need help.” He looked back at Hammer and Nails. “God has sent us these two. They will not choose following the law over doing what is right.”
“Don't be so sure, Father,” Hammer said.
Romero considered this statement. “Then we will make a deal. You give a little, and I'll give you a little. You help us now, and afterward I will arrange for you to talk with Bianca's children. Deal?”
Hammer and Nails exchanged glances. “Deal,” they said in unison.
TWENTY FIVE
Eldon Dodge was very aware of the impression he made standing in the doorway to the visiting room. He was unbowed by the weight of his sixty years, or by the hopelessness of his plight. Nearly naked and wrapped in chains, his black skin glistening with sweat. A small medallion on a thin loop rested between his pectoral muscles. In earlier times, he might have been stepping off a slave ship, bound for the auction block.
If a bolt of lightning had crackled across room's small window, Fey felt she would have fainted dead away, the horror films of her childhood becoming real. There was no crash of thunder, but looking at Dodge, Fey could only feel embarrassment for what humans do to each other despite justification.
Dodge broke the short silence. When he spoke, his voice was calm, without even a tinge of anger. “Believe it or not, my civil rights aren't being violated. Even the white boys on the shelf have to dress up in this jewelry to come to a party.” He held his arms as far away from his body as the waist shackles would allow. “Dig this crazy necklace,” he said, raising his chin up to draw attention to the shock collar around his neck. “You'd think I was going to rape and pillage all by myself.”
He smiled and shuffled into the room. The door closed behind him, but a guard stood watching through the plastic window, a remote transmitter with a red thumb button in his hand ready to zap Dodge's collar.
“Hello, counselor,” he said to Wyatt. “Are all your bills being paid?”
“Very satisfactorily, Reverend.”
Fey had stood when she'd heard the door to the visiting room opening. Dodge was tall, his hair shaved close to his scalp. She could smell a heavy male musk emanating from his body, not unclean as much as unaired. She watched his nostrils flare and knew he was sniffing her. It was disconcerting, as if he were taking some perverted liberty and there was nothing she could do about it.
Dodge widened his eyes, showing large amounts of white. “You're Garth Croaker's daughter?”
Fey hated her father, hated to be reminded she was born from his seed. She responded with an attack, “And you're a murderer he put in jail to die.”
Dodge blinked. “Your father was a corrupt, lying mongrel.”
Fey nodded. “There are some things we agree about, but you didn't get your tame lap dog to drag me here to discuss a man we both hate.”
“But I did.” Dodge moved forward, making Fey visibly tense. He saw the tightening in her, and appeared to come to a decision. He sat in one of the bolted-down chairs and gestured for Fey to sit across from him.
Mad at herself for flinching, Fey complied with a show of nonchalance.
Wyatt made to sit also, but Dodge stopped him. “Leave us alone,” he said. His lack of manners was obvious.
“I don't think that would be wise, Reverend.”
Dodge half-turned in his chair toward Wyatt. “I don't give a flaming fart what you think. You're being paid very well. Get out.”
Wyatt had been caught half-sitting and half-standing. He was a man used to power and respect off-footed by a man with nothing to lose. Reaching a hand down to the chair seat, Wyatt pushed himself back to a standing position, but gave no indication of his anger.
“I think you're making a mistake, Reverend. Croaker is not somebody you can screw around with. She's dangerous.”
“I don't intend to screw around with her. I intend to be straightforward with her, but what I have to say is for her ears only.”
Wyatt shrugged and walked to the door. It was opened by the guard outside. He turned back to Fey. “Are you okay with this?”
She dipped her head slightly to one side. “I've come this far. It's beginning to get interesting.” She was fascinated to see Wyatt put in his place.
Wyatt shrugged and walked out.
When the door closed, Fey brought her eyes back to Dodge. Her heart was pounding beneath her surface cool.
“Please forgive me for playing games,” Dodge said. His demeanor had visibly softened. “I do not want to scare you or irritate you. I won’t waste your time. Thank you for coming.”
Fey sat straight in the hard chair, not relaxing, meeting Dodge's eyes, refusing to give anything away. “Okay.”
Dodge sighed. “What do you think whenever you hear a con say he has found God?”
“It's a very convenient ploy for sympathy. It plays well in parole board hearings, or when trying to get a reprieve from the gas chamber.”
“The gas chamber,” Dodge said. He leaned back in the chair, his hands in his lap like two chained spiders. “I've been living in a cell fifty feet away from the gas chamber for twenty-eight years. I'm never going to get any further away from it, but I'm never going to get any closer
.”
“Other men have thought the same and been wrong.”
“But I am political,” Dodge said. His voice purposely blackened on the last word making it po-litical. When you are po-litical and you die, you become a martyr,” Dodge continued. “But when you are po-litical and you are left to rot, then you are forgotten and nobody rallies to your cause.”
“Somebody must be rallying to yours,” Fey said. “Somebody is paying Wyatt.”
“Ill-gotten gains, invested wisely,” Dodge told her with a conspiratorial grin. “I rally to my own cause.”
“From the inside?”
“All things are possible on the inside, even finding God.”
“Where exactly did you find him? Third cell on the left?”
“Mockery?”
Fey leaned forward. “You said you weren't going to waste my time.”
“I'll make your trip worthwhile,” Dodge said. “But please let me answer your question.”
Politeness was not something you came across often in cons, at least not toward cops. Fey leaned back, giving the impression she was willing to listen.
“You asked me where I found God. Perhaps it would be easier to explain when I found God. It was August twenty-first, nineteen-eighty-seven, at exactly one-thirty-eight in the afternoon.”
“Pretty precise,” Fey said. “I'm impressed.”
Dodge smiled with reminiscence. “It was the exact date and time I met Mother Teresa.”
Despite herself, Fey found she was interested.
“It was a dog of a summer day and I was getting ready to push stone.” Dodge saw Fey was missing the slang connection. “Lift weights on the roof,” he explained. “We push the stone of this building away like Christ pushing the stone of his tomb away. It don't matter how hot or cold, you don't miss your time in the light.”
Fey nodded in understanding.
“I was tying my shoes when one of the guards asks how come I ain't going to see Mother Teresa.
“I blew him off. The guards will do anything to make you break your routine. It's a game with them. 'When she can bench press three times her body weight, tell her to come see me,' I said. 'I ain't missing my sun for no nun.' The guard walked away and didn't say no more, which made me think. He'd given in too easily, and when I got to the roof, I could see there weren't the normal amount of muscle pugs around. Screw it, I thought. It's another head game. I strapped on a weight belt and started pushing the stone.”
Fey didn't say anything, not wanting to stop the flow of the narrative. She had no idea where Dodge was going with this story. Certainly she wasn't going to believe a word of it, but there had to be some point.
Dodge sought to keep his eyes locked on Fey's as he continued to talk. “That day, the hour outside seemed to go faster than normal. I was pumped and ripped going back down the stairs, when the same guard as before calls down and tells us not to go back into our cells for lock down. He says since we wouldn't go to Mother Teresa, she came to see us.
“I made my way to the front of the platform and there was this tiny woman looking older than a century. I felt something click inside me as if a switch had been flipped.”
Dodge cleared his throat, as if remembering the scene was bringing it alive again. “I was, a dead man living on borrowed time, and this small woman had affected me more strongly than anyone in my life. She smiled at me, and then her lips moved as she blessed a religious medal. She held it out to me. I took it, unable to speak.” Dodge's hands moved to caress the medallion lying against his chest. “It was like being in the gas chamber when the capsules drop, but your breathing stays normal. I died right there, without her saying a word, and was reborn. She turned to the guard next to her, and said in a clear voice, 'What you do to these men, you do to God.' I was chilled.”
So was Fey. She didn't want to believe Dodge, couldn't believe him, but instinctively she did. “And since then?” she prompted in a quiet voice.
Dodge brought out his smile again. “I have studied the scriptures and become a tower of strength in the Lord. I have found life beyond these walls, life beyond death.”
Fey had an image of the dove flying out of the throat of the beheaded St. Quentin.
“You brought me here to tell me this?”
Dodge shook his head. “I brought you here so I may atone for my sins. I want you to hear my confession.”
“I'm hardly a priest,” Fey said. She was flustered. “The only confessions I hear put villains in prison.”
“Exactly,” Dodge said.
“I don't understand.”
“I am a guilty man,” Dodge said.
Fey raised her eyebrows. “How long have you been in here? Thirty-years, give-or-take, and you’re only now having this revelation?”
“More mockery?”
“It's something I'm good at, especially when it's deserved.”
“I am a guilty man, but I am not guilty of murdering Mavis Flynn.”
“I'm supposed to believe you've found God, and you're innocent of the murder that put you on the shelf?”
“Yes.”
Fey started to stand up.
“Wait, please.” Dodge motioned only with his hands, not wanting to give the guard outside an excuse to activate the shock collar around his neck. “Please.” He was beseeching.
Fey lowered herself back into the chair. Her claustrophobic feelings had receded, but she was still unsettled by Dodge's demeanor. There had to be more to his story, some stronger reason for him to get Wyatt to request her presence.
“Thank you,” Dodge said. “Please bear with me a little longer. I have killed men. I have robbed with impunity, stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars. I have done many things for a cause I no longer believe in. But I did not kill Mavis Flynn.”
“Then who did?”
Dodge paused for effect before answering.
“Your father.”
TWENTY SIX
Neither Hammer or Nails were exactly sure what they were letting themselves in for, but they were used to flying blind. If pinned down, they would probably say they enjoyed it. Whatever Father Romero had in mind, they were up for it. They would deal with the consequences, moral and otherwise, later.
Their shared arrogance was their biggest strength and their biggest weakness. It made them so very good at what they did, yet blinded them to realizing the world did not revolve around their viewpoint. They didn’t acknowledge answers right for them might not be right for others. If they were ever to fall, it would be far and hard.
Ferris was still not happy with Father Romero's decision to involve the two detectives. Her personal wounds were obviously raw. She had idolized Bianca Flynn, and wanted nothing more than to carry on in her heroine's stead. She knew she did not have the education, poise, or intellect to run the West Coast arm of the underground with the confidence and assurance of Bianca.
Ferris' insecurities left her angry and confused, unable to decide if Bianca would have agreed with Father Romero or fought him furiously. In the end, being swept along by events was easier than thinking for herself. Father Romero lead Hammer and Rhonda further back into the church with Ferris reluctantly following.
“Please,” he said, stopping outside what appeared to be a solid panel in the back wall. “I need your promise you will not use what I am about to show you against us.”
“You have it,” Hammer said with a glance at Nails.
“Don't do it, Father,” Ferris said in token objection.
Father Romero smiled at the woman he knew was running on the ragged edge of her emotions. “We have no choice, child. Put your trust in God.”
Ferris was silent. God had never helped her before.
Father Romero slid aside the wall panel without any show of flair. This was a passageway he frequently used, and there was nothing in his attitude to indicate it was anything special.
“Do you remember when the Church of the Black Madonna was the center of controversy for giving sanctuary to political refugees
considered illegal aliens by the government?” Father Romero asked.
“It was how we first met,” Hammer said.
Father Romero nodded. “There were many searches until we were able to establish a special dispensation for sacred ground. If the refugees could get to the church, they were safe.”
“Like reaching embassy soil in a foreign country,” Rhonda said. She was new on the job during the peak of the Sanctuary movement, but she remembered it well. She followed Father Romero as he stepped through the opening revealed by the sliding panel.
“The problem, of course,” Father Romero continued, “was getting the refugees to the church and supporting them once they were inside.”
“You frustrated a lot of politicians,” Hammer said, smiling. He always admired a good wool-over-the-eyes trick.
Father Romero turned to smile at them. “It was obvious nobody remembered the role this area played in the history of Los Angeles.” They were standing in a narrow passageway dimly lighted by bare electric bulbs supported by exposed wiring.
Hammer shook his head. “I'm not sure I follow.”
“Well, you can't always lead,” Father Romero said lightly. “And if you don't follow, you're likely to get lost.”
Rhonda snickered. It wasn't often somebody got away with a quip at Hammer's expense.
“What I meant was —”
“I know what you meant,” Father Romero said, leading the way down the passage. “What I meant was before Olvera Street became known for its tribute to Hispanic pageantry, this area was home to Los Angeles' first Chinatown. Above us is the site of the infamous Chinese Massacre in eighteen-seventy-one, as well as the location where Latin, Indian, and black jail prisoners were sold as day laborers. Turn-of-the-century Los Angeles was a time of crooked cops, protection rackets, illegal immigration, and rampant criminality. The opium and gambling dens of Chinatown had to be protected not only from police raids, but also from the vengeance of competing tongs.”
“The catacombs,” Hammer said realizing where the priest's conversation was leading.