Gavin English Thrillers

by Ken Lindsey

  Friday morning came and went, and the sun hung high in its noon-time place when Timothy finally sat up, his sheets soaked through with urine and stained the color of rust. It wasn’t a surprise to the man of God, not since the very first time he finally got the rest which only the Just deserve.

  That time, he’d slept only fourteen hours. It was deep sleep, and dreamless, and when he awoke, he panicked to find himself lying in a bed soaked and stinking. Pastor Ford stripped the bed in shame and washed the sheets by hand, in his kitchen sink, for fear that someone might see if he took his linens to the washroom in the church’s basement.

  After the second time it happened, he went to a Walmart on the other side of town and purchased a mattress cover from the children’s bedding section.

  This morning was the sixth such incident in the past ten years, and almost the last. Seven is the holy number, the number of God, and with his seventh sacrifice, Timothy knew that the Voice, and all the turbulence that damned being brought into his life, would be over. He was a soldier for the Lord, and his tour of duty was nearly finished.

  He climbed off the bed and knelt, resting his elbows on the piss-soaked sheets and bowing his head onto his clasped hands.

  “We awaken in Christ’s body,” he began his daily prayer, “as Christ awakens our bodies. And my poor hand is Christ, He enters my foot, and is infinitely me...”

  His prayers lasted for nearly an hour, at the end of which, Timothy got to his feet and stretched until the blood rushed back into his tingling feet and hands. He stripped his bed and took the linens to the shower with him. He scrubbed with shampoo and bleach, first his body and then the sheets, afterward letting the hot water rinse him until the shower temperature dropped too low for comfort.

  Ford dried himself with a snow-white towel and then hung the towel, along with his bedding, to drip dry on the curtain rod over the tub.

  Once dressed, Timothy found his Bible in its usual place on the nightstand and began his day’s study in blessed silence.******

  “It’s really hard to sleep through my phone ringing when you call every five minutes.”

  “Where the hell are you?” Kara was pissed. It might have been more than that, though; she might even be worried. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you since yesterday morning.”

  “I’m home. I’ve been dealing with a uhh... stomach flu-bug-thing.”

  My assistant swore as I heard the unmistakable noises of her swinging the phone around in frustration. Something slammed hard, a pointed-toe shoe meets heavy wooden desk sort of noise, followed immediately by a grunt of pain.

  I waited patiently while she composed herself.

  “You’re supposed to start a new job today,” she finally replied in a voice at least two octaves too high, “and that asshole Hank has been calling. He wants you to try, yet again, to catch his wife cheating.”

  I kicked the blanket off and sat up on the edge of the bed. “What new job?” I asked before taking a swallow of whatever clear liquid was in the glass on my nightstand. Turns out it was water. Old, dusty water. I finished it off.

  “That creepy preacher guy. You’re scheduled to start tailing that woman for him tonight.”

  “Oh, right.”

  She waited a good ten seconds for me to expound on my answer, and then, “Well? Do you think you’ll be over your damn flu-bug-whatever-hungover-crap you made up in time to do it?”

  “Oh, right.”

  Kara growled. I laughed. She did not.

  “Yeah, I’ll be to the office in an hour.”

  She hung up without another word, and guilt hit me like a truck for teasing her. The last time we spoke, I acted like a jealous teenager, and then I went and made it worse by going out with David and doing...

  I shivered at the thought and did my best to shove the memory way down into my subconscious as I lit a cigarette and made my way to the kitchen. I needed coffee and a shower, and I needed them desperately.

  Forty minutes or so later I pulled into my spot in front of the Gavin English Agency. Seeing the sign there, professionally done, with my name in big letters like that still makes me smile. Every damn time. I’ve come a long way from my Craigslist and street-flyer days.

  I entered through the building’s main door and headed straight for the Executive Coffee Lounge, just like every other day since I moved into my new swanky office. The coffee was fine, but the executive ambience was addictive as hell.

  Only two people were there before me, so I called upstairs to make a peace offering to my grumpy assistant.

  “What?” she answered the office phone after a single ring. Not the most professional way to answer the phone, but I cut her some slack due to her absolute annoyance with me today. And maybe a little because of the guilt I was feeling.

  “I’m downstairs, can I get you a coffee?”

  “No.”

  “How about a muffin? A bagel?”

  “I’m fine, Gavin.”

  “Oh. Okay, then,” I replied, laying on my saddest puppy dog voice.

  She sighed, “Yeah, I’ll take an Americano.”

  “Done.”

  “With a blueberry muffin.”

  “I’ll have it up to you in a few minutes!”

  She hung up without saying goodbye, but accepting my olive branch meant that she would let me off the hook before long. Of course, that might change if she finds out about... well about that thing I refused to let myself think about right then.

  A few minutes later I hit the button in the elevator for the third floor, with two adequately made executive coffees and one blueberry muffin. My palms were sweating. My heartrate was going nuts. I wanted to believe someone downstairs drugged me, but the truth is always simpler.

  I felt guilty for my three-person indiscretion, and I was terrified that Kara would see it written all over my face. It didn’t make sense; it’s not like we were together. Hell, she was the one who decided to go on a date with another guy and send me into this shame spiral.

  As the elevator doors opened onto our floor, I took a moment to steady myself. It wouldn’t do any good to go in there, guns blazing, ready to argue with her. I needed to chill, offer up my caffeinated olive branch, and take things from there.

  A few more breaths and I got off the elevator before the doors could close on me and walked to the office, opening the door with my hip and forcing a smile.

  Once I saw her face, the smile stopped being fake. Every time I see her, it’s like getting hit with a defibrillator. BOOM goes my heart when I see her. BOOM again when she looks back at me.

  I’m in trouble. Big trouble.

  “Did you remember my muffin?” she asks, not quite smiling but not unhappy to see me.

  “Of course!”

  “You better have. You owe me for throwing such a hissy fit the other day.”

  I set the drinks and muffin on the desk in front of her, “Yeah, about that... I’m sorry. I was caught off guard.”

  Kara stood, holding my gaze with her own. “I’m sorry, too. I was kind of pissed that you didn’t act like you wanted more from us, or whatever it is we’re doing. I shouldn’t have agreed to the date, I didn’t even wind up going.”

  “Wait, you didn’t go out with that guy?”

  “No. I cancelled and sat at home pouting, imagining you out there partying with strippers and having a dirty one-night stand.”

  Ouch. First, an unexpected apology I didn’t deserve, and now another heaping spoonful of guilt for being such an asshole. I think I felt an ulcer coming on. I had to tell the truth; Kara deserved at least that much.

  “Listen, Kara. I need to...”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she cut me off with a panicked look in her eyes. “I just want to know if this thing that we’re doing means anything.”

  “But, Kara, the other night...”

  “Shut up. If this isn’t going to go anywhere, this thing between us, it’s okay. I’m a big girl and I’ll be fine. I just want to know what you’re feeling.
”

  “I’m crazy about you. I have been since the day you walked in my office and told me I was gonna hire you.”

  “Well, it was obvious you weren’t going to get anyone better.”

  “It still is.”

  Her smile in that moment turned my whole cynical world upside down. Maybe love is real. Maybe the Sun really will come up tomorrow. Maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t a lost cause.

  “So, what do we do now?” she asked, her deep brown eyes swimming.

  I wanted to kiss her then, make it real. Seal that moment in eternity and forget everything that had come before. But I knew it wasn’t right.

  “We should go out tonight, after I’m done with the job. We can talk, figure this thing out.”

  She nodded, “It’s a date.”******

  Pastor Timothy Ford gazed across the pulpit at the pathetic showing for his Sunday morning service. Less than twenty people showed up to give the Lord His due, which meant three times as many were worshipping at the altar of Football and Consumerism instead.

  “The problem with sheep,” his father once told him, “is that they’re dumb enough to follow anyone, even if it’s just another sheep that’s about to lead them off a cliff.”

  Timothy thought about how true this was as he preached about hellfire and damnation, only to be met with timid nods and drowsy-eyed stares from his own stupid flock.

  “But the fearful,” he read from the book of Revelations, slapping his palm on the podium with every other word, “and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death!”

  He continued through the sermon, counting the heads over and over, stoking the fire of his righteous indignity until he realized that one of the missing heads belonged to a certain woman. That very same woman whose husband found his way to church every Sunday (even when his wife found reasons not to go).

  Pastor Ford paused, almost stumbling over the scripture he was reading, as he realized what she must be out doing. He had no doubt that the woman was a fornicating adulterer, but desecrating the Lord’s day while her husband faithfully prayed for her soul? It was too much to think about.

  He steadied himself and carried on, with none of his parishioners taking notice of his misstep. Although he didn’t care for that private investigator, with his office stinking of booze and cigarettes and his half-naked secretary parading herself around, he knew that finding him in the phonebook had to be the Will of God.

  If God could use Balaam’s ass to speak truth, then he could certainly use an immoral fool like Gavin English.

  Chapter 5: Date Night

  “Her name is Beverly Anderson and her husband’s name is Clark,” Kara read the info over the Jeep’s speakers to me. “Ford called and said she wasn’t at church today, so he thinks she’s probably out with the mechanic while Clark is singing songs and eating at the weekly potluck.”

  I couldn’t retain any of the information. She’d told me all this before I left the office, and again two minutes later when I’d called in asking for help. This time, she called me to make sure I got it just as I was pulling over across the street from the mechanic’s shop.

  “Okay, well I’m here now and the shop’s closed but there are three cars parked out front. A busted down old Plymouth, a Ford F-150, and a minivan.”

  “What color is the minivan? Is it a Red Dodge?”

  “Huh?”

  “Jesus, Gavin, pay attention.”

  I couldn’t help being preoccupied. I felt guilty about Thursday night, plus now I was equal parts excited and terrified about my date night with Kara. I hadn’t been on a proper, getting to know you so we can fall in love, kind of date since before I was married. And let’s be frank here, that time it didn’t end so well for yours truly.

  “I am,” I lied. “Yeah, it’s a red Dodge Caravan.”

  “That’s our girl. Time to bust out the camera and create a permanent record of some lady doing skeevy things while her husband eats creamed corn and chats about Jesus.”

  “What the hell, Kara?”

  “I don’t know, you have a weird job. It’s not my fault.”

  She had a point.

  “I’ll call you back after Mrs. Anderson finishes here.”

  “Finishes fornicating, you mean.”

  We both laughed for way too long before ending the call. I still wore a smile while I crept up to the shop’s back window and peeked inside.

  If people get a cheap thrill from meeting at a hotel to do their sinning, then the thrills being committed when I looked into that dingy shop must have been bargain-basement.

  Poor Clark’s wife was an attractive forty-something woman with auburn hair (apparently her natural color judging by my specific point of view in that moment), and a voracious sexual appetite. Her coital partner was much younger, possibly in his mid-twenties, and had to be six-foot-six. Through my very expensive camera’s lense, I could see that his fingers were stained with grease and his knuckles were cracked and dry, an almost artistic juxtaposition to her soft, clean hair. Which he pulled back on with both fists.

  “Harder!” she screamed out in pleasure-pain. “Spank me again and do it harder!”

  When it was all said and done, my Canon’s battery still had eighty percent, but I needed a recharge. I trudged out of that lot, camera in hand and dignity nowhere to be seen, feeling sorry for Clark Anderson. Hell, I even felt a bit sorry for Mrs. Anderson, who apparently wanted things she was afraid to ask her husband for.

  I climbed back in the Jeep and sped out onto the road, letting the afternoon air wash over me. I wasn’t about to let this stinking job ruin my mood or put a damper on my date with Kara.

  A mile or so down the road, I hit redial and turned up the volume on the Jeep’s radio.

  “Gavin English Agency, how can I help you?”

  “Hey, gorgeous. Job is done.”

  “How did it go?”

  “Our dear reverend friend isn’t gonna be happy. Or, maybe he is? I can’t really tell.”

  “Okay, that was super confusing, Gavin.”

  “Oh, shit. Sorry, but yeah, he was right. Mrs. Anderson is getting lubed by the mechanic.”

  “Damn. She really is spanking the grease monkey?”

  “Other way around,” I laughed.

  “No way.”

  “It’s true, the church lady seems to like it rough.”

  “In the shop, with all that oil and dirt everywhere? Gross.”

  “I’m afraid so, and I have digital proof in the passenger’s seat right next to me” I replied. “I’ll be there in a few minutes and you can see for yourself, if you like.”

  “I’ll pass. Just hurry up and get here, I have a date I don’t want to be late for.”******

  He couldn’t stop himself from pacing. Up and down the rows of pews, back and forth from one aisle to the next, his footfalls echoed through the empty sanctuary. The Voice hadn’t returned yet, but Pastor Timothy Ford recognized the familiar feeling creeping up his spine. It was the feeling of being unclean, unholy—irredeemable.

  Soon, It would be back. Taunting him with its foul tongue. Terrorizing him with its mockery. Making him doubt his own personal salvation.

  And it was all due to that harlot, flaunting her sinful ways and rubbing it in his face. Ford knew that Beverly Anderson had to think he was on to her. He knew it just as he knew that she was a sinner, defiled by Satan himself, and deserved discipline.

  Yes. Beverly Anderson had to be his final test, here in this sinful and mortal life. Once he knew, once the investigator returned his call with the inevitable acknowledgement of her adultery, he could finally finish his work and be assured of his place at God’s side.

  The thrumm of the furnace kicking off brought Timothy out of his reverie. Had the lights dimmed, or were his eyes naturally adjusting to the darkened room?

  His skin prickled as a frozen
breeze fluttered through the drafty church. Pastor Ford began to pray.

  “Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul...”

  A door slammed behind the altar, in the room where Timothy performed baptisms for children and infants. He squeezed his eyes closed and continued, “For my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings...”

  More footsteps rang out, although the pastor knew no one else was in the church with him. The last members of his congregation had left hours ago, after helping to clean up the potluck mess, and there wasn’t anyone else who had a key to the building.

  Timothy sat in one of the wooden pews, his hands trembling and his breaths coming out in shuddering gasps. Still, he went on, “in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast.”

  The furnace roared back to life. Pastor Timothy Ford steadied himself with a deep breath. Only silence followed the sound of the air rushing through the building’s ancient ventilation system.

  The tremors running through his body stilled, he took in another calming breath. He heard nothing. No footsteps, no doors slamming. No Voices.

  Ford opened his eyes.

  The room was normal as ever. Empty pews. Stained-glass windows breaking up the late afternoon sunlight. He looked to the pulpit and saw his father’s Bible lying where he’d left it at the end of that morning’s service.

  Tears he didn’t know he’d been holding back fell down his cheeks and a thick, wet sob escaped his lips as he stood. “Thank you, oh my Divine Savior, for being with me in my hour of need,” he whispered to himself.

  “Tsk tsk tsk,” came the Voice as he stepped from the pew, high pitched and sounding as if it was coming from someone close enough to whisper into his ear. It may as well have been a gunshot or a bolt of lightning.

  Timothy fell to his hands and knees and wept uncontrollably. The only thing he could hear was Its rasping and hate-filled laughter reverberating through the sanctuary.******