"Thanks for the offer but we're leaving. Just as soon as you care to give us the car keys, we'll be out of your hair."
"My hair?" Bob lowered the hood to his shoulders to reveal a shiny, bald head. "My own thing. Not that many of us shave ourselves bald."
Shawn whistled. "Nice head, Father Bob."
"Isn't that a country song?" Bob asked.
"Will you two shut the hell up?" Hal said, irritated. "Give me the keys and let me get out of here or I'll have a couple of murders on my hands."
Bob frowned. "Do not forget the commandment: thou shalt not kill."
"Ain't what it says," Hal said. "It says thou shalt not murder, but thanks for the reminder."
With a chuckle, Bob pulled the keys from a pocket on the robe. "You guys always have all the answers, don't you?"
"Us guys?" Hal asked. He snatched the keys.
"I've known guys like you all my life, Halford. Running and running; goddamned basketball player running up and down the court except the fucking game is never over, is it?"
"Nice language, Father Bob," Shawn said.
Bob pointed toward the chapel. "You'd do well to maybe grab yourself a little bit of this."
"Of what?" Hal glanced back toward the chapel.
"Penance."
The word hung over them, blood spatters on the chapel's roof.
"Right," Hal said. "Got just about enough pain in my life for right now, thanks."
"There's a difference between pain and penance," Bob said.
"Not from where I stand." Hal wiped the sweat from his lips.
"We do this for guys like you."
Hal spit on the tiled floor. "Send me a bill."
"You just don't get it, do you? This doesn't hurt." He pulled his robe down and showed them the scars. "This doesn't hurt because we choose it."
"Choose pain? Bull-fucking-shit." Hal glanced up and down the hall. Each door was a duplicate of the bedroom from which he'd come. The only other door was to the chapel. That had to be the way out. "No one chooses pain. People give you pain, it ain't a choice."
Hal headed for the chapel. "Every bit of pain somebody gets, and it's a fuck of a lot, is because somebody gave it to them." He nodded toward Shawn. "She gets her ass beaten black and blue…it makes her string herself out with drugs…and you think she chose that pain? She didn't choose drugs, they were forced on her by a cop who thinks he owns her."
"Hal," Shawn said.
"Nobody does their own pain except a bunch of whack jobs who couldn't afford a church so they bought a bunch of mobile homes. It's the same for everybody. Somebody beats you or steals from you or gets a promotion or some award or whatever."
He slammed a fist against the wall. Bits of badly applied adobe fell to the floor. Silver aluminum skin winked at him.
"It's bullshit because you're just as good as they are."
"Hal?" Shawn's eyes knitted together in a deep frown.
"I could have set that fucking table, sure as hell. I could have set it eight ways from Sunday. I could have set it with my eyes closed." He jammed his finger into Bob's chest. "Don't be a fucking idiot. I didn't choose that pain."
Sweat poured from him, like a summer rain spreading across the dry west Texas desert. Angrily, he wiped it away. "Don't be a patsy, Bob. Someone is always getting over on you." His hands clenched to fists. "And it ain't never your fault."
There it sat, as stark and brutal as it had ever been in his head. Hal took a deep breath. He had never spoken it before, not to another person. He had spoken to himself, screamed it to himself, but never to someone else. It had been his thing, his secret. Damn near the only thing he had secret.
Now it was in the air for anyone.
Without another word, Hal headed for the chapel. He pulled the door open and stepped into the world of allegedly chosen pain. Behind him, he heard Shawn give Bob a kiss, whisper a thank you, and then follow him.
It was a perverse fun-house with parodies of priests. Twenty, maybe thirty of them, all dressed in the same type of brown robe Bob wore. Now all of them with their chests naked, the backs either bloody or scarred. None of them moved, not even those with fresh blood on their backs. Every arm was aloft but motionless, every face set and tight. Even their sweat didn't move.
The chanting had stopped, too. It was the kind of silence Hal wanted to find in his sleep at night, the kind that had eluded him for the better part of his life.
There was no area for pews nor an aisle so he moved between the men, moving slowly, somehow afraid to disturb them. But even when he was directly in front of someone, they took no notice.
Except for two. One was a youngish guy, call him Hal's age. The man kept his head trained on the cross, as most of the priests did, but let his eyes quickly catch Hal every few seconds.
That's a scared damn face, Hal thought. He's hiding out in the middle of these nuts, hoping something out in the World won't find him.
"You and me both, brother," Hal said quietly.
He gave the man a nod and the man looked quickly back at the cross and managed to make himself smaller without actually moving, as though trying to disappear even more.
The second man was more sly. He watched Hal and Shawn, but didn't want Hal to realize it. He stood near the front door and he didn't move, didn't call out, didn't let his eyes hold Hal's more than a second. But in that second, Hal was certain the man had noticed him.
He turned back to Shawn. "He's watching us."
She shivered in spite of the heat. "Somebody sure as hell is, I can feel it."
The chapel, what had probably once been the living room of at least three of the mobile homes, was dank and ran with dust motes and the odor of blood. Sunlight sat behind the blacked out windows and appeared as an anemic, yellow light, a bug light some neighbor left on during the night.
With a deep swallow, Hal glanced back toward the front door. Had that priest moved? Just a little bit? Had he edged toward the door? He looked at him directly and when they caught each other's gaze this time, the priest didn't look away for a long minute. The hair on Hal's arms stood. Then the man opened his mouth and brayed.
Shawn yelped. Hal brought his hands - tight little fists now--up, ready to beat the shit outta whoever might jump him.
As the man's sound fell away, the priests began moving. Slowly, in rhythm to the man's chanting. The words were garbage, Latin or Greek or some bullshit. The men kept their arms up high and slowly spun in place. Their eyes were closed while they lip-synched the chant. When they had completed a turn, they all brought both arms high, then dropped them straight out sideways, leaned their heads forward, and began spinning.
"Crosses," Shawn said.
The chanting grew as more joined in. Hal felt the sound in the floor beneath his feet. It banged around the room and came back twice as loud. Soon, Hal didn't know where one chant ended and the next began. To him, it was a single chant, on a single note, maybe only a single word.
And still the priest watched him, still the man held his eyes. Hal stopped, let the twirling priests get between him and the man near the door.
"Something's going on," Hal said.
"What?"
"That guy keeps watching me."
"Maybe he thinks you're cute." Shawn snickered.
"Goddamnit, Shawn, something ain't right."
"Beyond guys in robes beating themselves up, you mean? What else is it?"
"The hell do I know? But I know I gotta get the hell outta this chapel and into some good, bright sunlight where I can see everything. Get in that car and get my ass on the road, that's all I want." He began walking. "Check that, all I want is to be done."
"Might be done soon enough," the man said as he pressed a cold barrel to Hal's head.
752 Miles (Again)
"Captain Brooks," Hal said, warm piss streaming down his leg.
"I love the smell of piss in the morning." Brooks' laugh was both as hard as steel and as cracked as a tired sidewalk. "You are a heavyweight, aren't
you?"
Embarrassment filled Hal even as his bladder emptied. The man had scared him; more properly, the gun had scared him. He'd been shot and stabbed and even thought he was going to die once in a car crash, but he'd never had a gun so close he could smell the oil. He'd never felt a cool, slick barrel against his skin.
Would he hear the bullet traveling down the barrel when Brooks fired? Would he ever even realize Brooks had fired?
Around them, the priests spun slowly, still chanting. The noise reached a level that rumbled in Hal's bones like a low-volt charge.
"Let him go, Brooks," Shawn said. "Are you crazy? Trying that in the middle of all these people? They'll take you down."
Brooks laughed. "Take me down? They're so tranced out they don't even know I'm here." He fingered the badge hanging from a slim chain around his neck. "Doesn't matter, anyway, I'm a good guy."
Hal surveyed the priests. With the exception of the two who'd been watching earlier, none looked at the trio, none of them stopped twirling or chanting. Shawn, Hal, and Captain Brooks were as invisible as a breeze.
"What do you want?" Hal asked. Stupid question, granted, but he was looking to stall and nothing else came to him.
"What do I want?" He laughed. "You got time for everything I want?"
"Gimme the express version." Hal tried to measure the distance from where he stood to the door. It was about twenty feet but no way in hell could he cross it before Brooks killed him. All right, he thought, then let's go to Plan B. Except there hadn't really been a Plan A so he was at a bit of a loss.
Maybe the priest, Hal thought. He glanced at the first one he'd noticed, the one whose face had been scared and almost laughed. This guy would be zero help. He'd gone from scared to terrified. His eyes never left Brooks' badge.
"Don't be so flip with me, my friend," Brooks said. "Smart mouth could get you in trouble. Now, first of all I want my twenty grand."
"Don't have it."
"I want my dope."
"Don't have it."
"I want my woman."
Hal bit his lips.
With another laugh, Brooks grabbed Shawn and hauled her close to him. "What are you doing here, honey?"
"Taking in a show," she said through gritted teeth.
Brooks slapped her face. The pop was a small caliber shot in the chapel. The priest near the door who had eyed Hal earlier looked over. Only his eyes, though, his head stayed toward the group of priests.
Shawn held a hand to her cheek. The skin was already going a deep, angry red.
"Don't sass me, bitch." He ran a finger along the barrel of his gun. "I'll kill you here and now, don't think I won't."
Hal opened his mouth but said nothing, a healthy fear of the gun still in the back of his throat as thick as bad booze.
"What's that, loverboy?" Brooks said, his dead eyes on Hal. "You got something to say?"
"Leave her alone." His voice was so soft he wasn't certain he'd even said anything. "She…she ain't done nothing…to you."
Brooks grinned at Hal. "That's right, loverboy, you've done it all. The dope, the money, the girl. You took it all."
"He didn't take me," Shawn said. "I went with him."
"Semantics. The point is, this particular set of problems pretty much start with Halford Turnbull." He raised the gun, sighted it on Hal's face. "Might as well end it with Halford Turnbull."
Hal's eyes closed. He wanted them open, but he was so freaked out it wasn't happening. You pretty much got whatever dignity I had left, Hal thought, so best get to shooting. Except he didn't want it to end in this goofy-ass church with his brains as splattered as priests' blood. Truth was, he didn't want it to end at all, he'd just as soon live forever. Certainly long enough, anyway, to give his brother a kiss on the cheek and make love one last time to Theresa.
"I guess we have a problem here, don't we?" Brooks said. "I mean, I got some things I want and you say you don't have them. That's a problem."
Brooks' voice was nearly lost by the chanting, growing louder by the moment. The robed men moved faster, too, in time with their chants, in rhythm to the words and sounds.
They're like dancing teenagers, Hal thought. This is their music, their socializing. And they were just as oblivious as teenagers. A man held a gun on two other people, had slapped one of them, and only two priests had noticed. One of those two was piss-scared and was trying to disappear into the damned walls and the other seemed to be getting off on the confrontation.
"Officer?" He stepped up to them. "Is everything okay? Do you need some help?"
Brooks tossed Hal and Shawn an angular grin, then shook his head. "No, sir, I have the situation under control. But let me just offer my thanks for your checking. If we had more citizens like you, we'd have fewer citizens like them."
With a nod, the priest went back to the others. He joined their movements, sang their chants, but his eyes stayed on Hal and Shawn.
That was probably the former cop, Hal thought. Wearing that robe instead of a fucking uniform. Probably still wore his badge at night while he paddled his pud when the rest of the freaks were safely in bed.
"You've got no problem," Shawn said. "Get out. Leave us alone. You lost some money and drugs. Deal with it."
Hal shook his head. "Ain't gonna work like that. He lost something. Three somethings. Boy needs something to replace what he lost."
A grin crawled across Brooks' crooked mouth. Teeth as twisted as a bad fence, stared out. "Not bad, loverboy. You may actually not be as stupid as you look."
"Thanks for that, I guess."
"Now, let's start this again. First I've got to correct you on one point, I only lost two things."
Hal frowned.
"I've got my dope."
Of course he did, Hal thought. Of course the money and the drugs would be exactly where they fell when Goon got whacked.
Understanding came to Hal suddenly. "But then the money--"
"Was gone." Brooks sucked his teeth. "You got it. Everything else was there: cars on fire, a dead man, two other local hoods, about a ton and a half of spent brass. But no money. What was amazing was that neither Dogwood nor Templeton could agree on exactly what happened."
"Go figure," Hal said.
"But they did agree that you were there when it all went bad. And seeing as how you are the only one who walked out of there, I put my money…literally…on you. You're probably also the one that brought down that particular fire-fight in my city."
"He didn't shoot at all."
Brooks swung his gaze toward Shawn. "You'd know because you were there. With Dogwood."
"Yes."
"Who I told you to stay away from."
"Yes."
"Lighten up, corporal, you don't own her."
Brooks jammed the gun into Hal's face. The barrel pressed against Hal's teeth. "Let me tell you something. Not only do I own her, I own everything."
Even if the gun hadn't been scraping the enamel off his teeth, Hal was not prepared to disagree. He might well have made some dumbass decisions in his life, but he sure as hell wasn't going to make one now. For now, as the priests got themselves more and more worked up, he'd keep himself nice and quiet, thank you very much.
"And it's Captain, not corporal, asswipe. Now, please do tell me where my money is."
Hal swallowed. "Swear to God, I don't know. When I left, it was with the dead guy."
"You expect me to believe you left $20,000? Not even a piece of afterbirth like you is that stupid."
Around them, the priests all raised their arms. Slowly, ritually. They came back down, then went up again. Everyone's head, Bob's included, was tilted back, eyes closed and mouth in a slight grin. Hal half expected some kind of golden light to come blasting out of the sky straight from God and shine down on them.
"Of course I ain't," Hal said. "I tried to get that money. Damned hard to get with bullets flying all over the place. Those fuckers shot at me. Shot my boot heel off."
"Shocking."
"The dead guy had it," Shawn said. "Templeton's goon. Did you check him?"
"Wow, why didn't I think of that? Oh, wait, I did. No bread."
"Well, it was there when we drove off." Shawn nodded. "We left it there."
Brooks grabbed her hair and twisted it until her face was nose to nose with his. "It's 'we' now is it?"
"Whoa," Hal said. "No need to go honking on women, Captain." Hal stepped forward a foot or so. "Just let her go and lets you and I get this thing straightened out."
"Officer?" the priest asked. He stopped with his eyes dead hard on Hal.
The arms, collectively synchronized, collective, raised above the priests' heads. They hesitated for a moment, then came back down before repeating the ritual. The chanting and twirling continued, growing like a wave coming in off the sea, larger and larger as the winds around it whipped up.
"What the hell is this?" Brooks asked, as though seeing the display for the first time.
"It's what we do," the priest said.
"It's stupid."
"It is self-sacrifice." The priest nodded. "It is getting to the heart of the matter of sin."
It kept going, over and over, a visual version of the chant, a monotony of movement. But then the chant changed. The arms came down fast and as they shot back up, four priests brought out whips. A half-second later, those four whips smashed against skin. The whap of leather and flesh rang out, bold over the chant. Blood exploded into the air.
"What in the hell…." Brooks backed up a step, his eyes wide.
Blood flipped through the air, dotted the ceiling, nailed Shawn. She yelped and fell backward.
"The fuck is that?" Brooks said. He turned toward the priests, amazement plain and naked on his face. "You guys are craz--"
"Go," Hal shouted. He shoved Shawn toward the chapel's front door. "Get your ass outta here."
Shawn never hesitated. She ran for the front door, mowing through priests like a bowling ball through robed pins. Her yells banged around the chapel's walls, interrupted the priests. The chant stopped, replaced by their confused questions. "What's this?" "Officer, should I get my--" "Who are you people?" "Why are the cops here? I'm wanted in--"
"Get your ass back here," Brooks shouted.
2,000 Miles to Open Road (Barefield) Page 14
