Phantom ah-7

by Ted Bell

  Now, here he was again. Just being inside that church had made him nervous as a damn long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs. He hadn’t even meant to propose! One night, out at her palazzo on Key Biscayne, looking at her beautiful face in the moonlight, he’d said, “You know what, baby? I worship the ground you will walk on in a future lifetime.”

  Bam. Look at him. Here he was, at a specific church, on a specific date. Getting… he almost choked… getting married.

  Grace Baptist Church was located in the town of Seminole, Florida, population 867, most of them black folks and members of the congregation. You had farmers, fishermen, and caneworkers mostly out here. It was the bride’s hometown.

  Fancha’s family had emigrated to the States from the Cape Verde islands back in the 1980s. Settled out here in the sawgrass and muck for some unknowable reason. Maybe somebody in the family was a professional alligator wrestler, who knows. Compared to Harlem, where he grew up, this place bit the big one, all he had to say about it.

  Grace Baptist was the church Fancha had grown up in, singing in the choir. Not exactly St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Or even the Abyssinian Baptist Church at 132 West 138th Street. Now those were churches. You walk in there and you can feel the good Lord saying, “This right here, this is the house of the Lord, sinner, and don’t you forget it.”

  “Damn, it’s hot!” Stokely Jones said, dropping down on the bench next to his best man, Lord Alexander Hawke. Man flew all the way in from England with his little boy to be here. Cutest little kid you ever saw, dressed in his blue-and-white seersucker suit, short pants, white knee socks, and black patent leather shoes with straps to hold them on. He had his father’s jet-black hair and blazing blue eyes.

  Didn’t miss a trick either. Nell Spooner had given him a mayonnaise jar with holes punched in the top and an insect inside to keep him entertained after he’d been through all the toys.

  “What’s that in there?” Stoke asked the child. “A cricket?”

  “No, sir,” Alexei said, peering into the jar at his new pet. “A grasshopper! Spooner says grasshoppers fly and crickets don’t.”

  “Is that right? I didn’t have that information,” Stoke said, ruffling his hair and smiling at the boy’s proud papa.

  Hawke, for some unknown reason, looked cool as a damn cucumber just plucked out of the Frigidaire. Had on a pure white linen three-piece suit, not a wrinkle in it, a beautiful blue silk tie, and, despite all the heat and humidity and mosquitoes on this late May morning, he had a big smile on his face.

  “What are you so damn chipper about?” Stoke asked him. He’d gotten that word, chipper, from Hawke long ago and used it ever since. Liked the sound of it.

  “Listen to that choir,” Hawke said.

  “What about it?”

  “It’s beautiful, that’s what. I’ve never heard music like that. Have you, Miss Spooner?”

  “No, sir, I’ve not,” she said. “It is divine, isn’t it?”

  Stoke said, “It’s divine, all right; that’s old-time religion you’re listening to now. Gospel music. Angel music. Sacred. Folks are just rehearsing in there now. Choir’s just getting their pipes warmed up. You wait. Whole building’ll be shaking, hands clapping, feet stomping, folks praising the Lord to the rafters when they cut loose, feels like the roof is going to fly off and sail away, I’m telling you.”

  “I’m so glad you’re getting married here, Mr. Jones,” Nell Spooner said. “It’s positively wonderful.”

  “Yeah, it is, isn’t it?” Stoke said, nervously looking around. “Wonderful, just wonderful.”

  Stoke pulled a drenched white handkerchief out of the breast pocket of his black suit coat and mopped his brow for the tenth time since he’d come outside. “I’m hot. How come you two aren’t hot?”

  Hawke looked over at him and said, “Stokely Jones Jr., you look like a man who needs a drink.”

  “Alex, what’d I always tell you? Only thing alcohol’s good for is helping white folks dance. Besides, you know I don’t drink.”

  “You don’t get married, either. But you are today. Man’s entitled to a drink on his wedding day. It’s practically obligatory.”

  Hawke pulled a shining silver flask from inside his breast pocket and handed it to Stoke.

  “What’s in it? Don’t even tell me. I already know what it is. Head-strong, out-and-out, strong-bodied, ram-jam, come-it-strong, lift-me-up, knock-me-down, gen-u-wine moonshine!”

  “That’s it, brother. Pure nitro.”

  Stoke first sniffed at the idea, then unscrewed the little cap and sniffed at the contents. He wrinkled his nose, frowning at the lack of any smell at all.

  “What is this stuff, anyway? Just tell me.”

  “Take a swig, big fella. It won’t kill you.”

  “If this doesn’t beat all, I don’t know what does. My own best man trying to get me drunk on my own wedding day,” Stoke said, and put the flask to his lips, tentatively lifting the thing.

  He took a sip, swallowed, and smiled at his friend sideways.

  “Diet Coke? It’s just Diet Coke, isn’t it?”

  “Hmm.”

  “All I ever drink, Diet Coke.”

  “Hmm.”

  “See? That’s what I’m talking about. That’s called taking care of business. That’s why you, of all the people in the world who would have cheated, lied, and robbed for this job, that’s why you got picked as my best man.” Hawke smiled.

  “It’s an honor, Stoke. I love you like a brother.”

  “Which I am.”

  “Which you definitely are.”

  “Uh-oh. Here comes the bride,” Stoke said suddenly, gazing at the winking sunlight on the windshields of a small parade of automobiles now making its way slowly through the tall grass. The narrow, winding, and muddy road leading eventually to the church. “We’d better hustle up and get inside. Bad luck if you see the bride before the ceremony, that right, boss?”

  “Absolutely, let’s go. Miss Spooner, you’ve got the ring to give to Alexei when it’s his time?”

  “I do, sir. Mr. Brock is kindly holding two seats for us in the last pew of the church right on the center aisle. Alexei and I will wait until everyone is seated before we enter so we don’t cause a fuss. When it’s time for the ring, I’ll make sure to send him on his way to you.”

  Stoke had asked Hawke weeks ago if the child could be the ring bearer during the ceremony and Hawke had readily agreed. So he had his team on the field. He’d also asked his buddy, CIA field agent Harry Brock; his sole employee, Luis Gonzales-Gonzales, the one-armed Cuban known as Sharkey; and finally Fast Eddie Falco, the aged security man at his condo in Miami, to be his ushers. He looked at his watch. Shouldn’t they be here by now?

  T he Right Reverend Josiah Jefferson Fletcher, J.J., better known as Fletch when he played defense for the New York Jets, weighed about three hundred pounds and had to use a walker to get around. He and the groom had been rookies together back in the day. After a serious knee injury, Fletch left football, came down here to South Florida, and started Grace Baptist Church-right here in the little Indian town of Seminole. A few years later, he’d been ordained. He’d been preaching the gospel ever since.

  Fletch was the man Stoke called late at night when the wolves and the heebie-jeebies and the devil himself was at the door.

  Fletch had a small office up on the second floor in the “rectory,” right next to the room where they kept all the choir robes, candles, and hymnals. The three big men could barely fit inside, so Hawke remained standing in the doorway and Stoke took the chair opposite the preacher at his battle-weary desk. Fletch leaned back in his chair and smiled. For a man who’d seen so much human suffering and anguish, the preacher had the biggest, whitest grin Hawke had ever seen on a human being.

  “Mighty pleased to meet you, Mr. Hawke,” he said, settling in. “Stokely here tells me you’re a lord,” he said, looking directly at Hawke. “That right?”

  Haw
ke nodded.

  “A lord, you say.”

  “Hmm.”

  Then the reverend stretched his meaty forearms over the desk toward Stoke and said in a stage whisper:

  “Ain’t that something, Stoke?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Him being a lord and all. And here all this time I been thinking there was only just the one.”

  Hawke burst out laughing, as much over Fletch’s small joke as at Stoke’s doubled-over laughing fit, Fletch repeatedly slamming his ham-sized fist on the old wooden desk almost hard enough to split it in two.

  “Good one, Fletch!” Stoke managed to blurt out.

  When they’d all stopped chuckling, Fletch directed his strong gaze at Hawke once more.

  “You don’t think our boy Stoke’s going to try and bolt on us, do you? Groom looks a little nervous to me,” the preacher said. “Little green around the gills.”

  “That’s why I’m standing here in the doorway.”

  The preacher grinned. “Next thing he’ll say he has to use the lavatory up the stairs there. The facilities. But don’t you worry none, Mr. Hawke, I got the window in there nailed shut.”

  “Good thinking.” Hawke said.

  “Only had one bride left standing at the altar in twentysome odd years. Believe me, it’s not an experience I want to repeat.”

  “What happened?” Stoke asked.

  “Groom said he had to pee, locked the bathroom door, went out the bathroom window, down the drainpipe, jumped in his car, and left here on two wheels, that’s what happened. Best man had to go out in front of the whole congregation and tell them all to go home. No groom, no wedding. Bride’s father came up out of his pew like a fullback on third and goal, leaped over the rail, and coldcocked that poor boy, a shot straight from the shoulder that slung his jaw loose. Knocked him out cold as I recall it.”

  Stoke said, “Fletch, that’s reason enough for me not to bolt on you. I’d hate to see what happened if Fancha’s daddy took a shot at my friend Mr. Hawke here.”

  “Your personal lord over there does look like he can take care of himself, Stoke.”

  “First-class badass, Rev, even though he looks like such a gent in that fancy white suit.”

  “You a religious man these days, Stokely?

  “I go to church when I can, Rev.”

  “What’s it take to keep you from going?”

  “I go when I can.”

  “A light rain?”

  “I go when I can.”

  Fletch said, “Well, well, well. I know you got a big old Christian heart and that’s good enough for me. You boys ready? I think it’s time we go out there and give these folks waiting out there a show. Crowd’s getting restless, choir got them all fired up.”

  “Damn! I got to pee,” Stoke said, raising himself up out of his chair.

  “Really?” Hawke said. “That’s too bad, Stoke. You’re just going to have to hold it, brother. I’m sure Reverend Fletcher will be ever mindful of your needs and keep things moving smartly along at the altar.”

  “Let us pray,” the preacher said with a wink at Hawke, each man bowing his head. Stokely pressed his pink palms together, his temple of strong fingers like carved mahogany.

  Fletch’s voice was soft thunder. “Oh God our help in ages past, Our hope in years to come. Bless and keep your servant Stokely Jones, And give him strength and happiness Throughout the years of his blessed union. Amen.”

  Ten

  Nell Spooner sat with little Alexei in her lap, reasonably cool under the spreading boughs of the old oak tree. Alexei was content, now fixated on a miniature fire engine’s ladder. A long parade of automobiles was winding through the tall grass, parking helter-skelter in the churchyard, well-turned-out people climbing out of their mud-spattered cars and trucks. The whole Grace congregation was arriving to see their homegrown celebrity get married.

  The press had arrived too. A TV transmitter van from Univision, the Miami-based Latino network, and also Channel 5, a local Fox affiliate. Fancha, a stunning beauty, had recently been nominated for a Latin Grammy award for her new hit song, “Love the Way You Lie,” a duet with Enrique Iglesias. The local girl made good was a star, and not just in Seminole anymore. She’d gone worldwide.

  When the last wedding guest had entered the church, Nell gathered up her young charge and made her way to the steps of the church. Mr. Brock, a bit of a flirt, showed them to the seats he’d held for them on the aisle of the very last pew.

  Holding the small boy’s hand as they entered the pew, she bent and whispered, “Remember, Alexei, first, I give you the ring, then you walk all the way to the front and hand it to your daddy. You do remember?”

  “I do remember, Spooner. I go give Daddy the ring. Where all the flowers are.”

  “There’s a good boy. Now, we’ll sit right here and be very, very quiet. This is God’s house and God doesn’t like noisy little boys unless they’re singing his praises.”

  “Quiet as a church mouse?” he whispered, recalling the phrase she’d used at breakfast.

  She smiled, delighted at his precocious mind and very keen anticipation about the music and the ceremony. Her new job had taken her a long way from the streets of Paddington in London. An opportunity to attend an old-fashioned southern wedding in a tiny town in the middle of the exotic Florida Everglades would have been unthinkable just two months ago. Too fascinating for words, really.

  Unfortunately, she realized now, she couldn’t see a thing. There was a man planted in front of her the size of a small building. She could tell from the swell of the choir’s voices that the service was about to begin. She saw that the church was now standing room only, a lot of people gathered outside on the steps and beyond.

  Nell handed the ring to Alexei. “Hold it tight. When I pat your head, you just march right up there and give it to Daddy. But walk slowly. Everybody will want a chance to see how handsome you are.”

  She shifted in her seat, bemoaning the miserable fact of the large, heavily scented man directly in front of her. Long, oiled black hair fell below his neckline. Meaty shoulders stretched the seams of his shiny black suit to the breaking point and it wasn’t fat. He looked and smelled like hired muscle, or worse.

  She also noticed a telltale bulge beneath the jacket. A simple back brace? Or the strap of a shoulder holster? A gun, she thought. Well, he could easily be Miami-Dade PD, a detective friend of the groom’s. Or even paid security for the famous bride. Relax, she told herself. Have fun. This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

  Right. But she couldn’t see anything.

  She was finally forced to crane around him and lean forward to glimpse the wedding party and the minister. “Oh. I beg your pardon,” she said when the big man whirled his head around and glared at her. “Just trying to see. Terribly sorry.”

  He grunted unpleasantly. He was rather a thuggish-looking bloke, sallow-faced, big black bushy eyebrows and a low forehead. Not the type of guest one would expect here at all. Unless he was a recording executive, she decided. Yes, that was it, showbiz, or perhaps even a deejay in a South Beach club. Whoever he was, she had an uncomfortable sense about him.

  He was off. Maybe even wrong.

  But then, she had absolutely no idea, really, whom she should expect at this ceremony and whom she should not. How could she? She was, after all, brand-new to America, too new, she felt, to make snap judgments about its people.

  Still.

  The waves of energy coming off the man were almost palpably bad. Silent alarms were going off, and she’d learned long ago to trust her gut in situations like this one. But, as a foreigner, she’d never been in a situation like this one. This horrid man could well be perfectly innocent. So what on earth was she to do? The choir was raising the roof. The service was about to begin.

  Run?

  Of course, she could simply sweep Alexei up into her arms and slip out of the church. Retreat to the security of Hawke’s armored van. Get as far away as quickly as she co
uld.

  But what about the bloody wedding ring?

  She had agreed to maintain periodic eye contact with her new employer, the very handsome Lord Hawke, tall and slender as a lance in his white suit, now waiting at the altar with the groom for the bride to arrive. She’d promised to let him know with slight nods of her head that little Alexei was behaving himself and that all was well. But what was she supposed to do if all wasn’t well? Scream fire in a crowded church? Only to learn she was the silly woman who’d foolishly ruined her employer’s best friend’s wedding?

  Suddenly, coming out of her self-induced daze, she noticed the bride, Fancha. Stunning. Her gleaming dark hair was done up in white ribbons, and she wore an ivory lace dress that fit her perfectly. She had creamy silk slippers, a garland of flowers, and a thin veil trailing down her back. Carrying a spray of baby’s breath, gliding along on the arm of her diminutive father, she passed by and was now nearing the altar. Time for Alexei to march up the aisle with the ring.

  Without looking, she reached over to pat him on the head. She got nothing but air.

  The little boy had bolted. He was running up the aisle just behind the bride. As soon as he could make his way around her voluminous wedding dress, he made straight for his father and clutched him around the knees. People in the church found this cute.

  The man in front of her now kneeled on the bench below and put his hands together in prayer. When he bowed his head, his long hair parted and revealed a portion of a tattoo on the back of his neck. A blue scorpion. It was vaguely familiar. She’d seen it once somewhere. Perhaps on a corpse in the morgue. Yes. The Blue Scorpion. A Russian Mafiya hit squad in East London, that was it.

  The tattoo sent a shock wave up her spine.

  She was well aware that two Russian assassins had threatened Alexei’s life aboard the Red Arrow train en route to St. Petersburg. Now all her senses had gone on high alert. There was no longer a shred of doubt in her mind, either about the man or his intended victim. This man was very clearly a Russian assassin. He meant to kill Alexei. She sat back, the precise wheels within wheels of her mind spinning, pondering her options.