The Trinity Game

by Sean Chercover

  She said, “So what do you want for five hundred bucks?”

  “OK, just hear me out,” said Trinity. “You’re a hooker…a stripper…whatever. Point is you sell your ass to strange men in the Waffle House parking lot. So I figure your life has gotta pretty much suck. No offense. Not judging, just laying it out there. Fact is God has not been good to you. And you still believe in the Lord, right?”

  “So?”

  “So I’m a wealthy man. Got everything I could possibly need. You could say God’s been very good to me.” Trinity let out a long breath. “And I don’t believe in Him.”

  The girl shrugged. “We both gonna have to answer for our sins on judgment day. Don’t matter if you believe or not. It’s real, and it’s gonna happen.”

  And that, to Tim Trinity, was simply awesome. That a girl like this could be so unshaken in faith. Unbelievable. “See?” he said. “That’s why I need your help. Your belief is so strong.”

  “But what do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to pray for me. See, some very weird shit is goin’ down in my life, and I can’t find a rational explanation. I mean, I’ve tried everything, and it’s startin’ to look like prayer’s all I got left to try. But I can’t pray for myself, ’cause I don’t believe.”

  The girl stood quietly for a minute, then said, “Start to pray, and you’ll start to believe.”

  Trinity shook his head.

  The girl reached out, took the money. “Want me to pray for your soul?”

  “No,” said Trinity. If people had souls, he knew his was way beyond saving. “I want you to ask God to please stop fucking with my head.”

  No heavy bag in the Ritz-Carlton’s workout room. No speedbag, either. So Daniel contented himself with push-ups, crunches, and skipping rope. He spent the workout thinking about the strange contact from whoever was calling himself PapaLegba.

  Probably someone who knew Daniel was from New Orleans, hence the chosen screen name. Someone with the resources to hack into Daniel’s computer and take control of his Instant Messenger program. But who? And why?

  Could be Conrad Winter, tossing a wrench in the works, trying to trip Daniel up.

  Or not. There was no way to know for sure, given the available evidence, and Daniel resolved to put it out of his mind, not to get distracted by it, not to let it make him paranoid. He had a job to do.

  He took a quick sauna and headed back to the room for a shower and breakfast.

  As he downed the last of his coffee, an e-mail came in. From Gerry, the audio engineer at Emory. The e-mail he’d been waiting for.

  From: gerrymander@emory.edu

  To: d-byrne@live.com

  Subject: What we’ve learned…

  Padre,

  You only asked me to do three broadcasts, but I kinda got carried away…took it on as a personal project. So I did all of ’em (transcripts and audio files attached). Bad news, though. I ran every possible test on the audio (AND video) of your fake holy man, and I gotta tell ya, there’s no electronic manipulation here. The guy is really doing it. Kinda freaking me out, but I’ve got no explanation. Never seen anything like it. If you need anything else, let me know.

  -Gerry

  So Trinity had figured out a trick that had never been done before. Well, why not? There were many monikers you could hang on the man—childish, egocentric, immoral—but you could never call him stupid.

  Daniel double-clicked on one of the attached transcript files, and it opened on his screen. Another weather report, Trinity warning of torrential rains in Charleston.

  Torrential. Daniel couldn’t remember seeing that word in the transcripts Nick had given him. He opened the corresponding audio file from Gerry, listened. Torrential—no mistaking it. He checked the broadcast date, pulled the corresponding transcript from his case file. In Giuseppe’s transcript, Trinity never said torrential…because in the transcript, Trinity called for sunshine. And it was one of the predictions Trinity had supposedly gotten wrong.

  But Trinity hadn’t called for sunshine; he’d called for rain.

  A chill ran down Daniel’s arms as he flipped through his folder, pulling the transcript of Trinity’s next failed prediction.

  Two hours later, Daniel sat stunned, trying to understand. He’d checked and double-checked, read and listened and re-listened. Surfed the Internet for weather news and sports scores and more.

  Trinity’s predictions, so far, had all come true.

  All of them.

  Maybe Trinity had some meteorologist at the national weather service on his payroll…but how to explain the sports predictions? The games couldn’t all be fixed, could they? And what about the traffic accidents? Daniel thought about it for a long while. Then he hit “Reply” on Gerry’s e-mail.

  From: d-byrne@live.com

  To: gerrymander@emory.edu

  Subject: RE: What we’ve learned…

  Gerry,

  Thanks so much for your help with this. During the week, Trinity’s show is a repeat—but there’s a new episode starting each Sunday. Could you record and decode tomorrow’s show? I can do the transcription, but if you could just send me the reversed audio file, that would be a big help.

  Thanks again,

  D.

  Daniel shut down his laptop, trying to make sense of things. He came up with more questions than answers. But two things seemed certain:

  However he was doing it, Tim Trinity was predicting the future accurately, every single time.

  And the Vatican’s transcripts had been altered to hide that fact.

  The television studio-cum-church was packed with believers in their Sunday best, and Tim Trinity stood tall on the stage, reveling in the applause and flashing his pearly whites. The canned music faded away as he slowly brought his hands together like a prayer. The crowd fell silent.

  Daniel sat in the back row, taking it all in. He had to admit, his uncle wasn’t just good—he was a master. He’d seen many talented grifters at work on the tent revival circuit, many more preaching on television. But nobody owned the stage like Tim Trinity.

  Trinity let the silence linger, then flipped a page of his blue Bible, which sat before him on the lectern. When he spoke, his voice boomed to the rafters. “Jesus said—Matthew 13:45—‘The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; on finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it.’”

  He scooped up the Bible, grinned out at the crowd, and scratched his head in mock confusion. “One pearl of great value? Now just what in the heck is he talkin’ about?”

  The audience laughed easily.

  “The pearl, my friends, is salvation. Salvation is the pearl of the highest value.” Trinity started pacing the stage as a handful of Amens came up from the crowd. “But some of you are like the rich man who came to Jesus and asked what good deed he must do to get into heaven. You remember the one. The man was already virtuous, kept all of God’s laws, so Jesus told him to sell all his possessions and become a disciple. And the rich man went away, grieving, for he had many possessions. What he failed to understand—and what y’all need to understand—is that spiritual salvation brings with it all the material wealth you could ever hope for! Salvation is—always and in all ways—the pearl of great value. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

  Daniel shifted uncomfortably in his seat, thinking: Here it comes…

  “So do not be afraid to give to the Lord what little you have, for it will be returned to you, one-hundred fold.” Trinity flipped the pages. “Luke 6:38—Jesus said, ‘Give, and it shall be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over—running over!—will be put into your lap; for the measure you give, will be the measure you get back.’ Amen, and Amen.”

  A blonde in a white pantsuit walked onstage from the wings. She looked like a beauty pageant runner-up, twenty years past her glory. She handed some sheets of paper to Trinity
and flashed a smile to the audience.

  “Thank you, Liz,” he said, and she left the stage. “The telephones backstage are ringing off the hook and our telephone ministers are taking your prayer requests, so I want you to call that number on the screen. We only have time to read a few on the air, but all of your prayer requests are brought to my personal altar after the program is over, and I pray over each and every one.” He flipped through the sheets, scanning each one and nodding, then held them against the pages of his Bible. He closed his eyes.

  “Lord, we know that you hear our prayers, and prayers made in faith are answered. I ask you now, in Jesus’s name, to work a financial miracle in the life of Heather from Virginia Beach, who just lost her job. Bring our sister Heather a new and better job, and break the yoke of poverty off of her. And we ask you to look down upon Sarah from Minneapolis and smash that breast cancer, melt that tumor away…”

  Daniel scanned the crowd as Trinity rattled off more names and misfortunes. He estimated the majority was about evenly split between black and white, with maybe 20 percent Hispanic and 10 percent Asian. He looked from face to face, searching for any sign of skepticism, but found none. These people actually believed the swill Trinity served up. More than that, they loved it, and they loved Trinity for taking their money.

  Some things never change. Daniel pushed away childhood memories of revival tents packed with dirt-poor farmers and laid-off factory workers who couldn’t afford a stick of deodorant, but somehow found the money to fill Trinity’s giant glass jars to overflowing.

  Trinity stopped praying mid-sentence. “Wait!” he said. He opened his eyes and looked straight into the camera. “God has just shown me something. Some of you watching at home are wavering. Don’t deny it—I have seen it. My words have awakened your faith, and you want to show your faith to God with a thousand-dollar vow to this ministry, but you say, ‘Why should I sow my seed to this preacher on TV?’ I mean to tell you, that is the Devil sabotaging your faith, tryin’ to keep you from your rightful inheritance in Christ!” Trinity flipped some pages and gave the Bible a mighty thwack. “First Corinthians, the Apostle Paul says of preachers, ‘If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we reap material things from you? So also the Lord directed those who proclaim the gospel to get their living from the gospel.’ Word of God! It is written, in Jesus’s name!”

  The congregation called out Amens as the master preacher executed a side-shuffle that would’ve made James Brown proud.

  “See, God has prepared a magnificent feast, and Jesus has reserved a seat for you at the head table.” He patted his belly and shook his head. “And you say, ‘Thanks, Lord, but I’m not hungry, I had a big lunch. Maybe next time.’” The crowd laughed right along with him, until his smile melted away and his expression became deadly serious. “My-oh-my, you had a big lunch. That is the Devil talking! See, the Devil’s got many tricks to play on you, my friends, and I’ll let you in on a little secret: his two favorites are doubt and procrastination. More lives have been lost, more opportunities missed, more fortunes squandered, more relationships destroyed, through doubt and procrastination, than by any other means. They are the Devil’s twin tools of sabotage.”

  Trinity lashed out at the air with his Bible. “Get away, Satan! You can’t stop me from speaking the truth—I’m anointed by the blood of Christ!” Then he froze, his Bible in mid-strike.

  He remained frozen far too long, and worried murmurs began spreading through the congregation.

  His timing is usually perfect, thought Daniel, why is he doing this?

  Trinity’s entire body shuddered once, froze again, and jerked to the left, sending him sprawling on the stage. He bounced back up, Bible in hand, but the prayer requests lay scattered at his feet.

  Then the tongues began, unnatural sounds erupting from his mouth and his body lurching spasmodically around the stage.

  Seeing it on the television screen, Daniel had convinced himself that this was just Trinity’s latest act. But it looked different in person. This was not the kind of performance his uncle would ever concoct. It looked too…real. Trinity was always smooth, and this was anything but. Worse than inelegant, it was ugly. There was just something wrong about it. Something profoundly wrong.

  Daniel couldn’t watch another spasm, couldn’t listen to another eruption. He jumped from his seat and bolted for the exit, his skin crawling. Thinking: It has to be an act. It has to be…

  Outside, he retrieved his camera from the car, stood in the sun and waited until the doors opened and Trinity’s flock flooded the bright parking lot, chattering happily about what a great service it had been, about how they felt the presence of God today, about hundred-fold paybacks and their imminent prosperity.

  Daniel wanted to grab them by the shoulders, one by one, and say: Don’t you see? He’s a con man—you’re being played for chumps. You should be paying off your debts and going back to school to get a better job, or building a college fund so your children won’t have to struggle like you struggle—not giving it to some grifter.

  But what good would it do? All those things took real work, real sacrifice. Trinity offered these people an easy escape, a way to tell themselves that they were doing something to improve their lot, while never really having to take responsibility for their lives. All they had to do was throw money at him.

  Daniel couldn’t help these people. But he could bring down the con man. In his right hand he held the camera that contained digital surveillance photos he’d taken at Trinity’s Buckhead mansion. Photos that exposed the truth behind the phony Man of God sham.

  Finally.

  He waited for the crowd to thin out and went back inside. A burly security guard stopped him in the empty hallway.

  “I’m sorry, sir, service is over for today. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

  “I need to speak with Reverend Trinity,” said Daniel.

  The guard smiled indulgently. “Lots of folk need to speak with Reverend Trinity. If you fill out a prayer request form, I’ll be sure he gets it.”

  “Just tell him that Daniel Byrne is here. He’ll see me.”

  The security guard emerged from the dressing room, nodded politely, and left. Daniel stared at the door, took a deep breath. He reached for the knob, turned it, and stepped through the doorway.

  Tim Trinity sat before a mirror framed by little round light bulbs, removing his stage makeup with cold cream. He caught Daniel’s eye in the mirror, finished his task with one last swipe across the chin, and dropped the cotton ball on the table. He sniffed sharply, as if he had a cold.

  “The prodigal son returns. Never thought I’d live to see the day.” Trinity forced a smile, but the pain showed through.

  When Daniel had walked out on his uncle at thirteen, it was with the firm intention of never speaking to the man again. But now, two decades later, he had to fight to hold his tongue. The weight of so much left unsaid, a weight he’d been carrying all these years. The urge to unload it, to say everything now, to dump the weight on Trinity, where it belonged. But what was the point? He was here to do a job, nothing more.

  “Hello, Reverend.”

  “Twenty years.” Trinity swiveled the chair and faced his nephew. Up close, without the benefit of stage makeup, he looked older. Still handsome, still had the salon tan, but the facelift had left his skin abnormally taut and shiny, and the broken veins of a drinker spiderwebbed across his cheeks and the left side of his nose. “You coulda at least said good-bye.”

  “And you could’ve told me the truth, instead of playing me like one of your suckers.” He couldn’t help himself, it had to be said.

  Trinity lit a cigarette. “Shit, I tried. When you started questioning things, I tried, but… Guess I shoulda told you from the start. But you were just a boy, and…” He cleared his throat. “And you believed, and it was beautiful. And when you looked at me…I couldn’t bring myself to let you down like that.”

  “You think I wasn’t gonna get wise
to the grift? You think I wouldn’t recognize the shills? The deaf man in Biloxi who showed up in a wheelchair in Mobile? The blind woman in Pensacola and the one who was arthritic in Gainesville?”

  “Sure, I had shills,” said Trinity. “But you were there, and you saw the other ones. Some of those folks were really healed.”

  “Power of suggestion,” said Daniel. “Placebo effect.”

  “Right. And it works. And who cares, so long as people get better? What about Jesus? The man always said, ‘Your faith has healed you.’ He never once said, ‘I have healed you.’ You don’t think He sometimes put shills in the crowd to rev up people’s faith?”

  Daniel said nothing.

  “I was gonna tell you, I swear. I just didn’t get up the gumption in time. The other preachers’ kids still believed, and I guess I always told myself I had more time.” Trinity tapped his cigarette on the edge of an ashtray. “Should’ve known better, you were always ahead of the others.”

  “Had to grow up fast, thanks to you.”

  “Hell, son, you were born old. Look, I did wrong by not telling you before you figured it out on your own, and I’m sorry for that, but you didn’t have to run off, we coulda talked about it.” He took a long drag on his smoke, blew it out, and looked up for a reaction, but Daniel gave him nothing. After a long moment Trinity said, “You remember the summer of ’85?”

  Daniel remembered. He was nine years old. It was the only summer of his childhood they hadn’t spent on the road. “Yeah. You took the summer off from preaching. Bible study, you said. A lie, I’m sure.”

  “It was a lie, at that,” said Trinity. “Wanna know what I did that summer? I got a job, is what I did. Selling homeowners insurance. See, that was the year I first saw real doubt in your eyes—serious doubt—so I figured to make a career change. For you.” Trinity reached into a pocket and held out a gold Cross pen to Daniel. “Look at that.” On the clip was a little plaque with a B-I logo. “Each month, Bedrock Insurance gave one to their top-producing salesman. I got three more just like it. I mean, I wrote up a ton of business that summer. Worked the poor neighborhoods…those were my people, I knew how to reach them.” He took the pen back from Daniel. “And then came your namesake.”