The Trinity Game

by Sean Chercover

  Daniel unclenched his fist, forced himself to breathe deep. “I’m not trying to be God. But Trinity’s batting a thousand so far. Innocent people are probably going to die, and I find it hard to accept that God would not want us to save them.”

  “There are no innocent people, Dan. And you need to stop trying to read God’s mind. Now go get me pictures of Reverend Trinity fucking up.”

  Nick broke the connection without saying good-bye.

  Daniel’s hand shook as he put the phone down. How could Nick be so callous? Why not step in to save those refinery workers? And—Jesus—he’d barely reacted to the news of the altered transcripts. Did he already know? And what would that imply? The questions swirled in Daniel’s mind. He adopted a fighter’s stance and shadowboxed for a few minutes, burning off the excess adrenaline. Still his mind reeled, and the thought of doing nothing made his stomach churn.

  This was asking too much.

  Daniel dropped to his knees, clasped his hands together, and squeezed his eyes shut.

  I know I have been a bad son, and my faith is weak. But Father in Heaven, I need your help, even as I don’t deserve it. I need you to strengthen my faith, because without it, I cannot sit back and do nothing while people burn to death. Please, give me something to hang my faith upon…

  But there came no answer. No sign.

  Just like always.

  After a few minutes, Daniel stood up, feeling vaguely foolish, and wiped his eyes dry.

  He picked up the camera again. Trinity made millions hustling poor people with the false promise of prosperity, and he did it in the name of God. He was the worst kind of con man. But as Daniel scrolled through the photos, he saw something more than a crook. He saw a man in deep crisis. And he had come away from their meeting convinced that whatever was happening to Trinity, it wasn’t an act.

  But what was it? The man was predicting the future; there was no way around that. Also no way around the fact that the Christian God would never choose Tim Trinity as His spokesman on earth. And that led back to the horrible, terrifying question that had been quietly plaguing Daniel for some time.

  What if God isn’t the Christian God?

  One thing Nick was right about: This wasn’t about Daniel and his uncle. It wasn’t even about debunking a con man or protecting the sanctity of the Church or searching for a miracle. It was about the dozens of Louisiana oil refinery workers, who Daniel now believed would die the next morning, unless he did something about it.

  The head of security at the Belle Chasse oil refinery told Daniel to get back on his meds and hung up in his ear. Understandable, really. He probably would’ve done the same thing in the man’s shoes.

  He had known it might come to this, had hoped in vain that it wouldn’t. But now there was only one thing left to do. So he directed his laptop’s browser to the website of the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper, found the staff directory, and looked up the telephone extension for Julia Rothman, his heart racing.

  Julia was an intern at the New Orleans Times-Picayune when they were together. She’d since worked her way up to senior investigative reporter at the paper. She was quite the maverick, had been fired and rehired more than a few times, had won several regional journalism awards for exposing political corruption in Louisiana. Her series on government failure post-Katrina had been nominated for a Pulitzer. Daniel knew all this because, against his better judgment, he’d followed her career on the Internet all these years, unable to let go completely.

  His heart now pounding as he reached for the phone, his mind flooded with the memories of the headiest year of his life…

  Eighteen years old, high school graduate, New Orleans Golden Gloves champion, and madly in love. She was twenty-one, unafraid, and scary smart. And the sex was incredible. Not that he had any basis for comparison—she was his first, and would be his only.

  They first met at a neighborhood party in the lead-up to Mardi Gras, and the sexual spark was there from the get-go, but she deflected his first advance. He was welcome to hang out in her group of friends, she said, but dating was out of the question. It took two months of “hanging out” in a group, at neighborhood parties, before she finally got over the age difference and agreed to a real date.

  One date was all it took. They fell for each other hard and fast, became a steady couple, and spent every free minute together. Daniel was taking a year off after high school, concentrating on his fighting and working at the gym, but he was slated to enter the seminary when he turned nineteen, and time was running out for them. As the months counted down, everything became more intense. The lovemaking, the fighting, the all-night metaphysical debates.

  He’d told Julia all about his past, and she understood his need to believe. But to her, God was a human invention—a way for people to strike back at their fear of death. As she saw it, secular miracles were all around us, and that should be enough. Friendship and love and sex and chocolate and children were all miracles. That humans had evolved and survived and thrived in a coldly indifferent universe, had brought meaning and beauty to their lives through art and music and literature, had brought understanding of the world through science—she saw all of that as a miracle. And she saw no place in the universe for a God; didn’t need one.

  Damn it, no. Lives are at stake, you cannot afford this right now. Focus. Daniel put the receiver down. He went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face, returned to the desk, took a few deep breaths.

  Daniel could see the promise of a beautiful life with Julia, and he almost backed out of the seminary. But the wounds of his childhood were too deep, and her love was simply not enough to heal those wounds…

  He again picked up the phone, and this time punched in the number. After a few rings, she picked up.

  “Julia Rothman,” she said. Daniel tried to answer, but the words caught in his throat, so exquisite was the ache caused by the sound of her voice. “Hello?”

  He fought against a resurgent flood of memories. “Hi. Julia, it’s Daniel Byrne calling, we knew each other back in—”

  Julia let out a throaty laugh. “You don’t have to remind me how I know you, Danny.”

  “Well, yes, it’s just, it’s been a long time, so I didn’t want to assume…” You are such an idiot.

  “You still a priest?”

  “Yes, yes, still a priest. You?”

  “Uh, I’ve never been a priest.”

  “No, of course. I-I meant…” Shit. “Listen, Julia, I can’t do small talk right now. Something important has come up, and I think it’ll be of professional interest to you.”

  A couple seconds of silence. “All right, shoot.”

  “It’s a delicate situation, and I’d like to keep our conversation off the record.”

  Another pause on the line. “OK.”

  “OK. There’s gonna be an explosion at the Belle Chasse oil refinery. Tomorrow morning.”

  “Jesus Christ…pardon the blasphemy. What kind of explosion?”

  “I don’t know, an accident of some kind.”

  “Accident? How do you know about it, then?”

  “That’s the delicate part. I already called the refinery—they thought I was a nut job. But if you warn them—”

  “I’m sorry if it’s delicate for you, but I can’t just take your word on it. I need to know how you know this.”

  “I understand. But we’re off the record, right?”

  “We already agreed on that.”

  “Fine. This will sound completely insane, I realize, but if you check it out, you’ll know it’s the truth.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “You remember my uncle, Tim Trinity?”

  “  ’Course I do.”

  “You’ll find his broadcasts archived on his ministry website. You need to look at the one from yesterday. Not all of it. Just skip ahead to the speaking-in-tongues part. Record the tongues, then play it backwards and speed it up by a third.”

  “Are you drunk?”


  “I’m serious. Run it backwards, and Trinity’s speaking English. He predicts the accident at the refinery. I know how crazy this sounds, but it’ll only take an hour of your time. Lives are at stake here, Julia.”

  She sighed into the phone. “All right, I’ll check it out.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yeah, I just said I would.”

  “And you’ll get down to the refinery today, warn them.”

  “I will.”

  “Thanks, Julia.”

  “Yup. You take care now, Danny.”

  Julia Rothman hung up the phone, dropped her face into her hands, and didn’t move for a full minute.

  A reporter two desks over said, “You OK?”

  “Yeah,” said Julia, “that was just an old friend. Sad to say, he’s become a member of the tinfoil hat brigade.” She tore the top sheet off her notepad, crumpled it into a ball, and dropped it in the wastepaper basket.

  Thinking: What the hell happened to you, Danny?

  Tim Trinity sat alone, drinking bourbon in the video control room, facing a wall of blank monitors. One monitor for each of the four camera feeds, three more dedicated to video playback decks. A master monitor in the center was for whichever feed was currently “hot,” as the director punched buttons on the switcher to assemble the finished show. An audio mixing board sat on the table, next to the switcher. The soft whisper of the machines’ cooling-fans was the only sound in the room. He’d always found that sound comforting and often spent time in the control room after the crew went home.

  But he hadn’t come here tonight for comfort.

  The soundproof door opened and a young video technician—Trinity couldn’t recall his name—entered, arms full of videocassettes. The kid put the tapes on the table, making a neat tower.

  “Here’s the last fifteen episodes, Reverend Trinity. Most recent on top. Anything else I can get you?”

  “That’ll do.”

  “Want me to stay and run the deck?”

  “No, I got it. You can go home now.”

  “Yes, sir. Good night.” The kid started for the door.

  “Hey, kid.” Trinity dug into his pants pocket and fished out a fifty-dollar bill, stuck it in the kid’s hand. “Thanks for staying late.”

  “Thank you, sir. Sure do appreciate it. I’m getting married next month, and this’ll help the honeymoon fund. We’re going to—”

  “Fine, have a good time,” mumbled Trinity as he swiveled his chair away from the kid and grabbed a tape off the top of the tower. The door closed behind him, and he stuck the tape into a playback deck.

  He scanned through the tape on high speed, to the end of yesterday’s tongues, and hit pause. He refilled his glass from the bottle of Blanton’s, took a sip. He turned the deck’s jog-wheel to the left, and the tape began running backwards.

  Trinity listened. And heard.

  “Oh my God,” he said.

  The glass slipped from his hand, splashing bourbon across his white leather cowboy boots.

  Daniel sat on his bed, Bible on his lap, reading the Song of Solomon.

  Set me as a seal upon your heart,

  as a seal upon your arm;

  for love is strong as death,

  passion fierce as the grave.

  Its flashes are flashes of fire,

  a raging flame.

  Many waters cannot quench love,

  neither can floods drown it.

  If one offered for love

  all the wealth of one’s house,

  it would be utterly scorned.

  As a young man, he had set Julia as a seal upon his heart, and there didn’t seem to be a damn thing he could do to break that seal. Had he not tried to drown his love in holy water? Had his heart not scorned all the spiritual wealth the Church had offered in exchange?

  No matter what he did, the flame still raged. Daniel had to admit that he knew it always would.

  On the phone with her, he’d sounded like a jackass, barely able to speak. It was all he could do not to blurt out his feelings, not to tell her how much he’d missed her all these years, how much he missed her still. He knew hearing her voice again would hurt, but there was too much at stake.

  Despite the pain, he was glad he’d called.

  He flipped the pages back, took another stab at the Book of Job, with the usual results.

  Twenty years since the priests took him in, and he still wasn’t much good at accepting God’s many mysteries. Maybe Nick was right after all. Maybe by calling Julia, Daniel was attempting to subvert the will of God. But even with his mind full of Job, he didn’t feel wrong about it. If it was wrong, he would be judged for it when his time came. And he could live with that.

  Because, in the meantime, he might’ve just saved some lives.

  Belle Chasse, Louisiana…

  Andrew Thibodeaux sat in front of the television, flipping channels. Flipping past no-money-down real estate wealth-building systems and magic kitchen appliances, revolutionary exercise equipment and spray-on hair. Sat in front of the television, eating spicy pork cracklings by the handful and drinking Diet Dr Pepper and wondering how his life had come to this. Almost a year since his wife ran out on him with that asshole cop from Gretna, and a week didn’t pass he didn’t vow to forget all about her and move on.

  He’d promised himself that he would make big changes in his life, go back and get his GED, enroll at community college. Maybe even become a policeman himself. He was still young enough, and he knew he was plenty smart.

  He’d promised himself that he would knock off the junk food, start working out, get back in shape. All it took was a little willpower.

  He’d promised himself a lot of things over the last twelve months. But he just kept on going to work, coming home, eating crap, and staring at the television. He hadn’t even taken their wedding photo off the wall.

  He didn’t think he was still grieving over the dead marriage. At least, he didn’t feel sad. He felt…nothing. A paralyzing numbness that rendered all his promises hollow, even as he made them. Maybe if he could sleep, his motivation would return. He’d never been much of a sleeper, but in the last year he’d only been getting a few hours a night.

  God, he was tired.

  He remembered something from high school science, before he dropped out. Objects at rest stayed at rest unless acted upon. There had to be a way to break the inertia.

  All his life he’d felt that God had bigger plans for him, that his life would someday amount to something. He’d prayed for guidance, but the Lord had not yet seen fit to answer him. When his wife took off, he thought it might be a sign. But if it was a sign, it was one he couldn’t read. It didn’t point him anywhere.

  He pressed the remote control’s little button again, but the channel didn’t change. He reached over, pulled a fresh pack of batteries from the end table’s drawer, and loaded them into the remote.

  It still didn’t work.

  On the television screen, Reverend Tim Trinity was talking directly to the camera. It seemed he was talking directly to Andrew.

  Reverend Tim said God wanted to work miracles in Andrew’s life.

  Maybe the broken remote wasn’t an accident. They say God’s signs are everywhere but we’re usually too busy to notice them. Maybe the remote control stopped working on exactly this channel for a reason. Maybe this was one of God’s signs.

  Maybe Reverend Tim had a message for him.

  Andrew put the chair into full recline and settled in to listen.

  God, he was tired.

  The alarm clock woke him two hours later. The television was off, although he could not remember shutting it off. He put the chair upright, stood, and worked the kinks out of his neck, walked to the bedroom and shut off the alarm. He climbed into his work clothes, brushed his teeth, and made a couple of peanut butter sandwiches. He wrapped the sandwiches in tinfoil and put them in his lunchbox, along with couple cans of Dr Pepper and a fresh pouch of Red Man chewing tobacco.

  He grab
bed his hardhat and headed to the refinery.

  Andrew punched in early and went to the refinery’s cafeteria for a coffee before his shift. He took his paper cup to a long table, where the foreman was just winding up a story that had the guys in stitches.

  “…so if I fall asleep on the job today, y’all can blame my mama,” said the foreman.

  “Coming in late, that sounds really bad,” said Andrew.

  The foreman laughed. “Get your mind outta the gutter, Andy. I was just telling the boys ’bout my late night telephone adventures. First, Mama calls in a tizzy, sayin’ there’s some emergency, and she gave my number to our old preacher. Then the preacher calls, goin’ on about how he’s had some kinda vision, and we gotta shut down the refinery. Guy sounded totally sauced too.”

  “Your preacher’s a drunk?”

  “Hasn’t been our preacher for a long time. Moved away after Katrina, now he’s a big shot in Hotlanta, but Mama used to drag me to his church in the city. Tim Trinity.”

  The paper coffee cup stopped halfway to Andrew’s mouth. “Reverend Tim?”

  “Yeah, you know him?”

  “Seen him on TV. What’d he say, exactly?”

  “The guy was goin’ nuts, said this place was set to explode this morning. Asked him how he knew, he started on about speaking in tongues and everything’s backwards and I don’t know what all. Didn’t make any sense.”

  But it made sense to Andrew. Last night had been a sign, after all. Reverend Tim was speaking for God. Andrew didn’t know how he knew this, but he’d never been surer of anything in his life. He dropped his hardhat on the table and headed for the exit.

  “Wait, where you goin’?”

  “I can’t stay.”

  “Boy, you as crazy as that preacher. Get back here and pick up your lid.”

  “You guys better come along,” said Andrew. “You stay, you’re gonna die.”