The Trinity Game

by Sean Chercover

  ELEVATOR ACCESS CODE—018992

  He paid the bill and headed for the lobby.

  There was an envelope waiting for Daniel at the Westin’s front desk when he returned. No wax seal, but the stationery was every bit as fine quality as any used in the Vatican. Cream colored, 100 percent cotton, heavy stock, and it took fountain pen ink without a trace of feathering. A broad and flexible nib had laid down the emerald-green ink. The script told of a masculine hand, properly trained in penmanship. Boarding school educated, perhaps. The note said:

  Daniel:

  The Vatican’s response, while unfortunate, was expected. We are heartened that your loyalty is to the truth. You have chosen well; Trinity is the path.

  Walk the path, find the truth.

  But beware: There are thieves in the temple and mortal danger lurks nearby.

  Be very careful whom you trust.

  —PapaLegba

  Whoever he was, PapaLegba certainly had flair. Daniel put the note away and returned to Trinity’s hotel suite. This time he drank his uncle’s bourbon.

  “First, some ground rules,” he said, counting them off on his fingers, “One: I don’t work for you, so don’t treat me like an employee, and I don’t follow you, so don’t treat me like one of your flock.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Two: Don’t ever lie to me.”

  Trinity raised his oath hand. “I swear. I want your help, lying wouldn’t serve—”

  “Three: You stand in front of those cameras tomorrow, and the first thing you do is tell the world that you are not the Messiah.”

  “With pleasure. I ain’t applying for that job.”

  “OK. But what I told you before still stands. If this all turns out to be some massive con, I will make it my mission in life to ruin the rest of yours. I will expose you, with the whole world watching.”

  Trinity reached forward and clinked his glass against Daniel’s. “I’ll hold you to that.” He drank the bourbon down in one gulp and refilled his glass. “Look, I understand you still suspect a grift…” He shrugged. “How could you think otherwise? But when that oil refinery blew, part of me died… I’m not lying to you. I believe in God, and this is no con.”

  “Then you better tell me what you and God are planning.”

  “Well, now you’ve pierced the heart of it.” Trinity’s hand shook a little as he sipped his drink. “I don’t have a clue what God is planning. He don’t tell me a goddamn thing.”

  “He told you He wanted me at your right hand.”

  “Danny. This thing didn’t come with an instruction manual. I’m fumbling around in the dark here. Help me.”

  Daniel stepped back, rocked by the sudden and certain knowledge that there was no con, that it was all true…and by the responsibility it imposed…and by the enormity of what they didn’t know.

  He sat on the nearest chair, drank the bourbon.

  Trinity’s smile contained no humor. “Now you seein’ what I see. Welcome to my hell.”

  OK, all right, no panic. Use the brain God gave you, figure it out…

  Daniel took a deep breath. “All right, let’s start with what we know. You’ve been given the gift of prophecy—”

  “That’s a stretch,” said Trinity. “It just spews out of me at random, and I don’t even know what I’m saying when I’m saying it.”

  “Maybe God doesn’t trust you with it yet, but it’s still prophecy. What else do we know?”

  “We know it comes with money and power,” said Trinity.

  Daniel made a face. “Do you ever think of anything else?”

  “No, you’re not hearing me. It’s not about my desires. I already had plenty of money, but now I got money simple. That may be part of God’s plan, I don’t know, but we can’t ignore it. He musta known the dough would pour in when this went public. And the sermon tomorrow? Half a billion people might hear it, or read it in the paper. That’s power. And it petrifies me.”

  “Yeah…we can’t let fear paralyze us. What else do we know? We know—”

  “Holy crap!” Trinity shouted.

  “What?”

  “I got it! I got it!” Bouncing on the balls of his feet, like an excited kid. “The answer’s right there in scripture, son. Do not worry beforehand about what you are to say; but say whatever is given you at the time, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.”

  “You’re just gonna wing it? That’s your plan?”

  “Oh ye of little faith,” said Trinity. “I’m gonna stand up there on that stage, look into the camera, open my mouth wide, and invite God to talk.”

  “A minute ago, you were petrified.”

  Trinity swallowed the rest of his drink. “Still am. But I’m choosing to put my trust in the Big Guy. Otherwise, why bother getting up there at all?”

  Daniel thought about it a long time, saying nothing, not quite successfully avoiding the thought that Tim Trinity’s faith was stronger than his own. He nodded, put down the glass.

  “OK, Tim. We’ll leave it up to God. Get some sleep, we’ve got a big day tomorrow.”

  As Daniel slipped the card key into the door, he felt the full weight of the last twenty-four hours. God, he was tired. He figured to be asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.

  He opened the door, stepped inside, flipped on the lights.

  His carry-on bag was sitting open on the dresser. He’d left it closed, on the chair.

  He crossed to the dresser and looked in the bag. The case file was gone. He ripped open the dresser’s top drawer. His laptop computer, also stolen. He walked to the closet, pulled the extra pillow off the shelf. The digital camera had been snatched as well.

  In its place, there was a small note card. It read:

  No theft here tonight.

  The Church simply reclaimed her property.

  –C.

  Daniel crumpled the card in his fist, threw the pillow against a wall, and swore. Then he took a couple of deep breaths and began a meticulous search of the room.

  Nothing else was missing, but there wasn’t much else worth taking. He sat heavily on the bed. Between the case file and computer, Daniel had proof that the Vatican had been covering up the accuracy of Trinity’s predictions. That proof was now gone.

  And Conrad had the camera. Had the photos of Trinity snorting cocaine in his den.

  Damn…

  Daniel lay back, his head hitting the little chocolate on the pillow. He wondered if Conrad’s break-in was what PapaLegba had meant by thieves in the temple. But then the note went on to warn of mortal danger lurking nearby. That wasn’t about Conrad’s break-in. That was another threat entirely.

  Despite his efforts to keep it at bay, paranoia descended upon him. He had no idea who this PapaLegba was, or who the thieves in the temple were, or where nearby the mortal danger lurked. But he now felt that PapaLegba, whoever he was, should be taken seriously.

  He jumped to his feet, grabbed the card key off the dresser, and strode into the empty hallway. In the north stairwell, he found Chris at his post.

  “Someone’s been in my room, and things are missing,” he said.

  Chris pressed a button behind his lapel, said, “Robert, status check.” He put his finger to his ear, listened. Then, to Daniel, “No activity in the stairwells. Had to be someone with the elevator code. We’ll check the security video.”

  Daniel already knew what the security video would show. But what would he do with it? Conrad was right; the Church had simply reclaimed her property, nothing taken had belonged to Daniel. “I’m more concerned about my uncle’s vulnerability,” he said.

  “We’ll put a man on the elevator; no one will breach the floor again, I promise you.”

  “OK.”

  Chris put his hand on Daniel’s forearm. “Try to get some sleep, man. Seriously, you look exhausted.”

  Sleep. Not a bad idea…

  Tim Trinity lay in bed, sipping bourbon, watching a CNN documentary called Who Is Tim Trinity? Thinking: That
Soledad O’Brien is one foxy lady. You can interrogate me any time, baby…

  O’Brien was being fair—perhaps too fair—in her coverage. Then again, Trinity figured, she had to be careful not to appear disrespectful of religious belief, and false faith is hard to prove.

  That’s what made preaching the perfect con. Of course, if he’d known thirty-nine years ago that there really was a God, he’d have chosen a different line of work, or at least a secular grift. He wondered now if God might someday punish him for his earlier sins.

  Or maybe what’s happening now is God’s punishment…

  He didn’t want to think about that, turned his attention back to the set. O’Brien was standing in front of Charity, which was fenced off and still hadn’t reopened after Katrina. “He wasn’t born Trinity, but Timothy Granger, right here in downtown New Orleans, at Charity Hospital. Born poor, to Claire Granger, wife of Fred Granger, a traveling salesman. Claire was descended from Irish indentured servants, but Fred Granger’s background is unknown, and with the loss of so many public records in Hurricane Katrina, mysteries will remain…”

  A dozen family photographs, in plastic frames, hung on the walls of their cramped living room. Photographs of people the young Tim Granger had never met, some long dead, but all held a place of honor in the family home. Absent were his paternal grandfather and great-grandmother, and Tim’s dad explained it away, saying the old man took after his mama, never did like the camera, thought having his picture taken was akin to tempting the devil.

  When Tim was ten years old, he found the photo while rummaging through a shoebox of memorabilia in his father’s closet. There was no question about who he was looking at. His grandfather looked much like his father, but the lips were a bit fuller, the nose slightly distended, and the hair—slicked back mercilessly—still showed kinky waves. Young Tim took the photo to his dad, who had just returned from another unsuccessful sales trip and was quietly drinking himself to sleep in the living room recliner.

  With trembling hand, he held out the photograph. “This is my grandfather,” he said. His father slowly put the recliner upright, reached for the photo.

  “You oughtn’t a been meddling in my things, son.” Then he gestured to a chair and let out a long sigh as the boy sat. “But I reckon you’re old enough to know.” He took a swallow of his drink and put it on the side table. “Your granddaddy was mulatto. His features favored his daddy, who was white Irish, but never quite enough so’s he could pass. He married a white woman, and they had one quadroon child. Me. When I was born, I came out lookin’ white as any baby. So they had a decision to make.” Tim’s dad looked like he might cry, but he took another swallow of his drink and it passed. “They kept my daddy’s name off the birth certificate, put down UNKNOWN for the father. They figured it would be better for me to be thought a bastard, better for my mother to be thought loose. Better for my father to be thought a cuckold. See, they were trying to give me the best start they could, and a white boy can do things and go places that ain’t possible for a black boy. Folks thought my daddy was a living saint for staying with the white woman who strayed and raisin’ up a white bastard as his own flesh and blood. When I was a little older, he let me know the truth but made me swear never to tell.” He cleared his throat. “And when I was grown I moved clear ’cross town, where folks didn’t know my family. See, nobody can look at your face and tell if you’re a bastard. You can always leave your personal history behind. But you can’t run away from your race, once you been branded.”

  Young Tim Granger had no idea how to feel. His parents had always taught him that all God’s children were equal, that race was of no significance, but the rest of the world had sent him a very different message. Until a moment ago he was a white boy. Now he was an octoroon. He didn’t feel shame, exactly, but he felt a deep unease, his sense of self suddenly untethered, in flux.

  As if reading his mind, Tim’s dad said, “Hear me well, son: I’ve passed all my life, and you look even fairer than I do. No one will ever suspect you got Negro blood in your veins. When you’re a man, you make the decision to tell or not to tell, but you’re not old enough to make that decision right yet, so keep it under your hat for the time being. Life is gonna be harder on you if you tell. But maybe you should. I can’t say what’s best.”

  “Yes, sir,” said young Tim Granger. He stood to leave the room.

  “One more thing I need you to know.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  His dad sat looking at the photo a long time before speaking. Then he said, “I don’t hide it because I am ashamed. I am ashamed because I hide it.”

  Trinity never did tell, although he felt no shame about it, once he got used to the idea. If asked, he would not deny it, but it just never came up. The world thought he was white, and he was…seven-eighths anyway. He considered telling his twin sister, Iris, who shared his blood and who also looked white, but decided it might be a burden for her, so he kept it to himself.

  He never thought of his father without recalling that conversation. And he always thought his father’s shame had been misplaced. Shame for hiding his race or shame for the race itself, either way, it was meaningless to Trinity.

  What mattered was the poverty. That was shameful.

  She came to him in his sleep, in a peaceful dream. Came to him like an ebony Yoruba goddess, in the shade of the big magnolia, where he lay on a bed of oystershell gravel.

  “Does it hurt?” she said.

  “Not at all.”

  “It will.”

  He wanted to believe her. Wanted to square up his account, pay the full price of his sins, and be washed clean.

  But he was afraid to die.

  “Everybody dies, Tim,” she said.

  So she can read my thoughts…

  “It goes both ways,” she said, and he realized that her mouth had not moved.

  Holy crap. Telepathy. Then it hit him all at once. I got it! I got it! You’re God…

  Her smile was full of pity. “Yes, but so are you. I’m God, you’re God, Danny’s God, and the man who audits your taxes for the IRS is God. Everyone is God. I hope you will earn that knowledge before you’re done.”

  You almost had me, until you included the tax guy…

  “You need to take this seriously. Something bad is going to happen tomorrow. Look at me, Tim.”

  So he sat up and looked…and liked what he saw. A black woman—at least as black as he was white—her features spinning tales of North Africa. High forehead, almond eyes, prominent cheekbones, full lips, sharp chin. Skin dark and smooth. Emerald-green eyes. Thin frame, delicate shoulders, voluptuous swelling at the breasts and hips. She wore a fire-red head wrap and a light summer dress of the same color. Around her neck a large silver crucifix and about a hundred beaded necklaces. Around her wrists, seven bracelets, cowrie shells strung on leather.

  “I have much to teach you,” she said, “but your life is on the line. Stay alive tomorrow, and come to me.”

  I don’t know how to find you…

  “You will. Remember—there’s only one God, everything else is metaphor.”

  But you said everyone was God…

  “Both are true.” She knelt beside him, took his face in her hands, kissed him softly on the lips. “Good luck.”

  And she was gone.

  Julia had promised Herb she’d play well with others and promised herself she’d hold her tongue. But it had been a very long day, and she was working with CNN, not for them, and there were things that needed to be said.

  So she said them.

  And Kathryn Reynolds listened. A network news veteran in her late fifties, Reynolds was one put-together black woman. She’d been at work since eight that morning, and it was now creeping up on eleven p.m., but she somehow looked like she’d just arrived. Her suit was crisp, her makeup perfect, her long nails bright red and unchipped. Last time Julia visited the bathroom, she’d been more than a little startled by the rumpled, exhausted woman staring back from the m
irror. The mirror-Julia had a hopelessly wrinkled jacket, flyaway hair, and dark circles starting to show beneath her eyes.

  If Reynolds was insulted by Julia’s rant, she didn’t wince. She just moved her Peabody Awards—all three of them—from the edge of her desk to the center. Followed by the Emmy. Then she smiled, as one does at a slow child.

  “Newspapers can afford to be selective.” Gold hoops danced below her earlobes as she shook her head. “Scratch that—they can’t, unless they want the blogosphere to go on eating their lunch.” She slid her awards back to the side of the desk. “Here, we’ve accepted the existence of the Internet, the twenty-four-hour news cycle.” Her red fingernails swept across the glass wall separating her office from the CNN newsroom bullpen…and the anchor desk, green-screens, lights, cameras, boom mics, and monitors everywhere you looked. “Gotta feed the beast. Would that it were different, but...” She shrugged.

  “I get that,” said Julia, “but at some point, we end up shifting focus to the freak show on the fringes of the story. And everybody loves a freak show. Then we start reporting the freak shows, even when there’s no real story attached.”

  “I agree with you, the world would be better served if we ignored the freak shows, but we simply no longer live in that world.” The news producer closed the blinds across the glass wall, shutting out the newsroom, pulled a bottle of Southern Comfort out of the credenza, poured a couple ounces into her coffee. “Days like today, the coffee around here could stand improvement.”

  Julia held her mug forward. “Much obliged.” The women smiled at each other, for real this time. They sipped the sweet, boozy coffee.

  “Because of women like me,” said Kathryn Reynolds, “women like you are where you are. Not saying you haven’t had to deal with your share of assholes. But you should’ve seen the bullshit I had to wade through on my way up. You’d have quit the business. So shut up a minute and hear me.”

  It was all said with good humor, and measured respect. A wave of self-awareness washed over Julia, and she saw herself from the other side of the desk and felt embarrassed all over again.