by G. M. Ford
Biggs ambled across the ten feet of gravel that separated them, mounted the stairs until he was nose-to-nose with the pair, and then put on his most unctuous grin.
“Oh . . . you leavin’ all right, missy. Only question is how,” he said.
With a speed not normally associated with a man his size, he snatched the blue drawstring purse from under her arm.
She started forward. “Don’t you dare . . .”
He stiff-armed her back. She bounced off the door with a dull thud. He tossed the purse to his partner. “See iffn you can’t find some car keys in there,” he told him.
Peepers got down on one knee and dumped everything out of the purse.
“Right here,” he said, dangling a set of keys from his fingers.
“Bring their car around,” he said, nodding at the detached garage.
She was screaming now. “You can’t do this. You have no right . . .”
The young man tried to force his way past Biggs on the stairway. Biggs swept him aside like he was a moth, sending him cartwheeling down into an untended flower bed, bristling with the remains of last year’s roses. A high-pitched moan rose from the kid’s throat.
“Martin!” the young woman cried as she hurried toward her partner.
At that point, things seemed to go into fast-forward. The sound of popping gravel announced the approach of a lime-green Ford Fiesta. Peepers wheeled the little car out onto the lawn, slid it to a halt in front of the Range Rover, and got out, leaving the engine running.
“Martin,” she cried again as she knelt by his side.
By the time she’d managed to wrestle Martin into a sitting position, Brother Biggs had scooped up the contents of her purse, jammed everything back inside, and was headed in their direction. “Let’s go,” was all he said.
The sight of Biggs coming her way set her rocket off but good. She came roaring out of the flower bed like a moon shot. Red faced, screaming at the top of her lungs, talons extended. A low groan escaped my chest as Biggs backhanded her hard enough to turn her in a half circle, then grabbed her by the hair and lifted her completely off the ground.
The terrible keening sound she made was equal parts rage and agony as Biggs carried her flailing body over to the car and crammed her into the driver’s seat. She rocked spastically in the seat, hugging herself and sobbing hysterically. Biggs dropped her purse into her lap, kicked the door shut, and started back for the house.
Martin had staged a partial recovery. He was on his feet, waving like a willow in a windstorm, when Biggs grabbed him by the throat with one hand and by the crotch with the other. And suddenly Martin was bug-eyed and frozen, his mouth wide open, screaming silently at the dark afternoon sky.
I thought about jumping out and trying to put a stop to this. Mercifully, I never got the chance.
“Open that damn car door,” Biggs yelled.
I began to crab backwards out of the thicket. I peeked around the edge of the foliage just in time to see Brother Biggs hurl Martin into the backseat like a javelin. I winced at the sound of his head hitting the other door. Peepers folded Martin’s legs up and slammed the door while Biggs walked to the driver’s side.
“Drive,” Biggs growled.
He didn’t have to tell her twice.
I took off running, staying low across the grass all the way down to the stone wall. The three-foot drop to road level looked like ten stories. I took a deep breath and stepped off. My feet hit at the same moment that the little Ford’s front tires bounced onto the pavement with a screech. I groaned from the impact as I watched her floor it, fishtail twice, and then straighten the car out. Some blind urge told me to follow, so I hoisted myself up into the driver’s seat and started after them.
She drove all the way to Holman Road, up by the north border of the city, before she pulled into a QFC parking lot, got out, and leaned into the backseat.
I backed into a parking space in front of Vera’s Nail Palace and waited. She ministered to Martin for the better part of ten minutes before climbing back in and heading toward Ballard.
I stayed about five cars back as we wound uphill on Holman and started down the other side. Right before Holman miraculously changed into Fifteenth Avenue NW, she put on her turn signal and eased into an empty parking lot. The sign out front read NORTH SEATTLE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SAVIOR. PASTOR RODGER HIGHSMITH. And then, under that, a long list of times for services, Sunday schools, and weekday Bible study groups.
The curb was bumper to bumper, so I had to drive a full two blocks past the church before I could pull over and park. By the time I’d limped back uphill to the church’s driveway, she’d already rallied the faithful. Three men and a woman surrounded the car, leaning in from all directions at once.
I mamboed across the street and watched the proceedings from behind a red Audi as two of the guys leaned in and lifted Martin out of the car. His neck was loose like a bobblehead doll’s and his legs were like spaghetti as they helped him up the stairs.
Shepherding over the proceedings was a tall guy with a turned-around collar and a silver streak running through his curly black hair. Pastor Highsmith, I was guessing.
I leaned on the Audi and watched as the church’s big double doors swung shut.
Whoever pointed out that there was a leisure class at both ends of the social spectrum had been right on the money. The Eastlake Zoo was packed with folks for whom fifty bucks constituted a serious piece of pocket change, but when I asked, “Who wants to make fifty bucks?” nobody so much as flinched.
The jukebox was blaring “Land of a Thousand Dances.” Billy Bob Fung was doing the funky chicken over in the corner with Red Lopez and Crazy Shirley.
Na, na na na na, na na na na, na na na, na na na . . .
George Paris leered at me over his beer. “Doin’ what?” he asked.
“Just sitting on your ass and listening to some guy talk.”
“What guy?”
“Guy namea Aaron Townsend.”
“The preacher guy?”
“Yep.”
“I don’t do preachers,” he said.
I went for the coup de grace. “You don’t even have to clean up.”
Now he was really wary. “How’s that?”
“The paper says the Downtown Gospel Mission is taking a bunch of folks to hear him preach tonight. You’re tight with those guys. I’m betting you can talk your way into going along for the ride.”
“If you’re so interested in what this guy’s got to say, how come you ain’t going?”
“They’ve already had the pleasure of my acquaintance,” I said.
George almost smiled. “Looks like you come out with the worst of it too.”
“But a temporary setback,” I assured him.
He thought it over.
“I ain’t goin’ alone.”
I looked around. “Where’s Harold?” I asked.
“Doin’ thirty,” George said disgustedly. “Failure to appear.”
“Ralphie?”
“He’ll be out on Thursday,” George assured me.
That was the merry-go-round for these guys. They’d get busted for something stupid, like pissing in public; they’d get a ticket and a court date and then not show up for court, which was a considerably more serious offense than alfresco weasel draining; and then they’d end up serving thirty days for failure to appear.
Na, na na na na, na na na na, na na na, na na na . . .
George was wavering, so I went for the throat. I reached up and tapped Nearly Normal Norman on the shoulder. Norman was immense. Six seven or so. Somewhere in the neighborhood of three and a half tons. Not only that, but even a cursory glance into his deep blue eyes made it frighteningly clear that the big fella wasn’t watching the same cable network as the rest of us.
He turned my way. “Leo,” he said with a lopsided grin.
“Wanna make fifty bucks?” I asked.
“How’m I gonna do that?”
“Go over to Fremont with Georgie to
night and listen to a guy preach.”
His face grew grave. He shook his big head. “No preachers, no churches, Leo. The Lord gave up on me a long time ago. Far as He’s concerned I’m persona au gratin.”
I told him I understood and patted him on the shoulder. My options were limited. I was thinking I might have struck out, when Large Marge came striding into the bar.
“Marge,” I called. She looked my way. I beckoned her over.
“Noooo,” George hissed from behind me. I ignored him. “Don’t, Leo. For God’s sake . . .” he whispered.
Marge plopped herself down in the empty chair. I ran it by her. Before I’d finished talking, she was bobbing her head up and down. “Sure . . . why not,” she said. She broke into a wide grin. “I’ve been tryin’ to get Georgie here into a church for years.”
George was squirming in the seat and staring up into the mezzanine.
“He’s just shy is all,” she added with a wink.
When she reached across the table and tickled him under the chin, George began making noises like a gored animal.
She got to her feet. “What time?” she asked.
“He’ll meet you at Downtown Gospel at six thirty,” I said quickly.
“Well then, I better get home and lather up,” she allowed. She took a step toward the door, stopped, and then turned back our way. “Less’n you want to come along, Georgie. We could work up a fine froth, we could.”
George began making those animal noises again.
Marge grinned and headed for the door.
George kept his face averted until he heard the front door close.
“What the hell’s the matter with you?” he demanded.
I ignored him. “I want to know what Townsend says. How the audience feels about him. Talk to people. What I really want to know is whether anybody’s got any idea where he’s staying while he’s in town. You know the drill. Find out whatever you can.”
“That woman’s been trying to jump my bones for years.”
“What are you . . . holding out for marriage?”
“Not funny, Leo.”
I got to my feet and dropped a crisp new twenty on the table. “Incidental expenses,” I said. “I’ll catch up with you guys sometime tomorrow.”
George grunted.
I slid my phone across the table. “Call the mission,” I said.
Na, na na na na . . .
I was parked three doors down from the Church of the Redeemer when the mission bus pulled up out front at about ten to seven. If ever there was a group who could use a bit of redemption, it was the festering flock that stumbled off that bus.
Being around the destitute always gave me the same eerie feeling. When you’ve made as many mistakes as I have, you can’t help but wonder how many more bad decisions it would have taken to put you in their shoes. Not many, I suspect. Not many at all.
I don’t send these guys out on their own anymore. Not since Buddy Knox was tortured and killed down in Tacoma, while conducting what I’d imagined to be a routine stakeout. That monumental misjudgment took a divot out of my soul that’s never gonna heal, so these days, if they go . . . I go. It’s as simple as that.
Besides . . . maybe I could get lucky and follow Aaron Townsend to wherever he was holed up. It wasn’t as easy as they made it seem on TV, but what the hell, why not give it a whirl.
The evening onshore breeze began to massage the trees. Gently at first, like a lover, then gradually rising in intensity. As the trees began to sway like ghostly dancers, the rain arrived at its leisure. One drop here and one drop there. Big, wet spit-gobs of water falling piecemeal from the sky, clanking onto car hoods and canvas awnings like cosmic conga drums.
Lightning flashed in the western sky about two seconds before an explosion of thunder sucked all the oxygen from the air. I pulled in a metallic breath and checked my watch. 7:35. I reached for the radio just as the heavens opened and a torrent of rain tumbled from the sky. Sounded like an army of monkeys was hammering on the car as I fiddled with the knob, hoping to find something familiar on the airwaves.
For me, the radio had been the unwelcome harbinger of middle age. Seemed like one day I was the hippest guy around, and then, all of a sudden, there was nothing on the radio I recognized anymore. Every time I heard a song I knew the words to, it was on the “oldies” channel. Like the passing of time had turned the world inside out and shaken me to the ground like a loose stone.
I was still fiddling with the dial, trying to reclaim my lost youth, when the rain disappeared as quickly as it had come. I snapped on the wipers just in time to catch sight of a pair of pedestrians coming down the sidewalk toward the church.
Even with his black curls plastered to his head, the bright silver streak in Pastor Highsmith’s hair was clearly visible. The woman whom I’d assumed to be Mrs. Highsmith was locked onto his arm like a barnacle. Unless I was mistaken, this was a Pastor Posse, come to do battle with the former prophet of righteousness.
As the Highsmiths mounted the front stairs, I popped open the car door and stepped into the street. The last of the rain was dripping from the bare branches. The sound of trickling water filled the air.
When Pastor Highsmith yanked open the church door, I could hear Aaron Townsend’s brash baritone coming over the PA system. “We owe the Lord . . .” his voice boomed. The door swung shut.
Before I could cross the street, the church doors were flung back with a bang. The sodden air suddenly overflowed with raised voices. Bible verses being quoted at high volume, curses being cast, invectives hurled, as the whole surging mass of humanity began to flow down the church steps like a Slinky. The Highsmiths were trying to hold their ground, but were being forced down the stairs backwards by the surging mass of bodies boiling out of the building.
I ducked into a nook beside the stairs. Half a minute later, the Highsmiths were backed up against the row of cars parked in front of the church.
Mrs. Highsmith looked to be in a full panic. Her eyes rolled in her head like a spooked horse’s as a heavyset woman stepped up and began bellowing into her face, waving a Bible like a hammer, mashing Mrs. Highsmith hard into the side of a car as she filled the air with equal parts spittle and invective.
I took two steps forward, shouldered the big woman aside, bent my good arm around Mrs. Highsmith’s waist, and pulled her out of there. I set her on the sidewalk and waded back in for her husband.
By this time saner heads were beginning to prevail. It had occurred to some of the assembled multitude that perhaps a church was an inappropriate venue for the sort of mean-spirited, threatening behavior presently being exhibited by a number of their more excitable brethren.
As a pair of burly parishioners sought to shield Pastor Highsmith from the seething mob, I slipped into the gap, grabbed Highsmith by the elbow, and began to pull him to safety. He jerked his arm away and began to scan the crowd. “Maryanne,” he called. “Maryanne.”
“Your wife’s over here,” I shouted above the din.
He looked at me in stunned disbelief, then caught sight of his wife over my shoulder and began to sidestep in her direction. That’s when I heard the sirens for the first time. Two, maybe three sirens coming this way.
“I’m thinkin’ maybe we ought to get out of here,” I said to them.
“I . . .” he stammered. “We didn’t . . . I only wanted to . . .”
“Where’s your car?” I asked.
“We Ubered,” his wife said.
I took her by the arm. “My car’s over here,” I said. “Probably best we’re not here when the cops arrive.”
Pastor Highsmith was still grousing about how he never intended something like this to happen as we pulled away from the curb.
I looked at him in the rearview mirror. He was sweaty and slack jawed.
“Where to?” I asked.
“Crown Hill,” his wife said.
I knew where we were going but didn’t let on.
“What was that all about?” I t
ried.
“That man has no right to preach,” Highsmith said.
I turned right onto Thirty-Ninth. “Bunch of folks back there at the church seemed to think he did.” I used the mirror to watch his neck get stiffer.
“He’s been removed from the rolls. He’s no longer affiliated.”
“I didn’t realize you had to be affiliated,” I quipped. “Was Jesus affiliated?”
That one pissed him off, I could tell.
“His thugs assaulted two of my parishioners. Put a young man in the hospital. I wanted those people to know who it was they were listening to.”
“Maybe bearding the lion in his den wasn’t such a good idea,” his wife said.
“There was no other way,” he said stubbornly. “The whole Salvation Lake thing was a disaster.”
“Salvation Lake?” I said.
“It’s where Townsend and his family stay,” his wife said. “The church council sent a delegation out there to serve him with disaffiliation papers.” She patted her husband’s shoulder again. “He had them all arrested.”
“He needed to be confronted in public,” Highsmith insisted.
I worked up my best “gee whiz” tone. “Salvation Lake. Where’s that?”
“They’re all living in a fool’s paradise if they think Aaron Townsend is going to fade quietly into the background. I told them that then and I’m telling them that now. Now that there’s a lot of money involved . . .” He picked up on the bitterness creeping into his voice and stopped himself.
I thought about asking again, but decided against it. Pastor Highsmith was in full “I told them so” mode and not likely to take kindly to geography questions, so I kept driving, running up Holman Road and down onto Fifteenth for the second time today.
“The driveway’s right up on the right,” Mrs. Highsmith said.
I pulled in and braked to a stop. The churchyard was dark. The reverend was still muttering under his breath when he got out of the car and marched off. Mrs. Highsmith reached over the seat and put a hand on my arm.
“Thank you, Mr. . . .”
“Waterman,” I said. “Leo Waterman.”
“Thank you for being such a Good Samaritan,” she said. “My husband thanks you too. He’s just a bit upset tonight.” She patted my arm. “We need more people in this world like you, Leo.”
