Parishioner

by Walter Mosley

  “I’ll call you soon,” he said.

  She smiled and got into her car.

  He watched her taillights until they had blended in with the traffic around them and then turned his attention to his cell phone.

  Information had Sam Sprain living on 6 Marietta Circle. MapQuest told him that the address was walking distance from the restaurant-bar. After finding the quarry, Ecks turned his phone off.

  Number six was a small house hemmed in by two nonresidential buildings. In the dim light, colors were not able to reach their full potential. It stood high behind a wire fence and had white and possibly red flowers cascading from the elevated porch. The house was either yellow or white and definitely looked like a woman’s domicile. There was a light on, on the second floor of the two-story structure, and also weak porch light glittering above the front door. The only access to the circle was through Marietta Alley. Xavier stood in the shadows of the mouth of the alley watching and waiting—for what he was not sure.

  There was no life in the cul-de-sac. No music playing or dutiful husbands taking out the trash. There were seven houses and the two buildings that flanked Sprain’s place. It wasn’t like New York, where life was always spilling out of doors and windows into the street.

  But Xavier didn’t mind. He was wondering about the answer to Benicia’s question. Why did he suddenly feel something about someone? It wasn’t love or lust, sex or the desire to make babies. It wasn’t even a deep connection. No. He had come to an understanding about himself and the blockade of his emotional life had fallen unexpectedly without fanfare, like an explosion in outer space. When he looked up that morning Benicia was standing there. Kismet.

  He waited in shadow for long minutes, thinking about his heartbeat and the last time he remembered feeling that physical palpitation—that is, when he wasn’t running for his life. It was indicative of a transition from invulnerability to something mortal and frail: like Superman under the spell of one of the more exotic Kryptonites—but with weakness also came the unexpected feeling of euphoria.

  When he pulled open the gate to the wire fence it gave off a weak metallic whine. A dog in one of the houses started barking angrily. Xavier thought that the canine waited all day to hear that particular sound. It was the squeak of danger and he would warn the world.

  The front door was ajar.

  Xavier pressed the doorbell with the knuckle joint of his index finger; it sounded and the dog doubled the ferocity of its warning.

  No answer but the dog.

  He pressed the bell again. There were three chimes: short, long, short. Almost a tune.

  Xavier waited a moment more, donned a thin pair of the medical gloves he’d appropriated at the hospital, and pushed the door inward. Even then Ecks remained cautious. He realized that the man standing at the door was not the new man in his mind. He was still the tough-minded gangster from the old neighborhood when it came to breaking and entering, smashing and beating, shooting and stabbing, wounding and killing. The new Ecks was something cradled in his mind: an infant who was not yet ready to come out into the world.

  He closed the door and turned on a light. There was a jumbled living room on his right, a staircase to the left, and a small utility kitchen straight ahead. The rooms were so small that Ecks had the feeling of entering the cabin of a harbor tugboat.

  The brocaded cushions of the pink-and-red sofa had been thrown to the floor. The matching chair had been turned over; it lay there with its gauze bottom torn out. China had shattered and the carpet was rolled up and now slumped into a corner, bent over and teetering like an unconscious drunk.

  And there was still the light up above.

  Ecks took a moment to consider leaving. He imagined himself walking down the stairs and into the circle, through the alley and back to his Edsel. Oddly the pink-green-and-chrome classic made him wonder whether Frank’s car was still in the lot. This tangent told the Parishioner that it was not yet time to leave.

  The second floor was divided into two rooms. On the right was a bedroom and to the left a bathroom that seemed too large for the place.

  The mattress of the bed had been thrown off so that it teetered over the side of the box spring. All the drawers of the walnut bureau had been pulled out and dumped on the pine floor. The freestanding closet door was ripped off its hinges. Clothes were scattered everywhere. A bone shoe lay on its side at the edge of the slumped-over mattress, the sole was worn and pitted.

  The large bathroom didn’t even have a medicine cabinet. Nothing was out of place, because there was nothing to move. Ecks sat on the edge of the iron tub, waiting for inspiration.

  The dog had stopped its barking. The only sound now was the steady drip from the bathtub spigot onto the greenish, corroded copper-collared drain.

  Ecks considered calling Benicia. Her kiss had been soft and promising, the look in her eye and her hand on his chest undeniable. She would ask him over if called right now.

  He knew that this thought was somehow inappropriate, that New Ecks should not be thinking about a woman he was interested in while searching through the wreck of a man’s life.

  Where was the other shoe?

  Lifting the mattress Ecks revealed the corpse. Brayton Richard Starmon Welch Welcher Robert Samuel Sprain lay on his side, a bullet through the right eye and another in his chest. He was wearing a charcoal suit and a light gray shirt. The orange-and-brown tie was knotted perfectly, even in death. There wasn’t much blood; no time to bleed.

  Death had been kind to the kidnapper and thief. It had taken him quickly.

  Half an hour later Ecks was ready to leave. There was no wallet left behind, not even any lint from the new suit pockets. The Parishioner almost left it at that when he decided to take off the man’s shoes. This revealed nothing, but once Ecks had gone that far he couldn’t turn back and so peeled off the corpse’s argyle socks. The right sock was empty and the left one too.

  He left the shoeless, sockless cadaver with its pockets turned out. On the way back to his car he threw the gloves in a public trash can. Driving back to his home he tuned the radio to an oldies station that was playing an uninterrupted hour of comic songs from the fifties and sixties. He listened to “Alley Oop,” “Mr. Custer,” “Monster Mash,” “Tie Me Kangaroo Down,” “Lost in the Jungle,” and many others.

  Back at home he turned the cell phone back on. There were four messages.

  “Hey, Ecks,” Winter said in a conspiratorial whisper. “I took her to a hotel on Vine not too far from Hollywood Boulevard. It’s called the Regency Arms. Kind of run-down but not a dive or nuthin’. I charged her the company rate, thirty dollars, and she asked me if I had change for a hundred. I did and she gave me a dollar tip. A dollar tip. Can you believe that? Anyway, the only other thing was she got on her phone and called somebody. She said that she didn’t have anything for them yet but she was sure to know something in a few days.”

  “Yo, Brother Ecks, Charlie Mothers here. Frank said that you need something and I got it. But you know I don’t trust the body electric as far as I can throw it. So come on down to the marina and we’ll talk.”

  “It’s me,” the cop Soto said on the third message. “I took myself off the case for obvious reasons. You must know that by now. But I still got a finger in the pie. If you need me or I can do anything I guess that’s okay. I talked to Frank after we met at the church and he set me straight about what you’re up to. Sorry if I got carried away there. You know I’m trying to be here now like we always talk about. Sometimes I guess I get a little crazy.”

  “Hi,” Benicia Torres said. “Um, I, I thought I might get you. I hope it isn’t too late. I had a really nice time and I wanted you to know that you should call. I want you to answer my question. Anyway … good-bye.”

  There were two lovers walking down the alley, arm in arm. He stopped to kiss her. She wanted to keep moving but lingered long enough to keep his interest piqued. Then she pulled his encircling arm making him stagger on.

&nbs
p; Xavier Rule watched them amble off. They were too far away for him even to know what race they were. All he knew was that there were two of them just like there were two of him sitting at that table.

  He slept until eight in the morning, luxuriously late for the newspaper delivery profession. The sun didn’t actually shine in his window but there was a powerful solar radiance emanating through the glass from the urban desert outside.

  Xavier felt the new man inside him surge up through his body. This made him smile.

  While urinating he heard the Monk tune play on his cell phone. The fragment ended before he was through.

  When he was finished he washed his hands in the sink, toweled them off, and then picked up the phone. He called the number that had called him.

  There was a double-clicking sound and then, “That you, Ecks?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said to George Ben, the hardware man.

  “She left last night while I was asleep.”

  “What time?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I took her to the Pasta Place at seven and we talked and talked like BFFs. She told me all about the men her aunt made her whore for. I thought we were making a connection but then I started getting tired. I think the little minx might have drugged me. We walked home. I was leaning against her shoulder. I don’t remember anything after that. I don’t even know how I got into the bed. I must have really been out of it.”

  “She take anything?”

  “Not that I can tell. But you know I can hardly get up. I’m just calling to let you know.”

  “Maybe you should see a doctor.”

  “No, no. I don’t need a doctor. I know the symptoms. They’ll pass in thirty-six hours. I figure you got to pay your dues sometimes.”

  “I hear that, Mr. Ben. I hear that.”

  There were many paths set out in front of Xavier Rule that morning: Benol at her hotel and Charlie Mothers on his yacht, the murderer of Brayton Starmon. And then there was the new man inside him: the man who felt unsure, who thought about life in a different way and had feelings about his actions, inactions, and the things that he thought.

  The day was clear and Benicia’s kiss still a physical sensation on Ecks’s lips.

  Xavier was smiling and disturbed, glad to be alive and afraid that his happiness might shorten the life he was just beginning to enjoy.

  He picked up the cell phone and entered a number.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Winter. What’s up, man?”

  “Ecks. What time is it?”

  “Not eight thirty yet.”

  “Wow. Hey. I’m just wakin’ up, brother. What can I do you for?”

  “Breakfast at the IHOP on Olympic in half an hour?”

  “Add fifteen minutes to that and I’ll be there.”

  Winter ordered chocolate-chip pancakes with caramel syrup and hot chocolate. Xavier asked for steak and eggs.

  “How you doin’, Win?” Ecks asked when the waitress went off to give their order to the cooks.

  “Every time the phone rings or there’s a sound anywhere near my door I start shakin’. I been eatin’ antacids like they was my mom’s famous pralines.”

  “Sorry I brought you into it, man.”

  “No need to be sorry, Ecks. No need. Because, you know, when everything is quiet and I’m not worried I realize over and over that this is what I always wanted.”

  “What is?”

  “I’m supposed to be livin’,” the chauffeur said, “not just drivin’ a car and payin’ the bills, hopin’ that some young girl will wanna take off her clothes with me. The things we do got to be important. I mean, standin’ on line and waitin’ your turn ain’t a life. Shit. You opened a door for me, man. And even though I’m scared one outta every three minutes, the rest of the time I feel like a man.”

  When Winter nodded his entire torso bobbed. Ecks smiled at his friend.

  “What?” Winter asked.

  “I don’t know, Win. I been in houses like the one I took you to a hundred times. That’s the line I been standin’ on. I mugged my first crack dealer when I was twelve years old—busted that motherfucker’s head open like it was a pumpkin. I did terrible things, brother, and I never followed rule one.”

  Winter sat back on his side of the red plastic booth, and the sixty-something waitress put their plates down in front of them.

  “That shit is fucked-up, Ecks. I hear that. But you know, in a way you were doin’ all you could.”

  “Maybe,” the dark gangster admitted. “But what I’m sayin’ is that it’s not manhood if there’s no man there.”

  “I don’t get you.”

  “I just do things, Win. Knife some dude get me mad, fuck a woman in her husband’s bed and then dare him to say somethin’ to me. But when I did shit like that I was an animal, not a man. It wasn’t brave. No, it wasn’t brave; I just couldn’t do anything else. I wasn’t a man, because I wasn’t standin’ up for nuthin’.”

  Winter squinted and stared at his friend. He took a bite of the sweet meal and shifted his head for a better look, not at what Ecks was saying, but at what he meant. He wanted to speak but could not find the words.

  “It’s like this, Win,” Ecks said to ease this tension of silence. “When I’m scared I run. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t get scared too often. But I don’t think about my manhood when something big and scary shows up. You, on the other hand, see somethin’ scare you half to death and face it. And when it’s ovah and you might go to jail, you stand up and try to do what you think is right, even if what’s right might be dangerous.”

  “So I’m the man?” Winter asked.

  “Hallelujah.”

  From IHOP Ecks got in his car and headed for the beach.

  Charlie Mothers’s yacht was in the wealthiest part of the marina. It stood as high as a three-story building in the water and had tiers and windows like a house. A powerfully built, bald Asian man with an orange-and-yellow tattoo like a sun around his left eye guarded the gangplank. He looked dangerous but Xavier wasn’t worried. Death, he knew, would come up on him like an unwanted surprise party. He’d probably be smiling just before the knife went in.

  “Yes, sir?” the guardian said softly.

  “Egbert Noland for the man who lives here.”

  The security man made eye contact with the Parishioner. He was trying to see whether he could stare Ecks down. When this failed his eyes searched Ecks’s hands and clothes, looking for weapons. He accepted that the visitor was dangerous and didn’t want to use the walkie-talkie if that meant he would be vulnerable to attack.

  Xavier saw all this and shouted, “Hey, Mothers, I’m down here!”

  The exhortation bothered the protector, but before he could express this dissatisfaction a man said, “Hey, Soon, send Brother Ecks up!”

  There were two skinny women with huge breasts and in impossibly small bikinis sunning themselves in beach chairs on the upper deck of Charlie Mothers’s yacht; white girls with blond hair, red lips, and skinny legs that looked like they could crush walnuts the size of pillows.

  “Ecks!” a man shouted.

  He was at least a demigod. Six-six with bronze skin and yellow hair. His eyes were the color of the ocean, and the muscles beneath the skin of his bare chest and arms undulated like huge snakes under a satin sheet. This deified man strode easily from the pilot’s dais onto the upper deck.

  He wore dark blue sweatpants cinched tight to his thirty-inch waist, and his smile belonged to a presidential hopeful: white and contagious.

  They shook hands and Ecks allowed himself a mild smirk.

  The women sat up, aware that their host-provider wasn’t always so friendly and inviting.

  “Nerd boy,” Ecks said in greeting.

  Charlie Mothers laughed loudly.

  “Can’t fool you,” the blond titan said.

  “You got what I need, man?”

  “I have things that you don’t know you need yet,” Mothers said. “I have things you couldn’t even ima
gine.”

  “I can imagine a razor across the naked eye.”

  “Come on downstairs, Ecks. Let us see what we shall see before we’re blinded by an Andalusian dog.”

  Two floors down in the floating mansion Mothers brought Ecks to a large, nearly refrigerated room filled with computers, screens, and keyboards. Charlie took a zippered sweatshirt from a wall hook and wrapped it around his naked torso.

  “There’s a coat hanging on the door behind you,” the taller man offered.

  “No, thanks,” Ecks said. He was never really bothered by intense cold or heat. For that matter he was generally unfazed by any kind of pain. It wasn’t that he didn’t feel these sensations: it was that they intruded only as nuisances in his mind.

  Charlie pulled two rolling chairs up to an eighty-inch LCD screen, pressed a few buttons on a red keyboard that had no wires. This keyboard he placed on his lap.

  Ecks sat down and the screen came to life. There appeared the photograph of a man, woman, and teenage boy. They were standing together in front of a big Victorian, under an ancient, dark green pine. It was a driveway built for many cars. The man and woman were both short and dumpy, clad in leisure wear. His gray hair was receding and her black tresses came out of a bottle applied in an upscale salon.

  The boy was blue eyed, blond, and taciturn. He didn’t want to be in that photograph, under that tree, next to his parents, or on the same planet where any of those things existed. He was carrying a multicolored skateboard, wearing artfully torn jeans, and had on a pale blue dress shirt that was soiled with all the buttons undone.

  The woman was sneering at her son’s appearance.

  The man was smiling forcefully at the camera.

  “Balford and Jeannine Marcus with their son, Henry,” Mothers said. “This picture was taken nine years ago. Since then Hank went to college, dropped out, opened a surf shop, and developed a taste for various white powders. Jeannine died of a congenital heart problem, and Balford moved to Maui with a girl who graduated from high school the year after his son.