Parishioner

by Walter Mosley

  “The way I figure it is that you came across Martindale in your search,” Xavier said. “He’s a high-end operator. If Brayton got something on one of his break-ins that might have had worth, he’d come to Chick and make a deal.”

  Up until then Baer-Bond was nervous, motile. His hands and face were in motion. He looked up at any movement in the room. But when Ecks started reenacting the detective’s investigation Lou got still and serious.

  Ecks didn’t mind the attention. There was, after all, a burgeoning partnership between the two men. He needed to nurse the relationship along until it brought him to the place he had yet to define.

  “This here is tricky, Lou. We both have our little secrets. And you know that I believe that there’s a big payday with nobody to claim the check. If I give you my knowledge you could run away with it. Same is true with you for me. But we got to come up with something.”

  “Yeah,” Lou said, “yeah.”

  “So maybe we could ask each other some questions and see if the answers open up a possibility.”

  “Like what?”

  “Do you know what the people who have gotten killed and who might still die have in common?”

  Baer-Bond knitted his eyes and shook his head.

  Ecks believed this to be an expression of truth.

  “The surfer and mass-murdering boy,” Ecks said, “and one other were kidnapped by the man who lived on Marietta Circle.”

  The detective’s eyes became elusive.

  “Don’t be hidin’ your eyes from me, Lou. If we gonna work together then you got to prove that you can share.”

  “How’d you find out about Sprain?”

  “Benol told me.”

  “How’d she know?”

  “Uh-uh, Lou. Your turn.”

  “The third man is called Leonard Phillips. He’s a pervert. Works for the porn industry out in the Valley. Got a job at Zebra Films but he never leaves the set. Lives behind a trash can like a roach in the wall.”

  “Lenny O,” Ecks said with a nod.

  “You know that too?”

  “What I don’t know is why Chick and Jerry would think that they could make money from killin’ people ain’t got two sticks between the four of ’em.”

  “They sure didn’t tell me.”

  “But maybe they did and you don’t know it.”

  Ecks’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket just then. The sensation caused him to smile.

  “What’s that mean?” Lou asked.

  “Maybe they had you lookin’ for something,” Ecks suggested. “Maybe you saw or heard something that stuck in your head.”

  The sweat on Baer-Bond’s brow had dried into a sheen of salt. His eyes had found their range on Ecks.

  “Look, man,” Lou said. “All this could just be smoke and mirrors—like they had on that TV show, that … that … that Mission Impossible. I got to check some’a this out and think it over.”

  Ecks’s phone throbbed again.

  “Gimme a number and I will call you later on,” Lou added.

  “When?”

  “I’m not gonna say when exactly but it’ll be in less than a day. If I don’t call by then I won’t. So unless you plan to shoot me or arrest me I’m gonna walk out of here and do some looking and thinking of my own.”

  It wasn’t the ideal resolution of the meeting, but Ecks appreciated the bind Lou was in. He didn’t know whether his employers were really in jail. He didn’t know Ecks at all.

  The Parishioner shrugged and wrote down the number of a throwaway cell that he kept in his safe.

  “I don’t have no two hundred thousand, Lou. If I did I wouldn’t be sittin’ here talkin’ to you. But I could sell one of my vehicles and raise some cash. If you do decide to call me, and I haven’t found out the answers I need from somewhere else, then I’d be willing to give you enough for a one-way ticket to someplace where you might could be a beach bum.”

  “A minister sent you to me? Really?”

  “You go and do your soul-searchin’, brother. Do that and call me—or don’t. If you do, and I still need what you got, we can play twenty questions again.”

  Lou Baer-Bond considered the words, realized that he had no choice, gulped down the rest of his sweet drink, and rose to walk away.

  Ecks wondered what kind of wild card Lou would turn out to be. He was a ruthless, very efficient murderer. He didn’t feel guilt or remorse. For probably not much money he had killed two men. Now he was desperate because the little he had made had gone to chili dogs and whores. He would cheat Ecks out of reflex and kill him if he could.

  The old Xavier Rule felt right at home.

  “I need to know what’s happening,” Benol said on the message from the first call.

  “Brother Ecks,” Father Frank said on the second message. “Ms. Richards has been calling, worried that you might have abandoned her cause for some profit-making scheme. I assured her that such a thing is impossible but also promised that you would call her and make a report.”

  “Hello?” she said halfway through the first ring.

  “Hey, Bennie.”

  “Where are you?”

  “The Wilshire District. I’m having a coffee and wondering how a single decision by a teenaged girl can create a whole world of pain.”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “Where are you?”

  “The reading room of the downtown Y.”

  “There’s a restaurant ’bout six blocks from there called Pablo’s Tandoor. Meet me there in one hour.”

  “Have you betrayed me, Mr. Noland?”

  “That, my dear, would be impossible.”

  Forty-five minutes past midday Benol Richards walked into the Mexican-Indian restaurant to find Ecks sitting at a two-person booth against the back wall. The walls and booths, furniture, floors, and ceiling were all decorated with Olmec, Aztec, and Hindi gods and goddesses, sacred animals and indecipherable texts.

  Ecks rose up from his seat and actually kissed the young-looking woman on her cheek. She touched the place where his lips had brushed her and frowned.

  “What’s going on?” she asked. If she were Jesus she might have added the appellation—Judas.

  “You hungry?”

  “No.”

  “Order something anyway. They like it when people pay to sit at their tables.”

  “I don’t care. You order for me.”

  The waiter came and Ecks ordered.

  “I need to know what’s going on,” the honey-colored possible penitent said when they were alone.

  Xavier took a stiff piece of paper out of his inside breast pocket. This he placed before Benol.

  She picked up the card, glanced at both sides, and put it back down on the table.

  “So?”

  “That was my question for you,” Ecks replied.

  The two freckles under her eye seemed to be more pronounced. Ecks wondered whether this was some kind of physical show of embarrassment.

  Before Benol could reply, the waiter returned with plates of tandoori chicken, chiles rellenos, vindaloo lamb, and basmati rice.

  “We used to fuck, okay?” she said after the server left again.

  “But why would you think that he would send you money so long after you’d run away? Full-grown man having sex with a child who is his brother’s daughter probably wouldn’t have guilt as a primary emotion.”

  “My dad was his stepbrother,” Benol said. “Anyway, he wasn’t even my real father. When he married my mom, she already had me. Clay and I weren’t related by blood and we only met after I was in foster care.”

  “You were still a teenager.”

  “Yeah. But he kinda fell for me. I could lead him around by the nose.”

  “Until Brayton.”

  “Yeah. Clay got jealous.”

  “And that’s why you sold those kids?”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “One boy’s dead, another’s in prison for life, and those are the two who got off eas
y.”

  Actual tears formed in the woman’s eyes. “What do you want from me?”

  “The detective you hired killed the surfer and Brayton too.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “I … I … I …”

  “Was your uncle part of the scam?”

  “No. No, he wasn’t.”

  “Then why would you expect him to send you money?”

  “I had letters.”

  “What kinda letters?”

  “He was in love with me. I used to say I wanted him to do things, sex things, and he’d write me love letters telling me what he’d do. Signed them and everything.”

  “He said he loved you?”

  “He did love me. He did everything I wanted.”

  When he ran women Ecks had heard this story in a hundred variations.

  “Then why’d you help Brayton steal those boys?”

  The look on her face was that of a lost child. She was searching for the answer in Ecks.

  “I didn’t say that I loved the old pervert.”

  “But it sounded like you were proud that he loved you.”

  “What does any of this have to do with those boys?”

  “Did Clay Berber know what you were going to do with Brayton? Did he profit from the money you got from Sedra?”

  “Absolutely not. When he realized that I had a real boyfriend he tried to keep us apart. He wouldn’t let me go out; at least, he tried to stop me.”

  “Okay, all right. Tell me about Jerry Jocelyn.”

  “He called the night after I met you. He said that he heard I was looking for Brayton and three boys that went missing twenty years ago.”

  “Why would he care about that?”

  “He said that he knew about Brayton but he was wondering what my interest was.”

  “And you told Jocelyn about Frank?”

  “Not exactly. I just said that I had somebody else looking for the boys. That’s when he said that two of the parents were willing to pay for knowledge about all the boys. He was on some kind of time limit and wanted me to back off. When I told him that I didn’t know if the new people I’d engaged would agree to stop looking, he said that he’d pay me fifteen thousand dollars if I turned the information I got over to him before taking any other action. I didn’t see the harm. I wanted to find them anyway.”

  “Which parents?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “Why would any of the natural parents want the boys dead?”

  “He said that they wanted them found but not until after their thirtieth birthday. It sounded like they wanted to get to the bottom of the kidnapping … and something else too.”

  “So they hired a lawyer?”

  “I don’t know.”

  The Parishioner realized that he was leaning forward in a predatory fashion. He sat back and took a deep breath.

  “How’s the Y treating you?” he asked.

  “I’ve been in worse places.”

  “What do you plan to do when all this is over?”

  “Go back to Florida or maybe turn myself in. Maybe if they take me to court I can feel like I paid for my crime.”

  “Did you give Jocelyn my name?”

  “Uh …”

  “But you weren’t gonna tell me.”

  “I didn’t know that he was going to be killing the boys. Why would I think that?”

  It was a good question.

  “Why would they pay all kinds of money to keep quiet?” was another one.

  “Waiting for the birthdays to pass like Jerry said,” Benol suggested weakly.

  “Jerry’s in jail along with a man named Chick Martindale.”

  “For what?”

  “Murder.”

  “Hank?”

  “No. Two other guys.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  “I lied to you,” Ecks said. “The last guy I met, that Lenny, he was the third boy.”

  “Really?”

  “So I’ve completed my mission.”

  Benol Richards seemed to age right there in front of Ecks. Her shoulders slumped and her eyes lost focus.

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “The last kid is all fucked-up and you lied to me. I’ll give Frank the information and either he’ll tell you or he won’t. That’s up to the church.”

  “I am not an evil woman, Mr. Noland.”

  “If a chunk of rock fell off a building aimed right at my head it wouldn’t be evil either, but I’d sure the fuck try to get outta the way.”

  “This was my last chance,” she whispered.

  “No, baby. Your last chance comes in the middle, or maybe just a second before your last breath. This was just a practice run for you. From here on in you have to get more creative.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will.”

  Benol hadn’t touched the food set out in front of her. She stared for a moment and then rose. Ecks watched her, saying nothing. Saying nothing she walked from the restaurant lugging her golden purse as if it were a heavy weight, filled with the bodies of her victims.

  “Hey, sailor,” the electric eye greeted.

  It was six minutes past three and Lenny was up on a ladder hanging rakes between long wooden dowels jutting out and upward from the wall. The young man was wearing jeans that would have fallen off his skinny hips if not for a tightly cinched leather belt. His T-shirt read, Hardware Man.

  Lenny was talking to George Ben, who was standing at the base of the mobile ladder. They were both smiling.

  “Hey, Ecks,” George said, his attention still on Lenny.

  “Eyes in the back of your head, George?” Ecks asked.

  “Mirror on the back wall of the store.”

  “I see you put Lenny to work.”

  “Idle hands.”

  “Can you give your new employee a coffee break?” Ecks asked.

  After calling a young African man named Jack from the storeroom, George Ben led Ecks and Lenny O to his office. There he extracted three espressos from an elaborate brass contraption that sat on its own table against the wall.

  “I need to talk to Lenny alone,” Ecks told his fellow parishioner.

  “No,” George said as politely as the word allowed. “I promised him that I’d make sure he was okay.”

  “And you think I mean to hurt him?”

  “No offense, Brother Ecks, but all someone has to do is look at you and they can tell that you represent hurt from your fingers to your toes.”

  Ecks weighed the options of the possible confrontation. Ben was, among other things, a killer. He was strong and brutal, though rehabilitated. He would always be a threat, even if he was a little too softhearted.

  “Okay,” Ecks conceded. “Let’s sit down and powwow.”

  “You go sit in my chair behind the desk,” George said to Lenny.

  The store owner then gestured for Ecks to take one of the two visitors’ chairs, waited for him to be seated, and then followed suit.

  Ecks decided to ignore the dynamic of the meeting and opened his line of inquiry. “Tommy Jester.”

  “What about him?” Lenny asked, looking to George.

  “How long ago did he tell you about the people after you?”

  “One week, no, no, two, two weeks.”

  “Did he tell you anything else about it?”

  “Just that Ellie’s brother blamed me for what happened to her. He said that he was after me, that I should stay in the steel shed behind the kitchen. He gave me a padlock to use on the inside and told me not to come out unless it was daylight and the daytime security staff was on duty.”

  “How long did he expect you to live like that?”

  “He told me that he’d try and work it out, but if he couldn’t he’d make sure that I’d get out of town.”

  “You trust him?”

  “Oh, yeah. Tommy’s always been real nice to me. When he told me about the guy after me he had his doctor look me over and give me a
blood test.”

  “Why? Were you sick?”

  “I think that that’s enough questions,” George said.

  “Don’t press me, George,” Ecks said from a place that didn’t bargain.

  “Um, it’s okay, Mr. Ben,” Lenny said, suddenly in the role of peacemaker. “No, no, I wasn’t sick. I thought that he was givin’ me the usual STD test. You know, the doc gives them to everybody.”

  “Two weeks ago?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “How long’s the turnaround on that?”

  “Usually it’s three days.”

  “So what did he say?”

  “He had to send it out to a new place for some reason and it hadn’t come back yet. He said that happens sometimes with a new lab.”

  “Hm.”

  “What?” Lenny and George both asked.

  “Thank you very much, Len,” Ecks replied. “I think everything is gonna be all right for you, but I’d keep my head down for a while—at least until I give you the okay.”

  “What is it, Ecks?” George asked.

  “It is what it is.”

  “Hello?” Benicia said. There were sounds of clinking and voices behind her.

  “Just thought I’d call and say hi.”

  “For such a tough guy you’re really very considerate … Ecks.”

  “I had a nice time with you the other night.”

  “You could have spanked me harder. I wouldn’t have cried.”

  “I might be pretty busy for the next couple’a days.”

  “Dinner? Three nights hence?”

  “Hence?”

  “I told you, I’m a graduate student. I know all kinds of words.”

  “Yeah, I heard a few of them in your bed.”

  “You talk in your sleep, you know.”

  The cold fingers in Xavier’s chest did not reduce the heat of his ardor.

  “Tell me about it when I see you next.”

  “I can hardly wait.”

  Walking up the stairs of his apartment building Ecks wondered whether there might be assassins waiting for him. Benol had told Jocelyn about him. Lou Baer-Bond might have very well visited the rogue lawyer in prison by then.

  You never see it comin’, man, Swan was apt to say. The kill shot, the knife in the back, that one wrong step happens while you’re wonderin’ if your girl got underwear or if she’s too hot for you to put ’em on.