Baptism for the Dead

by R. R. Irvine

  “You know something, Willis? I’m already beginning to wish I hadn’t.”

  3

  TRAVELER STEPPED out of the elevator and into a lobby reeking of Mormon hellfire. Satan’s work had been done by generations of smokers who’d paused at the cigar stand to light up their sins.

  The stand itself was sandwiched between two massive Doric columns of marble that held up one corner of the lobby. The stand’s glass-topped display case was like something from a time warp, filled with pouches of Bull Durham, cigarette papers, Chiclets, and Sen-Sen. There was even a perpetual gas flame for the convenience of smokers.

  The man behind the counter, Barney Chester, had his head craned back, staring at the ceiling. Traveler glanced up, too, enjoying the depression-era frescoes that depicted the pioneers pulling handcarts along the Mormon Trail. Leading the trek was Brigham Young.

  “Cigarette smoke is turning him yellow,” Chester observed as soon as Traveler came within earshot. “Every goddamned day he looks a little more jaundiced.”

  Traveler leaned back to squint at Brigham one more time. “You could always have the ceiling cleaned.”

  “You don’t touch works of art like that. Not these days. Not with artists painting shit that looks like something a dog wouldn’t piss on.” Chester liked talking tough. He thought it went along with his image, because someone had once told him that he looked like Edward G. Robinson portraying a gangster.

  “A little soap and water is all I’m suggesting.”

  “My ceiling goes back to the thirties, for Christ’s sake. In those days artists worked out of love.”

  “Three meals a day was more like it.”

  “You’ll never convince me of that.”

  Such conversations had become a ritual between them. The words changed from day to day, but never the camaraderie they generated.

  “There’s only one other choice then,” Traveler said. “Put up no-smoking signs.”

  “I’ll let Brigham turn black first.”

  To prove his point, Chester lit a cigar, drew in a lungful of smoke, and then fired it toward the ceiling. If Barney Chester hadn’t been the landlord, both he and his stand would have been memories long ago. There was nothing Mormons hated more than smoking.

  “How about something to read?” he asked.

  This, too, was ritual.

  As always Traveler refused to take the bait, though he knew full well that Barney kept salacious paperbacks and antichurch literature under the counter as temptations for his friends. He would never offer them to anyone who might be offended.

  “In case you haven’t noticed,” Traveler said, “it’s snowing outside.”

  “And Bill?”

  “Walking his beat as usual.”

  “Do me a favor, Moroni. Get him to come inside. He listens to you.” Chester nodded at a shiny new coffee maker that stood next to a cash register as old as the frescoes overhead. “Tell him I’ve got hot coffee and doughnuts.”

  Traveler leaned over to peer behind the counter. As usual Bill’s sleeping bag was rolled up and stashed in the corner out of sight of the customers. Next to it stood a bedroll belonging to a Navajo named Charlie Redwine.

  “You’re too soft to be a landlord,” Traveler said, pushing himself away from the display case.

  In response Chester clamped tobacco-stained teeth around his cigar and said, “Oh, yeah?” It almost made him sound like Edward G. Robinson.

  “You want me to get Charlie in here, too?”

  “Why the hell not? At least when it’s this cold they don’t smell so bad.”

  “You keep this up, and you won’t have any tenants left.”

  “Bullshit. Where else are you going to find rents this low, not to mention a view that would make a prophet proud? Answer me that, will ya?”

  Traveler couldn’t. Most of Salt Lake’s grand old buildings had been torn down to make way for shopping malls.

  “Tell Bill if he gets pneumonia I’m not going to nurse him. And I’m not buying any more wine for that Indian, either.”

  Traveler shook his head but said nothing. He knew there was always a half-gallon jug of dago red under the counter along with the paperback pornography.

  “And tell them to wipe their feet before they come in here,” Chester added.

  “Some of us have real work to do,” Traveler said. “We don’t have time for errands.”

  “Since when?”

  “I’ve had two clients today. The last one just left.”

  „“Him, I saw. You don’t need funny business like that.”

  “It pays the rent.”

  “In weather like this, it’s better you should stay inside and keep dry.” Chester had given up on Edward G. Robinson to become a Jewish mother.

  “I’ll get Bill.” Traveler headed for the revolving door made of panels of art deco bronze and glass, the last of its kind in town.

  Outside, snow was falling with such intensity that the temple had become a soft shadow, its spires no more than tantalizing images at the edge of memory. The Angel Moroni had been erased altogether.

  Traveler caught movement near one of the temple gates. He cupped his hands beside his mouth and shouted, “Bill, come inside.”

  A gust of wind blew snow in Traveler’s face. Along with it came the shouted reply, “The Lord be praised.”

  Then Mad Bill came as fast as he could, the sandwich board banging his shins with each step. He was a big man, about equal in bulk to Traveler, but with most of his weight arranged around his middle.

  “I’ve been praying for sunshine,” Bill said as soon as he joined Traveler in front of the Chester Building. “Your call was God’s way of answering me, telling me that my work was done for the day and that I could come in out of the cold.”

  Traveler had been prepared for a long argument, since Bill was usually reluctant to leave his post.

  Bill pointed a finger at the heavens. “This weather is a sign. I know it.”

  “Where’s Charlie?” Traveler asked to forestall any preaching.

  “Down the street at the Era Antiques.”

  “Selling or stealing?”

  “Charlie doesn’t have anything to sell. What he gets, the Lord provides.”

  Traveler, hunching his shoulders in a vain attempt to keep snowflakes from sliding down his neck, grabbed hold of the sandwich prophet, as Bill liked to call himself, and pulled them both under cover of the building’s overhang. “Bill, you’re soaked clear through.”

  “I answer God’s call.”

  “What does He say about overcoats?”

  Bill ignored the comment to concentrate on freeing himself from the sandwich boards. But at the moment, chilblained fingers made such a maneuver impossible.

  With a grunt, Traveler tugged the plywood placards over his friend’s head. Once free of them, Bill led the way inside where he immediately attempted to use the hem of his robe to dry his signs. The woolen material was too sodden to be of any use.

  Traveler donated his handkerchief to the cause. “Maybe I ought to go get Charlie?”

  “If he doesn’t get picked up for shoplifting, he’ll be here any minute.”

  As if on cue the Indian pushed through the revolving door.

  Bill leaned his boards against the nearest wall, then opened his arms and said, “Charlie, what has God bestowed upon us?”

  The Navajo, who had spent two years studying anthropology at Brigham Young University before peyote intervened, held up one hand like a movie Indian and replied, “How.” It was just about all he ever said. Traveler suspected it was Charlie’s way of laughing at them.

  Then he extended his hand. It held a beaded necklace of lapis lazuli.

  “Ah,” said Mad Bill, palming the offering. “I have just the parishioner for this.” He tucked the jewelry into a Levi pocket beneath his robe.

  Charlie nodded, his face as stoic as the proverbial wooden Indian, and started toward the cigar stand.

  Traveler nudged one of Bill’s sa
ndwich boards with his shoe and read, “Repent before it’s too late.”

  “I’m through with those for today,” Bill responded, following the Indian. “Tomorrow we move on to „God is love.’ ”

  “One of these days,” Traveler said, “you’re going to get yourself arrested.”

  “The Lord will protect me.”

  “And Charlie?”

  “He has the Bureau of Indian Affairs.”

  Barney Chester had plastic cups of hot coffee on the display case. The Hostess doughnuts were so old they had to be dunked.

  As Traveler concentrated on keeping his pastry submerged, Barney nodded at Mad Bill and said, “Our friend Moroni has just been called upon by the church.”

  “The church,” Bill repeated. “That’s all I ever hear in this town. Not my church, your church, our church, only the church.”

  “And why not?” said Barney. “After all, you’re an institution, too. People call you the sandwich prophet.”

  “They’ll call me more than that one day.”

  “Don’t get Bill started,” Traveler said.

  “Started?” Bill mocked. “I’ve never stopped. For „sandwich prophet’ substitute „true prophet.’ Take a look outside. The end is near just as I’ve been predicting. Snow in April is a message from God.”

  “Maybe that’s why the church wants our Moroni working for them.”

  “Why should they?” Bill answered. “They’re responsible for what’s happening.”

  “Here it comes,” Traveler said.

  Barney said, “I read somewhere that there’s unusual weather all over the world.”

  “It’s God’s will,” Bill said.

  “Maybe He’s after the church,” Barney put in. “All this moisture is raising hell with the Great Salt Lake. The damn thing’s already higher than any time in recorded history. It won’t be long before Brigham Young’s promised land is under water.”

  Bill forgot about the doughnut in his hand and scratched his head, causing crumbs to shower down on his shoulders. “Nuclear testing?” he whispered, as if trying out a new theory. “That could be causing it, but only if the church is behind it.”

  “You might as well say the Russians are responsible,” Barney said. He pointed a finger at the Indian. “What do you think?”

  Charlie’s only answer was to stuff another doughnut into his crumb-thickened coffee.

  “It’s closer to home than the Russians,” Bill said. “It’s another one of those damned conspiracies. The church owns the FBI, maybe even the CIA.”

  At times like this Traveler couldn’t help wondering if Mad Bill wasn’t living up to his name. But sane or not, he did know a great deal about the religious forces opposing him.

  “Tell me what you know about the Church of Zion Reborn,” Traveler said.

  “Enough to stay away from them. Those people are obsessed with bloodletting. To them, murder is a good deed. They think their victims should be thankful to their killers for setting them free of sin.”

  “Have you ever been among them?”

  “Is that why the church has called upon you?” Bill asked.

  Traveler shrugged but Bill wasn’t fooled. “Stay away from them, Moroni. I tell you that as a friend.”

  4

  BY THE time Traveler reached the parking lot two blocks away, his car looked like a white burial mound. He hadn’t thought to wear gloves when the day began, so he tucked his hands inside his coat sleeves and started wiping away the snow with his arms. Even so his fingers went numb as soon as he opened the trunk and touched the frigid tire chains. For a moment he thought about driving off without them. But there was absolutely no traffic on the road now, no ruts in which to follow. He’d have to blaze his own trail. And he knew better than to try that without chains.

  Fitting them took thirty minutes thanks to balky fingers and a wind that half blinded him with snow. By the time Traveler started the engine, his coat was soaked through. Enough snow had melted down his neck to dampen his shirt and underwear. If he could keep his car on the road, he’d have just enough time to make his appointment with John Varney.

  But he was in no condition to work at the moment. What he needed was some hot food, something more substantial than Barney’s doughnut.

  The windshield wipers had a hard time keeping up as he drove the four blocks to Third South, where he parked in front of Duffy’s, a rib joint that had once been called The Zang, a hangout of his youth. Despite the blizzard, the place was packed, a mixture of those like himself there for the nostalgia and a younger generation raised on TV dinners who didn’t know any better than to eat the food.

  He ordered The Southern Delight, pork ribs, cole slaw, and corn bread and honey, more than enough calories to keep up his body temperature.

  “You want a beer to go with that?” asked Duffy, a thin man who drank nothing but milk because of an ulcer. His face was so shiny it looked like he was sweating rib fat.

  “Better not,” said Traveler, thinking what effect beer fumes might have on a man like John Varney. “Give me some coffee to cut the grease.”

  Duffy hugged himself and made a show of shuddering. “Do you know what this crap does to your stomach?”

  “Why do you sell it, then?”

  “Because I’m too poor to afford a McDonald’s franchise.”

  “Speaking of poverty, how do I stand on credit?”

  Duffy raised a damp eyebrow. “How much do you need?”

  “Just tell me the score.”

  With a shake of his head, Duffy limped over to the cash register and ruffled through a stack of chits that were pinned to a spindle. “Not counting what you eat today, there’s another fifty left in your bank.”

  Traveler suspected that amount was too high, but he said nothing. It made Duffy feel good to have a way of paying him back for investigating his wife’s love life, something Traveler wouldn’t have done for anyone but a friend.

  Next to the spindle holding credits stood another sharp spike for IOUs. Messages, however, were taped to a mirror behind the cash register.

  “I got a call for you earlier,” Duffy said, not turning around, but eyeing Traveler in the glass. He pulled a note from his reflection and handed it over his shoulder. “It’s from Claire.”

  The note said: I’m lost. Find me.

  She made a game of leaving messages at all his favorite haunts. Some of them were embarrassing.

  A bell rang in the kitchen. Instantly Duffy headed for the swinging door, moving at a fast hop like a man who’d been waiting for any excuse to get away. His limp, the result of trying to bounce one too many drunks, made him look like a man dodging invisible obstacles.

  The door flapped behind him. But almost immediately he reappeared, looking sheepish and bearing Traveler’s order.

  “Did she say anything else?” Traveler asked as soon as the man set down the plate.

  “Not for you. But she sent Mad Bill her love.”

  Traveler snagged a sparerib and pretended to enjoy it. But it was Claire he was thinking about, and Bill, who had once offered to give up his sandwich boards for her. His offer, like Traveler’s love, had sparked her scorn.

  ******

  Traveler and Claire hadn’t been living together more than a week before she disappeared the first time. After three days of frantic searching, hospitals, police, the morgue, the first of her collect calls came in.

  “I was so happy I had to leave,” she’d explained. “You know the feeling, Moroni. Get away while things are still good, before it all turns sour. But this was a mistake. I shouldn’t have come here. I’m in trouble.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I need money.”

  “Tell me where to send it.”

  “He wants you to deliver it in person.”

  “Who does?”

  “He says he’ll sell me to a bunch of drunken Indians if you don’t bring it.”

  “White slavery has been dead a long time, Claire.”

  “Plea
se, honey. There are Indians here. Really.”

  As if on cue he heard chanting in the background.

  “Where are you?” he asked again.

  “Out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Tell me.”

  “He said he’d hurt me if I did.”

  “We can’t play Twenty Questions. I can’t bring the money if I don’t know where you are.”

  “Oh, that’s right. I’ll have to ask him.”

  Traveler heard voices for a moment, then someone must have clamped a hand over the receiver.

  At last she said, “It’s a roadhouse named Bonnie and Ben’s Bonanza. It’s out on State Highway Thirty-three between Duchesne and Castle Gate. You can’t miss the place. It’s on the east side of the road just after you leave the Indian reservation.”

  “Who gets the money?”

  There was a pause before she said, “Ben does.”

  “How much does he want?”

  “Five hundred.”

  The Uintah and Ouray Reservation was a tough drive even in daylight. At night it took four hours to negotiate the one hundred and twenty miles. By the time Traveler got there, it was nearly two o’clock in the morning.

  Once parked, he removed his pistol from its shoulder holster and checked the clip. Then he unlocked the car door and stepped out onto the gravel parking area.

  Bonnie and Ben’s Bonanza looked like a lean-to that had been dragged far enough off the reservation to make free enterprise legal. The floor was covered with gritty sawdust that crunched underfoot. The bar, faced by half a dozen rickety-looking wooden stools, was nothing more than a long plank resting on top of four large wooden barrels.

  Only one stool was occupied, and that was by Claire. Indians and men dressed like cowboys stood around her in a semicircle, teetering on their high-heeled boots and vying to buy drinks. Even the bartender, a middle-aged man with a glistening bald head and beer belly the size of a keg, was out from behind his countertop.

  Claire didn’t notice Traveler’s arrival, but the bartender did.

  “I’m looking for Ben,” Traveler said.

  “You’ve found him.”

  Traveler hadn’t thought about it beforehand, hadn’t decided on a plan of action. In fact, for a split second he didn’t realize what he’d done. Then he felt the pain in his fist and saw Ben crashing headfirst into one of the wooden barrels. But that didn’t stop Traveler from hauling the man back onto his feet and hitting him again. Bone crunched.