The Heavenly Fugitive

by Gilbert, Morris

  “He won’t see me way out here. The guard let me in so I could talk with you, and O’Connor let me saddle up the bay here to find you. I guess they know I’m not out to hurt you.” He admired the mare and said, “Boadicea looks beautiful. She’s a fine, fine horse.”

  Rosa leaned over and patted Boadicea’s neck. She was at a loss for words, but even as she rode along, she thought about earlier days when she and Phil had gotten very close. She decided now that the feelings she’d had for him were only the result of an adolescent crush; still, she had never quite let go of those feelings, and for some reason this upset her.

  “How is Jamie doing?” Phil asked.

  “All right, I guess.”

  Phil glanced quickly at Rosa, his eyes questioning.

  “No, actually, he’s not all right.” Rosa amended her statement. “Jamie’s no good—just like me.”

  Phil pinched his brow at her comment and lifted his eyes to meet hers. She glared back at him, challenging him head-on, daring him to say something and hoping he would.

  But Phil only said, “I’m sorry to hear it. He’s a good kid.”

  Rosa felt disappointed when Phil refused to take the bait. She said nothing else but set her lips in a tight line.

  Phil also remained quiet, the only sound being the clopping of the horses’ hooves as they rode. The big bay suddenly moved closer, so that Phil’s leg bumped against Rosa’s, and he pulled the horse back. “Caesar, get back to where you belong. Sorry, Rosa, he’s acting a bit rambunctious today.” When she did not answer, he said, “You know, I’ve been thinking about Africa a lot lately. I’d like to go back there. I find myself missing it.”

  In the past she had always been fascinated by Phil’s stories about Africa. She wanted now to hear him speak more about it but instead turned her head and stared straight ahead, stubbornly refusing to comment.

  “I never thought I’d be lonesome for Africa. It’s so simple there—life, I mean.”

  “Well, life’s not simple here,” she snapped.

  “Most of the time it’s not,” he agreed.

  They were in view of the stables now, and suddenly Rosa turned to him and said, “Now that I’m eighteen, I plan to do as I please.”

  “And just what do you please, Rosa?”

  The question caught Rosa off guard. She had been so busy running at full tilt for the past two years she’d had little time for introspection. She said, “I don’t know. I just want to do what I want to do.”

  “Well, that’s simple enough. Doesn’t work for most of us, though.”

  When they reached the Morino stables, Rosa stepped to the ground easily and slapped Boadicea on the flank as O’Connor came to take the horse away. She turned then and waited until Phil had dismounted. He was stroking the big bay’s nose, and she said abruptly, “Do you ever take chances, Phil?”

  “Well, I don’t know. What kind of chances?”

  “Are you afraid of things?”

  “Certainly.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “I’m afraid of leopards.”

  She laughed. “Why, there are no leopards here. That’s only in Africa.”

  “But if there were one here, I’d be afraid of it. They can hurt you bad.”

  “I mean other things. Have you ever been shot at?”

  “Yes, I was once.”

  “Were you scared?”

  “Absolutely petrified.”

  “Did you shoot back?”

  “No. Lee Novak did, though. Saved my life. But I was scared enough.”

  “Would you ask me out?”

  “Why, Rosa—”

  “You weren’t afraid to come here to see me today, even though you know what my father would do if he caught you. He’d have a raging fit! So are you afraid to ask me out?”

  Now it was Phil who felt at a loss for words. He looked at the young woman before him as she defiantly awaited his answer. She took off her riding cap and shook out her hair, the sunlight glistening on its silky surface and running over the gentle curve of her shoulders. Her riding outfit, a boyfigured fashion, merely accentuated her feminine appeal. He had always thought she had a beautifully fashioned face, but now there was something about her expression that troubled him. She had the same rich and self-possessed curve of her mouth, but there was an unhappiness in her lips and in the way she held her head. He could not explain it. Suddenly Phil felt the strange things a man feels when he looks on beauty and knows it will never be for him.

  He finally found his voice again and smiled. “Are you daring me, Rosa?”

  “Yes!”

  “All right. I’ll take you up on the dare. I’ll pick you up tonight at six—but I get to pick the place.”

  “Fair enough.” Rosa suddenly smiled at him, and he saw at least a trace of the young girl he remembered so fondly.

  “But you’d better not tell your father.” Then he turned and walked away, leaving the big bay.

  “What’ll I wear?” she called after him.

  “Nothing fancy,” he shouted back.

  ****

  Rosa had not known what his reply meant—“Nothing fancy.” She didn’t dare let her father know she was going out with Phil. He had not returned from his office in any case, and she had simply told her mother she was going out. She put on a simple but expensive maroon wool dress with a hemline much lower than she was accustomed to wearing. When the doorbell rang, she grabbed the fur coat her father had given her for her eighteenth birthday and ran to open it. She saw Phil standing there smiling and said to him, “I’m ready.”

  “Cold tonight. It’s a good thing you’ve got a warm coat.”

  He led her to the car, opened the door, and helped her in. When he got in beside her, he said, “You remember this car?”

  “Of course. Your grandmother and Amelia and I picked it out. You still have it.”

  “Of course I still have it. Probably always will. It was the last thing my grandmother could give me . . . and my grandfather, too.” He drove down the long, winding drive of the Morino estate and out the front gate, getting onto the highway leading into the city. He expertly navigated the downtown streets and finally said, “You found out I could take a dare. Now I’m going to see if you can take one.”

  Rosa instantly turned to him. “What are you daring me to do?”

  “Don’t run out on me.”

  Rosa was suspicious. “Where are we going?”

  “A place you’ve never been to before.”

  Rosa did not answer, but she watched carefully. She knew New York City very well, and when he turned down Water Street she was curious. This was one of the toughest parts of New York, and when he pulled up in front of a sign that said Water Street Mission, she suddenly exclaimed, “You’re going to make me go to a religious service?”

  “Not make you. I’m just daring you.” He looked at her with a challenge in his eyes, and a smile ran over his lips.

  Rosa wanted to get away, but she held her ground. “All right, but after the service I get to pick a place to go next.”

  “Fair enough. Come along.”

  As the two went in, he explained why he had wanted to come. “My uncle Barney was converted here. My father joined him, and from this place they went out to Africa as missionaries. I’ve always wanted to come here, but I’ve got an extra reason tonight.”

  “What reason?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  Rosa was curious. She felt out of place as they moved into the meeting room and among a congregation made up mostly of derelicts. The room was large and quite bare, with unmatched chairs scattered about and a platform at one end. “Come on. Let’s go down closer to the front.”

  “The back’s good enough for me,” Rosa said nervously. “You know I’m a Catholic, don’t you?”

  “Sure, I know that. So what?”

  “We’re not supposed to attend Protestant services.”

  “You want to leave?”

  Rosa stared at Phil. Actuall
y she did want to leave, but she was too stubborn not to go through with Phil’s dare. “I’ll sit here—but nothing anybody says is going to change me.”

  “That’s a good open-minded attitude. Come on.” Phil led her to the front, where he found a couple of seats. They got some strange looks, for both of them were well dressed, but a few people spoke to them as they sat down.

  Rosa did not know what to expect. She had been taught that it was wrong for Catholics to attend Protestant services, and in all truth, she did not even attend Catholic services anymore, except when absolutely necessary. She was, however, a curious young woman, and when the service started, she tried to follow the songs from a battered paperback hymn-book that Phil held for her. She had never heard singing like this before, being accustomed to high-church music from a trained choir. The words of the songs did filter through to her and gave her a curious feeling.

  When the song service ended, a short man with an angelic face got up and said, “Now, fellas, we’re gonna have a good sermon tonight, so let’s hear it for Ryan Kildare.”

  “Surprised?” Phil whispered to Rosa as he saw her suddenly lean back and open her eyes wide.

  “He’s a preacher now? I don’t believe it.”

  “No, he’s not a preacher. He just helps down here at the mission. He’s actually practicing law again.”

  “Doesn’t he know Leo Marx is going to kill him if he stays around here?”

  “He’s been told. Amelia told him, and then I told him. But he feels like this is the place God wants him to be.”

  Rosa listened then as Ryan got up to speak. She remembered him well, especially his dashing good looks. His red hair made a vivid splash of color, and his voice, as always, was clear and powerful.

  “Tonight I don’t have anything new for you,” Ryan began. “If I had anything new, it wouldn’t be any good. I knew one preacher who once said, ‘If it’s new—it ain’t true.’ That’s not exactly accurate, but basically all I want to do tonight is tell you about how I came to know Jesus Christ as my Savior.”

  Kildare told his story well, and Rosa listened intently while trying to appear indifferent. She was aware that Phil was watching her out of the corner of his eye. The story Kildare told was so different from anything she had ever heard, she could not relate to it. He spoke of how he had gotten in trouble with a crime lord and had fled New York in fear of his life. He went into some detail of how he had gone downhill, until finally one night at a mission, somewhat like this one, he had heard that Jesus died for sinners.

  “I’d always known that, but that particular night,” Ryan said clearly, “I knew it was my time to meet God. There’s no magic in it, my friends. Jesus died because we were sinners. He was not a sinner, but the Scriptures say, ‘For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin.’ So my sin was placed on Jesus on the cross. All my life I’d thought that if I did more good things than bad, I’d make it into heaven. But at that moment I knew it wasn’t true. I realized I’d been risking my eternal life on a lie. Jesus need never have died if that were true.”

  As he went on to relate how he had finally surrendered his heart to Jesus and God had blessed him with a new birth, Rosa was caught up with his story.

  Phil was watching her cautiously and saw that her lips were slightly parted. She had feigned indifference, but now he could tell that Ryan’s testimony had touched something in her.

  Ryan said, “If you need a savior, if you’re on the bottom, Jesus is the answer. You come forward tonight, and we’ll pray for you, and you’ll find Christ is the most precious thing in this world.”

  Several men started going down the aisle to the front to give their lives to Jesus, but Rosa was shaken. “Let’s go, Phil,” she said. “I’ve kept my part of the bargain.”

  Keeping his promise, Phil said quietly, “All right, Rosa.”

  He accompanied her out of the building, waving at Ryan, who saw them and returned his wave.

  Rosa did not say a word until they were in the car, and then she turned to him and said, “I didn’t understand a word he was talking about.”

  “Didn’t you?”

  “No, I think it’s all crazy.”

  Phil was wiser than to try to talk with her in this mood. He knew she had been shaken, so he simply said, “All right, you took my dare. Now do you want something to eat?”

  “Yes, I’m famished. But I get to pick the place, remember?”

  She directed Phil to a small Italian restaurant, where they sat in a quiet corner and ordered her choice of entrees. During the meal she tried more than once to shock him with stories of her escapades. Unable to provoke him, however, she finally became quiet. He spoke then of Africa and of what was happening there and of his desire to go back for a vacation.

  “I wish I could go there too. I’d love to see all those animals.”

  “It is indeed a beautiful place. Maybe someday.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Dom Steps In

  Thursday evening loomed before Phil, and he was surprised to find himself with nothing to do—and rather lonely. Loneliness was not something he had been troubled with for a long time. Ever since he had come to the States, he had been pouring himself into his work and studies.

  Now he sat in his apartment, fidgety and restless. He’d moved out of the small room he’d been renting after he got his job in the DA’s office. Back in Africa he would have picked up a gun and gone hunting across the wide plains. But here he found himself wanting company. He had met several attractive young women and had dated a few times, but nothing serious had ever come of it. It was as if he were married to his work. His job in the DA’s office was even more time-consuming than his job working as an assistant to Lee Novak in his law-enforcement activities.

  Getting to his feet, he strode to the small kitchenette and poured himself a cup of coffee from the blackened pot on the stove. Amelia made fun of him for having such a relic, but it was Phil’s way to grow attached to things and prefer the old, less-effective equipment, rather than new. Setting the pot back on the stove, he sipped at the black brew, and his thoughts went to the possibilities that lay before him. He could go to a theater or, perhaps, the movies. He considered visiting the Novaks, then remembered that Lee was out of town on official business. He thought, without meaning to, of Rosa Morino and just for a moment toyed with the idea of calling her. Then he rejected that idea. Though he’d been drawn to her for years, he knew this was not a relationship he should pursue. He worried about the young woman, knowing she still had strong feelings for him, but he did not want to nourish those feelings.

  Finally, almost in desperation, Phil changed clothes and left the apartment. He headed to the club where Amelia was singing, and when he arrived there he glanced up at the name—The Black Cat. “It’s bad luck all right,” Phil muttered under his breath, but he entered and gave his hat to a young woman who smiled enticingly at him. He ignored her overtures and took a seat in the back of the club, away from the main floor and far enough away from the band so that the music would not deafen him. When the waiter asked him what he wanted, he ordered ginger ale. The young waiter leaned forward and said, “I can put something in that for you, sir.”

  “Just ginger ale.”

  “Why, of course, sir.”

  Phil sat back and after the waiter brought his drink, he sipped at it and waited for Amelia to come on stage. He tried to shut out the raucous music the band was playing, but without success. All around him the air was filled with loud laughter, which sometimes rose above the sound of the wailing saxophones. He cared nothing for the music. Songs such as “Sheik of Araby” and “Ma, He’s Making Eyes at Me” were not Phil’s idea of good music. One song in particular seemed to sum up the whole decade: “Ain’t We Got Fun?” The women who gyrated on the floor could all have come out of the same machine—hair bobbed, skirts fringed, stockings rolled to expose the knees. They flung themselves around wildly, galvanized by the gin that their boyfriends had brought into the club in
brown paper bags. When they were not dancing, they were puffing on cigarettes. Most of them had tamed their figures into a boyish appearance, the current fad. By bunching their stockings below the knees, they blatantly announced that they wore no corsets to hold them up.

  Time passed slowly as Phil waited for Amelia’s performance, and more than one woman lingered as she passed by his table. There was nothing subtle about the looks he received. He kept his head down and stared into his glass until the lights finally dimmed and the spot hit center stage.

  “And here she is, our own songbird, Miss Amelia Winslow. Let’s hear it, folks!”

  Phil straightened up then, and when Amelia came on, he could not help thinking how disappointed their parents would be at what she was doing with her life. Yet he himself had hope that she would one day stop running from God and let Him direct her life toward more worthwhile pursuits. At heart Phil felt she was throwing away everything that was good, but he couldn’t say that to Amelia directly. Nor did he think she would even listen if he tried to reason with her. She already knew what her family believed.

  Despite the unappealing surroundings, Phil found himself enjoying the performance. Something about Amelia’s singing was immediate and reached out to her audience. All great singers have that quality, he realized. It was not just that she sang the right notes and made no mistakes, but especially during the slow tunes, she seemed to be speaking individually to each of her listeners. Some of the songs were wild—songs like “I’m Just Wild About Harry” and “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans”—and she belted them out to satisfy the customers. She had a strong, powerful voice and could project without effort.

  But the raucous beat soon slowed down, and she began to sing the slow songs she did best, starting with the poignant “My Blue Heaven.” After several slow songs and ballads, she reached the end of her performance, and Phil waited in anticipation, along with the crowd, for her now well-known closing.

  “I want to close with the first song I ever learned. I can’t remember how old I was. I don’t think more than three or four. My mother sang it to me, and then I started singing with her, and so I’ll sing it for you tonight. It’s the favorite hymn of China.”