by J. A. Kerley
Nautilus sighed … Key West.
He turned away and walked another two blocks, finding a corner store where he purchased a newspaper and headed back to the car.
Richard Owsley paused at the door and smoothed the front of his dark suit, straightened his tie. He took a deep breath and shot a look at the man beside him.
“It’s all right, Pastor Owsley,” Hayes Johnson said, patting the youthful pastor on his back. “He’s expecting you.”
“Yes,” Uttleman parroted. “He’s delighted you’re here.”
The doctor ushered Owsley into Schrum’s room, the fabled preacher propped up in a king-size bed, robed as black as a Supreme Court justice, the crest of white hair rising from his head like a halo. Owsley’s feet malfunctioned until Uttleman’s nudge propelled him forward.
“It’s a blessing to meet you, Reverend,” Owsley said, his voice cracking.
“You too, son,” Schrum said. They clasped hands. Schrum nodded to the bedside chair. “Take a load off.”
Owsley sat. “You’ve been my life-long inspiration, Reverend Schrum. I remember the first time I saw you live, it was at a revival in Tuscaloosa and I was just ten years old and my mama had taken the family to—”
Schrum’s hand raised. “Hold on, son, you’re talking like you got to get it all out before I die on you …” Schrum sputtered and coughed. “But I ain’t plannin’ to go out this morning. Fact is, I’m feeling pretty feisty, given all the trouble my body’s been dealin’ me.”
“Wonderful news. Praise God.”
“Now don’t get me wrong, Pastor. I ain’t outta the woods. I’m still weaker’n an hour-old kitten, and likely to stay this way for another two–three weeks.” He paused, seemed to catch his breath. “If I make it, that is …”
In the corner of the room, Uttleman started to roll his eyes. Schrum saw, shot a hard glance past Owsley. Uttleman looked away.
“I’ll pray continually for swift recovery,” Owsley said.
“Lord willing, I’ll get back to my work. My only regret is having to abandon my daily pastoral responsibilities, and several projects that I’ve had to delay.”
“I have no doubt you’ll soon be back doing God’s labors, sir.”
Schrum blew out a breath at the enormity of it all. “It’s a large undertaking. Especially the media end. Are you on the television, Pastor Owsley?”
“Twice a week in Mobile. The show is rebroadcast on the Alabama Christian cable channel.”
“How many of the faithful watch?”
“Sixty or seventy thousand.”
“The Crown of Glory channel is seen in twenty million homes a week. What do you think of that, son?”
“Those are some numbers, sir. A lot of souls.”
“You probably passed Andy Delmont outside, Pastor, my stalwart companion.”
“His voice is a gift from God, Reverend. My wife has all his albums.”
“I discovered young Andrew over a decade ago, a singer in a family gospel choir and unknown outside of his small congregation. Now Andy’s albums sell in the hundreds of thousands. We all need exposure, wide audiences. Larger ministries bring in more donations and do more good.”
“Yessir,” Owsley said. “I understand.”
“I want to get back to my first point, my unmet responsibilities. Let me ask a personal question, Pastor Owsley, if I may.”
“Of course, sir.”
Schrum studied the ceiling as if looking beyond for guidance. The eyes returned to Owsley. “Did you ever over-promise, Pastor?”
Puzzlement. “Like how, Reverend?”
“Let’s say it’s the end of a life and you’re called to the hospital. You know in your heart the person is soon destined for the arms of the Lord. But because of their love, the despairing family isn’t ready to let go yet. Have you ever offered hope in the face of the actual reality?”
“With faith, there is always hope.”
“So you hold out hope to the family … even knowing the inevitable, that God’s will is about to be done. Because you love the family. And you want them to feel better?”
Owsley nodded slowly, uncertain of where the conversation was heading. Schrum took Owsley’s hand and drew him closer. “I want to speak next on the subject of hope and promises, Pastor Owsley. Just me and you, two men of God in a quiet room. Will you grant me that?”
“I will give you anything you ask, Reverend Schrum.”
Schrum nodded to Johnson and Uttleman who crept from the room and closed the door. Uttleman turned to Johnson. “Do you think Amos will convince Owsley?” he said softly.
Johnson looked over his shoulder at the closed door. “You never know what Amos will do, only that in the end, it will be perfect for Amos. You, me, Eliot Winkler … we’re all made to play along.”
“You’re saying—”
“Remember when Amos met with Eliot … Amos gasping, on his last breath, claiming he didn’t have the strength to complete the project? Not on a daily basis … remember? He said it twice.”
“I remember, but—”
Johnson continued down the hall, shaking his head. “Amos just got himself out of a lunatic promise and passed it over to Owsley. He can now relax in Key West, drink his fill, have one of his little guilt-wallows, and let Delmont play him pretty songs all day. Not bad, right?”
“You mean he’s jerked everyone around from the start?”
“Wake up, Roland. It’s what Amos Schrum does.”
27
Frisco Dredd crouched inside the windowless van and sucked from a bottle of water, his eyes again searching the cream apartment complex on the south edge of Wynwood, the property bordered by tall palms and bright flowers. Thanks to Darlene Hammond he now knew the address of Sissy Carol Sparks, whore and destroyer of great and Godly men. Hammond, another whore and temptress, was currently answering to God for her sins, the ashes of her earthly body lying beside a little-used road at the edge of the Everglades.
He’d done what he could for Hammond, made the preparations, used the correct materials, sending her soul to Heaven with crackling flames and a cloud of dark and holy smoke. Weeping on his knees and asking for his own forgiveness as he asked for hers.
“… for unto you, Lord, I make this sacrifice in Your holy name and beg for her forgiveness for her sins and blasphemies …”
The whore might still be saved. The Lord was merciful.
A car turned the block and Dredd’s senses pricked up. But it was a pair of hipster males in a red Miata convertible who continued down the block, aiming for downtown Miami.
Dredd again slumped low in the seat and drew another drink from the water bottle. He knew where Sparks lived and how she made her money. He’d wait all day and all night, if necessary.
Time meant nothing to a warrior for God.
Owsley had been in the Schrum house for forty minutes when another vehicle swung into the drive, a limo pulling a trailer. The car pulled past Nautilus to the parking pad in back, Nautilus repositioning himself to watch two burly men remove an elaborate motorized wheelchair from the trailer. They were obviously private security, which piqued Nautilus’s interest.
The beefy boys helped an elderly man into the chair. Though looking frail, he seemed resolute, advancing full throttle for several feet before jerking to a halt, one of the tires jamming into a fissure in the patio.
Nautilus watched as the security types struggled to free the wedged tire while the chair’s occupant cursed and pressed controls, the chair’s power belt shrieking. Powering the motor would burn it out, but neither of the hired hands looked ready to explain that to the boss.
Nautilus jogged over to lend a hand. “Easy on the power, buddy …” he said to the chair’s occupant as he bent to add his hands to the task, “you’re gonna wreck the motor. Lay off the juice and we’ll get you free.”
The man’s face spun to Nautilus, his eyes pinpoints of fury in the wizened face. “Get the hell away from me, boy,” he hissed. “I got all the hel
p I need.”
“Boy?” Nautilus said. It had been a long time.
The others gave a grunting thrust and the chair lurched free. Without thanks or a backward glance the man accelerated across the yards, the security guys hustling to catch up.
Nautilus dismissed the old crank. He opened the newspaper and read in the warm sunlight, happy to be alone.
He’d read for ten minutes, then heard a “Hello” from the sidewalk. He turned to a man in his mid forties, slender and attractive and dressed in an ice-cream suit with a jaunty Panama on his head. Though the pedestrian wore sunglasses, he did Nautilus the courtesy of removing them to speak, his blue eyes sparkling as if alight with secret knowledge. There was something familiar about the visage, but it eluded Harry Nautilus, who flicked a lazy salute.
“Good morning.”
“Anything interesting in the paper?” the man said.
“Usual crapola,” Nautilus said, holding it up. “I’m done. You want it?”
“That’s very kind of you.” The man approached and took the folded paper. If anything, the proximity enhanced Nautilus’s feeling that he’d met the man before, but he also knew he hadn’t.
Weird.
The elegant man spun on his heels like a dancer, a move so smooth it was disconcerting. He continued down the block whistling, “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You”.
Bemused by the encounter, Nautilus was trying the tune himself when Richard Owsley returned in the company of the big man and the mousier guy in glasses. They had shaken hands politely when Owsley had arrived, but they embraced upon departure, exchanging broad smiles and happy words. The cranky old fart was still inside the Schrum house.
The trio dropped their heads in prayer for several seconds before Owsley came to the car, sitting tentatively in the rear seat, as though dizzied by the previous hour.
“I trust your meeting went well, Pastor,” Nautilus said when Owsley closed the door.
“I, uh … what?”
“I said, I hope your meeting went well. That you accomplished all you wanted.”
Owsley gave Nautilus a distracted nod and they headed to the airport, Owsley making a phone call to his wife. Nautilus had long ago stopped feeling guilty about eavesdropping, simple human curiosity, and pretended to be absorbed in his driving as Owsley made the twenty-second call.
“It’s everything we’ve wanted,” the preacher said, his voice a mix of fear and elation. “And something you won’t believe.”
28
The head was encased in a gray Fiberglass shell, the eyes hidden behind a rectangular screen the size of a pack of cigarettes, hard and shiny and as black as black is allowed to become. Every few seconds the screen filled with sizzling white light, like angry comets were trapped inside.
The screen turned black for several seconds. Then again burst into sparking comets.
“Joe!” a voice yelled. “JOE!”
The comets died in the black visor as Joe Grabowski snapped off the welding torch and pushed back the helmet, turning to see Walt Hillenbrandt, his supervisor on the project. Hillenbrandt was in his early fifties, thick in the waist, with a round face and thinning red hair.
“Yeah, Walt?”
“It’s 1025-M. We gotta finish the project ASAP. Can you work tonight? Pull double shifts the next week?”
Grabowski pulled a pack of Marlboros from his pocket, lit one. “Tonight’s my monthly poker game, Joe. You know how I like my—”
“Triple pay for overtime, Joe. Instead of waiting for all the sub-assemblies to finish, we’re gonna ship them out the second they’re ready. This one goes out soon as you’re done. The semi’s in the yard, set to go. Driver’s supposed to drive all night.”
“Jesus … what’s the sudden rush?”
Hillenbrandt shrugged. “They haven’t said shit about hurrying, now they want the project last week.”
“Triple overtime, you said?”
“Plus a thousand-buck bonus for each day we beat the deadline.”
“Fuck poker.” Grabowski leaned back and studied the long sleek tube. “What the hell is this thing, Walt … 1025-M? You been told?”
The alphanumeric was the project’s designation, all anyone knew about the assignment, outside of exact specifications. The project had arrived at Chicago Metal Fabrications as no more than a blueprint.
Hillenbrandt shrugged heavy shoulders. “I’m a fuckin’ mushroom, Joe. Kept in the dark and fed bullshit. But by my thinking, we’re not the only ones working on 1025-M.”
Grabowski sucked in a lungful of smoke. “What makes you think that?” he said, a blue plume following his words from his mouth.
“’Cus even when you put the parts together, the fucking thing just ends, but something has to go there. A base of some kind, maybe.”
“Or an engine, you think? The goddamn thing looks like it’s ready for a mission to Mars.” He paused, assembling the parts in his mind. “Jesus, Walt … you think it’s some kind of weapon? A missile, a bomb?”
Hillenbrandt chuckled. “I checked the freight bill for yesterday’s shipment. I think we can rule that one out, given the destination.”
“Where’s it going?”
“That bible park down in Florida. Hallelujah Jubilee.”
29
Jeremy Ryder continued through the neighborhood for another hour, holding his excitement in check. He’d never met the man, but had heard the stories – all that Carson had chosen to tell. All Jeremy had to go on was a mental picture bolstered by a few grainy shots in newspapers.
Which was a good place to start looking.
He blew a speck from his crisp Panama Borsalino and flicked it a dozen feet to the hat rack where it caught on a hook, spun twice, and stayed. He smiled to himself and hung his jacket carefully in the closet before climbing the stairs to his office in the third floor of the tower. It was a spare setting, a large desk rounded at back to fit the curved wall, polished-oak floors, a circular and red-intensive Oriental carpet on the floor, the stubby round telescope on its eye-height tripod, currently aimed out the wide window toward the Schrum home.
Jeremy sat in his Hermann Miller chair. The Bloomberg terminals on his desk danced with an array of facts and figures from the global markets but he ignored them to turn on his personal computer, tapping into the archives of the Mobile Press-Register and inserting a name into the Search field.
Searching … the screen said as the word appeared with ellipses blinking behind. Searching … Searching … A list of hits filled the screen, seven in all. Jeremy scanned the descriptions, finding one titled MPD Names “Officers of the Year”. It was eight years old but how much could a man change? Jeremy tapped the link.
Searching …
After several moments an article appeared, Jeremy was after a photograph. The article jumped to the side and an empty box appeared, words beneath the box, the original caption from the newspaper.
OFFICERS OF THE YEAR HONORED – Mayor Lyle Edmunds presents Mobile Police detectives Carson Ryder (left) and Harry Nautilus (right) with Officers of the Year awards at the Mayor’s annual Recognition Breakfast …
The photograph began to load, slowly filling the box from left to right. Five seconds later Jeremy saw the face of his brother, Carson, dark hair overly long and looking like his barber preferred tin-snips to shears, the knot of his tie an inch below the unbuttoned collar, his false smile more akin to a deer in headlights. He was holding some ridiculous plaque, sideways of course, being Carson. At least it wasn’t upside-down.
He sighed as the second human image filled in, an older gray-haired man in a dark suit behind a dais, his mouth wide with vaporous natterings, a politician, naturally. The Mayor.
The third form began appearing, a large man, black, shoulders at the height of Carson’s nose, heavy arms bunching the fabric of a tan suit. Jeremy turned away to let the image arrive, counting down as he waited for the entire photo.
… three … two … one …
He turned back to the p
icture to see the third figure, clutching its own plaque – right-side up, thankfully – looking into the camera with an expression that read This is all bullshit but I’ll play along. He had a large, square head. Intelligent eyes holding a touch of dare, wide forehead, a trim square mustache.
Harry Nautilus. Carson’s partner for years … And the man who, minutes ago, had been reading a newspaper behind the Schrum house.
Jeremy picked up his phone, tapping the first number on speed dial. Carson answered on the third ring.
“Can’t talk now, Jeremy. I’m on the road and heading into work.”
“I thought I’d deliver an update on the Schrum death festival. I’m thinking about renting a cart and selling hot dogs. Or do you think loaves and fishes might be more appropriate?”
“Busy here, Jeremy.”
“Don’t be snippy, it’s discourteous. I’m organizing my drawers. Not pants, the one where I keep memorabilia. I have several articles about your career over the years, newspaper stories. Your manly, thrilling exploits. I’m making copies. Would you like a set?”
“Uh … sure.”
“Some make mention of your old partner, Harry Nautilus …” Jeremy paused as if stifling a yawn. “Whatever became of him, by the way?”
“Harry just retired. He’s in Mobile and I saw him only last weekend.”
“Mobile?” Jeremy said. “You’re sure he’s not gotten religion and is traipsing around Florida looking for holy sites?”
“Religion? What are you babbling about? Listen, Jeremy, I’m really—”
“Busy, yes, I know. I’ll drop these things off next time I’m by your place, probably soon.”
“Soon?” An anxious pause. “What? When?”
Jeremy hung up, crossed his arms and stared out the window. Carson had no idea his old pal was right now in Key West, leaning against a big bright Hummer and chatting with passers-by.
Why?
It was minutes past noon when the Ferragamo slings of Sissy Carol Sparks again ticked across the pavement of Miami Beach, her client snoring naked on the carpet beside the bed, a fifth of Pappy Van Winkle dead on the floor. Sissy could smell the guy’s nasty, overmusked cologne rising from her breasts and she grimaced as she hailed a cab to take her back to Wynwood, another thirty bucks shot.
