“I never peeked into their bedrooms,” she interrupted. “And if they said a foo-foo word, they got their mouth washed out with Dial.” She removed her hand from her eyes and stepped forward to give Richard the shirt. “I found this in our clothing stockpile. I think it will fit.”
She helped him struggle into the shirt. Their gazes locked briefly, the convergence transient and tentative. Yet in that fleeting glance, he glimpsed the suggestion of some sort of nascent mischief. It puzzled him. “You’re ready for today?” he asked. “I apologize for imposing.”
“You’re not imposing. I volunteered. What’s the plan?”
“As soon as the nearest Wells Fargo branch opens, we go there. I need to get a cashier’s check and some cash.” Then he told her about his conversation with the detective.
She nodded, seemingly unfazed that she might be harboring a murderer. “You certainly know how to sweet-talk people,” she said.
“I used to be good at it.”
“You’re out of practice,” she said. “You’ll get your groove back.” She pointed at his cell phone. “Speaking of being out of practice, I don’t know much about technology, but I thought people could be located through those things. GPS or triangulation or something.”
“Oh, shit,” Richard said.
“There you go again.”
“Sorry. Let’s get out of here.”
“Meet me out front in ten minutes.”
Richard stood in the church parking lot waiting for Marty. The minister’s car appeared from around a corner and pulled up to Richard. He opened the passenger door, but stepped back quickly, jerking upright.
“It’s okay,” Marty said, “it’s me.” She smiled at him from behind large, amber sunglasses. Her hair was pulled up neatly and tightly beneath a fashionable, broad-brimmed straw hat. A lightweight white blouse, unbuttoned at the top, didn’t reveal cleavage, but did fit in such a manner that no one would doubt she possessed secular blessings as well as divine. A sliver of a smooth, tanned thigh peeked from behind a calf-length skirt slit up the side. Black, to offset the blouse. Strappy red leather sandals completed her image transformation. Richard’s eyes lingered a bit too long on the thigh.
“That’s the idea,” she said, as Richard dropped into the passenger seat.
“What’s the idea?”
“I don’t want people looking at my face, just in case there’s somebody in Diamond Cutters who might recognize—”
“Oh, no, no, no.” He reached out and gripped her forearm. “You’re just dropping me off. No way you’re coming in.”
“Like I’m going to sit out in a parking lot and wait for you in that sleazy part of town.” She pressed the accelerator and exited the parking lot; her skirt shifted; more material fell away from the slit, providing an enticing panorama.
Richard’s gaze dropped to her thigh again.
“See. Works pretty well,” she said, tugging the skirt back into place.
She turned to look at him, her dark glasses and straw hat enhancing an aura of youthfulness, hinting at a latent sexiness. But also suggesting something else. Something that heightened Richard’s worry. Impetuousness, perhaps? Impulsiveness?
“All I want you to do is drive around the block a few times,” he said. “I shouldn’t be in there very long. And remember, I’m supposed to come alone.”
“You need backup.”
“You’ve been watching too many cop shows. Besides, neither one of us is armed. That kind of rules out effective backup.”
“I moonlight as a hit woman, remember.”
“And stripper.”
“That, too.”
Once again Richard’s misgivings about dragging Marty deeper into this hastily conceived and quite possibly dangerous operation bubbled to the surface. But now he was committed. Too late to change horses—or drivers—in the middle of a stream.
She pulled into a Wells Fargo Bank. It took Richard only twenty minutes to secure the cashier’s check and $2500 in cash, $500 for himself—reserve money—and $2000 for Khassem.
Minutes later, Marty drove down an entrance ramp onto a multi-laned high-speed freeway that would carry them south to Atlanta. A knot of confused thoughts twisted through Richard’s mind, mostly centered on whether he was doing the right thing, whether he was walking into a trap set by Barashi, whether he was putting Marty into a situation more perilous than he could imagine.
But he wondered about Marty herself, a point off the curve as ministers went, probably even as most women went. A gnawing fear that he was putting a loose cannon into a canoe gripped him. He studied her as she focused on driving, intent on maneuvering in heavy traffic careening along at over 70 mph.
“Tell me more about what happened after NC State,” he said, “after we... after I left.”
She shrugged. “Not much to tell. Seminary at Wake Forest, worked my way up through small churches in Tennessee and Alabama, was offered the job as senior minister here about five—”
“Not what I was asking about. You’ve changed since I knew you. Not surprising, I guess. I’ve changed, too. But there’s something else, something you’re hiding, something you’re camouflaging with your light-heartedness and flippancy. What happened to the Marty I knew in college? Who am I working with here to save the world? Or at least Atlanta.”
She laughed softly. “Is that what we’re doing?”
“I don’t know what we’re doing. And I’m certainly not sure what you’re doing.”
“I’m the wheel man.”
“Wheel woman. Come on, talk to me. We’re sort of partners in crime now.”
She glanced at him. “It’s good for ministers to walk on the other side of the tracks every once in a while. You know, experience the netherworld of lost souls. Hobnob with the opposition. Understand why we do what we do.”
“No. It’s not that; you already know that.” He’d sat at enough negotiating tables with corporate and legal jive talkers to recognize bull shit. He debated saying what he said next, but decided if he were going to draw Marty out, it would have to be with a frontal assault. He turned and ran his eyes up and down her, making sure she was aware of his appraisal. She tensed.
“You’re an intelligent and very attractive woman,” he said, “and not unaware of it. I can’t help but be curious—”
“About why I’m not married?” She leaned on the horn as a wallowing SUV cut in front of her. “Dork!” she yelled.
“Me or the driver?”
“Maybe both,” she muttered.
“Yes, about why you’re not married,” he said, completing his sentence, though Mary already had.
“You think my sexual orientation might be... skewed?”
“Hardly. I know better.”
A red tide rise slowly from her neck to her jaws, finally to the tips of her ears. She remained silent for several moments, and Richard knew he’d touched an exposed nerve.
Chapter Twenty
ATLANTA
FRIDAY, AUGUST 23
Marty’s thoughts drifted back to a place she rarely went, to a private reliquary where she stored remembrances better left interred. Remembrances of her own shortcomings, her own sins, her own brokenness. Memories, almost, of another life. At least of another time. Ancient events rarely exposed to light and reflection, and certainly never discussed with staff or congregation.
Yet she needed to talk about them, wanted to talk about them, wanted to blow the dust off her emotions and reveal that she was, after all, only ordinary. Only a woman.
A minister, yes. But still a woman, one who needed the social salve that words and interaction with others bring. Interaction with people who understood, who accepted her as a human being, not someone anointed to a higher order. Daring to take her eyes off the road again she looked over at Richard and saw in him so
meone she could trust. Objective, fair, nonjudgmental. Her confessor. Once, her almost-lover.
“It wasn’t easy being a female divinity student at Wake,” she said, turning her head forward, “especially one who, I guess, looked more like a cheerleader than a candidate for a convent. When it came to dating, I was either the target of a conquest—you know, ‘Hey, I got in the preacher-lady’s knickers’—or viewed as a virginal ice queen.”
“You weren’t, were you?”
“Weren’t what? Virginal?”
“No. An ice queen.”
“You know better than that.” She colored slightly again, then concentrated on merging into traffic where two Interstates came together just north of downtown Atlanta. The task completed, she continued talking. “No, if anything, I was afraid I’d melt polar ice when it came to sex. From certain experiences I’d had at NC State I knew how much heat and heavy breathing could be generated by, shall we say, pseudosex.” She reached over and patted his leg. This time she didn’t blush. “I was eager to reach the sexual promised land, but at the same time I knew and respected the constraints of my calling. Then I met Paul, let there be irony, a fellow divinity student, and knew I’d found true love.”
“We all did, at that age.”
“Looking back, of course it was nothing more than hormones and infatuation. But it didn’t seem like it then, not with Paul, he was the one and only. I knew it would last forever. We moved in together, covertly, of course, off campus, and became inseparable. Eternal lovers. It couldn’t be wrong, not between two people who had committed their lives to one another and their souls to Christ.” She maneuvered her car into the diamond lane.
“But it went wrong?”
“Way wrong. Morons that we were, we didn’t bother with protection. I suppose we figured if God could ordain divine birth he could do the same for birth control. Anyhow, He didn’t. I got pregnant, and Paul hit the road to Damascus or wherever the heck he came from originally. He didn’t receive a revelation, and I never saw him again.”
She gripped the steering wheel hard, her earlier insouciance DOA in her memories. “I prayed a lot,” she continued. “Prayed for forgiveness and that the love of my life, the father of my baby would come back. Prayed and prayed and prayed. I think God forgave me, but that was the extent of His intervention. I offered the baby up for adoption and got on with life.
Richard placed his hand on her forearm again, softly this time. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I probed a little too deeply.”
“No,” she said, “I needed to talk about it.” She lifted her glasses and looked directly at him. “Do you think I’m a trollop?”
“Watch the road, we branch off to the airport here someplace. No, I don’t think you’re a trollop. What I do think is that I shouldn’t be psychoanalyzing you. I only got a ‘C’ in psych 101.”
They moved slowly along a clogged stretch of Interstate through central Atlanta, the Downtown Connector, where I-75 and I-85 shared common ground, cutting through a cubist landscape of tall buildings and brown haze.
“I’m not asking for a session on the couch,” Marty said. “I’m just curious. You’re good at reading people.”
She braked the car as it entered a tight, sweeping curve, and the material of her skirt parted company at the slit again. This time she didn’t readjust it.
“You’re a tease,” he said.
“I’m too old.”
“You’re wondering.”
“Well?”
“The equipment’s in fine shape.”
“And?”
“And... you’re sure you want me to go there?”
She nodded.
“If you’re okay with pop psychology then, this is Dr. Wainwright’s analysis: I think you still have a healthy interest in sex and a lingering fear of romantic commitment. But as a church leader and Christian you reject promiscuity, and as an individual abandoned by a lover, you’re apprehensive about involvement with men. That makes it difficult, I would guess, to harbor anything but fantasies about sex.”
“What kind of fantasies?”
“I don’t know anything about your fantasies. But I think you’re playing one out right now, in the guise of a disguise. You’ve seized an opportunity to at least play a role. Just a walk-on part. What would it be like, you wonder, to dress like a high-priced call girl, a thousand-dollar a night hooker. To walk into Diamond Cutters—and by the way, you aren’t—and feel like a stripper punching the clock in a classy club.”
“Maybe that’s your fantasy.”
He laughed, but only briefly. It was good to be back with Marty. Good to be back with an old friend. Yet he still felt the presence of Karen. Amorphous and ethereal, but palpable.
“You know,” Marty said, “you need to stop punishing yourself.”
“Punishing myself?” His surprise was genuine.
“She glanced at him, her eyes liquescent, filled with compassion. “Karen is still with you. I can tell. The way you fall silent every once in a while. I understand. You stood on the sidelines and watched the life being sucked from her. You told me how you felt: helpless, impotent, useless. There was nothing you could do to ease her suffering, assuage her fear. Nothing you could do to save her. I wasn’t there, but I know how you reacted, how anybody would have. You cried out to a deaf God, wrung your hands, cursed. But still it was Karen who bore the cross, not you. You were just a spectator.”
The exit to Southern Pines Avenue came up. “Off here,” Richard said. Then added, “Go on.”
“So, after Karen passed, you shouldered the cross. You manufactured guilt for your perceived failures as a husband. I believe you’re a truly moral man, Rich, but I also believe you imprison yourself by denying your needs, both emotional and sexual.” She turned and studied him briefly. “Blunt talk from a lady, yes?” She waited for a reaction.
“A lady minister. An old girl friend.”
“Am I right?”
He gave a one-shoulder shrug. “I’ve never really thought about it in that light.”
“Then do it,” she responded. “Live your life.”
Funny she should choose those words—he wondered just how much of his life he might have left. He turned and looked out the rear window. Three cars followed them off the exit. Two went into the left-hand turn lane. The third, a black Lincoln Town Car, followed them to the right.
“South Atlanta Parkway should be on the left in a few blocks,” he said, monitoring the GPS on her dash. He asked her to adjust the side view mirror so he could track the Lincoln. It trailed them at a discrete distance.
They reached South Atlanta Parkway and turned. The Town Car turned behind them. If wisdom came with age or office, it certainly had blown by him. Here he was, unarmed, being tailed and toting around several thousand dollars in cash in a neighborhood where they probably shot first and asked for your money second.
“There’s a black Lincoln following us,” Marty said.
“I know.” Richard kept watch on the large, black automobile.
After another 30 seconds, he said, “Pull over. Stop. If the Lincoln comes up behind us and somebody gets out, stomp the gas and go like a bat out of hell.”
“Cool. I’ve always wanted to do that.”
“What?”
“Go like a bat out of hell.”
“I’m not sure you’re taking this very seriously.”
“Sorry,” she said, “just whistling past the grave yard.”
The Town Car cruised on by, and Marty pulled away from the curb. “Rats,” she said, “I was ready for the big chase scene.”
“Still whistling?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“There it is up there, on the right.” Diamond Cutters loomed several blocks ahead, a large two-story concrete structure that dominated a ne
ighborhood of boarded up, burned out businesses; a liquor store with steel grating laced across the windows; and a pawn shop squatting in a lot littered with trash and surrounded by a razor-wire fence. Inside the fence, three dogs that looked like dingoes lounged in the shade of a sick-looking oak.
Marty approached Diamond Cutters. A neon sign big enough to have lit a runway at Hartsfield-Jackson crowned the club. A fenced-in parking lot, with few vehicles, sprawled adjacent to the building.
“Drive on past, then go around the block. A couple of times. Slowly, so I can check it out.”
“You really know what you’re doing?”
“I don’t have a clue.”
She cruised around the block and came toward the club again. Across the street, a man in shabby jeans and a soiled, torn T-shirt pushed a shopping cart containing his estate—three cardboard boxes—along the sidewalk. Near the corner of the club, a man in a business suit appeared to be in serious negotiation with a lady of the night who’d decided to work overtime.
“Think she’s earning her way through college?” Marty asked.
“She’s not old enough to be in college. Go around again.”
They came up on the club a third time. The homeless person, some distance away now, continued to push his baby Bekins along. The negotiation on the corner had apparently concluded, for the man and woman were nowhere to be seen. Behind Marty’s car, a white Dodge Ram pickup eased to the curb and stopped. Richard turned to watch it. A man wearing a tan duster, sunglasses and a gray porkpie hat got out, locked the door and walked down the street, away from the club. Richard couldn’t tell if he was black or white, but pegged him as a pimp.
“Let me out here,” Richard said. “Wait in the lot.”
“We went over this already.”
“Then keep driving around the block. Or around the neighborhood.”
“Okay.”
“Enough with the fantasies. Understood?”
She nodded.
He got out and shut the door. He made a motion for her to roll down her window. He stooped. “Remember, around and around and around. Keep moving. No games.”
Plague Page 18
