Parishioner (36 page)

A few minutes shy of six Chick folded his newspaper and reached over, touching Jerry’s knee. The rogue lawyer looked up and a preagreed-upon high sign was passed between them.

Ecks had been drifting for a while, seeing but not really registering the safe house interlopers. But when Chick alerted Jerry the brandy seemed to evaporate in Ecks’s system.

Something was up. Something serious.

The lawyer and boss both produced weapons. Ancient farmers, they practiced the religion of scorched earth.

Jerry Jocelyn moved quietly into the range of camera thirteen while Chick appeared on monitor eleven.

The henchmen were gazing out of their windows, yawning now and then.

“Jesse!” Chick called out as he swung his pistol up.

Jerry was pointing his gun at Jesse’s slowly turning head. The muted gunshots went off at the same moment.

In that brief span, less than one second by Ecks’s reckoning, two men had perished.

After checking the bodies, Chick and Jerry hastily returned to monitor seven. Ecks was wondering whether the second double cross would happen then. But no. Saying nothing, the killers made sure that they hadn’t left any incriminating evidence. Then they hurried out the front door, past the watch of monitor five, and out to the street.

The inebriation that had dissipated now came back with its full weight on top of Ecks’s skull. It was to him as if he were watching himself and Swan on one of their misadventures. The letting of blood and the taking of life were such simple things for men like him and Chick and Jerry.

At that moment it seemed as if the whole world were rotten through and through. Every man, woman, and child was a part of the corruption. He was evil by virtue of his species and there was no deliverance, no way out.

The sound of Thelonius Monk came as no surprise. He answered the little cell phone automatically.

“Yeah?”

“You okay, Ecks?” George Ben asked.

“Yeah. Why?”

“You sound funny.”

“What you got for me?”

“Lenny is up and kinda nervous. Those tattoos are a fright.”

“Put him on the line.”

The distraction of conversation fended off the darkness, pushing it back three or four inches. Ecks felt that the shadows of his victims were scurrying about the corners of the room, mumbling and muttering curses upon all things living. These curses, he felt, had damned all humanity ever since Cain slew his brother.

“Hey,” Lenny said through the phone.

“How you doin’, Len?”

“Did you drug me, man?”

“I gave you that joint. It was pretty strong, but I didn’t think it was gonna knock you out like that.”

“Why’d you leave me here?”

“You were out and I had business. I told you that I’d put you somewhere with a bed.”

“But you put me with this faggot.”

The shadows receded a bit farther when Ecks considered the fact that Lenny had offered to have sex with him only a day ago. What, the gangster wondered, was this young man’s convoluted understanding of sexual identity? But he didn’t ask.

“I’ve got a bead on your parents, Lenny,” Ecks said.

“You do?”

“Uh-huh. I don’t know where they are exactly, but I’m close to it.”

“I don’t know, man,” Lenny said. “I don’t know if you should be doin’ that.”

“Why not?”

“You seen me. You know what I am. How’s some mother and father gonna call a piece’a shit like me son?”

“They were the ones who lost you when you couldn’t take care of yourself, Len. When they look at you they’ll see their own crime, not your failings.”

“Really? You think so?”

“I know it’s true,” Ecks said.

Maybe Lenny O was a piece of shit, but Ecks and Jerry and Chick were entire waste-disposal plants.

“Gimme two days there with George, Lenny,” Ecks said in a controlled tone. “Stay there and I will help you make a man out of yourself.”

“What if I say no?” the young man challenged.

“I only asked George to put you up, son. If you think that you’re better off on your own, just go.”

“Really?”

“Look, Len, it’s like I told you: I’m working for the woman who took you when you were a baby. She wants to make things right. And you already said that there’s people lookin’ for you. If you think you’re better on your own, though, I won’t stand in the way.”

“So I could leave?”

“Yeah.”

It was at that moment that Ecks lost heart. Whatever Benol or Frank wanted, he wouldn’t bully or lie to Lenny—not anymore. He’d tell the truth and go by where that led. There was no other choice when two dead men lay in the monitors—men who died while he watched and did nothing.

“You there, Mr. Noland?”

“Yeah, Lenny.”

“Okay, I’ll stay for two days. But you know, I could use another one’a those blue joints if you got ’em. I slept pretty good with that one you give me.”

“Hand the phone to George and I’ll make sure you get something.”

Driving down the hill at seven fifteen, Ecks called Frank on the minister’s private line.

“Are they both dead?” the pastor asked after Ecks made his report.

“Both shot in the head by men who were not new to the job. I didn’t go in, because someone might have heard the shots, and I couldn’t be connected to another murder so soon.”

“Don’t worry about them. Are the tapes still in the cameras?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll get somebody to take care of it.”

“And what should I do?”

“Make sure the remaining boy is safe and find out what part Benol has played in these events.”

At seven thirty-one, driving down Sunset Boulevard, Ecks made a second call.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Benicia.”

“Mr. X,” she said playfully. “I wondered if you were the kind of man who’d call a girl the next day.”

“The old me might have forgotten, but he’s not in the driver’s seat no more.”

“How’s the new Egbert doing?”

“Struggling with the past.”

“How can I tell the difference?”

“Kiss me good night and see if I call the next day.”

“Do you want to come over and test that hypothesis?”

“Can’t tonight.”

“Oh? Church business?”

“Somethin’ like that.”

Ecks drove back to his apartment and set himself up at the window to gaze down on the alley and think.

We all carry our own loads
, Frank had once preached.
No one can help us bear the weight. No one will stop for us if we’re about to fail or stray. You can only take one step at a time with the knowledge that there is no way to pass the burden on. Be at peace with this solemn responsibility; do not hope for a time when you can lay this mortal duty aside, and you will find that the weight is not so heavy and that the time as it passes is filled with wonder and sometimes even brotherhood. Because you know brotherhood is not helping your fellow man—it is loving him
.

The hours passed.

Now and then a homeless man or woman staggered down the alley with a rickety grocery store cart or a backpack. They moved between the few lights on the lane, fading into shadows now and then, only to reappear a few yards farther on. Cars drove through taking the shortcut, and a police cruiser had done three passes, looking for anything that might indicate a crime.

At four in the morning, life seemed to come to a halt. He hadn’t been thinking about the lost boys or Benol, Dodo or her aunt, but they roiled in the back of his mind.

Xavier Rule then took out his phone and called Swan’s number.

“Hello?” a woman said sadly, her tone echoing the emptiness inside Ecks.

“Is Swan there?”

“Um, no,” the voice said.

“Could you leave him a message for me then?”

“He died last night,” she murmured softly. “Passed away in his sleep.”

Ecks made the next call at seven in the morning. After a long and detailed discussion he asked, “So is that okay, Ms. Pride?”

“Are you sure you need me there?” Cylla asked. “You know it’s really not my case.”

“This is church business. We can’t have someone outside the circle running the room.”

“I’ll have to call Frank.”

“If he says no, tell him that I’m buying a ticket on a deep-sea fishing boat and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and that he shouldn’t look for me until at least the end of next week.”

Winter met Ecks in front of the Parishioner’s apartment building at eleven o’clock that morning.

“Hey, brother,” the driver greeted as his fare climbed into the front seat.

“How you sleepin’, son?”

“Like a baby,” he said, “up every hour or so with a whimper and scared of the dark.”

“I’m sorry about that, Win. I should’a sent you away when you asked to tag along.”

“No, man, no. I got this. I got it by the tail. Every night I sleep a little longer and I know a little more about how much I can bear.”

“Today will be no problem, man. I just need you to stay in your car somewhere around the courthouse. I’m lookin’ for somebody but don’t know who they are. When I see ’em I might need to move fast, so I’ll call you and you come and let me have the wheel.”

“You don’t want me to go with you?”

“Not unless you wanna end up like one’a them men in that house we broke into.”