Salvation Boulevard (39 page)

“Yes, I think they do. I don't know how, exactly, but I think they do.”

“Alright,” she said, reaching up to take my hand. Plowright, MacLeod, now me. I was her new guide. “I'll go with you.”

We stepped cautiously out of the apartment and back into the office. I went first, gun in hand, but it was still quiet and deserted.

Nicole stayed close to me. I was prepared to accept the role she put me in for as long as it took to get her out of there—and maybe up on the witness stand.

Gwen still didn't buy Nicole's story. She was ready to hear Pastor Paul explain it all away, and she would believe him when he did, no matter how far-fetched his stories were. She showed her disapproval by keeping her distance from us.

She made me realize that there were plenty of people out there just like her. In a contest of he said, she said, Plowright would win. I needed hard evidence.

I could see on the screen that Plowright was still down on stage, the model of his City of God beside him. The light from the neon cross created a halo around his head and painted one side of his face with blue, cold silver, and pale gold. The effect of having the sound off, combined with the hyperreality of high-definition video, made the image strangely lurid, like an illustration on a poster from a 1950s movie that screamed warnings about the wages of sin. When the camera cut to a close-up, his face twice life size and his wet lips moving in fervent, unheard speech, I couldn't help thinking of him with Nicole, the toys buzzing and the downloaded videos yelping and moaning away.

He was nowhere near done. There was time.

I went to his computer. When the screen came on, it asked for a password. His birthday? His wife's birthday? His name spelt backward? Something biblical? “What's his favorite passage?” I asked Gwen.

“What are you doing? Shouldn't we go?”

“His favorite passage, what is it?”

“Genesis 1:26,” she said.

“Dominion?”

As I began to type it in, I heard a ping.

I looked toward the source of the sound.

A little red light was blinking on the closed-circuit TV monitor over the regular entrance to the office. The screen showed a view of the small lobby on the other side. It made sense that a preacher who liked to watch porn and rub the flesh of his choir girls would want warning bells to go off before someone came in.

The little monitor showed the elevator door in the lobby opening. Jerry Hobson stepped out. Another man in a suit and tie was just behind him.

One more step and his identity was revealed: Jorge Guzman de Vaca.

“Down,” I hissed to Gwen. “Hide.” I took Nicole's hand and pulled her back toward one of the secretary's desks and down behind it. Gwen froze for a moment, then saw the two men on the screen just as Jerry was opening the door into the office. She scrambled backward and found a spot behind the tall filing cabinets.

“Here we are,” I heard Hobson say. “Plenty of privacy. What do you want?”

“I want in on the action,” Jorge said.

“That's not going to happen,” Jerry said with that casual contempt for civilians that comes so easily to cops. He'd always had it. Especially toward Mexicans.

“My construction companies are some of the best in the state,” Jorge said, sounding unfazed and unoffended. “We do it all—housing, offices, roads. I have a company that does financing. Cash looking for a home.”

“You mean money laundering,” Hobson said, like he disapproved of it.

“These are big things you're doing here,” Jorge said, sounding impressed. “Plenty for everybody.”

“Nah' for chu,
cholo,
” Jerry said, sneering at him with a broadly fake accent.

“I got something you should see,” Jorge said, still the pleasant business man working on a sale. “Hey, are you a PC guy or a Mac guy?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I got this promotional video. Did it myself on iMovie. It's so easy, even a grown-up can learn it. You got a DVD player? You want to see this, Jerry.”

“
Chingate,
Cheech.”

“You need to see this,” Jorge said, serious as death. “If you don't see it, you will regret it later, very much regret it.”

“Sure I will,” Jerry said sarcastically. But he wasn't sure enough to call the bluff; he needed to find out what cards Guzman was holding. “Alright, go ahead.”

They were silent for a moment, and there was some moving around. Then I heard Jorge say, “Sound, you need the sound.”

“Some idiot hit the mute button,” Jerry said and turned the sound back on.

A new voice said, “We're working for Jerry Hobson, this company he's got, but it's him.” It was Daniel Polasky.

If they were watching the DVD on the same screen that Plowright's sermon had been on, then their backs were likely turned toward me. I slipped my HK back out of its holster. Then I took the risk of peeking around the edge of the desk.

The two of them were standing three-quarters turned away from me.

Danny “Beef” Polasky was on the screen, naked, tied to the chair, one hand clutching the bloody rag wrapped around the other hand. He was illuminated by a single harsh lamp that threw a dark shadow onto the dingy, cinder block wall behind him. While
I'd been peeking through the vent on the roof, there'd been a camera down there, beyond my angle of vision, looking straight at him.

“What do you do for him?” asked an offscreen interrogator.

“Mostly the girls—we keep an eye on Plowright's girls.”

I looked over at Gwen as Polasky spoke about “straightening them out.” Reality was tearing pages out of the Bible stories in her mind. She looked devastated.

Nicole clutched my hand when Polasky went on about the rape of the “nice blondie.” It could have been her, and she was starting to snivel. I got her attention and put my finger to my lips. She swallowed and tried to control herself.

When I heard the interrogator say, “If you don't tell me the truth, you know what I'm gonna do,” I peaked around again. The pruning shears poked into the frame and prodded his crotch. Whoever was holding it had been careful not to appear in front of the camera.

“. . . It was just that Plowright was getting out of control, you know, with the babes, and Jeremiah said we just hadda keep a lid on.”

That was it for Gwen too. She looked over at me, devastated. I wondered how the hell we were going to get out of there. Would they finish soon and leave?

Jerry said, “Alright, I get it.”

But Guzman didn't shut it off, and Danny told the story about kidnapping and torturing Ahmad. There was my evidence. I didn't know what it would do in court, but it should be enough to free Ahmad. I thought maybe I should just try to take them. But then what? Try to march them out of the Cathedral at gunpoint?

There was more. The part that I'd missed when I was trying to get down from the roof.

“. . . And that detective, we were supposed to take him out. Jeremiah called us and said, ‘Get over here right away. He's going to be headed from his house to the city at around 11 a.m. Wait for him near Exit 28, where he'll get on the interstate, and find someplace to take him out.'”

Gwen had just been convicted of her complicity in the attempt to kill me while Angie was by my side, by the dead man's testimony. She began to cry. She was trying to stay silent, and I prayed that she could.

There was silence. I guessed the DVD had stopped.

“So, what I want,” Jorge said, “is in.”

“Well, maybe I can steer some construction your way.”

“No, no, my friend,” Jorge said. “I want
in.
Your man is talking about hundreds of millions of dollars—I listened to him on the TV—billions even. I want
in,
like you got in, from the top, the bottom, and the sides.”

“That's worthless,” Jerry said, trying to dismiss it. “You can't bring that into court.”

“Court?” Jorge said. “I don't need no stinking court,” using a movie Mexican accent, mocking Jerry. “I'll put this up on YouTube, and all of this, this Cathedral, and all the hundreds of millions of dollars—that's over, and you'll be lucky you get a job as a security guard at Taco Time.”

“I'll talk to Paul. I'm sure—”

“Don't
talk
to Paul. You
tell
Paul.” Jorge snapped his orders like he had a whip in his hand. “You tell him he has a new partner.”

“We'll work something out,” Jerry said.

“I'll tell you what we'll work out. I'm your partner.”

“Yeah, sure, alright,” Jerry said, step by step to surrender.

“There are a couple of details,” Jorge said.

“Like what?”

“I understand there's a girl who could cause trouble.”

“Maybe,” Jerry said.

“We can't have that with this much money at stake.”

“I'll tell you what. If you want in so bad, why don't you take care of her,” Jerry said.

Nicole was curled up beside me, shaking. I stroked her head, like you would a frightened child or pet, trying to calm her. Gwen
looked over at us, and I could tell from the expression on her face that she finally believed that Nicole had been a captive of fear.

“This was your fuckup,” Jorge said. “I'm your partner now, and if something you did fucks up my deal, you pay for it. Now, if you can't take care of it, then you can come to me, and you say, ‘Jorge, my friend, I am in trouble, and I can't handle things. Will you help me out?'”

Jerry had to be steaming, and soon he'd start twitching like a boiler under pressure.

Jorge kept pushing at him. “And then I will say to you, ‘Jerry, of course, I will help you,' and here's what it'll cost. A little bigger piece, points off the top. And there's your friend the Dutchman. He's on to you, and you know why he's on to you, because you and your Pastor Plowright, you're both fuckups, and you practically waved flags in his face and said, ‘We did it, so don't investigate.' He's a stubborn prick, and he needs to be stopped. Are you going to do that? Or do you need me to do it? If you need me to, I can—for a few more points off the top.”

“Fuck you, Hor-hay,” Jerry said, the lid coming off. “You know what, let's take care of it now.”

Something was happening, and I wanted to look and see what, but they were no longer watching the DVD and could well be looking straight in my direction when my head popped out alongside the desk. Then I heard Jerry laugh and say, “Relax. It's not for you.”

Jorge did not reply, and I thought I heard them moving.

“Time to get rid of the pastor's bitch,” Jerry said, like a man deciding to pop a boil.

Nicole made a noise. A moan, a shriek, a squeak of fear.

I knew Jerry would be turning toward the sound, toward me. When he'd said, “Relax. It's not for you,” I'd figured he'd taken out a gun. Jerry favored a 9 mm with double-stack magazines. He liked the idea of being able to fire lots of shots.

I rose up into a kneeling position, gun pointing over the top of the desk.

Jerry saw, or sensed, my move and pulled Jorge in front of him, arm around his neck, as a shield.

“Drop it, Jerry. You're done,” I said.

“What we got here,” Jerry said, “is a Mexican standoff.” He laughed, very happy with his joke. But it was true enough. Neither of us was likely to win with the first shot. That meant either of us was equally likely to die with the second.

“Everybody slow down,” Jorge said. As the person most likely to die no matter what happened, he became the spokesman for reason. “There's enough money here for everybody to get rich. I think it's time for ‘Let's Make a Deal.' What do you say, Carl?”

“I say you wanted to have me killed two seconds ago.”

“That's because I thought you wouldn't make a deal. Carl, if there is one thing I know, it is better to be rich and alive in this life than poor and dead in the next one.”

When the DVD had stopped, the giant screen had resumed the live feed from the Cathedral. The neon cross still bloomed, the model of the City of God was still front and center, but Plowright had left the stage. He was probably riding in his private elevator already. When he emerged, he would be between us, though not in a direct line, to my left and to Jerry's right. Maybe that would alter the equation.

Gwen had her eyes closed. She was praying. Nicole was crying out loud now.

“Shut that bitch up,” Jerry yelled at me.

Plowright's elevator door slid open. Jerry's eyes flicked toward it, but not enough for me to take advantage of the moment.

Our pastor stopped when he saw us with guns drawn and Jorge Guzman held hostage. I'll give him this, he didn't panic. He was used to controlling everyone around him. “What's going on here?” he demanded to know.

“Why don't you put your hands up and step over by them,” I said. “You're going down. For the killing of Nathaniel MacLeod, for kidnapping, for torture . . . ”

“Carl, Carl, have you gone mad? I would never do anything of the sort.”

“I have Nicole Chandler. I
know.
I know it all.”

He was taken aback, oh, for a nanosecond. Then he found the answer. “She's a Jezebel. I tried to help her, that poor demented child. She's some sort of sex addict, her mind addled with pornography. It was the atheists, the atheists and secular humanists at the university, who did that to her. I was trying to save her, save her soul, her eternal soul—”

“You shot and killed Nathaniel MacLeod.”