The Warning (16 page)

He arrived at the final portion of his talk feeling that the evening had worked on him like a crowbar. His lack of vivid spiritual experience seemed to leave him not only empty, but exposed.

After it was over and Molly was driving them home, she asked, “Where do you feel like eating tonight?”

“I'm not hungry,” he said dully, which was only part of the truth. He was tired, yes, but he was more bothered than tired.

She gave him a worried glance. “You need to have something, honey.”

“I'll get a soft drink and crackers from the machines at the hotel. You can order room service.” Buddy leaned back on the headrest. He did not even feel angry. Just grumpy.

He could understand what was happening. He had felt a glimmer of this in his prayer for Alex's health, then again in front of the church. He was being instructed to look beyond himself and his own concerns. But he didn't want to. Not the least little bit. If truth be known, the prospect was appalling. The sorrows and burdens of countless believers loomed before him like a great gaping maw. Ready to take him in and swallow him whole.

He felt Molly's eyes on him, and so he said what was there in front of him. The safe and selfish complaint, “I didn't feel a thing again. Not one thing. I felt like I was up there all by myself the whole time.”

“Didn't you see the crowd?”

“Sure. They were there, and I was a thousand miles away.” He sighed to the window. “When I'm up there and God is silent, it rattles me. I wish I had thought to ask for that as a sign. One that would continue for as long as this work does.”

“Maybe God is keeping that back because it needs to be used sparingly.”

“Why, Molly? Can you tell me that?”

“No, I can't. It was just an idea. Maybe we grow stronger through the silence.”

“I don't feel strong. I feel drained.” More than that. Buddy felt the burden of this new calling. The
challenge
. His horizons were being reshaped. And he didn't like it. Not one bit.

Molly drove into the hotel parking lot. She cut off the engine and turned to him. Buddy took that as a signal to go on. “I found myself growing jealous standing up there, watching my audience struck by the Spirit. Jealous and isolated.”

“They're not your audience,” Molly said quietly.

Buddy stared at his wife. “How do you have this ability of shaming me so quickly?”

Instead of responding, Molly opened her door and got out of the car. When Buddy was out, she said, “I admire you for asking these questions. I've never even thought of them. I never even thought I was good enough to deserve God speaking to me at all.”

“You mean, you don't feel anything in these talks I'm giving?”

“Not a single, solitary thing.” When they had walked to their room, she unlocked their door and turned on the light. After Buddy had shut out the night, she went on. “I've always simply accepted God's silence. The way others go on sometimes, well, I've assumed that's because He has something to say to them. But He doesn't need to say anything to me.”

Buddy stood by the door. He felt slapped by the impact of Molly's words. Spanked for being a naughty child. That was exactly how he felt. Childish.

She looked at him. “Maybe what I need is to ask Him to speak with me. But I don't know how. Would you ask Him for me?”

“Of course I would.” Hiding his shame over being so demanding. Having felt so much, received so much, his wife had never felt anything at all. “Why don't you sit in the chair?”

Buddy waited until she got settled and then walked over and placed both hands on her shoulders. He said aloud, “Heavenly Father, when I hear my wife speak, I hear the wisdom of one who would probably make a better messenger than me. Yet she has never felt the gift of Your presence move through her. And that is what I am asking for now. Breathe upon her, holy Lord. Make Your gentle Spirit move within her.”

He stopped speaking. But the prayer continued within the depths of his soul.
Over and over I come to this place, Father,
he prayed.
All my life I have missed the mark. And I'm doing it again right now. I'm being selfish and demanding. I'm weak and afraid and unwilling to trust that You will be strong for me. I'm sorry to have failed You, Lord. Again. Shape me anew. Make me a servant who lives for You. Grant me the gift of selflessness. Do with me as You will, and show me how to obey.

Buddy spoke aloud the final words, “In Jesus' precious name do I pray. Amen.”

He felt the faintest breath across his face. A trace of motion, an angel's wing so soft that he could have easily ignored it and pretended it did not exist, save for the glory that infused his soul. He felt Molly's hands come up to rest upon his own. Warm peace flowed back and forth between them.

Standing over his wife of twenty-nine years, sensing with a wisdom that was not his own, again the unspoken lesson was made clear. How the time and the experiences and the love and the shared prayers had united them. They were one person, living out a single life in two bodies. Joined by the same gentle Lord whose power was so great it did not even need to be noticed. Whose presence was always there, always working, always loving, if only he would step beyond his own selfish barriers and allow himself to be lifted up upon the wings of heaven.

–|
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TWENTY–TWO
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Thad Dorsett drove through Aiden's darkened streets, impatient with everything about this town, even the night. For the thousandth time since being posted in this backwater, he wondered if he had made the right decision by staying with the Valenti Bank at all.

Most banks treated traders like tigers on a chain. They were tightly controlled and never given the chance to roam the jungle unleashed. Which was why Thad had leaped at the chance to join the ranks of upper management. Rumor had it that Nathan Jones Turner, Valenti's new owner, was planning to raise a few traders to board level and grant the profit makers real power. This was the only reason he continued to hold on to his impatience and make it through the horror of living in Aiden, Delaware. Thad felt as though he had been holding his breath for months.

When a stockbroker received an order from anywhere in the nation, he did not himself make the buy. He passed on the order to a person who handled thousands upon thousands of such transactions each day. The same was true for fund managers. Their buying and selling went through
traders
. Some operated from the floors of exchanges, such as the Chicago Mercantile where Thad had cut his teeth. Others worked from trading floors within large banks and fund groups. Traders sometimes operated on their own, working sums granted to them by people who trusted their savvy and knew that the time spent discussing a possible buy was time lost from the trade. These were known as
indies
. Most indies came and went like moths chasing flames.

Some people along the Street thought Nathan Jones Turner was insane to even consider offering traders the keys to the kingdom. But Thad knew better. Executive status meant faster access to capital. Speed was everything. Every day trades accelerated and rose in size. Going through various levels to gain permission meant losing out to the guy who could do it faster. Thad had lost out too often because his cap was set too low; his cap being how large a buy-sell order he could make without authorization from higher up the food chain. Thad wanted direct access to major funds. He wanted his name on the line and his deals to shake the Street. Gaining that clout was worth any price. Even enduring the straitjacket life of Aiden. For a while.

Thad Dorsett had come out of nowhere. That was how Thad described growing up in a suburb of Gary, Indiana. Son of a pastor and a doting mother, he had been trouble since before he could talk. He had more savvy than both parents combined. He understood things they would never grasp and tried hard to ignore. These days, the strongest emotion he felt for his family was impatience.

But he seldom thought of his family. It was a trait common to the trader breed. Whenever someone in the bank asked where he was from, Thad instantly knew he or she didn't trade. For a trader, the only personal history that mattered was the guy's last deal.

His parents would have loved Aiden, though. It had all the charm of a church picnic and about as much excitement. People around here lived life at one-quarter speed. He was being driven nuts on a daily basis.

Which was why he did not mind this present assignment. Not in the least.

At a quarter to one in the morning, Aiden's streets were as dead as yesterday's trade. Thad passed a patrol car and saw the cop's head propped on the backrest. Thad imagined he could even hear the snores. No question, this job would be a snooze.

Finding the doctor's address had proved harder than Thad had expected. Buddy's secretary had been no help at all, giving him a hard stare and demanding to know why Thad was asking for the doctor's name. Because, he had said, trying for nice, I need to complete records for the home office. Lorraine had looked at him standing there and said in a cold voice, “Then you'll just have to wait until he's back, won't you?” She had even taken her organizer home with her that evening. No question, Thad thought to himself as he scouted the empty night, she was definitely another on the way out.

Because of Lorraine's suspicions, Thad had been forced to spend the afternoon calling all the town's doctors. He had repeated a dozen times or so how he needed to make a follow-up appointment for Buddy Korda. He had known of the doctor's visit the morning of their argument and had seen Buddy clutching his chest for a couple of weeks up to the start of this latest mess. Which was why he was going to all this trouble. He had a hunch, nothing more. But traders learned to follow hunches. Good traders were known for the quality of their gut feelings.

Thad pulled into the parking lot and resisted the urge to blow the horn to see if he could maybe add a little risk to the exercise. He pulled his tools from the trunk and sauntered across the lot, feeling like the real Thad Dorsett was being released. The tiger unchained. He knew what he wanted for this. He could even see himself making the request. No, not a request. A payback.

The outer door gave the instant he slid his credit card through the crack and pressed down. Not even a dead bolt. Why bother, when people didn't break in? He smiled as he crossed the lobby, thinking of an ad he should place in the New York papers:
Take a thieves' holiday in Aiden, Delaware. Friendly people, sleepy cops, no alarms, special rates, package tours
.

The doctor's office was a little tougher, but not much. The plywood frame gave with the first tug on his long-handle screwdriver. He intentionally left signs of his entry. That was part of the plan.

He scouted the lobby, slid into the reception booth, checked all four walls, popped open the closet. He could not keep his grin from spreading. Incredible. A doctor's office without an alarm, in this day and age. Well, let this be a lesson to them.

He knew he should be hurrying. There was still the risk of a silent alarm. But something about the empty streets and the slumbering cop and the lack of a dead bolt downstairs left him feeling as if he could browse.

Thad felt the years slip away, sliding back into the nights of being a teenage juvenile delinquent again. He recalled how his parents had thrown up their hands in despair, especially after the police station started calling to ask if the reverend's son was home and in bed every time some young perpetrator disturbed the night. Those had been the days. Carefree and wild, leading a pack of wolves through darkened streets, nothing but fun and easy money, easy women, easy highs.

Seminary had been his own idea. Knowing he could not handle it for more than a semester, he nonetheless needed something on paper to balance out the rap sheet. Thankfully his dad's position had kept him from being arrested for anything serious. Still, there had been a list of misdemeanors stretching from joyriding to underage drinking to destruction of property. A semester of seminary was his way of whitewashing the whole deal, claiming to have turned over a new leaf. His parents' distrust of his motives had not bothered him at all.

Thad focused on the doctor's filing cabinet, which was solid steel with a security bar running down one side. But he knew how to ply the crowbar to spring the entire side. A lot of the old-style mom-and-pop shops used these places to hide their cash boxes during the week, and he had gotten to where he could jimmy a door, slide in, and spring a cabinet in thirty seconds flat. He ignored the clatter as the metal siding fell to one side. He pushed the files back, fiddled with the internal catch, and slid the security rod up and away. Good to know he hadn't lost the touch.

He tugged the cord controlling the blinds until enough streetlight fell inside for him to read. He riffled the files, quickly finding the one for Korda. Had to smile again. The guy's first name was Broderick. What a hoot.

Then as Thad read the last typed entry, he laughed aloud. He could not have come up with something more perfect if they had let him write it himself.

The call for which Thad Dorsett had arrived early at work finally came through a few minutes past eight the next morning. The metallic whisper gave no greeting, did not even bother to identify himself. “So did you get through to your man?”

“He's not my anything, Mr. Fleiss. But yes, I spoke with Korda yesterday afternoon.”

“And?”

“And I did just like we said. Laid it on the line. Either straighten up or watch his job and his pension and his reputation disappear.” Thad found it easier to discuss this on his feet. He pulled the phone cord free and began pacing. “Only I'm not so sure it did any good.”

“He hung up on you?”

“No, he heard me out all right. But he just didn't seem to care. And since then I've learned that he went ahead with his talk.” Thad gripped the phone hard enough to wring it dry, wishing it was Korda's neck. “Believe me, Mr. Fleiss, I was tough as possible. I did everything but crawl through the line.”