Baptist DISTINCTIVE: An Adam Mykonos Mystery (The Adam Myknonos Mystries) (16 page)

We both got in our cars leaving Lafayette
standing open mouthed in the parking lot. As I drove off I swear I saw him
begin to wet himself.

Chapter
Sixteen

I took me all of fifteen minutes to drive
from Huyett’s crossing to the strip Mall near South High School. I had actually
lied to Dennis to a certain extent. I had no real intention of speaking with
his cousin the meth dealer. My bone to pick was with Jim Sinclair. I parked and
walked into his furniture store. Tacky was the word that came to mind as I
looked over the goods. A pimple faced kid of about eighteen greeted me warmly
as I entered. “Hiya sir, what can I do for you?”

“The boss around?” I asked smiling.

“Mr. Sinclair is at lunch. Can I help you?
“Yes you can tell me where he is having lunch.”

The kid looked puzzled. “Sir I assure you I
can help you.”

I smiled and bobbed my head “Yes I am sure
you can by telling me where he is.”

“Lunch”

I felt like I was speaking to Dustin
Hoffman in Rainman. “Where at lunch?”

“Are you a friend of his?”

I walked over to the kid getting so close
he had to take a step back. “Look son, your boss painted a swastika on my
wife’s car last night. I need to speak to him, now I can do it peacefully or we
can call the police and do it. I repeat where is he having lunch?”

The kid whimpered. “Next door at the
Working Class.”

The Working Class was a dive bar in the
strip. I smiled and walked out.

Dive bars across the world all look and
smell alike. The vision of despair mingled with the order of fear and sweat
make each and every one of them a hot bed for the worst that humanity can bring
upon itself.
 
As a Christian I could
almost feel the light of the Holy Spirit be quenched just by being in the
place.
 
The old man in me however felt
right at home. It was dark and dingy and only a few people sat at bar stools
that were new when FDR was President. Behind the bar an overweight man with a
wife beater t-shirt and faded jeans made an attempt to wipe off a counter top
with a rag that looked like a hobo’s snot cloth.

“What can I getcha buddy?” He said before
the door was closed behind me. In the far corner at a booth near a worn pool
table sat Jim Sinclair and three ugly looking cronies.

“I’ll take a coke and give those boys over
there another round on me.” I placed a twenty on the table and walked over to
where Jim sat.

It took him a second to recognize me.
Weather that was booze and drugs or the fact that we sometimes have a hard time
recognizing people if they are in places we do not expect to see them, I would
never be sure.

“What are you doing here?” said Sinclair
rising to meet me as I approached the table.

I ignored him and took the measure of the
other three. Against the wall on the right side of the booth was a duck dynasty
reject with bread that reached down to the table top. He wore Iggy Pop
sunglasses even in the darken bar. His massive hands rested on the table. Palms
down. His manner was relaxed, as if I were no threat to him. I noted the small AB
tattooed in the web of his hand between thumb and forefinger. Aryan
Brotherhood. Prison tat from the look of it.
 
Next to him sat his polar opposite a thin twitchy clean shaven fellow
whose teeth were already rotted from meth and whose nervousness was enough to
make me nervous.

On the opposite side leaning his head
against the wall was another big fellow. In front of him were three empty beer
bottles and two shot glasses, clearly the group drunk I was not even sure he
was aware of me at all.

“Jim. I just came to talk to you a little”
I said smiling.

Before Sinclair could respond the bar keep
shouted “Hey buddy here’s ya coke and the drinks for the fellows, this an ‘it
no hooters ya gotta get em yourselves.”

“Guys I took the liberty of having a round
pulled for you all while I Speak with Jim.”

The guy with the AB tat nodded at me and
then turned to the other two “Go get the drinks. Drink yours up there than
bring back mine and Jimmy’s.” The two lesser beings scurried off.

Sinclair spoke again. “What do you want?”

I took a deep breathe. “I want you to know
that I am aware you are responsible for what happened to my wife’s car last
night.”

“Now…..”

I stopped him before he could go on.

“Jimmy, I’m not done yet. I also know that
you are a meth head and in deep to a number of dealers. I know that a pot
pusher named Catfish tried to turn you on to one of the Prihor’s as a connect
and that you already owe him money. I also know that you and Tim Lafayette are
conspiring to have Calvary sell the radio station to the Prihor family in hopes
of paying of your debt to them.
 
There
are only two things I can’t figure out jimmy.”

He snarled “And what is that?”
“What are they?” I said

“Huh?”

The AB chuckled. “It’s plural Jim.”

Sinclair turned and repeated “Huh?”

I shook my head “Never mind. What I can’t
figure is whether you killed Josh and Mac and why you are so obsessed with
keeping Miriam at your house. You don’t look the type that likes little girls.”

He swung at me like I knew he would. I
ducked under his big round house and pushed on his back as I did sending him to
the floor. He was up in a shot spinning towards me with a roundhouse kick, I
stepped back let it fly past my face then gripped his ankle and tugged forward
knocking him to the floor a second time.

As he crotched to get up I said “Stay down
Jimmy it will be easier. I just want to deliver a message. Stay away from my
family.”

I turned and walked towards the bar.
 
I picked up my coke and glanced in the bar
mirror as an empty beer bottle flew towards my head. I slide to the left and
the bottle crashed against the back of the bar wall breaking several other
bottles as it did so.

“Hey Sinclair” Yelled the bar keep as I
tossed back my coke and walked out

I heard Jimmy cursing me as I went.

Coda
Seven

I do not want to give you or anyone else the
impression that there is not good in our movement. I believe in my heart that Independent
Baptists are as close to the early church as we are able to get in this day and
age, but the sad truth is that even in the early church there was conflict and
those who wanted to disrupt the work of the Lord. John speaks in his last
letter about Diotrephes, who was standing the in the way of the work of the
Lord. As a pastor it is important to be aware of those folks whose main
intention is to hamper the work. All men sin and all men should be given a
second chance but there are occasions when the sin of others is so deep and so
profound that if you do not act to exercise it, it becomes a cancer in the
midst of a church.

I was never good at inter-personal relationships; I
see the world though a set of glasses that I hope reflects the Lord. I think
the best of people. There were a number of occasions where I would tell Luke
that a certain person “loved” me or was in my corner and he would look at me as
if I lost my mind. He has a different and in some ways more realistic view of
the world than I.

I think when there is decision in a church there are
three ways to handle the matter. You can ignore it and trust that the Lord will
work His will on the problems that you face, this was my method. You can
confront it with love, and trust the Lord to than resolve the problem on which
you have shed light, this is Luke’s preferred choice or you can work behind the
senses to manipulate the outcome to meet the need, this is the way Dr.
Longstreet handles matters. In each case there are times when one is right and
when one is wrong. It goes back in many ways to the wheel; you are either going
to let the wheel spin, you are going to ride the wheel or you are going to
control the motion of the wheel.

I never want us to be an in position where we lose
track of the work. The work is winning souls the work is giving a second chance;
the work is building the Kingdom. If we are not winning others to Christ we are
not doing our job. Sometimes we win others to Christ though door to door
outreach, or handing out a track, or having special events at the church, or
doing positive things to grow the mission. Sometimes we win souls to Christ by
stretching the boundaries in which people are comfortable, getting out of the
comfort zone as they say. So we begin a bus ministry taking urban kids to a
suburban church, we do work in the city, we break down color lines and
socio-economic lines, we push the limits and we lift people up in doing so. And
sometimes we win others to Christ buy removing the obstacles that keep them
from coming. If a person is not a good fit for a church it is time for them to
move on. We cannot keep everyone in one tent, not on this earth. There were
people I thought would eventually move on from the path I had placed Calvary
on, the truth was they were making plans for me to move on.

Chapter Seventeen

I don’t sleep well. I use to. When I was a
child, I slept the sleep of the just. I lost that ability when I became a cop,
than my nights became filled with the grim reality of the streets of New York,
as corruption took my soul I lost even more of the ability to sleep though the
guilt that only sin can bring. Prison and the need to be always aware robbed me
than of the final visages of a good night sleep.
 
Turning fifty and the need for at least two
trips a night to the bathroom have put the final nail in the coffin of
sleeping.
 
It was nearly two am and my
wife, who could if truth be told could sleep though a small nuclear explosion,
was snoring, though she would deny that, peacefully besides me. I slipped out
of bed and into the bathroom.
 
I grew up in
an apartment with one bathroom and four people, the Lord has blessed and I now
live in a house with four bathrooms, well three and half and two people. For the
most part I use ‘my bathroom’ which is down the hall but in the middle of the
night with my wife’s indulgence I use ‘her bathroom’ in the master
bedroom.
 
I was washing my hands when I
heard the roar of the motorcycles and saw the lights flash from their headlamps
on my back lawn.

“Mykonos!!!!” I heard the familiar voice of
Jim Sinclair yell.

Really I thought we’re doing this. I
sighed. Rita was sitting up in bed when I came in. I reached to a chair and threw
her a pair of my sweat pants.

“Put these on. Grab the .38 out of the lock
box and call the cops.”

Maryland is an odd state as a convicted
felon I cannot own a gun; however as a small business owner it was not difficult
for my wife to get a permit to carry. The state acted as if we did not live in
the same house or communicate with each other.

She nodded as I started out of the room
“Where are you going?”

“Outside.”.
 
I answered.

I reached into the umbrella stand near the
bedroom door where I kept my old night stick. I took it and spun it once in my
hand.
 
When I was on the force I had a
side handled truncated stick of about 11 inches, nicknamed day-sticks these
provided a lot of defensive maneuverability. I still had that stick somewhere
in the basement. The stick I picked up was around fourteen inches, straight and
made of solid wood, it had belonged to my Maternal Grandfather when he had been
a member of the force. I still recalled him pointing to a dark spot near the
center and telling me when I was a kid. “See there Adam that’s some moron’s
blood.” Fun guy my Pop-Pop.

“I’ll be right behind you.” Rita said.

It was pointless to tell her to stay. “I
know.”

Ten seconds later wearing black boxers and
a pair of sandals I stood on my back porch. Jim Sinclair and five other guys on
motorcycles were driving in circles around my back lawn. I flipped a switch and
threw on the back lights.

We have an open back yard that rolls
seamlessly into the back of one of Stan’s corn fields. It is maybe three
hundred yards long and seventy-five yards wide.
 
Jimmy and his five friends pulled their bikes to halt as the lights
flipped on. Jimmy pulled in front then parked and got off.

“You and I have a score to settle.” He
yelled at me.

I grinned. “No we don’t Jim. I told you
what you needed to know, now go on home like a good little boy.”

I noticed the tatted guy from that
afternoon on one of the bikes. I nodded at him. It was calculated I wanted to
acknowledge him as the real threat and dismiss Sinclair in both his eyes and my
own. AB nodded back.

I did not see the other two guys from the
bar, but the remaining four bikers were of the stereotypical big beefy ugly
variety. All of them wore chains and I assumed most if not all of them were packing.

Sinclair took a step towards me. Unconsciously
I twirled the stick in my hand.

Jim laughed “You way out numbered son.”

“Son? Really Jim you’re four years younger
than me.”