Salvation Boulevard (12 page)

“Fair enough,” he said.

I was wishing I could say, here's the person who really did it, here's the proof, so I could walk away. For the sake of my daughter, my wife, my marriage, and, for that matter, my own well-being. I had acted like a thug. Effective maybe, but not who I wanted to be. Self-righteous, sure, but was that good?

“The department secretary,” I said, continuing with my report. “Nice woman, one of your tribe. Said there's a lot of bad blood in the department. I figured how much bad blood could there be over . . . ” I had to look at my notes, “. . . analytic versus continental philosophy. But then I talked to the chairman of the department, Arthur Webster-Woad. That's a hyphenate, and ‘woad' is an archaic form for woods, or a forest, something like that. Very old family, he explained, from the very old country. He started out with ‘Professor MacLeod was much loved and will be much missed,' but then I threw a quote or two about analytic philosophy at him, and he went absolutely livid in a very icy way.”

“You threw a quote about analytic philosophy at him?”

“Yes, Emmanuel, I did.”

“And what was that?”

“Something to the effect of, ‘By abandoning the rough, practical empiricism of science for the illusion of logic as an absolute, it had cut its moorings to reality and become as archaic as theology.'”

“You said that?”

“Yes, I did. I admit that I had to rehearse it, and I'm not entirely sure what it means, but it pushed his buttons. I thought, if he had a gun, he would've shot me on the spot.”

“Really?”

“The thing is, it's something that MacLeod said. He could push Webster-Woad's buttons big time. I mean, even dead, he can still push the guy's buttons. A couple of the other professors too. Big quarrels going on over there.”

“Enough to make one of them a suspect?”

“You could make him blow up on the stand, I think.”

We were on the way to the courthouse for a pretrial hearing, riding in Manny's Caddy, a rental CTS, while the Mercedes was in the shop. That was one of his things—come ride with me, talk over lunch, meet me at the elementary school, the golf club. It never felt like, I'm such a busy man, you have to catch me when you can. It was more like he needed to fill the spaces, leave no room for emptiness.

“You said MacLeod had a girlfriend?” he asked.

“Ahh, the mystery woman. ‘N.' Just an initial. That's what MacLeod called her. It might have stood for Nina. One student I spoke to said her name was Nina, but when this other student said, ‘Hey, Nina,' Nina didn't respond. Then she suddenly did, like she, oops, remembered.

“No last name at all. Was apparently auditing P&R 342, same class as Ahmad. But not registered, not paying. No records. Her and MacLeod were very excited by each other, especially lately.

“We need to talk to Ahmad about her, someplace where we don't think the microphones are on. Seems like he had at least a silent crush on her. I've got half a dozen people saying he used to shuffle and hmmm whenever she was around. Meanwhile, she hung on MacLeod's every word, so maybe we have a classic triangle.”

“Find her,” Manny said.

We were at the courthouse. There was a crowd, not as big or rowdy as the last time but more media. Manny put on the left turn signal and went into the lot across the street.

“I'd like to,” I said. “It would help if you could get me in to see Ahmad again. All I've got is blond, medium height, medium weight, twenty-two, three, four, pretty, but not spectacularly so, dressed modestly, not expensively. No special jewelry or tattoos or marks. Maybe she wore a silver cross on a gold chain. Maybe not.” Yeah, I thought, that's the ticket. Find the girl. Then maybe I can gracefully back out.

He turned off the engine. We got out. He gave the attendant a wave and didn't bother with taking a ticket. They knew him. He hit the Caddy with his palm. “What do you think?”

“Plush enough,” I said, “but it's not the C600.”

“It sure isn't. The damn insurance company doesn't want to pay. You believe that? It's the war, riots, and insurrection clause. Was that a riot? That was not a riot. Uh-uh, it was an act of vandalism. Um-hmm, preplanned vandalism. If they were rioting, they would have attacked
everything. But they did not. They only attacked one thing, my one hundred forty-three thousand dollar C600. They're gonna pay.

“Come on,” he said and walked out into the street, dodging traffic. His leg was working well.

When we got to the other side, his face lit up. “The Rapture,” he said. “I bet insurance companies won't pay up after the Rapture.” The police had barricades up and were keeping a corridor clear so you could walk on the sidewalk and get up the steps into the courthouse.

“You don't believe in the Rapture, Manny.”

“Of course I don't. But lots of people do. Your guy, Plowright, he preaches the Rapture. We could get rich, a niche market, umbrella policies for the Rapture. Collect the premiums but never have to pay. 'Cause the Rapture is never going to happen.

“Don't get insulted, Carl. Okay? Worst case scenario, the Rapture actually happens. You get whisked up 'cause you're a good Christian, and you're safely out of it. I'm not worried about paying off because, what the hell, with earthquakes, nuclear war, and the Antichrist ruling the UN, who's gonna care about an insurance company stiffing a few people. What do you think?”

Manny's cell phone rang, and he pulled it out of his pocket.

Tod Timley stepped out of the crowd, around one of the barricades. He was wearing a windbreaker. His skin seemed very pale. His eyes were bright. His hand came out of his pocket with a snub-nosed thirty-eight. I said, “No, no, Tod, don't.”

He didn't seem to hear me. He wasn't looking at me. He paid me no attention at all. He shot Manny two times before the police opened fire and gunned him down.

I caught Manny as he started to fall. He looked at me with confusion. Then some sort of vast regret and sadness passed across his face. Such a sense of loss. Not fear or pain, but loss, a whole landscape, a vista of it.

People were yelling. Lights were pointing; cameras and the people attached to them were gathering around. I could distinguish the police calling for EMS. Manny held onto me.

“Susan,” he said.

“Take it easy. You're gonna be alright.”

“Susan.”

“I'll get her. She'll meet us at the hospital. Hold on.”

A cop was trying to push me aside, to get to Manny, to administer to his wound. He'd been shot in the stomach and chest. Blood was flowing out of him. His hand clutched my arm. “Promise me,” he said.

“Take it easy. Let the—”

“The medics?”

“They're coming,” I said.

He nodded, drifting off. But his hand held on. Then his eyes snapped back to attention, and he fixed his gaze on mine. “You find out who did it.”

“We saw. The cops shot him. He's dead.”

“Not him, Carl. You got to save Nazami. There's a wrong being done.”

“Yes, I'll—”

“Don't bullshit me, Carl. You swear, swear now.”

“I promise.”

“On your word, your Bible, whatever the hell, you do this for me. You find out who really killed MacLeod, and you save that kid. You swear. Do you swear?”

“Yeah, Manny, I'll do it.”

“By all that's holy, you swear?”

“By all that's holy.”

The cops pulled me away. There was a lot of shouting—“let 'em through, let 'em through”—and EMS arrived. They put on pressure bandages and carried him away on a stretcher. Manny's cell phone was lying on the pavement. I picked it up to bring to him.

“It's the problem of evil,” said the rabbi. “At moments like these, we always return to the problem of evil.”

We were in Temple Emanu-El, the oldest Jewish house of worship in the state.

We were there for the funeral of Emmanuel Goldfarb.

Manny made it to the hospital. He lived long enough for Susan to arrive and even to say good-bye. “That, at least, was a mitzvah,” said the Jewish doctor who told me that Manny was dead.

Death from old age we accept as the course of things. Death by disease gives people time to get used to it, even to see it as a relief and a release, not only for the dying but for the family and the people burdened with the person's care. Violent death interrupts our expectations. Expectations are important to us. The sun will rise in the morning. I will sleep tonight. The sun will be there again tomorrow. So will Gwen and my daughter and the church and its pastor and my friend Manny. But he's not. You see what I mean: the whole fabric of expectation and certainty is torn. If Manny's life can be snuffed out—with a crack like a snapping twig—then perhaps the sun won't rise tomorrow.

But I have the Lord. Who assures me that I am in His hands and that I have life eternal in His mercy. Simply for believing in Him. For giving myself to Him.

Manny, according to all that I am told, will not have life eternal. He will not be there to greet me at the gate, to take my case, should I need the help, to get the incriminating evidence tossed and the exculpatory in, to cite the precedents of other sinners who have gone to heaven, and if that fails, to plead mitigation.

That troubles me.

I know that it should not. After all, the gospel was there for him to take. It's offered all the time. God reaches out. Jesus reaches out. It is for that very reason that we are called upon to evangelize. To bring the good news that there is salvation, that no one need burn in hell for eternity. Here it is. Take it. It's easy. Take it before it's too late. If someone doesn't, whose fault is that?

Still, it troubles me.

If I start on my fingers, then go to my toes, then start using the pages of the Good Book as marks for my count, I will make it to Leviticus before I run out of people I know personally who have taken the Lord into their hearts and will, presumably, be crowding the heavenly subdivisions, whom I like a whole lot less than Manny. Quite a few who deserve it less, if you count deeds and goodwill and good cheer in the face of adversity, instead of just counting that one thing, giving yourself to the Lord.

“How is it that there is evil in the world?” asked the rabbi. “It's a question that everyone asks when tragedy strikes. It is a question that we, as Jews, may ask more than most. It is a question that does not have easy answers.”

 

Manny was well liked, well known, and very well connected. The funeral was a who's who of power and money in the city and state. One of our senators was there, the chancellor of the university, the mayor, the governor. A couple of Goldwaters had come over from Arizona; a few generations back they were Goldwassers and Jewish.

Jorge Guzman de Vaca was there.

He's the Gulf Cartel's front man in our state. If you're not up on your Mexican gangs, the Gulf Cartel is the one out of Michoacán
recently in the news for cutting off the heads of their rivals in the gang called Los Valencia.

Jorge has been trying to do the Corleone saga in one generation. He has a host of legitimate businesses. All that cash looking for a home. He contributes to charities and political campaigns; he's on the board of the Mexican American Friendship Association and United Catholic Charities, to name two.

Jeremiah Hobson was also there, to my surprise. He was our lieutenant when we were trying to take Jorge down and always failing. I don't know what Hobson knew or didn't know. There was a sergeant between Hobson and the grunts. Jerry always reminded me of the three monkeys—see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil—except that he peeked, he listened, and he whispered.

When it all went bad, everyone wondered how far it would go. Hobson was just two steps up the food chain. Then Rafe ate his gun, and it all stopped right there. They called it one rotten apple, and Rafe was too dead to say any different.

Hobson made captain. He quit with his twenty and moved on to Cathedral of the Third Millennium as chief of security. It's a pretty big job with all their businesses, broadcasting, schools, real estate, outreach programs, and missions. In those days, he was Jerry. Now it's Jeremiah.

 

The Cathedral of the Third Millennium is a vast open door to the future. Temple Emanu-El is a treasure box holding the past.

It's much smaller, of course. It was built soon after the Civil War, which by southwestern standards is old. Outside, it has the look of a Spanish mission—this was once Mexico—except, of course, there's a Star of David instead of a cross. The land was given to the new European Jews, mostly Germans, by Don Efren de Carvajal y de la Leon, who was said to have been a crypto-Jew.

Crypto-Jews were the descendents of the Jews who became New Christians during the Spanish Inquisition but remained Jewish in secret. Sometimes, it was such a secret that it was secret even from
themselves. They would call themselves Catholic, go to Catholic churches, and take Mass, but the family would have an unexplained tradition of lighting candles on Friday night. Others were taught by their parents not to worship the Trinity but only the one God Himself, without quite saying why.

They are also called Marranos
.
Rita Moreno and Fidel Castro both have such ancestors.

The stained glass windows had deep colors like gemstones and depicted Old Testament scenes. There's not a Christ, or a cross, or a saint to be seen, but there's Moses and the Commandments, there's the escape from bondage, there's Abraham and his son, and there's Noah, the ark, and the flood.