The Bastard Hand (30 page)

I went into her bedroom, grabbed the camera and the little tape inside it. I could hear them in the kitchen, the conversation between them a murmur. I went downstairs and left the house through the front door, quietly.

Elise would expect me to wait for her upstairs, to comfort her after her Martyrdom, but I wouldn’t be there. Being Mary Magdalene, that was woman’s work, praise God, and I was on the path to true divinity now, I was doing Jesus’s work. Callousness is next to Godliness.

About two miles up Swan Road, I pulled the Rover off to the side and rewound the tape and looked at it through the viewfinder. I watched them getting undressed and the Reverend pulling her to him, and then I fast-forwarded, stopping occasionally just to make sure both of their faces were easily recognizable.

Then I rewound it again, pulled it out of the camera. In a sudden surge of rage I rolled down the window and threw the tape into the ditch.

I smoked a cigarette.

Then I got out of the Rover and searched for the tape, found it after two minutes. I climbed back in the vehicle, shut the door, put the tape in my jacket pocket. Then I threw the camera out the window.

Put the Rover in gear. Drove to Ishy’s house.

It was about two-thirty in the morning and no one existed but me. The mayor’s house was silent and dark and I turned off my headlights and cut the engine and coasted up to the front driveway. I left the Rover’s door open and went to the front door of the house and slid the tape through the mail slot. I heard it clatter on the floor inside and hoped vaguely that it wouldn’t wake anyone up.

Then I climbed back in the Rover and started the engine and drove away as quickly as possible.

And then it was done. I had committed the most vile, evil act of my entire life, and it was done and all I felt was a dark sense of clarity and purpose. I was wrong to kill that cop, yes, but I was even more wrong to think of it as a horrible mistake. It had happened for a reason, sure as the sun rises and sure as the flesh is weak. The young law officer way up in Seattle, he was the first step on my journey, so long ago; he existed solely for me and my spiritual awakening.

Doing Jesus’s work, yes indeed. Doing the Devil’s work. I was my Father’s bastard hand, so I had to do both.

That was fine, just fine. No problems. At least this way, I always knew what the competition was up to.

I spent the night in Maxwell Park, spread out on the grass and looking up at the Captain’s stone face and not feeling anything. The sun came up stealthily and when the sky started going orange I finally stood up and looked across the park at the church.

Nobody yet. Sunday morning, though, so only another hour or two before God’s sheep began arriving. I stretched my achy muscles and strolled over to the diner.

No Gloria this morning; I didn’t know the waitress who served my coffee and eggs. Without her, the diner seemed alien—but that was fine, really. The whole world would be alien to me now, probably, the whole universe strange and disconnected. I couldn’t make up my mind whether I’d gained something or lost everything.

Eating leisurely, I managed to kill an hour and a half and by the time I finished, the diner was beginning to fill up. I dropped money on the table, left, made my way to the church.

The church, the Cuba Landing Free Will Baptist Church. Cars were pulling in, the congregation arriving steadily, and the Reverend stood out front by the doors, greeting his flock. He looked the same as ever, big smile, warm handshake, as if he didn’t know that the world had changed.

He grinned at me as I approached. “Good morning, Charlie,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder.

“Morning, Reverend.”

“Glad you could make it, ol’ son. You hanging in there all right?”

“Couldn’t be better.”

“Fine, that’s fine,” he said. Some more people came up the walk, and he greeted them affably, exchanged a few pleasantries. He turned back to me as they entered the church. “It’s gonna be just like old times, ain’t it, Charlie? I surely did miss having you around.”

“Like old times, sure. Soon as I get that Bible back from you.”

He laughed. “You’re getting down-right practical minded these days, ain’t you? Don’t fret none, I got it right here.” He patted the pocket of his black coat.

“The sooner you give it to me, the sooner it’ll be just like old times.”

He nodded. “I reckon so. But—”

Some more of the congregation, two or three families at once, coming up the walk. The Reverend did his thing, ushered them inside, and turned back to me. “This ain’t exactly the best time and place to hand over the Bible, is it? What with folks coming in.”

“I can’t think of a better time and place to exchange a Bible than Sunday morning, in front of a church.”

He laughed. “That’s a damn good point. Can’t argue.” But still he made no move to hand it over.

I said, “You seem reluctant. We made a deal. You aren’t planning on welching, are you?”

He looked at me sharply, but the grin didn’t leave his face. “I ain’t never welched on a deal in my life, Charlie, and I ain’t about to start now. But there’s other things need tending to first. I got a—”

“If you don’t give me that Bible right now, I’ll take it from you. Right here, in front of everyone.”

He shook his head. “That’d be a nice way to attract attention neither of us want. ’specially considering—” He nodded toward a group of people just coming up the walk, “—that the mayor’s wife is coming our way.”

Amid a cluster of her friends and acquaintances, Belinda Ishy approached us. She wore a dark green sleeveless dress, low cut to compliment her considerable bosom, and a dark look passed over her face when she saw me. To the Reverend, she said, “Good morning, Reverend, how wonderful to see you.”

“Ladies,” he said warmly. “Mrs. Ishy. Good to see you all this morning, so glad you came.”

He hurried them inside, and if a furtive glance passed between him and the mayor’s wife, I missed it. When they were away, he said to me, “Damn, that’s a fine specimen of womanhood. And speaking of choice female flesh, how’s our tasty little Garrity girl this morning?”

“I haven’t seen her.”

He raised an eyebrow. “No? Well, that’s odd. Everything stable on the home front?”

“Everything’s fine. I just haven’t seen her.”

“Well that’s just a shame. I can see now why you been so damn hot and bothered for her. She’s a regular wildcat, ain’t she? Scratched up my back but good. And the way she smells, you know, in the heat of the moment. . . . Lord have mercy, she was a handful.”

Trying to provoke me. The way he spoke of it, too casually, like it was nothing at all, just a little tryst. What’s a little illicit carnality between friends?

But he didn’t know, he didn’t know me anymore. He didn’t know that I was Jesus. Me, not him. He was Lucifer. He was the flipside of the coin.

“Reverend,” I said. “The Bible.”

He nodded. “You have a right to it now, sure as Hell. But I’m gonna have to ask you to wait, just a bit. Until the sermon is over. I got something real grand planned. It’s an important day, you know.”

“Is it?”

“Don’t you remember what today is, Charlie? It’s the one-year anniversary. A year ago today. Jathed Garrity disappeared from Cuba Landing, Memphis, and the world.”

A year ago today. Elise told me, but I’d forgotten.

I said, “So, what? A eulogy today? A walk down memory lane?”

“No, Charlie, no eulogy,” he said. “A revelation.”

I didn’t argue with him about the Bible after that because I wasn’t even sure I cared anymore. Not just about the Bible, but anything. Even the fact that he knew something more about Jathed’s disappearance didn’t shake me—I’d known for some time that he held more secrets than he revealed.

So when the girl at the organ started playing and the congregation stopped socializing and settled into their seats, when the Reverend turned away from me and started toward the podium, I followed him up, took a seat in the first row near Belinda Ishy, and bided my time.

The mayor wasn’t present. Neither was Captain Forrey or Oldfield or even Jeannie Angel. They were damn near the only people in town who weren’t there. On the other side of the church, I spotted Gloria the Catholic waitress and a man I assumed to be her husband. She smiled sheepishly and waggled her fingers at me. I guess she’d converted to Southern Baptist, praise God.

The Reverend approached the podium and the organist let the last notes of her song drift off. He said, “Please turn to page eighteen in your hymnals.” A shuffling of pages all around, the organist played two bars, and the congregation sang “Shall We Gather By The River”. It had been three weeks since we did that one. It was a favorite.

The usual pause when the hymn ended, cleared throats, shuffling feet, the sound of hymnals being placed clumsily in their racks. Then the Reverend asked everyone to remain standing (only the newcomers had bothered to sit down) and he led the church in prayer.

His closing “Amen” caught fire, spread around the church quickly, and died out. Everyone sat. Excitement and expectation buzzed in the air and on everyone’s faces. Most of them knew, I realized, that today was important, and they wondered what their magnificent and charismatic Reverend would have to say about it.

He stood at the podium, doing his usual dramatic routine, his big hands resting on either side of the podium, eyes fixed on the Bible open before him. A lock of hair hung down over his forehead and he casually but dramatically pushed it back. Of course, it fell back into place over his forehead right away.

Finally, he spoke, his voice deep and level. Somber, but not heavy, not yet. “Good morning, and God bless you all for coming this day.” He sighed, looked down again at his Bible. Then he shook his head. “It’s been a harder week than usual, friends. I reckon you all know what today is. And for those of you who don’t, well . . . it was a year ago today that we here in Cuba Landing last laid eyes on the Right Reverend Jathed Garrity.”

A moment of respectful silence. I couldn’t help but note the Reverend’s use of “we”—as if he’d been one of the people here that day, a year ago.

“As the new pastor here at the Cuba Landing Freewill Baptist Church, I knew it fell to me to say a few words about our dear departed friend. And I’ll be honest with you, good people. It’s a responsibility I shoulder reluctantly. Who among us has the words? Who among us is eloquent enough to voice the love Brother Jathed has inspired within our hearts? Not me, friends. I’ve been told that God has given me the gift of easy talking, but no gift is equal to that challenge.”

A few amens went round, and behind me several people sniffled and blew their noses.

“So it was a year ago today,” he said, “that Reverend Jathed Garrity, the heart and soul of this town, went on up to Memphis, Tennessee, for a religious convention. Went up there to meet other reverends and blessed people to praise Jesus and do God’s work. Went up there . . . and never came back.”

Pause for effect. A grave eye cast around the congregation, almost admonishing. Why are all you sinners still alive, when a good, God-fearing man like Jathed Garrity is dead?

“He went up there,” he said. “He went up there and checked into a hotel just off Union Avenue. He went to the convention, met some old acquaintances, made some brand new friends, even. Had dinner afterwards, no doubt, prob’ly with one of those brand new friends. Then he went back to his hotel room for the night.”

Most of the congregation nodded, teary-eyed, listening as he spelled it out for them. I felt cold in the pit of my stomach. Everyone—every man and woman and child in that church—thought he was speculating, playing out a possible scenario. Only I knew the truth. Only I knew that the Reverend was telling it exactly like it happened.

“But sometime that night, the unthinkable happened. Someone came to Brother Jathed in his room. Someone came there with murder in his heart, someone consumed by wickedness and evil. And that someone took the life of our beloved brother.”

“Bless his soul,” someone said, with passion, and the sentiment rippled through the still hearts of the congregation.

I stared at the Reverend, feeling the hatred burning in my gut. He glanced at me once, looked away. I wondered if he could see it now, the difference in me.

“As you all know, the murderer was never found. Why, no one can even say for sure that Brother Jathed was murdered at all. But I ask you, friends . . . does anyone here really believe that’s not the case?” He looked around for a dissenting voice, but of course there was none. He nodded. “No, of course not. You knew Jathed too well, didn’t you? You knew he wouldn’t just abandon you. So yes, kind friends, our Jathed was murdered, taken from us, and the villain who stole him away walks free, even today.”

It was getting too intense, I could feel it. He was pushing it too far, losing them. The congregation was confused and disturbed and the atmosphere began to weigh heavy over our heads. My heart beat erratically and my mouth tasted strange, like metal.

If the Reverend noticed the shifting mood, he gave no sign. He pushed on, moving out from behind the podium now, his fists clenched. I could see beads of sweat on his forehead, right at the hairline, and I knew this was it, this was the end of the world.

He said, “I was there.”

No sound from the congregation.

“I was there,” he said again. “At the convention. I met Jathed Garrity that night. I had supper with him, afterwards.”

Just then the church doors were thrown open and everyone in the church jumped out of their seats and panic nearly erupted. Heads turned, straining, to the doors, voices a confused jumble.

Captain Forrey and Officer Oldfield stood in the open doorway, the morning sun making them into tall silhouettes. Between them, on a dolly, was a large screen television.

I glanced at the Reverend. He stood next to the podium, his brow furrowed, obviously thrown off at being interrupted in the middle of his grand revelation. He looked at me and I only stared back at him blankly until he turned his attention back to Forrey and Oldfield. I did the same.

The lawmen came up the aisle, pushing the dolly between them. The Reverend started to say something, but apparently the right words didn’t present themselves so he shut up and waited. When they’d reached the front of the church, Forrey faced the congregation and said, “I’d like to ask that anyone under twenty-one years of age please leave the church right now.”