The Killing of Bobbi Lomax (13 page)

Squeezed into a small booth in the overcrowded diner, the four of them had feasted on pancakes – blueberry and maple syrup. Ransome’s treat. A rare occasion, so Clark had asked their server for an order of bacon strips served on top of his stack. Edie and Phyllis’s warnings of death by cholesterol just made the crispy rinds taste even sweeter. Clark had been so hungry. And now he really needed a drink. The clock on the wall said fourteen minutes before ten. He hadn’t meant to be this early. But Ransome insisted he take twenty minutes to cross the street from the diner opposite the Faith’s offices. Just in case. At least he wouldn’t be seen breaking a sweat. ‘Is that the men’s room along the hall, miss?’

‘Yes, Mr Houseman. Last door on your left.’

Clark nodded thank you to the young receptionist and moved along the corridor. It was a one-stall unit. Thankfully. He was the only one waiting in the lobby. So he should have it to himself for the duration. He locked the door behind him and moved toward the sink. He stared at his reflection. Told himself that today he had to be a better version of himself. Slicker, smoother, cleverer. Quicker on his feet than he had ever been before. Charm personified.

He was starting to sweat a little.

He threw water on his face and on his pulse points. Wrist and neck. Took a deep breath and reached inside his jacket pocket. He had found the almost impossibly slim flask in an antique store down in Scottsdale. Inside his suit jacket, his best, it was invisible. And now it was light, half empty. Clark had downed the other half right when they got to the diner. While the others waited in line for a seat, he had blamed nerves and nipped to the john. He couldn’t remember another time when he’d knocked back the booze before breakfast. Not even as a student.

He put the cold silver nozzle to his lips, flicked his head back and downed what Kenny had told him was the finest Russian vodka. It was certainly priced like it, but it didn’t taste too fine. It was what Clark needed to be: strong, potent, unstoppable. He would have preferred JD, but he couldn’t risk its cloying odor. His body absorbed the vodka’s essence as he leant up against the basin and stared at himself in the small square mirror.

Clark was a witness to history. His. Story. History. His story and that of Robert Bright. But if the meeting went smoothly, he would be history’s writer. Literally. A new history. A new story. Different to the one Robert Bright had spun for himself and so very different to the one the Faith wanted Bright to have. They had airbrushed his three wives from history. Unsure which one of them to select, they had deselected them all. Rebecca was the vessel through which Robert Bright’s visions from God had reached the world, she was his transcriber, for he was barely literate. Without her, Robert Bright’s visions and his channeling of the word of God would probably never have carried as far as today. But Rebecca, his bride, was fourteen, or younger. And, therefore, it was best not to mention her too often. Especially not in the late twentieth century. Hopefully, that way, she would be eroded by time, if not by fact. The Faith would focus on his story. His. Story. Robert Bright’s story. Not the
real
story. Clark would rewrite that story. Rewrite it until they no longer recognized it. Today would be the beginning of that. If he could just hold his nerve.

He ran the cold tap, picked up the soap, and turned it over and over in his hands until he couldn’t see it for suds. His right index finger ran over his left hand and with it he traced a soapy vortex on the mirror. He stared into the centre of it as its lines came together, pulling him inside it.

Testament
of Faith.

The find of a
lifetime
.

Testament of Faith. Our
Faith
.

Our
Faith.

He stared as the vortex began to drip down from the mirror and down the white tiles towards the sink.

Testament of Faith. Our Faith.

He felt himself going under. He quickly closed his eyes, shook his head, he didn’t want to be under, not today, not here. He just wanted to be inured to his own weakness. He wanted to be strong. And he really wanted to be unstoppable.

Clark’s pager buzzed on his waistband.

Kenny.

How long had he been in here? If felt like hours. He couldn’t have missed the meeting. Shit. What the hell time was it? He’d left his watch on the den workbench. Clark checked the pager’s time. 9.56. Not even ten minutes. He wet a raft of toilet tissue, rubbed the mirror clean and then dry. He flicked open a box of tic-tacs and rattled out the last of its mints straight into his mouth. He threw the empty box in the trash, flushed the toilet he hadn’t used, started up the air-dryer, let it run over nothing for thirty seconds and then stepped back out into the hallway. The receptionist smiled when he came back into view.

Around the lobby were framed official portraits of each of the Twelve Disciples. He moved between them. Each accompanied by a short biography and a motto filched from the Faith Bible. He was meeting with Alan Laidlaw, motto: ‘That which does not kill you makes you stronger.’ Or irritated, thought Clark. Dennis Browne: ‘Before you sup from the bowl, ensure your neighbor is not hungry.’ Mr Browne looked like he’d supped from his bowl and everyone else’s. The last one on the end, Eric Jeffries: ‘Live with the Lord’s love in your heart. And you shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven.’

‘Mr Houseman?’ The receptionist was opening the door next to him. ‘They will see you now.’

They?

He thought his appointment was just with Alan Laidlaw. Wasn’t that what the secretary had said when she’d called him?

Alan Laidlaw came from a family who had converted in the early 1940s. Converted and donated a large part of their family’s ranching fortune to the Faith. Clark had heard it was $10 million. Back in ’48, that was quite the donation. Needless to say, a Laidlaw had featured in the Twelve Disciples since pretty soon after. Laidlaw was the eldest son of an eldest son. His father one of six boys who had seen action in Europe and Korea, none of whom had been killed, or even injured. Their parents’ gratitude for this miracle was reflected in the establishing of Abraham City’s first private college, reserved for members of the Faith. That was an additional $25 million, but it was rumored that they could more than afford it, for during the war the family had moved into the lucrative munitions market. Unlike farming, it was an industry not susceptible to the fickleness of the American weather, just to the fickle allegiances and dangerous ambitions of its politicians.

They
.

The Order of the Twelve Disciples were ranged against the wall at a long, thin table directly facing the door and at their center was the Supreme Leader. It was Leonardo’s
Last Supper
. And Judas had just arrived. A fact he hoped they would always remain oblivious to. It was either go forward, now, right now, or back out the door. ‘Mr Clark Houseman,’ the receptionist announced. As she left, she closed the door behind her.

It was not possible to go back.

‘Good morning, gentlemen.’ No one got up to shake his hand. By way of greeting there was a low group murmur, ‘Good morning
’
,
at the far end of the table, ‘Live with the Lord’s love in your heart’, still seated, opened his right arm, as if to guide Clark to the center of the room where sat a solitary chair.

Clark’s seat was some ten feet in front of the table, directly opposite the Supreme Leader, to whose right sat Alan Laidlaw. To his left: ‘Only the Lord knows what we do not know’. Arbuthnot. David Arbuthnot. They each had a clutch of stapled papers in front of them, on the top of which Clark could clearly see was a Xerox copy of his version of the Testament of Faith.

‘Only the Lord knows what we do not know’ spoke first.

‘Thank you for coming today, Mr Houseman. And thank you also for offering us the Testament of Faith before approaching the open market with it. We are very grateful for your discretion and consideration in this matter.’

Murmurs of agreement.

‘Your father was Thomas Houseman, was he not?’ asked ‘What doesn’t kill you’.

‘Yes, Mr Laidlaw, he was.’

‘And your mother Helen Storey of Reno?’ Clark could tell the man could barely utter the word Reno, couldn’t brook what it stood for. It was only a very slight movement, but Laidlaw’s eyes wandered to Clark’s Bible, which sat on the table in front of him. Closed. As if to open it would somehow bring forth the shame of the past, bring it into this hallowed room. Multiple wives, underage brides, the murder of the Prophet, his missing will and the ensuing deadly power struggles as Rebecca’s son Jeremiah, barely sixteen, waged a war of succession against his eighteen-year-old half-brother Abraham. A struggle that raged from Reno to Abraham City and in every desert canyon that separated them. Hundreds of the Faith’s followers died violent deaths as the Faith was cleaved in two. Jeremiah’s followers, who described themselves as the Real Faith, signed a compact to stay in Reno, and the Faith, now headed by Abraham, remained in what soon became Abraham City.

Jeremiah and Rebecca had claimed that in the hours after he was mortally wounded Robert Bright had written a will, rumored to be signed in his blood, that anointed Jeremiah, his first son with Rebecca, as his successor and tasked him with carrying the Faith to the outside world. A task he was happy to fulfil. But Abraham had other plans. As the first-born son of Elizabeth, the first and conventionally legal wife, he believed himself to be his father’s true heir, despite the fact father and son were widely thought to loathe one another.

Clark figured that the Faith, still sore 150 years later about their tawdry, violent history, wouldn’t be opening the Pandora’s box of Bright’s Bible anytime soon. Even the word Reno could barely cross their lips. ‘My mother, Helen, was indeed from Reno, sir.’

‘She has passed?’

Clark could almost feel them all hold their breath, waiting for confirmation of what they already knew. He nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’

No, sir. Three bags full, sir.

‘May the Lord Prophet take pity upon her soul.’

‘Amen.’

‘And your father lives in Phoenix now?’

Shame it’s not further south. Say, hell.

‘Yes, sir. That’s correct. He remarried. A widow. Her late husband was in charge of a Mission down there.’

They all nodded. Obviously, that was also in the briefing papers.

‘You’ve recently joined the Canyon Road Mission?’

‘That’s correct.’

As he’d expected they had done their homework. Sure, Gudsen and the Rooks had helped get him in the door, but he knew he had to be the real deal. His version of it.

‘Where did you worship before?’

‘Where my parents worshipped their entire married lives.’

‘The Lumina Mission?’

‘Yes, sir. Since my marriage a few years back, I’ve been working hard, out on the road, trying to build my business, take care of my family. I worship where I can – in any town where there’s a Mission. Sometimes, when I know attending’s not going to be possible, I give thanks in my car.’ Thanks for what, Clark didn’t say. But mostly thanks to K-ZLV for pushing their radio signal across the desert.

‘It’s hard to keep bread on the table.’ That was Browne. Hard to keep food on their table and out of his belly.

‘Yes, sir, it is. But we still want to have a large family. I was an only child. I don’t want my son to be.’

Approving smiles all around. The bigger the family the better. Every one a tribe of instant believers. Just add water.

They soon moved on, asking Clark all about how he discovered the Bible and how he felt on discovery of the Testament of Faith hidden within it. So he told them the story, and was sure to punctuate his words at least several times with his punchy little soundbites:

Testament
of Faith.

The find of a
lifetime
.

Testament of Faith. Our
faith
.

Our
Faith.

At various points in his monologue Clark noticed that along the length of the table, most of the Disciples were leant forward in anticipation of the next part, although he knew that they would have already received a blow-by-blow account from either Peter Gudsen or Rod Rook. Or both. Did the Disciples fear Clark’s narrative might have a different outcome? Clark knew that their obvious investment in the story meant that either the Bible or the Testament itself – or even both – had been verified by Peter and his academic collective at the Faith library. Unless, of course, the Order of the Twelve Disciples were toying with him like a vengeful cat plays with a mouse right before it eats it alive.

He was right not to relax. They wanted to ask more questions. Unsurprisingly, no one mentioned the Bible. Obviously the note written on lilac letterhead by Dora and Bertha had sufficed to verify that and they didn’t want to dwell on its existence. ‘What doesn’t kill you’ was holding up the Testament and looking directly at Clark. ‘It’s an interesting artefact.’ He made it sound like something they’d dug up in a temple in Luxor.

‘Yes, it is,’ said Clark.

‘My Brother Disciples have requested I ask you how much you’d want for it. Would twenty thousand suffice?’

‘Twenty thousand. Oh no.’

The Disciples’ faces set harder.

‘I couldn’t take money from the Church.’

Their faces relaxed again. And he saw what must pass for a smile on the Supreme Leader’s face.

‘Before you sup from the bowl’ spoke again. ‘Mr Houseman, that’s mighty generous of you.’

Clark spoke quickly, he didn’t want his ‘generosity’ mistaken for charity. ‘No, no money. Instead, I thought we could trade the Testament for documents from your library collection? I took the liberty of checking with Mr Gudsen and you have a couple of copies of each of the documents I’m interested in, so it wouldn’t deplete the Faith’s collection.’

‘And what would be their value?’

‘No more than twenty-five thousand. Retail.’

Laidlaw looked at the Supreme Leader. He silently nodded and almost simultaneously the Disciples were up, swarming Clark – no handshakes, but lots of back claps and warm thank yous.