Valediction Part 12

"In Washington?" The vertigo spiraled down. Bottomless.

"Yes. He's from here. And he got me this job."

"He must be a fine man," I said, "or you wouldn't be with him."

"I don't live with him," Susan said. Her voice was steady but I could hear strain in it. "And I don't wish to live with him or marry him. I have told him that I love you and that I will always love you."

"Is he content with that?"

"No, but he accepts it. He knows that he'll lose me if he presses." The firmness in her voice was chilling.

"Me too," I said.

Silence ran along the 3000 miles of line and microwave relay. Then Susan said, "You have got to get over Los Angeles. That's not a condition, or anything. It is truth. For your own sake. You have to be able to fail, to be wrong. For G.o.d's sake, you are human."

"Yes," I said. "I'm trying. I met a woman, and she helps."

"Good," Susan said.

"What's his name?" I said.

"You don't know him, no need to name him. He is not part of you and me."

I said, "That cuts it pretty fine."

Susan was silent.

"You don't mind Linda?" I said.

"No. You have to unlock. You have to open up. You're like a fortress with the drawbridge closed. If Linda helps you, I like it."

"And it makes you feel less guilty," I said.

"Maybe, and maybe if there's someone with you, I worry for you less . . . sometimes I worry about you so that I can barely breathe."

"I care about her," I said. "I guess I sort of love her. But not like I love you. Linda knows that. I have not lied to her about it."

"The only thing that would be awful," Susan said, and I knew from her voice that she was speaking of things she'd thought about often, "would be if you said to me, 'I never want to see you again. I never want to look at your G.o.dd.a.m.ned face again.' When I think of that I get the awful anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach."

"I will never say that," I said.

"Maybe you should use words like never and ever less often," she said.

"I'll never use them ever again," I said.

"Weak humor," Susan said, "but better than none."

"It hurts only when I laugh," I said.

"Yes. I'm going to hang up now. You be careful of yourself."

"I will."

"I'll call soon."

"Yes."

She hung up and the silence in the room swarmed in on me. I looked at my watch, 10:30. Linda had gone to a meeting of the art directors of Boston. I called her. She was home. I went. It was raining again.

Linda was wearing a pink nightgown when she let me in. I put my arms around her and held her against me soundlessly. After a while she leaned her head back and looked at my face, her body still pressed against me. "Susan?" she said.

I nodded.

"Come to the bed," she said. I hugged her harder against me.

She said it again, gently. "Come to the bed. We'll lie on the bed together."

I went with her to the bedroom and we lay on the bed. I hadn't even taken off my raincoat. Linda kissed me for a long time. And she touched my hair and rubbed the back of my neck. And patted my cheek quietly and kissed me again.

I clung to her as if I clung to earth, as if to let go were to disperse into the rainy night. Linda seemed to know that. She held me as I held her and kissed me and patted me. There was no s.e.xuality to it. There was love and need and solace.

She said, "Do you want to talk?" I shook my head.

She rubbed my neck some more. "You talked with Susan," Linda said.

"Yes," I said. "She has a friend."

Linda gently disengaged us and put her hands on each side of my face and looked at me from very close and said softly and slowly with emphasis, "So do you," and kissed me on the mouth, and now it was more than love and need and solace. Now there was s.e.xuality. Raincoat and all.

CHAPTER 24.

I made some Xerox copies of my notes of Winston's spilled beans. I put a copy in the safe-deposit box, took out one of the photos, and went back to my office. I got out two manila envelopes. In each I put a copy of the notes and a picture of Paultz and Winston. Then I went to see Sherry Spellman.

She was wearing jeans and a sweat shirt that said no YOU KNOW JESUS across the back, and was hoeing beans in a garden in back of the Salisbury branch of the church. She stopped when she saw me and looked a little less serious. Life would never be bubbly for Sherry.

We sat in the front seat of my car and I showed her the picture first.

"Reverend Winston, you recognize. The other man is Mickey Paultz, whose primary source of income is the processing and sale of heroin."

Sherry looked at me and widened her eyes. I gave her the notes. "Notice," I said as she began to read, "that each page is signed by Reverend Winston."

She read on and then stopped and looked at me and read some more. When she got through she shook her head.

"No," she said. I nodded.

"No. He wouldn't have done this. I don't know what you're doing but it's not true." I waited. There was the hum of locust in the air, and the sound occasionally of a dog, and now and then the rush of a car past us on Route 1.

"Why does he say these things?" I said.

"He didn't. You made them up and forged his signature." She looked at me. I waited. She shook her head again. Her eyes were wet.

"No," she said. "You wouldn't do that." She began to read the notes again. Halfway through she put her head down in her hands and began to cry. I patted her shoulder softly.

Finally she stopped crying. "It's true," she said. Her voice was clogged.

"Yes," I said. My throat felt a little achy. Sherry hunched very tightly; her shoulders pressing in toward her small breast.

"Isn't there anyplace for me?" she said.

"You like this church?" I said.

She nodded. "I know you think it's junk," she said. "But it is home for me. It is peace. We're not crazy cults or anything. We love G.o.d and trust Him and try to live like Jesus. And now it's gone." She was crying again. "And now I have no place."

I held her against me. My breath was heavy balanced against her sobs.

"It's not gone," I said. "I'll fix it for you." A crowd of chickens came around the side of the building clucking and pecking at the ground and began to mill around the yard near the front door. Feeding time. Sherry's body shook as I held her.

"I'll fix it," I said. "You don't need Winston. You are the church, not him."

She tried to speak, but she cried too hard. It wasn't intelligible.

"You can run it," I said. "I'll get you financing. I'll get you help."

A young woman in a plaid shirt and a wrapaound denim skirt and cowboy boots came out of the front of the church building and began scattering feed to the chickens. They made a lot of noise about it. As she scattered the feed she looked uneasily at me and Sherry in my car.

Sherry stopped crying. She sat up and wiped her nose with the sleeve of her sweat shirt. "How?" she said.

"You'll see," I said.

"Do you really know how?" she said.

"Yes, but it's better if I not tell you."

"You really know?"

"I have a plan," I said.

CHAPTER 28.

Vinnie Morris had promised two men on Bullard Winston around the clock and whatever else Vinnie was, he was good for what he said.

"Vinnie tell you something you can take it to the morgue," Hawk said. I nodded.

We were driving down the southern artery toward Paultz Construction. I had my short-barreled .38 in a hip holster, Hawk was like an MX dense pack. He had a .44 magnum in a shoulder holster, a .32 automatic in his belt, and a 12-gauge double-barreled shotgun with the barrels sawed off and most of the stock removed. It was lethal at four feet and useless at twenty.

"You got a razor in your shoe?" I said.

"Sho' 'nuff, boss," Hawk said. "Jess wait till yo turns yo haid."

"None of you people do a good black accent," I said. "Didn't you ever listen to Amos 'n' Andy?" Amos 'n' Andy?"

"Not unless they yelled in my window," Hawk said. "We didn't have no radios where I grew up."

We pulled up in front of Paultz's yard. "You think he gonna let you hoist him like this?" Hawk said.

"Yes. He doesn't know what I've got. He doesn't know who's in this with me. Three hundred and fifty thousand is zippidy-do-dah to him. It'll buy him some time to find out how much of a threat I am."

"He gonna kill you, babe. Now or later."

"If he can," I said.

We got out and walked toward the trailer. Hawk carried the shotgun in his right hand, slapping it gently against his leg as we walked. He might have been carrying a salami for all the attempt he made to conceal it.

The fat woman was not in the outer office. Leaning against her desk was a barrel-bodied man with an army .45 stuck in his belt in front. He jerked his head toward the door to the inner office and we went on in. Paultz was there sitting in his armchair, and the two thugs I knew were there, and a white-haired man in an expensive suit was there sitting in the other chair by the kitchen table. He had a briefcase. One of the two thugs, the younger one with the tattoos, was holding an M-2 carbine with a banana clip.

I said, "I'm going to take an envelope out of my inside pocket."

Paultz nodded. I took out a number ten envelope and handed it over to Paultz. "The original," I said, "of Winston's confession."

Paultz took it and handed it to the white-haired man. The white-haired man opened it and read the confession. He had healthy pink skin. When he finished reading he nodded at Paultz.

"How do I know you haven't copied it?" Paultz said.

I shrugged. "You're paying me not to show them around."

"You still got Winston?" Paultz said.

"Of course I do. That's why you're going to give me money. So I won't use him."

"How about he talks on his own?" the white-haired man said.

I looked at Paultz. "What do you think, Mickey?"