Book of Nathan (30 page)

Ida bit her lip, sensing that whatever was coming next was
the real reason I was sitting in her living room.

“He said I should tell you he wasn’t as religious as you
are, but he still did his work for Jesus.”

I saw tears well up in Ida’s eyes. My words hit home.

“How much do you know about what my husband was doing in New
Jersey?”

“Not much. All Conway told me was that he was working for a
pro-life group.” That wasn’t exactly Kyzwoski’s message, but when coupled with
information from Judith Russet, it rang true.

“So did y’all tell that to the police?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I guess because it
could have stirred up a lot of questions. As far as the police are concerned,
Conway’s death was an accident. But there’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”

“For a change, he was trying to do the right thing.” Two
lines of tears traveled south.
 

“By following me? Taking pictures of everything I did?
Everywhere I went?”

“He did it because Arita Almiras asked me to help. I was the
one who talked Conway into spying on you. It was me who got him involved with
Almiras.”

Bewilderment didn’t even come close to describing my
reaction. Who the hell was Arita Almiras? “I’m sorry, Mrs. Kyzwoski, I’m lost.”

Ida shifted in her seat. She wore the same style muumuu that
she had on when I first saw her at the Wayside. “Proverbs says that he who so
committeth adultery destroyeth his soul. Did y’all ever hear that?”

“No, ma’am. I don’t think so.”

“Conway committed adultery. Any number of times far as I can
tell.”

At least once, I thought, recalling Conway’s hairy foot
protruding from Twyla’s bed at the Wayside Motel.

“What I did was to push him into a corner,” Ida went on.
“Like he said, he din’t believe the same way I did. Even so, I told him if he
was to stay with me and the boys, he had to do penance. That’s when I made him
do the extra work with Almiras.”

“The extra work—was it for
Quia Vita
?”

“No.
Quia
Vita
wasn’t why Conway went to New Jersey.”

“Visio Dei?”

“The rich part of
Quia
Vita
?
Never had nothin’ to do with them, and I know they wouldn’t be bothered with
people like me or Conway.”

“So it was this Arita Almiras who asked your husband to
follow me?”

“Had to take time off from work to do it,” said Ida. “But
Conway went along with what Almiras wanted ’cause I forced him to. My husband
wasn’t all bad, in spite of what most people think.”

I have no idea what turned the Kyzwoski living room into a
confessional. Ida’s insides were suddenly spilling out, and I was sitting in a
bug-infested chair taking it all in like a priest. “How is it that you’re
connected to Almiras?”
 

“Shouldn’t be sayin’ much about this. But it seems Almiras
isn’t what he’s made out to be. The dark places of the earth are full of the
habitations of cruelty. Psalm 74.”

“Could we go back a step or two? Why is this Almiras
interested in me in the first place?”

“Got something he wants,” Ida explained. “Some kind of
computer disk. Conway’s job was to take pictures of you wherever you went and
send ’em to one of Almiras’s assistants. Then the others searched places where
you might-a hid the disk.”

Manny Maglio had taken care of two men who had tried twice
to walk over me as a way of getting to Doc Waters. Conway Kyzwoski had been
tracking me since my memorable stay at the Wayside Motel. Now Ida gave me the
unnerving news that there were others picking through my personals. “Others?”

“You need to understand Almiras wants that disk bad. That’s
why it wasn’t just Conway who was workin’ on you.”

I was having trouble getting my head around her words. “Help
me understand what’s going on.”

Ida drew a deep breath. “There’s another group that’s
different than
Quia Vita
.
A lot different.”

“You belong to this other group?”

Ida nodded.

“And Arita Almiras?”

“He heads it up.”

“When you say the groups are different. How so?”

Ida took time to phrase an answer. “Almiras is more about
action and less about talk.”

“I see,” I said, not seeing anything. Action
could cover a lot of territory,
including hospitals and autopsy rooms. How much danger was I in?
 

“The Almiras Society is what it’s called.”

“Go on.”

“The society does things
Quia
Vita
doesn’t.”

I was starting to understand. The society sounded like an
extremist faction that broke away from Judith Russet’s crowd. A clique made up
of those who weren’t big on discussion but high on disruption. “Things like
what?”

“Puttin’ abortionist names on the Internet. Makin’ sure
neighbors know if they got a baby killer livin’ on their street. Things like
that.”

“The woman who runs
Quia
Vita
—”

“Russet.”

“What does she know about the Almiras Society?”

“From what I hear, she tries not to know much,” said Ida.
“Probably don’t ask a lot of questions because Arita Almiras isn’t someone you
want to offend.”

I couldn’t picture Russet worried about offending anyone.
“You think she’s afraid of this Almiras?”

“Most people are.”

If Russet were afraid of Almiras then this had to be one
menacing fanatic. “I’d like to meet Arita Almiras. How would I find him?”

“Don’t know.”

“You don’t know? But he runs the organization you belong
to.”

“It’s not the kind of society where we elect officers and
have meetings. We’re connected by what we believe—about savin’ babies. Far as I
know, most of us in the society have never seen Almiras.”

Seemed impossible until I remembered the wizard in
The Wizard of Oz.
Intimidating
until Toto pulled back the curtain. What I needed to do was find the Almiras
Society’s home base and then part the drapes. Exposing Almiras might be the
only way to keep him from nipping at my heels—or chewing off my head.
 

“Do you know what he looks like?”
 

“No. He has a couple of assistants. They’re the ones who
send us information about special assignments.”
 

“What kind of assignments?”

“Usually ones the society pays for.”
 

“Did you get paid for your trip to the Wayside Motel in
Orlando?”

“Conrad probably already told you about all that,” Ida
incorrectly guessed. “Yes, we got paid—but not much.”

“Why were you sent there?”

“To watch you. At the time, it was me who was working for
the society—not Conway. When he got tangled up with the woman you was
with—well, that got things off track.”

A flash of anger and sorrow wrinkled Ida’s face.

“How could Almiras possibly know we’d be at the Wayside
Motel?” I asked, not expecting Ida would answer. She didn’t need to. I was
beginning to unravel the mystery on my own.

“Don’t know. We just do what we’re told. Once you left the
motel, my orders were to follow you as long as you was in Orlando.”

“Did you?”

“Not right off. Got interrupted for a time after Conway and
me had a disagreement of sorts.”

I said nothing about how the Kyzwoski disagreement
had cost me part of a night’s sleep at
the Wayside. “After you checked out of the motel, you tracked me down.”

“Caught up with y’all at the jail when you was meetin’ with
Dr. Kurios’s killer. But you was on your own a lot of the time before then.
Almiras was unhappy about that from what I was told.”

“And after Orlando?”

Ida’s remorse choked her up momentarily. Her feelings for
Conway obviously still ran deep. “That’s when I convinced the society to use
Conway to keep tabs on what you was up to.”

“You didn’t go with him to New Jersey?”

“Stayed here with the kids. Conway drove his truck up north,
and did his work with a video camera the society gave him.”

Ida’s expression told me she was about finished. “Thank you
for being so honest, Mrs. Kyzwoski,” I said.
 

“Tellin’ you all this ’cause of what happened to Conway. I
think he done a lot of things that ain’t right. I want to make up for whatever
he done that’s wrong. Plus, you didn’t tell the police why Conway was in New
Jersey. So, I owe you somethin’.”

“I understand.”

Ida hoisted herself out of her chair. “Don’t think you do,
Mr. Bullock. Understand, I mean. That’s as much as I can say right now.”

“Well, thank you, ma’am.” I followed Ida to the torn screen
door. “Just one more thing. Arita Almiras—I never heard a name like that
before.”

“It isn’t the man’s real name. Arita and Almiras are angels.
Don’t know what Arita means but Almiras is supposed to be the angel who’s the
master of bein’ invisible.”

“Thanks again for giving me your time,” I said with
sincerity. “I hope I have an opportunity to meet Mr. Almiras. He and I have a
lot to talk about.”

“If you get the chance, you shouldn’t let it pass. It’s what
the society’s motto says.”

“Motto?”

“In Christ’s language, it goes:
Occasio aegre offertur, facile
amittitur.
”

I spun around. “What did you say?”

“
Occasio aegre
offertur, facile amittitur.
Means an opportunity is offered with
difficulty but lost with ease. Ever hear that before?”

“Yes.” A bolt of electricity ran up my spine. “Yes, I have.”

Chapter 20

Ten
minutes after leaving Paradise Mobile Estates, we were lost again. Yigal pulled
into a run-down, two-pump gas station hoping a grease-coated attendant might
get us back on course.

I rolled down my back window. “Which way to Charleston
Airport?”

The attendant said nothing.

“The airport,” I repeated. “How do we get there?”

The attendant moved closer to the car and looked inside.
When one of the station’s floodlights gave the man a decent peek at Twyla, he
blurted out directions through a mostly toothless grin.

“Thanks,” I said, and Yigal started pulling away.

“Hold it!” the attendant yelled. He was still holding the
passenger-side door handle.
 

“Something we can do for you?” I asked.

“Wasn’t you on TV? That wiener thing—”

It was more than I could take. I shrugged off the attendant,
shut the car window, and told Yigal to head for the airport. Fast.
 

“You’re famous, you know,” Yigal informed me.

“You are,
Bullet!”
Twyla chimed in. “Isn’t it something what a sausage can do?”

Yigal nodded in agreement and asked, “Why the airport?”
 

I could have told Yigal that the conversation with Ida had
given me new coordinates in my search for who really killed Benjamin Kurios.
But I said nothing that might lead to a long, protracted discussion.