Parishioner (11 page)

He’d never counted the number of lives he’d taken until Father Frank had him confess at Expressions: twenty-two if the white man died, twenty-nine if you held him accountable for the times he’d been an accomplice.

For a brief moment he considered driving off the cliff to his left.

“Even the criminal cannot pass judgment,” Frank whispered from somewhere in the car.

He reached the Seabreeze City limits at four forty-five in the morning. It was still shy of five a.m. when he rolled to a stop on the unpaved parking lot.

The iron-strapped ebony wood doors opened when he placed his thumb on the tiny crystal plate that operated the sophisticated locking system.

The overhead lights came on as he walked down the narrow aisle between the simple pews, through to the back door, and out into the yard. He strode up to Frank’s rectory, intending to walk right in, but before he got there the door swung inward and Frank was standing there fully dressed in his signature black.

“Come on in, Brother Ecks. I’ve been expecting you.”

And it was true. There were two chairs facing each other before an iron candelabra set with more than a dozen wax sticks burning intensely. Frank used candles that burned brighter than normal tapers. They were more like small torches.

“Have a seat,” the self-proclaimed minister offered.

“I don’t want to sit.”

“Do so anyway, Brother Rule.”

Xavier obeyed even though he promised himself that he would resist the man who had sent him out to break his oath.

“Soto called,” Frank said as he seated himself. “He told me about a subterranean killing field, one man sorely wounded, and another man dead.”

“The white man’s not dead?”

“Not yet.”

“I lashed out at them as if I had never spent one Sunday in this church,” Xavier said.

Frank allowed these words their own space. He did not dispute or deny the Parishioner’s claim.

Light began to break upon the ocean from the eastern sky.

For a moment Xavier shivered uncontrollably. Tears streamed down his face and he
found it hard to maintain his balance on the chair. He leaned forward, putting his elbows upon his knees and his face in his palms. As the light grew so did his despair. This was one of those few emotional moments that surpassed the violence in his heart and mind. This anger, this hostility he knew was not an aspect of the war that surrounded his upbringing. His cousin had become a practical nurse and his brother, Warren, was an accountant in Montclair, New Jersey.

“Ecks,” Frank said at last.

Xavier raised his head and teetered in the chair.

“Tell me what happened,” the minister said. “All of it.”

By the time the declaration was over Xavier was sitting up again. He neither shivered nor cried. But he felt empty, directionless.

“The sun is up” were the first words Frank uttered after Xavier’s story. “Let’s take a walk down to the beach.”

The path from the church down to the seashore was a gentle sloping trail through succulent plants and hardy grasses. There were small blue and white flowers here and there and huge white boulders that made Xavier think of superior beings so advanced that they could afford to ignore us, finally outlasting the passage of man.

“You brought your friend back to his home and told him to follow his own mind,” Frank said as they walked north on the hard-packed sand.

“Yes.”

“You only protected yourself from men who would have certainly murdered you and him.”

“If you want to look at it that way.”

“That’s the only way, Brother Rule. The only way. You’ve taken up this cause for a good reason. You weren’t looking for trouble, not really.”

“Sedra is dead because I kicked the hornets’ nest.”

“She’s dead because she lived a life dealing in slaves, suffering, and murder.”

“But if I hadn’t gone there …”

“Somebody else would have gone. Benol was dead set on this course.”

“Do you believe Benol?”

“I believe that she abducted three babies. I believe that she will lead you to those lives that were stolen.”

“But is she an innocent or at least a penitent?”

“I don’t know,” Father Frank admitted.

“Then why send anyone to follow her lead?”

“Have I ever told you what I think men are, Ecks?”

A seagull cried, and Xavier’s heart quailed one of the few times when life was not on the line.

“No, sir,” he said.

“Earth,” the minister intoned, “is a multitiered plane of existence. For the animals and plants it is, for the most part, an Eden of extraordinary beauty and wonder. For these beings life is one continuous story with no beginning or end.

“But for humanity this life is hell. We were once, I believe, angels existing in some higher dimension. We faltered in our duties or our faith and were thrown down here among others like us to experience the anarchy that a failure of duty causes. We don’t remember where we’re from or what we did to bring us here, but here we are—up to our necks in blood and shit, torture and death.

“We cannot escape the reality foisted upon us by whatever powers there are … maybe something without sentience—like fate. Maybe our consciousness is just some ephemeral biotic that we must experience before returning to the unconscious unity that once embraced us—I don’t know. What I do know is that we must act. We have to work for what we think is good. We will stumble and fall and take many wrong turns on this journey. But we have to keep on getting back up and searching for our bearings. We must try to do right in a world where everything is wrong.”

They walked for two hours after that. Xavier wanted to respond; he wanted to ask about the details of his minister’s complex faith. But the words remained unformed—inarticulate.

When they finally climbed back up to the rectory the small table was set out with two
bowls of steaming porridge and cups filled with hot coffee for Xavier and black tea for Frank.

“So you’re telling me that anything a man does is forgiven if he does it trying to do what’s right,” Xavier said when they sat down to the repast.

“I’m saying that we are unforgivable but still we have to press on.”

He ordered waffles and crisp bacon at a seaside hotel restaurant where Pico Boulevard meets the ocean. He liked the coffee there and also watching passersby through the windows who were drawn to the shore.

For nearly an hour he went over the minister’s private sermon, wondering whether it was all a Bible story or if Frank actually believed that humanity was the definition and the real manifestation of hell. This question seemed very important to him, more so than the dead and dying left in his wake.

“More coffee?” a young woman asked.

She looked to be in her twenties if you didn’t notice the thin lines around her eyes. Her hair was natural blond with dyed blue highlights and her skin was pale copper.

“What’s your name?” Xavier asked.

“Benicia.”

“From Brazil?”

“Rio.” She smiled for him.

“Coffee’d be nice, Benicia.”

The notepaper in the money clip had Sedra’s address scrawled across it. There was no signature or printing on the small sheet, but when holding it up to the sunlight Xavier could see the watermark:
The Federal Hotel
.

“Have you been to my country?” Benicia asked as she poured his coffee from a white ceramic thermos.

“Yeah.” He smiled. “Friend of mine had a place down on the water outside Bahia.”

When her eyes widened Xavier could see the woman’s irises were green and gold.

“It is so beautiful there,” she said.

“And real,” he agreed.

Three days after he left Bahia his friend down there had been killed. Word was that it was the police. They had come to the seaside condo looking for Rule.

“Too bad I don’t speak Portuguese,” he added. “I think you can’t really get to know a Brazilian woman without speaking her tongue.”

The copper of Benicia’s skin deepened and she hurried away.

“Federal Hotel,” the proper man’s voice on the phone said. “How can I direct your call?”

“Concierge, please.”

“Concierge, yes, sir.”

The phone rang once and another courteous man’s voice said, “Federal Hotel. How can I help you?”

Benicia put Xavier’s bill down in front of him while at the same time removing his silverware and empty plate.

“This is Mr. Gonzalez from Fleet Florist,” Xavier Rule said. “We’re supposed to deliver a bouquet of sweetheart roses to a Ms. Doris Milne.”

“Yes?”

“It’s what we like to call a time-sensitive anniversary. She and the man who is sending the roses, Lawrence O’Kate, met at three forty-six a year ago. He wants them delivered at exactly that time. Can you do that?”

“Let me see,” the practiced voice said. “Milne … Yes. Of course we can. When will you be delivering the flowers?”

“Just after noon. But please don’t tell her. Mr. O’Kate wants it to be a surprise.”

“It’ll be our pleasure.”

The inflated bill had the waitress’s name and phone number written across the bottom. Benicia Torres.