Parishioner (34 page)

Carlo was a Panamanian who lived with his sister and grandmother on Hauser near Wilshire. At fifteen he was short and dusky, with odd light brown eyes that seemed to have a language of their own. He ran out from the doorway of the dark apartment building at five minutes to four.

“Hey, Mr. Noland.” Carlo waved before climbing into the canvas-covered back of the truck.

Damien lived off Fairfax and Wilshire. He was blond and Jewish, lanky, with a good
throwing arm. He climbed in next to Benicia, pushing her closer to Xavier.

“Good to see you, Mr. Noland,” the dark-eyed sandy-haired kid said.

Seeing Damien reminded Ecks of Lenny O lying unconscious somewhere in the back rooms of the West Hollywood hardware store.

“This is Miss Torres,” Ecks said.

“Pleased to meet you,” Damien said with a smile.

“Me too,” Carlo added, sticking his head in through the window connecting the cab to the back of the truck.

Angelique was waiting on the sidewalk in blue jeans and a blue hoodie. Those work clothes could not hide her tall, elegant form. Her black skin and white eyes were in stark, beautiful relief.

She climbed into the back with Carlo and the truck drove to the distribution hut on Sepulveda.

At the big aluminum shelter, Benicia followed as Ecks and the kids grabbed hundred-issue bundles from the floor. After they’d loaded a dozen bundles into the truck, Carlo and Angelique climbed into the back and started folding papers to quarter size and wrapped them with blue rubber bands from a big plastic bag.

In the meanwhile Ecks and Damien moved thirty-five more bundles, throwing them into the back of the truck. Carlo and Angelique were hidden by stacks of bound newspapers.

“Ain’t seen you in a while, Ecks,” a big red-faced man said just as the Parishioner was about to climb into the driver’s seat.

“Been busy with church business, Elmo.”

“Oh,” the rotund newspaper distributor said, unconvinced. “I thought you sold out to Bud.”

“No.”

“Oh.”

Ecks slammed the door and drove off toward the thin band of orange light the sun made as the earth turned.

They worked delivering newspapers from four forty-six until seven forty-eight. On long stretches where there were lots of customers, all three kids jumped out and ran down the street after the truck, throwing their little missiles onto porches and lawns. At large apartment buildings they scrambled up stairs—moving fast.

“How do they remember them all?” Benicia asked when Ecks had parked at the end of a long block of apartment buildings.

“They got a program in their smartphones that gives ’em a checklist. They mark ’em off as they go.”

“You pay for their phones?”

“Just the data plan and limited text so we stay in touch. They pay for calls and anything extra.”

On blocks where there were only one or two drops, Damien, with his unerring eye, threw papers from the window. He never missed.

“Dad says that I’m like Sandy Koufax,” he said when Benicia complimented his throw.

“Who’s that?” she asked.

Ecks dropped the kids off at Fairfax High at seven fifty-eight. Then he drove back downtown to Benicia’s car. When they stopped at the curb in front of the parking garage, it was she who leaned over to kiss him.

“I had a really great time,” she said.

“Yeah,” Ecks said, feeling unaccustomed nervousness. “Me too.”

“I could have said no,” she said again.

“Why didn’t you? I would have listened.”

“It was the right time,” she said with a smile.

Ecks kissed her and then walked her into the garage, waited while she started the engine of her Saab, and watched as she drove off.

He got to the Waffle House by nine thirty-five and asked for a booth away from the broad window that looked out on La Brea. There he had time to drink a cup of black coffee and take inventory of his situation.

Benol had started the ball rolling. It was she who hired the detective, and then went to Frank asking for help locating Brayton and the children she kidnapped.

Brayton was dead.

One of the boys was dead.

Doris killed her kidnapper and only confidante, her pimp and sometimes aunt—Sedra. Doris also tried to kill Ecks, drugged George, and was at the scene of Hank’s murder—toting a gun.

Swan was dying. Father Frank’s church had secret baptisms. And Ecks felt like a chrysalis about to vomit forth a new man into the world.

The world? Ecks pressed both thumbs on the bone just above where his eyes met.

Not the world,
this
world. This world where people were getting murdered and children were not taught to read; where a woman could set up shop on the corner in a peaceful neighborhood dealing in slavery and murder.

“Hello, Mr. Noland.”

Looking up, Ecks saw Benol standing next to the booth.

It was as if he had conjured her with his mind. This feeling was so strong that he felt no compunction to greet her.

“Can I sit down?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“Did you go to the Farmers’ Market?” she asked.

Xavier Rule maintained his silence. His eyes tightened as he scrutinized his client.

“Are you going to speak?” she demanded.

“Tell me how you came to know Jerry Jocelyn.”

She flinched in response to the verbal slap.

“How did you?” she said, and then, “The hotel, of course. You were waiting for me to come in. You saw him with me.”

“That’s the answer to your question. Now how about mine?”

Benol was wearing a gray dress with a cobalt collar. Ecks wore black cotton pants and a dark blue T-shirt, his work uniform.

“He called me,” she said, looking down at the red tabletop.

At that moment a waitress, whose name tag read
Yolanda
, came up to the table.

“What can I get you children?” the big woman asked.

She was both older and darker than the Parishioner. Yolanda called everybody
child
. Her fat cheeks and crafty eyes made for pleasant banter on days when a bad mood hit Ecks.

“Chicken and waffles,” the Parishioner said. “And more coffee for me.”

“I’ll take coffee, black,” Benol uttered, and Yolanda went away.

“How did he get your number?” Ecks asked, sounding like a jealous boyfriend needing to know all the steps taken to infidelity.

“I asked him but he didn’t say. I figured that he spoke to the detective or someone the detective had spoken to. He knew what I was looking for. He said that he was trying to find the boys too. He promised me a payday of fifteen thousand dollars if, when I found the boys, I turned the names over to him first.”

“And here you were already looking for them.”

“Yes, I know.”

“That really doesn’t make too much sense.”

“Jerry said that he knew certain parties that were interested in finding out what happened to the boys. They were willing to pay good money for the information. I figured it must have been some relative. I didn’t see anything wrong with helping out the boys’ families.”

“If he was willing to pay you fifteen thousand then there must have been a lot more somewhere.”

“Yes. I don’t know the sum exactly, but Jerry, I bet, is getting ten times what I am.”

“More’n a hundred thousand dollars,” Xavier Rule said. “That really doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“Maybe it does,” Benol said with questionable certainty. “Jerry said that it has something to do with an inheritance, that the family can only collect if their son survives. And he also indicated that they had a certain amount of concern for the other lost boys.”

“That why Hank is dead?”

“He was a drug addict. Maybe his death didn’t have anything to do with the kidnapping?”

“You believe that?”

“I told Jerry about Henry after he was killed.”

“But you didn’t tell Frank about Jerry.”

“He came to me after I went to Frank.”

“But you were still using the church,” Ecks countered.

“No. I always wanted to find those boys. Ask Theodora. So what if I could make a little money on the side? I’d been let go from my temp job. If Jerry wasn’t putting me up in that hotel I’d be homeless. My savings ran out a week ago.”

The waitress came with the food and drinks.

“You children play nice now,” she said before swinging her big hips back toward the kitchen service window.

“So what do you think happened, Bennie?”

“Henry was murdered.”

“And who do you suppose did that?”

Benol just stared at the question and the questioner.

Ecks went to work on the waffle and three pieces of deep-fried chicken. Whenever he was faced with difficult problems his appetite kicked in. The waffles were served with margarine and imitation maple syrup but he wasn’t particular.

“I don’t know,” Benol said at least three minutes after Ecks had asked the last question.

“Did you tell Jerry about the boy’s death?” Ecks asked through a mouthful of waffle.

“I can’t find him. He’s not answering his phone and his receptionist says that he’s on vacation. I don’t know—maybe it’s just a coincidence that Henry is dead.”

“Uh-huh,” Xavier said, putting down his fork. “You shouldn’t go back to that hotel.”