The Ambition (7 page)

Strider stifled an objection. After all, his work speaks for itself. His last series won every investigative award in the region.

“We’re going to jettison the other two guys on your team,” he continued. That wasn’t news to Strider; he already assumed they would get cut. “But I want you to dig up the kind of exclusives that will keep us the talk of the town. What are you working on now? Please tell me it’s something big.”

Strider knew that Howard didn’t like expansive explanations, so he simply said: “Eric Snow.”

Howard slapped his forehead and let loose with an expletive. “You’ve got Snow? Fantastic! What — banging his secretary? Covering up child abuse? This is
great,
Strider! Snow’s a big fish. He’s a rising star.”

“Whoa, I’m still in the investigatory stage.”

“Is someone leaking something to you? You got insider stuff?”

“It started with a hunch,” said Strider.

“A hunch? I hope you’ve got more than that.”

“I’ve been turning the place upside down, poring over everything I can get my hands on, talking with former staffers and members who’ve left the church — you name it.”

As usual, Howard was after the headline. “So what’s the angle?”

Strider swallowed hard. “Nothing concrete yet, but I’m tracking down some real possibilities.”

Howard looked off into the distance as he imagined a front–page Sunday headline exposing one of the nation’s most prominent clergymen and one of the country’s most influential churches — a celebrated citadel of modern American evangelicalism. He liked what he saw. It was the stuff of Pulitzers.

“Listen, Strider, nail it down,” he said, standing to signal the end of their meeting. “Nail
him.”

III

“Tommy O — it’s Dom. Pick up … I don’t like machines. Where were you last week? You’re not bailing on me, are you? You missed a great set — Witkowski walked away with 40 large. He’s back tonight and ripe for the picking. I’ll see you tonight, pal!”

Tom’s eyes widened as the answering machine clicked off.
Forty grand. That would solve a lot of problems. Chase off a lot of creditors. And Witkowski’s an idiot; how many times has he botched a hand? Who knows how much a real player could have scored? Forty grand would get my chin above water …

Tom put down his beer and massaged his face with both hands.
But Bugatti … Maybe there’s another game someplace. Maybe on the North Side. There’s one over on Fullerton …

He took another swig. No,
the Bugattis have their tentacles everywhere; Dom would find out — and then what? I don’t need him coming after me … Still, forty large. One night …

He glanced around his small house. All the little touches that Laura had added to make it a home were gone with her. Now the place was Spartan, cold, stark. He let his mind linger on Witkowski’s take. Maybe with that kind of money, he could have kept her.

He gave his head a shake. He reached over and picked up his car keys.
Friday night. Time for a weekly date with Phillip Taylor.

IV

Gina pulled out a chair and sat down at the round wooden table. Looking up from her salad, Audrey Byrne spoke so softly that she was basically just mouthing the words: “Nothing yet?”

Gina only briefly looked at her friend and shook her head, afraid she might start to cry if she talked about how Strider hadn’t called in the five days since their blowout at Le Boujolais.

Gina removed a sandwich from a brown paper bag and the two of them ate in silence. Four or five other teachers murmured throughout the Teacher’s Lounge, quietly enjoying a respite from their students.

Finally, unprompted, Gina managed to speak. “This is his pattern — whenever we have a fight, he freezes me out. But this time … I don’t know. It seems so final.”

Audrey looked around the room. “Too many ears,” she whispered. “Let’s go for a walk.”

They tossed their trash and exited the lounge, turning left down a corridor that became a curved hallway. With the students at lunch and other teachers covering monitor duty, there was nobody around. Audrey unlocked the door to her fifth–grade classroom and the two of them slipped inside, Gina perching on the edge of Audrey’s desk while Audrey eased herself into her chair.

“I really don’t want to lose him,” Gina said. “I feel like he needs me. Moving out was hard enough, but then to have him propose — oh, Audrey, I don’t know …”

“Are you having second thoughts?”

“Yes — and third and fourth. Still, I think it’s the right thing to do. Like Eric Snow said that Sunday a few weeks ago, you can’t be — what’s that term the Bible uses?”

“Unequally yoked.”

“Yeah, right. Married to someone who isn’t a Christian. The problem is I’m sure Strider believes I won’t marry him because I don’t think he’s good enough for me anymore.”

“It’s not that. It’s because the conflict would escalate after you got married. There’d be arguments over how to manage your money, and how to raise your kids, and how to spend your weekends, and everything else. You’re going to be viewing the world — more and more — from conflicting perspectives.”

Gina strolled to the window, looking out at the children chasing each other in an impromptu game of tag. “I thought faith was supposed to bring peace,” she said softly. “That’s not what I feel. I know Strider’s got rough edges, but I still love him.”

Audrey, a blue–eyed redhead whose long hair was pulled back, played absently with a rubber band. “Do you think he’d ever be open to considering faith?”

Gina didn’t take her eyes off the children. “He says no. And I think he means it.” She closed the blinds and turned to Audrey. “He’s from the old school of Chicago newspapers — skeptical of everyone and everything. You know their motto, right?”

“No, what is it?”

“ ‘If your mother says she loves you — check it out.’ “

Audrey laughed. “That’s pretty skeptical, all right.”

Gina didn’t crack a smile. “Maybe I should call him,” she said, more to herself than to Audrey.

A bell sounded. Audrey stood and walked to her friend. “Gina, be careful,” she said. “I know it’s tempting to try to reconcile, but what happens then? Relationships aren’t static; would you be inching toward marriage again?”

Gina didn’t answer.

“I know you care about him, and that’s fine,” Audrey said. “But there’s a line you shouldn’t cross.”

CHAPTER
FIVE

I

A shrill, ear–piercing scream jolted Garry Strider to full attention. The shriek — from a young girl, maybe nine or ten? — cut through the somber atmosphere inside the chapel, reverberating off the sandstone walls, the blue and red stained–glass windows, and the high, arched ceiling.

Strider leapt to his feet, instinctively patting his pocket for his cell phone in case he needed to call 911, and scanned for the source of the squeal. Along the side of the oak pews, all the way toward the front of the medieval–looking chamber with its ornate altar topped by an oversized gilded Bible and flickering candles, he saw a frenzied commotion among a knot of people.

Strider had been sitting inconspicuously in the back of the chapel on the ninety–acre campus of Diamond Point Fellowship. In contrast to the glistening glass–and–steel, ultramodern auditorium where Eric Snow would pack in thousands for his weekend services, this auxiliary building was much smaller and far more traditional, designed to resemble an aged British church, complete with stone archways, a rugged wood–beamed ceiling, and ashlar sandstone pillars trimmed with Indiana limestone. Many people, especially those who had grown up in mainline denominations with their liturgy and rituals, preferred this kind of atmosphere for prayer, weddings, and funerals.

Strider had stopped by the service unannounced, making mental notes as he strolled inside (how much did
this
place cost?). His investigation of Snow was grinding slowly, and he decided to see if he could find some colorful details for the story he would eventually write.

He had been intrigued to hear that the elders held a weekly prayer service in the chapel for people facing a crisis in their life — an illness, a job loss, a broken relationship, whatever. Maybe, he thought, he would run into Debra Wyatt so he could squeeze her for insider information about the sleazy judge who ended up getting the Nick Moretti murder case. Or perhaps he could catch the elders in some wacky, tongue–talking faith–healing — the kind of offbeat anecdote that could breathe life into his article for the
Examiner.

When Strider walked in, there were about eighty people scattered among the twenty rows of pews. Taking advantage of the built–in kneelers, some of them were hunched over in reverent meditation. A few sat in wheelchairs parked in the middle aisle. A pair of crutches rested on the floor next to a young man; an elderly woman, using a walker and breathing with the aid of tubes snaking from an oxygen tank, shuffled her way to a seat in front. Strider claimed an unoccupied pew in the shadows, taking out his ubiquitous spiral notebook.

When Dick Urban, the balding lawyer who led the elder board, shuffled to the front with a hand–held microphone, his tone was solemn and personal.

“Thank you for coming,” he said, his eyes slowly scanning the pews, making momentary contact, one by one, with those in attendance. He nodded slightly to acknowledge certain people who were apparently fixtures at these sessions.

“In a moment, I’m going to offer a blanket prayer that I hope will cover most of you here this evening. I’ll pray for those with medical problems, with financial issues, with marital problems or troubled kids, with unemployment and financial and legal difficulties, with disappointments and fears and challenges. At the end, if you feel like I’ve dealt adequately with whatever has brought you here tonight, then you’re free to leave, or you can stay as long as you like and continue to talk privately with God.

“On the other hand, if you’d like more personal prayer or you have a private matter that you’d like us to lift up to God, then there will be elders stationed around the periphery of the chapel. Feel free to go up to one of them and briefly explain your situation, and they’ll anoint you with oil — they’ll just put a dab on your forehead, as the apostle James tells us to do — and they’ll intercede for you in prayer. Is everybody okay with that?”

There was an almost imperceptible murmur. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s pray, then.”

With that, Urban launched into a warm, heartfelt appeal to God, speaking in a conversational voice laden with the burden he seemed to feel for those bowed in front of him. Nothing flashy or flamboyant about it; the words flowed naturally and sincerely. He wasn’t begging, he wasn’t presumptuous, he wasn’t poetic or preachy, but over the next eleven and a half minutes he covered a heartbreaking array of human travails and tragedies.

Strider’s eyes were roaming the room. Nobody stirred during the prayer. He thought he could hear some quiet weeping, but he wasn’t sure. After Urban uttered “amen,” there was a slow exodus of the majority of the participants, most of them exiting in silence or as they conversed in subdued tones, leaving behind fewer than thirty people. Five of the elders — three men and two women, Wyatt not among them — took their positions, each standing with a small glass vial in hand.

The people seeking prayer would approach the elders with a few friends or family members alongside of them. Soon there were five small clusters of people and the muffled sound of hushed conversations and prayers in the outside aisles along the windows.

It didn’t take long for Strider to get bored. After all, this wasn’t what he had expected. He remembered when he was in high school an acquaintance — a self–described “Jesus freak” — invited him to his church to see a traveling faith healer.

Strider had been fascinated by the gaudy music, the heavy–handed appeals for cash, and the sweaty preacher with the bad complexion (couldn’t he have healed
that?),
who babbled in tongues, waved his arms, stormed around the platform, and dramatically tossed aside crutches as people were “miraculously healed.” Strider recalled how the paunchy evangelist made repeated references to “Gaw–ed,” as if the word had two syllables.

Now
that
was a prayer meeting, Strider decided. This gathering at Diamond Point paled in comparison — no less empty of meaning in his view, but unfortunately also devoid of any useable color for his story.

This was when his reminiscence was interrupted by the loud shriek of a young girl — a sharp and sudden yelp that stunned everyone in the chapel and propelled Strider to his feet. A few gasps erupted as people turned toward the disturbance, which was coming from a small gathering under a stained–glass rendering of Jesus as the Good Shepherd, reaching out with a staff as if to bless his sheep.

Strider sprinted to the side of the chapel, then down the outside aisle. “What’s wrong? What’s going on?” he shouted as he reached the girl, who was jumping up and down while her parents tried to calm her and as Dick Urban, his mouth agape, looked on with a wide–eyed expression of utter bewilderment, his vial of anointing oil having shattered on the stone floor at his feet.

“I can hear you! I can hear you! Look at that window — look at the colors!” the girl was yelling as she hopped and laughed at the same time.

“Hanna! Please, Hanna!” pleaded her mother, grabbing the girl’s shoulders and trying to pull her close. The girl’s frantic father was looking back and forth between Urban and his daughter as he tried to grasp what was happening.

“Yes! I hear you!” the girl exclaimed. “I hear you, Mommy! And look — I can see you so clear! There’s no tunnel, Daddy! Where did the tunnel go?”

The mother dissolved in tears, hugging her daughter while her husband reached out to envelop both of them in his arms.

“My God,” was all Urban said.

“Are you okay?” Strider asked the girl, whom he judged to be about nine or ten, with wild shoulder–length brunette hair and a bright pink barrette dangling by a few loose strands. She ignored him and kept chattering to her mom.

The father looked at Strider. “I don’t know what’s happening. She has Usher’s syndrome — we came to ask for prayer. We’d never done this before.”

The mother was crying and kissing the girl again and again. “She was going to get cochlear ear implants this coming week,” she said to Strider between sobs. “Her hearing was almost gone; her eyesight was failing — it was like she was looking through a tunnel.”

“She was night–blind,” the father added. “She needed thirty times more light than other kids to see when it was getting dark. It was getting worse and worse.” He got down on one knee and looked squarely into Hanna’s face. “Can you see me clearly, honey? Can you hear me, Hanna?”

Her pixie face beamed. “Your words are so
loud,”
she said with a giggle, and then she turned to survey the chapel. “This room is
big!
The windows are so pretty with the light coming through.” She squinted at the stained glass. “Who’s that man in the picture, Daddy?”

Strider glanced at the still–flustered Urban, who seemed at a total loss. “We prayed for her hearing and sight,” was all he could say. “And then she screamed, out of the blue — not like she was in pain or anything. She was just shocked and surprised, I guess. And now we all are.”

Strider’s eyes narrowed. “Are you saying she’s been
healed?”
The word came out sharply. “Did you know I’m a reporter and that I was sitting in the back? Was all of this a show for my benefit?”

Urban looked incredulous. “Mister, I have no idea who you are,” he said. “And honestly, I don’t know what to think. I’ve never met these people before. Hey, I’m an attorney — I’m not claiming
anything!”

II

The phone rang at nearly two in the morning. Eric Snow clicked on his bedside lamp and sat up. Liz rolled over on her side and yanked more covers on top of herself, conditioned to ignore the middle–of–the–night calls that plagued most pastors, including her husband, at least a few times a month.

The voice was urgent. “Eric, you need to know what happened tonight.”

Snow struggled to concentrate. “What?”

“I got two phone calls after midnight,” said Art Bullock. “One from Dick Urban and the other from Garry Strider.” “The guy from the
Examiner?”

“Right. They were both at the Elders Prayer meeting tonight. Dick prayed for a girl with Usher’s syndrome. Ever hear of it?”

“What? No.”

“I hadn’t either. It’s a progressive loss of hearing and sight. Anyway, Dick prayed for her and then right away — and I mean in a flash — the girl could see and hear. I’m telling you, a party broke out in there!”

Snow let the news soak in. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Hold on, hold on. Let me get this straight. Are you telling me that Garry Strider was there when this happened?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“He saw this?”

“That’s right.”

There was a long silence.

“Oh, no.”

III

Transcript

Telephone Interview with Rev. Eric Snow, May 5

— Reverend Snow, really, thanks for taking my call.

— [pause] Mr. Strider? Um, uh … you called to make an appointment, is that right?

—Yeah, but I asked your assistant if I could connect with you for a minute. Don’t get mad at her for putting me through, okay? [Laughs] I can be very persuasive!

— [Laughs] No doubt. Look, I don’t want to be curt and get our relationship off on the wrong foot, but I’d rather deal with everything in our interview. Diane can set it up.

—She’s been very helpful, thanks. But I need to ask you about the Elders Prayer meeting. Do you know a girl named Hanna Kaarakka? Odd name. Finnish.

— No, never met her. Let me put you on hold so Diane can make the appointment for our interview.

—Wait. You know I’m friends with Debra Wyatt, right?

— [pause] Did she authorize this?

—Just give me a minute. You’ve never met Hanna or her parents?

— Not that I recall.

—Okay. I’m recording this, if you don’t mind. You heard what happened, right?

— [Long pause] Tell me.

—Well, I was sitting in the back of the chapel. According to Dick Urban, Hanna came up to him for prayer, along with her parents. She was born with Usher’s syndrome. Are you familiar with it?

— Uh, I don’t know any details about it.

—There are three categories of severity; she’s category three, which means she was born with hearing but was gradually losing it and losing her sight as well. Actually, not so gradually; her hearing started to fade at age four, got a lot worse by six, and lately has been minimal. Her peripheral vision started to go and she developed night blindness and tunnel vision. Some kids go blind before they’re out of their teens.

—Mr. Strider, this is all very interesting, but I’ve got to —

—Just give me a minute. All of a sudden this girl — she’s eight — lets out this blood–curdling scream. I mean,
loud!
I heard it all the way in the back. Urban jumped back because, like, what’s going on? Is she okay?

—And she was okay. She wasn’t injured in any way, is that right?

— No, she was jumping and yelling, “I can hear! I can see!” I talked to her and she understood every word; she could identify items in the room. I’m telling you — bedlam broke out!

— Look, Mr. Strider, I hope you’re not jumping to any conclusions about this.

— I’m not concluding anything; I’m just telling you what happened. Has this kind of thing happened before?

— [Pause] Do we believe God answers prayers? Yes.

— I mean something like this, where there’s a claim of a supernatural healing?

—Who’s making that claim?

— Uh …

—The church hasn’t.

— Okay.

— Let me be clear. Neither this church nor any of its representatives, agents, or employees is making any claim, implied or otherwise, about any such incident that may or may not have occurred on our campus.

— [Pause] Are you reading from something?

—Mr. Strider, I really have to cut this short; I’ve got an important meeting that I’m already late for.

— Do you guys believe in miracles? That God heals people today?

—Miracles? Uh, well, we have accounts of miracles in the Bible. And God can do whatever he wants, anytime he wants. We certainly believe that.