I had only seen the Messenger of the Divine church once, about a half year before. The landlord brought me around because I was making noises about renting a place and the Messenger was behind on the rent for the second month in a row. Mr. Anderson, the landlord, brought me in on a Tuesday afternoon when there was no one in the place. The room I entered with Father Vincent was exactly the same as I remembered. Plush red drapes on all four walls. Folding walnut chairs set in rows before an oak podium that was edged in gold and jet. There were hymn books with cardboard covers lined with royal blue felt on each seat and a huge, rough-hewn cross propped on its side and leaning against the draperies behind the podium. It was almost an exact replica of the room I had seen on Central. I would have taken the place after Anderson showed it to me, but the church came up with the rent, and I ended up taking the storefront down the street.
In the corner there were three chairs set at a wobbly pine table with three glasses, each one almost empty of red wine, and a tin ashtray full of butts set in the center.
“Through there,” Vincent said, gesturing at the wall.
“What?” I asked.
“Through that door,” he said in an exasperated tone. “The toilet.”
There was a short hallway that led to an old-fashioned toilet that had a pull handle connected to a tank on the wall above. As nervous as I was, urinating afforded me great relief and pleasure. I leaned a hand against the wall while I did my business, exhausted from the past few days of pressure.
I poked my head out of the john, noticing a half-open door a little farther on in the back. In that room I spied a table strewn with watches, jewelry, and 35-millimeter cameras. There were two console televisions with round screens against the far wall and a fur coat of some kind hanging on a nail in the back door.
I snaked my way back to the bathroom, flushed the toilet, and then returned to my host.
“You look familiar,” he said when I returned.
“I used to work part-time for the bookstore near to your church when it was on Central.”
“Where is she?” Vincent asked me.
I pulled out a chair from the rickety table and sat.
“Kidnapped.”
“What?”
“She came to me looking for Grove. Like I said, I worked near to where you used to be. She come in there askin’ ’bout where she could find the reverend.”
“You said she was kidnapped?”
“She told me that if I could find Grove, she’d give me five hundred dollars. So I said I’d help out. Only when I started drivin’ her, a man attacked us and took her away. He chased us. Big motherfucker. You know, I fought him, but he laid me out. Before he did though, she screamed at him, called him Leon.”
“Leon Douglas?” he whispered.
“She didn’t yell his full name.”
Vincent took a chair for himself. He was staring hard at me. I wasn’t scared though. He was an old guy, sixty or more, and I always felt comfortable if given the time to roll out a lie. I’m good at lying. My mother always said that it was because of all those lying books I read.
“You lyin’,” Vincent said.
“Why you say that?”
“Why would she trust you? Why she gonna offer you good money like that to find William?”
“She didn’t trust me completely, that’s why I don’t know why she wanted you guys. You know, I’ve done some findin’-people work for Milo Sweet, the bail bondsman.”
“Why you believe her? Did she pay you anything?”
“Man, the curves on that woman and the way she moved ’em, damn, five hundred dollars was the least she had to offer.”
“You go to the law?”
“No.” I made eye contact with the holy man as I said so.
“Why not?”
I shrugged, looked at him again, and then said, “If she offered me five, there had to be more, and if I went to
