powerful though unseen force. While he did this, he looked into the eyes of each man, woman, and child in the room. He was God, and they were witnessing the miracle and the majesty of His terrible strength. The older man’s eyes were potent even from the back of the room where I stood. They were potent, that is, until they lit on me. And then, for only a moment, they switched to fear. He glanced quickly from side to side, and three large men turned their heads in my direction.
These men were dressed darkly like everyone else, but they were wearing white gloves. These were the deacons, the faithful, the sergeants at arms. I wondered if it was Vincent and these men who had routed the tough detective Latham and snuffed his life like Vincent’s mimed God did to that imagined flame.
I turned away, a mourner who, after registering his regrets, heads off to the bar for a final toast to the dearly departed. I didn’t turn my whole body, just my head and torso. Another deacon stood directly behind me. From the look on his walnut-colored face I knew that he had gotten the high sign from somewhere.
I resumed my listening position.
“… Brother Grove is free…,” I remember Vincent saying. It struck me that he was calling the dead man brother and not minister or reverend. He said a lot of things. None of them made much sense, but they were moving. Or at least they would have been moving if I hadn’t been thinking that that shiny black coffin up front might soon be my home.
The sermon went on for quite a while afterward. I don’t know how much time passed. All I know is that I was wishing for a few more minutes when it was over. I hadn’t been able to think my way out of the trouble I was in in the time allowed.
I felt a walnut-hard hand on my shoulder.
“The Father would like to see you in back,” a meaty voice said.
“I’d like to, but I got to get home,” I replied.
The hand turned into a vise. I followed the pressure toward the doorway to the back room.
One or two of the pained parishioners noticed the strong-arm move, but they didn’t interfere. There was party mix and clam dip, fruit punch and sandwiches for the mourners. They were hungry, and I was a stranger in shabby clothes.
The deacon pushed me through the same side door I’d used to go to the toilet a few nights before. Then he led me into the room I had spied upon. That room was now empty of contraband.
Empty of stolen merchandise but full of life. Vincent and four of his deacons were in there with me.
The deacon who had waylaid me let go and shut the door, casting the room into a particularly frightening darkness. There was only one light source, and a featureless deacon stood in front of that.
“Why are you here, Mr. Lockwood?” Father Vincent asked, using the name I had given him when we met.
“I heard about Reverend Grove. I heard about Grove.” I wondered if I would ever get beyond those words. “And… and I wanted to find out what had happened.”
“What does that have to do with you?” a big deacon standing behind Vincent asked. It was less a question than it was a threat.
“Quiet, Brother Bigelow,” Vincent said sternly. I got the feeling that the elder reverend was struggling to maintain order among Grove’s deacons.
The big man was of the same size and disposition as Leon Douglas, but there was less wear and tear on his face. He grumbled something and shifted restlessly.
“Why did you come, Mr. Lockwood?” Vincent asked again. His tone told me that he only intended to ask a certain number of times before something else happened.
I looked around at the deacons. All of them were rough men. Their suits satisfied the appearance of Sunday school, but on a closer look the fabric was cheap, and one or two jackets were illfitting. These were men who had lived with Satan before coming to God, and they were still willing to venture over to the wrong side of holiness if the situation demanded it.
“This man,” Vincent said, addressing his rough-hewn henchmen, “came asking about Brother Grove a few days ago, and now William is dead.”
I could feel the room turn colder.
“Have you come to kill somebody else, Mr. Lockwood?”
“I didn’t kill William Grove,” I said in a surprisingly calm voice. I mean, I doubt if my voice surprised any of those men, but it astonished me. “I came here to wonder why he was dead. Him and that police sergeant.”
