my stronghold. Those men outside answer to me now that William is gone. At just a word I can bring a terrible wrath down on you.”
I took my time before answering, allowing the air to seep out of his hollow threat. “Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Bigelow breathes on me hard and I tell ’im that there’s a bond somebody wanna buy for a hundred thousand dollars and then he kills me. And then he grabs you and says, ‘We all get a taste’a this pie.’ And if you’re lucky, you see a few bucks. That is, if one of the deacons don’t off you, or if they don’t do somethin’ stupid and get you arrested.”
“You should be careful what accusations you make, boy.”
“I’m not the one who has to be careful, Reverend. It’s you who’s got to watch out. ’Cause the man you set up with Grove might figure out that it was you called the crooked cop and told him they were comin’.”
“What kinda stupidity are you talkin’?” Vincent’s eyes grew wider with each syllable.
“A man called Latham at the motel he was at,” I said, holding up a finger as if I were the elder’s teacher. “Right after that, Latham tore outta there. Grove was already outside, though, Grove and a partner. The way I see it, Elana put Latham to sleep with a special wiggle she got, and then she called you, because she heard somewhere that Grove could turn that bond into gold. You called Grove, and him and a friend went over there. But then you called Latham to warn him. That’s the way I see it.”
“Th-th-that’s crazy,” he said. “Crazy.”
“No, it ain’t. Not crazy, it’s evil.” Those words broke down the minister’s defenses. “And if somebody find out about it, retribution gonna belong to them.”
“I ain’t sayin’ that anyone called me,” he said. “But even if they did, and even if I did send William down there, why would I turn around and warn the cop that I sent him?”
“Because Grove stole your congregation,” I said. “Because he brought in those goons callin’ themselves deacons, because they were using your church to sell stolen merchandise. But mostly just because you saw the opportunity and you took it.”
It could have happened differently, but Vincent’s frightened eyes told me that I was right.
“It had to be that white man with him,” I said. “ ’Cause Grove was afraid of Leon, and, anyway, Sol didn’t take no millions from some Negro.”
My voice was strong, but my knees were weak. I swore to myself that if I got out of the building and into my car, I would drive to Chicago, change my name, and end my days as a dishwasher on the southside.
“You cain’t prove that,” Vincent said.
“I don’t need to,” I replied. “You’re the one gonna be in trouble if anyone hears that Latham was warned. All I have to do is cast blame, and your goose is cooked.”
“What do you want from me, Lockwood?”
“I want you to answer my questions. No bullshit.”
“What you wanna know?”
“First of all, why did you run from your place on Central?”
Father Vincent glared at me with something close to hatred in his eyes.
“William’s girlfriend, Elana Love, got hold of a bond,” he said. “Through her old boyfriend, who was in prison. William decided that he was going to cash it in. He went to a bank, but they told him that they could only cash it for the man it was signed to. He should have let it alone right there, but William was a greedy man, he had to have everything he saw.
“The man the bond was made out to was a Jew in jail with Elana’s boyfriend. William went to the Jew’s wife with some lie and got her to tell him who it was the old man stole from.”
“So what?” I asked. “What good would that do?”
“He goes to ’em —”
“To who?”
“Lawson and Widlow, the accountants. He goes to ’em and says he got their money in a bond. They tell him that they’re all so interested and make a meeting at the church to see the bond —”
“He didn’t show it to ’em?”
“William was greedy to a fault but wasn’t stupid. He kept the bond safe in case they tried to use muscle or the law on ’im. Anyway, the next thing we knew, they had three white hoodlums down there knockin’ at our door. Real thugs.
