process for the removal of unwanted tattoos without scarring. It seemed like a wise investment in a world where my generation had gone tattoo crazy, seemingly oblivious to the fact that someday the girl with the dragon tattoo would be the old woman with a shriveled up reptile on her backside. My team leader wanted me to nail down rumors of plans for an initial public offering.
“Will make some calls,” I wrote, “and provide color in the a.m.”
I was starting to overuse that expression, but its utility was immense. Even if you hadn’t done a damn thing, even if you didn’t have squat to say, as long as you claimed to provide “color,” your words had value on Wall Street.
“You can drop me here,” I told the driver. We were way down on John Street, and if the cabbie hit one more pothole, I was going to shatter a molar. It was close enough for me to walk the rest of the way. I paid the fare and negotiated around two blocks of road construction by way of a temporary sidewalk.
Several of my favorite sandwich shops were on John Street, but they were closer to Broadway. This far from the heart of the financial district was unfamiliar territory. After nine P.M. the streets were deserted, and most storefronts were barricaded, which made some of the city’s oldest buildings look even older. I had only an address, not a description of the building, so I did a double take when I reached my destination. It was a stone church, as tiny as it was old. I climbed the foot-worn granite steps out front-just three in all-and read the sign on the door. H OURS OF W ORSHIP, it said, but nothing was posted. Beside it was a notice for an upcoming service to commemorate the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. This did not have the feel of an active church.
“Looking for something?”
I turned to see a man standing on the sidewalk, his face barely visible in the faint glow of the streetlamp on the corner. He was wearing an overcoat, but even discounting that, he appeared to be of impressive stature. I climbed down the steps.
“I’m not sure I’m in the right place,” I said.
“Then perhaps God has brought you here,” he said, extending his hand. “I am the Reverend Manu Robledo.”
“Patrick,” I said, withholding my last name as we shook hands. “Is this your church?”
He chuckled. “
“Is that so?”
“It is indeed,” he said, seeming to detect my skepticism. “The church has tens of thousands of followers worldwide. We built ourselves from the ground up, but only in the figurative sense. Heretofore we’ve operated entirely in the virtual world, linked only by the Internet. This old building will be our brick-and-mortar headquarters, our first piece of terra firma.”
“Congratulations,” I said.
He thanked me, but he was suddenly studying the contours of my face. I took a better look at him as well, though the shadows made it difficult. The dark eyes and complexion jibed with his Hispanic surname, and he had the heaviest eyebrows I’d ever seen, almost as thick and broad as his black mustache. I was having trouble pinpointing the accent. I had enough international clients to know the difference between Mexican Spanish and, say, Colombian Spanish. But the rector’s accent seemed to change from one sentence to the next. At times I also detected hints of Brazilian Portuguese. There was even a little Middle Eastern dialect. It had me stumped. And intrigued.
“You look familiar to me,” he said. “Have we met?”
“I highly doubt it.”
“No, I’m very good with faces. Even better with names. Tell me your last name, Patrick.”
I hesitated to give too much information, but whenever people tried to guess my name it made me nervous, made me spit out the alias that the government had given me-anything to shut down the fishing expedition. “Lloyd,” I said. “My name is Patrick Lloyd.”
He snapped his fingers, smiling with recognition. “Yes, Patrick Lloyd. I
“I’m quite certain we’ve never met.”
“I’ve seen your photograph,” he said. “On Facebook. You’re Lilly Scanlon’s boyfriend.”
Lilly was the reason for my visit, but it still took me aback. “You know Lilly?”
“Very well,” he said. “We spoke on the telephone not too long ago.”
“How long?”
“Not long.” His evasiveness seemed purposeful, and I had no way of knowing if “not long” meant ten weeks or ten minutes.
“Tell me, Patrick: Is everything okay with Lilly?”
“I’m not sure, to be honest.”
“No one is, it seems. Such a shame. Lilly is one of our lost sheep.”
“Are you saying that Lilly is a member of your church?”
He smiled again. “You say that as if we were some kind of cult.”
His cell rang, and he begged my pardon to check the incoming number. “I’m afraid I must return this call,” he said. “But if you see Lilly, please tell her that we miss her. Will you promise to do that for me, Patrick?”
It came across not as a casual request, not mere idle conversation. He seemed to be sincerely soliciting my promise.
“Sure thing,” I said.
“Good man,” he said with a smile. “Lilly can’t hide from us forever, you know. But I’m sure she knows that.”
His friendly tone lent some ambiguity to his words.
He bade me good night, climbed the steps, and unlocked the door. Then he turned and shot me another smile, adding a little wink before he disappeared inside the Church of Peace and Prosperity International.
I stood alone on the sidewalk, not sure what to think, but I had never seen a phonier smile or a wink less sincere. And that accent was so all over the place. I was having a hard time accepting that it was his real voice- that
But the Reverend Robledo didn’t want me to know where.
12
I t was almost midnight, and I was still walking. old “Tri-be-ca,” named for the “triangle below Canal,” wasn’t that big. In the chilly night hours that followed my meeting with Manu Robledo I’d managed to cover virtually every square inch of my neighborhood. My best thinking was done while walking or while out for a run, and I had plenty to digest.
Lilly’s possible connection to the International Church of Phony Baloney had raised a slew of questions. My subsequent conversation with Agent Henning answered none of them. Public parks were our preferred meeting spot, and this time I’d chosen “Position One”: the stairway to nowhere along the Battery Park waterfront, basically an observation platform that rose up over the trees like a giant stuck horseshoe and offered killer views of Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. It was unusual for us to meet twice in a single day, but things were happening
