Blasphemy

Lorenzo rushed at Eddy. But the preacher was small and quick, and as the knife came at him in a wide, inefficient arc, Eddy skipped aside and seized Lorenzo’s forearm in both his hands. The Navajo struggled, trying to turn the knife back on Eddy, but Eddy held on with both hands like a terrier, twisting and wrenching the arm, trying to shake the knife loose.

Lorenzo grunted, strained, but in his drunken state he didn’t have the strength. His arm suddenly went limp and Eddy held on.

“Drop the knife.”

Lorenzo stood there, uncertainly. Eddy, seeing his chance, threw a shoulder into Lorenzo, spinning him sideways, and grabbed the knife. Losing his footing, Eddy fell backward with Lorenzo falling on top of his chest. Even as Lorenzo fell, however, Eddy had taken the knife by the handle. Lorenzo fell on it, the knife impaling his heart fore and aft. Eddy felt hot blood gush on his hands and with a cry he released the blade and pulled himself out from under the Navajo. The knife was in Lorenzo’s chest, right over his heart.

“No!”

Incredibly, Lorenzo rose to his feet, the knife sticking out of his chest. Staggering back, with one final effort he wrapped both his hands hard around the knife handle. He stood there for a moment, hands gripping the handle, straining to pull it out with rapidly ebbing strength, his face blank, his eyes filming over. Toppling forward, he fell heavily into the sand, the force of the fall driving the point of the knife out his back.

Eddy stared, his mouth working. Below the supine body, he saw a pool of blood running into the sand, soaking into the thirsty ground, leaving jellylike clots on the surface.

The first thought Eddy had was, I will not be a victim again.

THE SUN HAD LONG SET AND a chill was in the air by the time Eddy finished the hole. The sand was soft and dry and he had dug it deep—very deep.

He paused, drenched in sweat and shivering at the same time. He climbed out of the hole, pulled up the ladder, placed his foot against the body, and rolled it in. It landed with a wet thump.

Working with great care, he shoveled all the bloody sand into the hole, digging down as far as it went, not missing a grain. Then he stripped off his clothes and tossed them in next. Finally, in went the bloody bucket of water he had washed his hands in, bucket and all, followed by the towel he had dried himself with.

He stood shivering at the edge of the dark hole, stark naked. Should he pray? But the blasphemer deserved no prayer—and what good would prayer do for someone already writhing and shrieking in the blast furnaces of hell? Eddy had said God would smite him down, and not fifteen seconds later God had done just that. God had directed the blasphemer’s hand against himself. Eddy had actually witnessed it—had seen the miracle.

Still naked, Eddy filled in the hole, shovelful by shovelful, working hard to keep up his body warmth. By midnight he was finished. He raked out the evidence of his work, put away his tools, and went into the trailer.

As Pastor Eddy lay in bed that night, praying as hard as he had ever prayed in his life, he heard the night wind come up, as it so often did. It moaned and rocked and rattled the old trailer, the sand hissing against the windows. By morning, Eddy thought, the yard would be swept clean by the wind, a smooth expanse of virgin sand, all trace of the incident erased.

The Lord is scouring the ground clean for me, just as he forgives me and scours clean the sin from my soul.

Eddy lay in the dark, shaking and triumphant.

12

THAT EVENING, BOOKER CRAWLEY FOLLOWED THE maitre d‘ to the back of the dim steak house in McLean, Virginia, and found the Reverend D. T. Spates already parked at a table, perusing the five-pound leather- bound menu.

“Reverend Spates, how good to see you again.” He took the man’s hand.

“A pleasure, Mr. Crawley.”

Crawley took his seat, shook out the elegant twist of linen that was his napkin, and strung it across his lap.

A cocktail waiter glided over. “May I get you gentlemen anything to drink?”

“Seven and seven,” said the reverend.

Crawley cringed, glad he had picked a restaurant where no one would recognize him. The reverend smelled of Old Spice, and his sideburns were a centimeter too long. In person he looked twenty years older than on-screen, his face liver-spotted and mottled with that reddish sandpaper texture that marked the drinking man. His orange hair glistened in the indirect light. How could a man with so much media savvy tolerate such a cheap hair job?

“And you, sir?”

“Bombay Sapphire martini, very dry, straight up with a twist.”

“Right away, gentlemen.”

Crawley mustered a broad smile. “Well, Reverend, I saw your show last night. It was . . . terrific.”

Spates nodded, a plump, manicured hand tapping the tablecloth. “The Lord was with me.”

“I was wondering if you’ve received any feedback.”

“Sure did. My office has logged over eighty thousand e-mails in the last twenty-four hours.”

A silence. “Eighteen thousand?”

“No, sir. Eighty thousand.”

Crawley was speechless. “From whom?” he asked finally.

“Viewers, of course.”

“Am I right in assuming this is an unusual response?”

“That you are. The sermon really touched a nerve. When the government spends taxpayer money to put the lie to the Word of God—well, Christians everywhere rise up.”

“Yes, of course.” Crawley managed a smile of agreement. Eighty thousand. That would scare the piss out of any congressman. He paused as the waiter brought their drinks.

Spates wrapped a plump hand around his frosty glass, took a long drink, set it down.

“Now there’s this matter of the pledge you made to God’s Prime Time Ministry.”

“Naturally.” Crawley touched his jacket above the inner pocket. “All in good time.”

Spates took another sip. “What’s the reaction in Washington?”

Crawley’s contacts had learned that a significant number of e-mails had also arrived for various congressmen, along with heavy telephone traffic. But it wouldn’t do to inflate Spates’s expectations. “An issue like this needs to be pushed awhile before it penetrates the hard shell of Washington.”

“That isn’t what I heard from my viewers. Lots of those e-mails were copied to Washington.”

“No doubt, no doubt,” said Crawley hastily.

The waiter came by and took their order.

“Now, if you don’t mind,” said Spates, “I’d like to collect that donation before the food comes. I wouldn’t want to get grease on it.”

“No, no, of course not.” Crawley slipped the envelope out of his pocket and laid it unobtrusively on the table, then cringed as Spates reached over and held it up ostentatiously. Spates’s jacket sleeve slipped back, exposing a meaty wrist well furred in orange hair. So the orange was real. How could the thing that seemed most fake about Spates turn out to be the one real thing? Was there something else, more urgent, that he was missing about this man? Crawley pushed down his irritation.

Spates turned the envelope over and tore it open with a lacquered fingernail. He slid out the check, held it to the light, and examined it closely.

“Ten thousand dollars,” he read slowly.

Crawley glanced around, relieved they were alone in the back of the restaurant. The man had no class at all.

Spates continued to study the check. “Ten thousand dollars,” he repeated.

“I trust it’s in good order?”

The reverend slid the check back into the envelope and stuffed it inside his jacket. “You know how much it costs to run my ministry? Five thousand a day. Thirty-five thousand a week, almost two million a year.”

“That’s quite an operation,” said Crawley evenly.