on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Or even the Abyssinian Baptist Church at 132 West 138th Street. Now those were churches. You walk in there and you can feel the good Lord saying, “This right here, this is the house of the Lord, sinner, and don’t you forget it.”
“Damn, it’s hot!” Stokely Jones said, dropping down on the bench next to his best man, Lord Alexander Hawke. Man flew all the way in from England with his little boy to be here. Cutest little kid you ever saw, dressed in his blue-and-white seersucker suit, short pants, white knee socks, and black patent leather shoes with straps to hold them on. He had his father’s jet-black hair and blazing blue eyes.
Didn’t miss a trick either. Nell Spooner had given him a mayonnaise jar with holes punched in the top and an insect inside to keep him entertained after he’d been through all the toys.
“What’s that in there?” Stoke asked the child. “A cricket?”
“No, sir,” Alexei said, peering into the jar at his new pet. “A grasshopper! Spooner says grasshoppers fly and crickets don’t.”
“Is that right? I didn’t have that information,” Stoke said, ruffling his hair and smiling at the boy’s proud papa.
Hawke, for some unknown reason, looked cool as a damn cucumber just plucked out of the Frigidaire. Had on a pure white linen three-piece suit, not a wrinkle in it, a beautiful blue silk tie, and, despite all the heat and humidity and mosquitoes on this late May morning, he had a big smile on his face.
“What are you so damn chipper about?” Stoke asked him. He’d gotten that word, chipper, from Hawke long ago and used it ever since. Liked the sound of it.
“Listen to that choir,” Hawke said.
“What about it?”
“It’s beautiful, that’s what. I’ve never heard music like that. Have you, Miss Spooner?”
“No, sir, I’ve not,” she said. “It is divine, isn’t it?”
Stoke said, “It’s divine, all right; that’s old-time religion you’re listening to now. Gospel music. Angel music. Sacred. Folks are just rehearsing in there now. Choir’s just getting their pipes warmed up. You wait. Whole building’ll be shaking, hands clapping, feet stomping, folks praising the Lord to the rafters when they cut loose, feels like the roof is going to fly off and sail away, I’m telling you.”
“I’m so glad you’re getting married here, Mr. Jones,” Nell Spooner said. “It’s positively wonderful.”
“Yeah, it is, isn’t it?” Stoke said, nervously looking around. “Wonderful, just wonderful.”
Stoke pulled a drenched white handkerchief out of the breast pocket of his black suit coat and mopped his brow for the tenth time since he’d come outside. “I’m hot. How come you two aren’t hot?”
Hawke looked over at him and said, “Stokely Jones Jr., you look like a man who needs a drink.”
“Alex, what’d I always tell you? Only thing alcohol’s good for is helping white folks dance. Besides, you know I don’t drink.”
“You don’t get married, either. But you are today. Man’s entitled to a drink on his wedding day. It’s practically obligatory.”
Hawke pulled a shining silver flask from inside his breast pocket and handed it to Stoke.
“What’s in it? Don’t even tell me. I already know what it is. Head-strong, out-and-out, strong-bodied, ram- jam, come-it-strong, lift-me-up, knock-me-down, gen-u-wine moonshine!”
“That’s it, brother. Pure nitro.”
Stoke first sniffed at the idea, then unscrewed the little cap and sniffed at the contents. He wrinkled his nose, frowning at the lack of any smell at all.
“What is this stuff, anyway? Just tell me.”
“Take a swig, big fella. It won’t kill you.”
“If this doesn’t beat all, I don’t know what does. My own best man trying to get me drunk on my own wedding day,” Stoke said, and put the flask to his lips, tentatively lifting the thing.
He took a sip, swallowed, and smiled at his friend sideways.
“Diet Coke? It’s just Diet Coke, isn’t it?”
“Hmm.”
“All I ever drink, Diet Coke.”
“Hmm.”
“See? That’s what I’m talking about. That’s called taking care of business. That’s why you, of all the people in the world who would have cheated, lied, and robbed for this job, that’s why you got picked as my best man.” Hawke smiled.
“It’s an honor, Stoke. I love you like a brother.”
“Which I am.”
“Which you definitely are.”
“Uh-oh. Here comes the bride,” Stoke said suddenly, gazing at the winking sunlight on the windshields of a small parade of automobiles now making its way slowly through the tall grass. The narrow, winding, and muddy road leading eventually to the church. “We’d better hustle up and get inside. Bad luck if you see the bride before the ceremony, that right, boss?”
“Absolutely, let’s go. Miss Spooner, you’ve got the ring to give to Alexei when it’s his time?”
“I do, sir. Mr. Brock is kindly holding two seats for us in the last pew of the church right on the center aisle. Alexei and I will wait until everyone is seated before we enter so we don’t cause a fuss. When it’s time for the ring, I’ll make sure to send him on his way to you.”
Stoke had asked Hawke weeks ago if the child could be the ring bearer during the ceremony and Hawke had readily agreed. So he had his team on the field. He’d also asked his buddy, CIA field agent Harry Brock; his sole employee, Luis Gonzales-Gonzales, the one-armed Cuban known as Sharkey; and finally Fast Eddie Falco, the aged security man at his condo in Miami, to be his ushers. He looked at his watch. Shouldn’t they be here by now?
T he Right Reverend Josiah Jefferson Fletcher, J.J., better known as Fletch when he played defense for the New York Jets, weighed about three hundred pounds and had to use a walker to get around. He and the groom had been rookies together back in the day. After a serious knee injury, Fletch left football, came down here to South Florida, and started Grace Baptist Church-right here in the little Indian town of Seminole. A few years later, he’d been ordained. He’d been preaching the gospel ever since.
Fletch was the man Stoke called late at night when the wolves and the heebie-jeebies and the devil himself was at the door.
Fletch had a small office up on the second floor in the “rectory,” right next to the room where they kept all the choir robes, candles, and hymnals. The three big men could barely fit inside, so Hawke remained standing in the doorway and Stoke took the chair opposite the preacher at his battle-weary desk. Fletch leaned back in his chair and smiled. For a man who’d seen so much human suffering and anguish, the preacher had the biggest, whitest grin Hawke had ever seen on a human being.
“Mighty pleased to meet you, Mr. Hawke,” he said, settling in. “Stokely here tells me you’re a lord,” he said, looking directly at Hawke. “That right?”
Hawke nodded.
“A lord, you say.”
“Hmm.”
Then the reverend stretched his meaty forearms over the desk toward Stoke and said in a stage whisper:
“Ain’t that something, Stoke?”
“What’s that?”
“Him being a lord and all. And here all this time I been thinking there was only just the one.”
Hawke burst out laughing, as much over Fletch’s small joke as at Stoke’s doubled-over laughing fit, Fletch repeatedly slamming his ham-sized fist on the old wooden desk almost hard enough to split it in two.
“Good one, Fletch!” Stoke managed to blurt out.
When they’d all stopped chuckling, Fletch directed his strong gaze at Hawke once more.
“You don’t think our boy Stoke’s going to try and bolt on us, do you? Groom looks a little nervous to me,” the preacher said. “Little green around the gills.”
“That’s why I’m standing here in the doorway.”
The preacher grinned. “Next thing he’ll say he has to use the lavatory up the stairs there. The facilities. But
