“Please, thank you for your enthusiasm, but no cheering. Please, really…”
The crowd fell into obedient silence.
He rested his hand on the blue leather Bible perched on the Plexiglas lectern, found the camera with red light glowing, and looked directly into its unblinking black eye. He cleared his throat.
“I know y’all want me to tell you about this…” a glance back to Daniel in the wings, “…this
He picked up his Bible, stepped in front of the lectern. “I am not—” He closed his eyes for a moment, opened them again. “I am not…well, I’m not sure what it is God wants from me. I do think he’s fixin’ to reveal something important to the world, but I do not know what it is. I am not in control of the tongues, He is, and when they come upon me, I have no knowledge of what I am going to say or what I am saying. Sometimes I think God speaks to me, but he has not yet seen fit to give me direct orders.”
His eyelids grew unbearably heavy, and he allowed them to fall closed.
His eyes popped open and he said, “Paul was wrong, and James was right…” He wanted to open his Bible to James 2:26 and give the page a dramatic
So he just opened his mouth again, and heard himself say, “Faith without works is dead.”
He stood for a long time, waiting for more. Looked out into the front rows of the audience. A sea of faces, open, eager, waiting along with him.
Nothing came.
He closed his eyes again, although they did not feel heavy anymore.
For the first time, he heard the voice of the Lord.
And the Lord said, “Get off the stage.”
Trinity opened his eyes to the waiting world.
“That’s all I have for today.” He forced a smile, flashed his perfect implants at the crowd. “But stay tuned, folks, somethin’ big is coming…soon.”
The crowd cheered as if he’d just parted the Red Sea.
Daniel stood in the wings, watching his uncle on the television monitor. Trinity was saying, “…there’s something I need to make absolutely clear, so we will have no misunderstanding about who, or what, I am.” He picked up his Bible, stepped in front of the lectern. “I am not—” A slow blink. “I am not…well, I’m not sure what it is that God wants from me.”
The backstage door opened, drawing Daniel’s attention from the monitor.
A man stood, half-hidden by the big metal door, looking in from the hallway. Daniel walked deeper into the backstage darkness. As his eyes adjusted, he got a better look at the man. Under six feet, short black hair, average build, wearing some kind of uniform. Gray polyester slacks with black piping up the leg and a red polo shirt, with black stripes. There was a logo patch on the shirt.
Daniel crept around a black curtain, came at the man from an angle, slowly closing the distance, staying behind a stack of crates, until he was just twelve feet away. The logo was a cartoon fire hydrant, with the words Bulldog Couriers. There was something under the man’s shirt, tucked into his pants at the belly.
Something with a sharp corner.
Chris was all the way on the other side of the stage, too far to signal. He glanced around for Samson, couldn’t spot him. He approached the man, said, “Excuse me—”
The man bolted.
The door slammed shut.
Daniel crashed through the door, into the bright hallway. The man had a good lead, but the hallway was crowded and he pinballed off a member of the stage crew and tumbled over an equipment cart, scrambled up, took off again.
Daniel flew after the man, hurdled the overturned cart, caught up with him just shy of the front lobby, grabbed his collar, and sent him face-first into the cinderblock wall.
“Ah, shit! You broke my nose!”
Daniel spun him around, reached under his shirt. “Shouldn’t a run.”
The man held his hand against his gushing nose, blood flowing between his fingers, as Daniel ripped the gun from his waistband.
Only it wasn’t a gun.
It was an autograph book.
The man spoke in a rush of words. “My wife’s a big fan and I told her I’d try to get his autograph and I used my uniform to get backstage and I know it was wrong and I’m sorry…” He spat some blood on the floor. “…But if you tell, I’ll lose my job at Bulldog, and I really need this job. Please, man, let me go.” He gestured to his face. “I think I’ve paid the consequences, don’t you?”
Daniel shoved the autograph book into the man’s hands, pointed to the front door.
“Go on, then. Get out.”
Daniel trudged back down the hallway, feeling pretty low. He’d just broken an innocent man’s nose for the crime of wanting an autograph.
The sermon was over by the time he got back. He met Samson in the hallway.
“What happened?”
Samson shrugged. “He cut it short, don’t know why. Promised more to come. We’ve got a disturbance out front, I gotta tend to that. You’ll find him in the dressing room. Stay there, I’ll come for you after we get the all- clear. Chris’s waiting down at the car. We’ll have you outta here in a half hour.”
Trinity was in the dressing room, but he wasn’t alone. There was also Jennifer Bartlett and Liz Doherty and some young men setting up a computer station next to the makeup table.
“Danny, there you are,” said Trinity. “Liz, tell him what you just told me.”
“Well, we’ve been talking with the city,” said Liz Doherty, “tryin’ to find a way to ease pressure on infrastructure, and it looks like we’ll be doing the show from the Georgia Dome next week. The Georgia Dome! Isn’t that terrific?”
“Yeah…swell,” said Daniel.
“Not sure why, considerin’ the giant egg I just laid out there,” said Trinity. “But did you hear them at the end? They loved it.”
“Don’t worry, Reverend Tim,” Jennifer said with a Texas twang, “I thought you were wonderful. The tongues don’t happen every time, we all understand that.”
“Thanks, honey.”
“I had to miss it,” said Daniel.
“Didn’t miss much.” Trinity sipped some bourbon, then chuckled, trying to shake it off. “Ah, what the hell, we’ll get ’em next time.” He turned to Jennifer. “Darlin’, do me a favor, find Samson, find out what’s holding us up. I
