T. Parker - The Famous and the Dead

Hood returned to the Explorer, wrote down the VIN in his notebook. “I really want this car,” he told the older man.

“Then you go to sales.”

“I might need financing.”

“Go to sales and they give you it.”

“Maybe I need to think about it. The GMC Yukon gets better mileage.”

The man shook his head and turned his back to Hood and went back to his job.

• • •

Hood walked back through the dealership building to the showroom and paused again to check out the new Mustang. Over invoice but sweet. He stopped to talk to one of the salesmen about the Explorer back in the intake building, explaining how Consumer Reports had said buyers could sometimes save a few dollars by buying a vehicle that hadn’t been totally prepped yet. The salesman offered to bring it around for a drive, but Hood said he was in a hurry. He drove away, then circled back a mile down and parked behind the dealership again, with a view of the new-car intake yard. The rolling doors were still open, and when he rolled down his window, he could hear the radio sounds lilting across the desert toward him.

He reclined his seat slightly and rested his head and watched. He called his mother, which he often did during surveillance. She was angry at the staff of her husband’s board-and-care there in Bakersfield because they’d stopped trying to give him solid food of any kind and Douglas was “wasting away.” Hood’s father had been struck hard by Alzheimer’s five years back. It seemed as if he’d live on forever like that, sound of body but stripped of mind, until the stroke. Since then, just a downward slide-partial paralysis, atrophy, cardiopulmonary decline, infection. He recognized his wife and son only occasionally and, when he did, he was venomous in his complaints about the care they were taking of him. He loathed and feared the staff people, hated the food. Hood let his mother vent and tried to be comforting. He felt bad for her because she had loved her husband and pledged to endure with him in sickness and health, and that pledge was irrevocable. Three of Hood’s several siblings still lived in Bakersfield, so at least she got some help, and Douglas got some company. Hood dreaded his visits, felt numbed by the dying, ghostlike oldsters and the knowledge that his turn for this would likely come. And his dread shamed him because the furious heap of skin and bone upon the bed before him, growing lighter by the week, was his father, who had been a funny and generous and gentle man, and Hood had loved him.

Hood saw the young man come to one of the rolling doors and grab the rope and pull it down. Across the desert and over the music he heard the metallic clanking and one rectangle of light was replaced by darkness. He told his mother about Buenavista’s new Walmart and the surprisingly cold and wet winter they were having, and the unusual amount of seismic activity in Imperial Valley, but said nothing about world current events. She read no papers and watched no news and had little interest in the world outside her husband’s care, the garden in her backyard, and her two now-aging Chihuahuas. Hood warbled on about Beth, working hard but saving lives at the ER, and how he cooked for her when she came home and they traded tales of the day, how it was tough to figure out a good meal when you only knew how to cook a few things, but really the secret was to buy good ingredients and not overcook them. He watched the big man pull down the second rolling door. “I love you, Mom. I’ll be up soon to see you and we’ll visit Dad.”

“When?”

“I’ll be tied up this weekend. Maybe next.”

“I have you down for next. I’ll make sure your room is clean. Beth can have Mary’s old room. I got a list of things I need for you to do.”

“Terrific. I love you. Good night, Mom.”

The young man pulled down the third door and the last rectangle of light was gone. Hood sat awhile longer, watching and thinking, feeling sadness for the world and the people in it.

Rovanna stood outside Neighborhood Congregational and read the weekly message off the marquee: HE KNOCKS BUT WE MUST OPEN. He followed the cement walkway to the front door of the church, which was set deep within a roofed portico. It was evening and already dark and through the wheel window above the transom he could see the colored spokes of light coming from within the church. He turned and scanned the street behind him. The traffic was sparse. An older woman stopped beneath a streetlight so her dog could do his business. Rovanna drew the Love 32 from his Windbreaker and knocked on the door of the church with the sound suppressor. He waited, then tapped again.

He turned the knob and found the door unlocked and pushed it open. He backed flush against the wall and saw the dog woman watching him. She stared a moment, then yanked the leash and the dog sprang out of its squat after her. Rovanna saw that the woman ran stiff-legged and that her shoes had thick, low heels. A long moment later he pointed the machine pistol up, then swung himself inside. The door shut behind him. The narthex was poorly lit but he could make out the worship program holders on the walls and the coatracks and the line of yellow light between the push-handled double doors. He passed through and stood inside the sanctuary, saw the pews waiting, the chancel with its simple railing, the altar overseen by a wooden cross that was lit by hidden spotlights in the ceiling above.

“Hello. I’m Lonnie Rovanna. Is anyone here?” He heard the echo of his voice and thought the choir must sound good here. He heard the muted squeak of his sneakers as he walked the polished hardwood aisle toward the front of the sanctuary. He stopped where the pews began. “Is anyone here?”

He heard a thump from somewhere behind the pulpit, where the choir would sit, and a man stood up and looked at him. He was young and stocky and dark-haired, dressed in jeans and a short-sleeve white shirt. He wore tiny reading glasses that sat far down his nose and he held a screwdriver in one hand. “Yes. Good evening. Can I help you?”

“I’ve come to. . ask a question.”

“Oh? Well, I’m trying to get this outlet rewired before tomorrow, but I’d be happy to take a break and talk. I’m Steve Bagley, one of the ministers here. Lonnie, did you say?”

“Yes.”

The minister set the screwdriver on the communion table, slipped the readers into his shirt pocket and replaced them with a full-size pair of eyeglasses. He raised his head a little for a better look at Rovanna. “Oh, Lonnie, what is that you have in your hand?”

Rovanna looked at the machine pistol. “This?”

“Put it down. Or away. Is it real? Why is there a silencer on it?”

“Don’t be alarmed. It’s only for self-protection. There are some very bad men who want to do bad things to me. Five of them, to be exact.”

“Put the gun away. It is not necessary or welcome here.”

Rovanna opened his Windbreaker, slid the Love 32 between his belt and his jeans, then snapped the coat up again He looked down at the conspicuous protrusion of the handle and the big curved magazine against his jacket.

“Are the police after you?”

“No, sir. I have committed no crime.”

“This is very unusual.”

“Trust me,” said Rovanna. In the good light from above he saw the changes of emotion playing across the minister’s face. The last one to register was a skeptical optimism.

“Okay, please sit,” said Bagley, extending his hand toward the pews.

Rovanna sat in the front row, first bench to the left of the aisle. The minister sat on the first of two landings that separated the sanctuary from the chancel. He rested his elbows on his knees and the light from above reflected off his glasses and Rovanna thought of Stren.