Don Winslow: Way Down on the High Lonely

“You were thinking it.”

Neal stepped over to the window and looked out at the studio lot, where the 1920s gangsters were heading to the cafeteria to beat the early lunch crowd.

“No,” he said, “I was thinking that you’re used to getting the story rewritten when you don’t like it the way it is. But this time it’s not a movie, it’s your son, and it’s not a story, it’s all too real. I’m thinking what a bitch these custody cases are, because while the law is on your side, it’s really on the sidelines. What it basically says is that once you get your child back, you can keep him. And while you’re handcuffed by the law, your husband does any goddamn thing he wants. And I was thinking about how frustrated, angry, and scared you must be.”

Anne drained the rest of her soda and lit another cigarette. It was a nice try, but it didn’t stop the tears from coming to her eyes. “I’m terrified,” she said. “I know Harley would never intentionally hurt Cody, but now… with what you’ve found out about these people…”

What people, Graham?

“… I’m afraid that I’ll never see my little boy again.”

“We’ll get him back,” Neal said. He was surprised to hear himself say it, surprised at the commitment in his voice.

“We’ll call you the minute we know anything,” Graham said as he stepped to the door.

“I’ll leave word that you’re to be put right through,” Anne answered.

Jim Collier hustled to shake their hands.

“A real pleasure to meet you,” he said.

“Yeah,” Neal said.

“I do know the difference between movies and real life,” Anne said to Neal.

“Yeah? Well, maybe you can teach it to me sometime.”

On the way out they passed Anne’s eleven-thirty, two nervous screenwriters clutching a couple of notebooks and a pile of dreams.

“So what have we found out about ‘these people,’ Graham? And what people are we talking about?” Neal asked when they got back in the limo. It was as much an accusation as a question.

“Well, we found out what accounted for Harley’s cleaning up his act.

“What?”

Graham told the driver to go to the corner of Hollywood and Vine.

“What’s at Hollywood and Vine?” the driver asked sullenly.

“What’s it to you?” answered Graham.

Neal perused the bar, found a little bottle of Johnny Walker Red, and poured it into a glass as the limo eased out of the lot onto the street.

“What’s going on, Graham?” he asked.

Neal tossed back the whiskey. It was like sitting by a fire on a winter’s day. He noticed that Joe Graham was rubbing his artificial hand into the palm of his real one. It was something he did when he was nervous, when he had something on his mind that he wanted to get off. Neal finished his drink and waited.

“So,” Graham asked, “are you on?”

Neal didn’t want to be on. God, he didn’t want to be on. He wanted to be off in the world of old books, sitting in a quiet room taking orderly notes. But if this was just a simple custody case, they wouldn’t need him. Graham would track Harley down, call in muscle if he needed it, and take the kid home. So there was something else.

“What aren’t you telling me, Dad?”

Graham shook his head. “No. You first. Are you on?”

You owe, Neal told himself. And not just money. You were a lost kid yourself once, and the only person in the world who gave a good goddamn was Joe Graham, who’s sitting here now, wearing out his one good hand.

“Yeah, I’m on.”

The rubbing stopped. Graham palmed one of the little whiskey bottles and opened it with his thumb and forefinger. He took a sip straight from the bottle.

“I didn’t want to tell you too much until I saw you in action again. I had to make sure you were…”

“‘Okay’?”

“Three years is a long time, son.”

“So did I pass?”

“Yeah.”

“So tell me the whole story.”

“Not now.”

“When?”

“After church.”

The driver looked back in the mirror and sneered. “What the hell kind of church is at Hollywood and Vine?”

A placard board read the true CHRISTIAN IDENTITY CHURCH, REVEREND C. WESLEY CARTER, MINISTER. Its big white plastic cross loomed above a sidewalk festooned with broken wine bottles, free-floating newspaper pages, crumpled cans, and greasy sandwich wrappers. Pimps in all their sartorial splendor leaned on their Caddies and Lincoln Town Cars watching their little girls in white leather hot pants munch on doughnuts as they vamped passing cars. Pretty teenage boys dressed in tight denims and T-shirts sat on bus benches and peeked out from under their long bangs in a more subtle form of advertising, visible only to the informed.

If you took the view that a church was supposed to be a hospital for sinners, the corner of Hollywood and Vine was a great location for a church.

The church was immaculate, not in the immaculate conception sense, but in a utilitarian-, Protestant way. The highly varnished wood shone with righteous energy, the modest carpeting was vacuumed to within an inch of its life. Pamphlets had been laid out in precise order on a table in the foyer.

The congregation was even cleaner. They were mostly older people, as you would expect of a Wednesday afternoon, but there was also a significant minority of younger men. They had the deeply tanned, lined features of outdoor workers. Their jeans were pressed and they wore collared shirts with unfashionable ties. There were a few young mothers there as well, some with toddlers in tow. The kids were all neat, clean, nicely dressed, and well behaved.

From the back of the church Neal felt as if he were looking through one of those old stereoscopes, because in back of the gaggles of kids, behind the altar, was a mural of Jesus himself talking to a bunch of clean, neat, well-dressed, well-behaved little kids, and the inscription, SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME.

The contrast between the scrubbed interior of the church and the variegated hell on the outside was, to say the least, stark. Neal had the image of one of those old western movies where the settlers had circled the wagons against the band of marauding Indians outside. The place was just so… white.

Everyone was white. The older folks, the working men, the young mothers, the kids. Jesus was certainly white, with blue eyes and long brown hair that was a day at the beach away from being blond. The kids who had come unto him were white, looking as if they’d be more at home in Sweden than Judea. Neal hadn’t seen so many blonds since the last time he’d gotten drunk enough to watch the Miss America Pageant.

“There’s a marked lack of melanin in here,” he whispered to Graham as they slid into a pew in the back.

“Whatever that is,” Graham answered.

Neal was about to answer when a tall, silver-haired man in a blue suit came out from behind the altar and mounted the pulpit. The silver hair stood up in a high brush cut, his tanned face looked like it had been fashioned with an adz, and his eyes were bluer than his suit, if not quite as shiny.

The congregation scurried into their seats and sat in silent anticipation.

“C. Wesley Carter,” Graham whispered.

“See Spot run,” answered Neal.

“Good afternoon, everyone,” C. Wesley Carter said. He had a voice like a good trumpet, clear and sharp without being brassy or harsh. It was a good voice, and he knew it.

“Good afternoon, Reverend Carter!” the congregation answered.

“Welcome to our Wednesday afternoon study session. I’m glad you all fought your way safely to our little clearing in the jungle.”

Jungle? Neal thought. Well…

“I’m very excited today,” Carter said, “because we are back to the beginning of the whole cycle in our lectures on true Christian identity, and new beginnings always fire me up. Of course, when you’ve given this lecture as many times as I have… well, let’s face it, when you’ve heard this lecture as many times as some of you have… well, I won’t be offended if some of you just want to get up and leave!”