Sean Chercover - The Trinity Game

Julia had done the research on this segment, prepared a crib sheet for O’Brien’s field producer. In the weeks after Katrina, Trinity had taken the first lowball buyout offer from his insurance company, and simply walked away from the place. A record producer who’d worked with the Stones and U2 now owned it.

“Go get some sleep,” said Kathryn Reynolds. “We’ve got a big day tomorrow. ‘Trinity’s Grand Sermon,’ complete with all the freak-show angles.”

Julia drank the last of her coffee, put the mug on the edge of the desk. But she didn’t stand. “Can I ask you something?”

“You just did. Ask me something else.”

“What do you think is going on with Trinity? I mean, best guess, given what we know.”

Kathryn Reynolds chuckled. “Honey, I haven’t the foggiest notion. Maybe he has a brain tumor, and it activated a portion of his brain that the rest of us can’t access…and maybe that portion of his brain enables him to perceive one of the six or seven collapsed quantum dimensions. Information traveling backward through time. Or something like that. I’m not totally up on my quantum mechanics, but if I were you, I’d be interviewing a physicist. And an oncologist.”

“I’m talking to a physicist Monday,” said Julia, “but the brain tumor angle hadn’t occurred to me. Thanks.”

“Not that it’ll come to anything. It’s pretty wild.”

“Honestly, to me, it’s a lot less wild than the existence of a God.”

“Well now, I’m a believer,” said Kathryn Reynolds. She looked toward the television. “But that don’t mean I believe Yahweh is sending us messages through this douchebag.”

Julia stood, shouldered her bag. She stopped at the door.

“Thanks, Kathryn.”

“Call me Kathy.”

The city was desperate to keep people from flooding the neighborhood to the point of inevitable tragedy, and the television networks were only too happy to help. They set up huge screens and PA systems in Centennial Park, Piedmont Park, Five Points, and in the parking lot of Trinity’s warehouse-studio-church, with the city picking up the tab. They also sent cameras and reporters to cover the reaction of Trinity’s Pilgrims to the sermon.

Trinity had remained silent during the limo ride from the hotel. It was an impressive operation, with a police cruiser in front, another behind, and six motorcycle cops zooming ahead in pairs to close intersections, then dropping back into formation as another pair zoomed ahead to close the next, in perfect choreography. The sort of display that normally would’ve thrilled Trinity. But he didn’t seem to notice. He seemed to be slipping into a state of deep relaxation, and Daniel decided to honor the silence.

He couldn’t think of anything useful to say anyway. Twice he started to tell his uncle about the stolen camera and the photos it contained, but he held his tongue. This wasn’t the time; Trinity needed a clear head. Daniel would come clean after the sermon.

The motorcade made good time to Trinity’s television studio, sped down a ramp and swept into a basement garage that had been cleared for maximum security. The only other car down there was Trinity’s red SUV, which had sat unused for days and was starting to look a little dusty.

They were now alone in Trinity’s dressing room, Samson and Chris just outside the door and a half dozen cops along the hallway. Trinity sat at the makeup table, deepening his tan, powdering the shine from his forehead.

The room had an abandoned look, Daniel thought. No, not abandoned…more like a snapshot, a still life—one moment, captured in time, made permanent, no matter what else followed. There was the bottle of Blanton’s, three-quarters empty, sitting as Trinity had left it days earlier. The mountain of prayer requests and letters, dirty canvas mailbags that started at the east wall and took up a third of the room. The powders and crémes and brushes and makeup pencils on the dressing table, and the little round lightbulbs surrounding the mirror.

Trinity put down the sponge he was using, removed the sheet of tissue paper from his shirt collar, straightened his white tie, and slipped into his shiny silk jacket.

“Ready?” said Daniel.

Trinity nodded, headed for the door. Then stopped and said, “I want you to know something. I got a feeling something bad might happen out there…”

Daniel started to speak, but Trinity silenced him with a gesture. “No, I’m still going out. But just in case…I need to tell you. And I’m not looking for anything back. Just want you to know. I love you, Danny. Whatever I am, whatever I was. I always did, never stopped.”

“I—uh…I…” Daniel stared at his uncle, settled for, “Well, thank you.”

Trinity grinned, opened the hallway door.

“ Rock ’n’ roll ,” he said. And strode, shoulders back, chest out, into the unknown.

Tim Trinity had never heard five thousand people make so little sound. He stood in the darkened wings, stage-right, waiting for his cue from the floor director. A small monitor on a plywood crate showed the master feed from the control room.

The director had done exactly as Trinity instructed. There was no opening jingle, cross-fading into canned church music; no video montage of happy, successful Christians; no sparkly Tim Trinity Prosperity-Power Miracle Hour graphic sweeping across the screen. Instead, the simple title card—A MESSAGE FROM REV. TIM TRINITY—faded up over black, stayed for fifteen seconds, and faded back down.

He turned to Daniel, “Wish me luck.”

“Good luck.”

The floor director counted down 4–3–2–1 with his fingers in the air and pointed at Trinity as the stage lights came up to blinding intensity.

The crowd roared as Trinity took center stage. He flashed his toothy smile, made calming gestures with both hands.

“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 gift of prophecy that God seems to have bestowed upon me. But before I talk about that, 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—” 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.

Lord, I am a blank slate, an empty vessel…

I invite you now to speak through me…

Forward, backward, sideways, it don’t matter…

I beg you, do it now…

Please, television hates dead air…

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 thwack . But that was the old Tim Trinity, and the new Tim Trinity’s hands would not play along.