Final Crossing: A Novel of Suspense (20 page)

Rudiger digests the words. “You think I’m crazy?”

“No...just concerned. You’re unsure of your own religious history, and that
is
somewhat unusual.”

Rudiger slowly scratches his pant leg with a long fingernail. “For our purposes here,
Father
, let’s jes assume I’m suited.”

The priest coughs. “Very well, then. Let us continue.” Rudiger hears the man’s voice crack on the last words. “Do you have mortal or venial sins to confess?”

Rudiger understands the words. “Mortal, Father, but I don’t come seeking absolution. I jes need advice.”

“Advice will come after confession, my son. Mortal sins need to be confessed in order to save your soul.”

“My soul ain’t in jeopardy.”

“I don’t believe that’s for you to decide.” Rudiger could hear the impatience creeping into the priest’s voice. “Please confess so that we may continue.”

Rudiger’s scratching is audible and small frays from the denim of his pant leg are now visible. He wonders if this is a test—would God make him confess out loud what he has done in order to receive his next instructions?

“If my sins involved a crime, do you have to tell the police?”

Rudiger sees the silhouette lengthen, as if the man just sat up a little. “No,” the priest says. “The veil of the confessional disallows it. But I would likely encourage the penitent to turn himself in.”

Rudiger feels a sense of freedom creep over him, the shackles of discourse removed. “My crimes are done for God, for He has directed me so. Man cannot punish me.”

The priest leans closer to the wooden slats. “Tell me your sins.”

“Where do I even begin?”

“The most grievous.”

Rudiger sits back and thinks, for “grievous” is certainly a matter of opinion. He feels the stones in his throat as the words roll out in a slow, gravely tone. “I killed a family. Shot a man and a woman, then, with my knife, removed the head of a baby. I held a young girl down and bit her ear off. I was going to stab her, but I wanted her ear first. Don’t know why. I think it’s because of the Preacherman, and what he did to
my
ear.” Rudiger reached up and feels the rough scarring of his left ear. “I remember the taste of her blood. The texture. Thin, almost like water. Sickly.”

Rudiger stops speaking. There is silence on the other side of the booth.

“That, Father, is my only grievous sin I can remember, for I committed it without any reason I can speak of. But I think it was a test. A test to see if I could do what was required of me next.”

Rudiger stops talking. He stops scratching. All he can hear is breathing through the wooden slats. The breaths are more rapid than before.

“What you have told me is indeed a mortal sin, my son. I must ask you: is it true?”

“You think I’m lyin’?”

“Is it true?”

“It’s only the beginning.”

The man’s voice begins to shake. “You need more than help from God, my son. We will finish here, and then let me take you to some people that can help you.”

“The police?”

“You need help.”

“I need
answers
. I’m not crazy. There is a reason for what

I do, and I can stop doing it all if I just find the One.”

“I want to help you. Do you want to tell me your name?” Rudiger doesn’t want to give a name, even a false one.

His fingers instinctively reach under his shirt and find the knife sheathed against his skin.

“He told me to. In Jerusalem. He told me to release Him.”

“Who did? Who told you?”

Rudiger looks at the rosary hanging from a dull metal hook inside the booth. “The only One who could give such an instruction.”

The priest’s voice lowers to a near whisper. “I don’t understand.”

“Then I guess you can’t help me.” Rudiger begins to stand.

“Wait. Don’t go.”

Rudiger flicks the snap of his sheath open with his thumb. His fingers caress the handle of the blade.

“I want to hear more,” the priest adds. “I
can
help you.” His voice continues to shake and Rudiger can hear the priest breathing faster.

Rudiger sits and considers. The conversation can only go so many ways, and one way ends with the priest bleeding silently to death, waiting for the next parishioner to discover him. Rudiger doesn’t want that. He wants answers. He considers the options and decides he has little to lose.

He leans back and pulls air through his nose.

“First man I killed was the Preacherman,” he says. “I was twelve, ‘bout a month shy of thirteen. He nearly had me, too. Nearly captured my soul and tucked it away in his pocket, forever his to keep. Preacherman raped me. His whore raped me. Beat me. Starved me. Not that I’m looking for pity here, jes telling you what happened is all.”

He pauses. The priest says nothing.

“The third day he had me, after he fucked me, he beat me in the face with an old Bible. Smelled like sweat, that book.

Sweat and use. Pages wet with my tears. He threw it in my face. Told me to read it, to
believe
it, that it was the only thing gonna save me. Belief in something better coming. Told me I best read that book if I want to understand the difference between good and bad. So I laid there on those dirty sheets and I read it, interrupted only by the two of them comin’ in the room when they felt their urges comin’ on.”

He never even told his parents what happened to him. But now he has to tell the story. It’s what’s required.

“So I read. I read the whole thing. And it was the best thing that ever could have happened to me, because I knew the Rapture would save me. No matter what happened to my body, the Rapture would free my soul, so it didn’t matter what Preacherman or his woman did to me. Earthly pain. Eternal salvation. Goddamn. Preacherman destroyed me and saved me at the same time, is what he did. You believe me, Priest?”

The priest was quiet for a moment. “Yes. I believe you.”

“In the first month I tried to escape, but didn’t make it.

Preacherman sliced my ear open for that one, nearly taking it off. Then he stitched me back up, kissing my head the whole time. Kissing my bloody hair. Tellin’ me he was sorry and whatnot. His whore even gave me a little extra food for three days after, told me I needed to get my strength back.” Rudiger laughs. He doesn’t remember the last time he did that.

“She gave me strength all right. Strength of
resolution
. Strength of
belief
. Because that day I knew it, jes knew it. Knew no one was coming for me. Knew I had to do it all myself. Bring it all about myself. And then I finally got around to doin’ it.”

“Doing what?” the priest asks.

“Waiting for the moment he finally let up his guard. Then shovin’ that knife down Preacherman’s mouth, splitting his throat open. Taking his ear off, as he had nearly done with mine. He wasn’t expecting that. No, sir. Not at all. He got relaxed. Thought I was forever weak. He got lazy. Got careless. And you know what, Priest? If he hadn’t given me that book, well, maybe that’s just what woulda happened. Maybe I woulda been his forever. But that book told me better things would come, so I made it happen. He bled all over that concrete floor, and his body shook like a million volts were going through it as he died. Fishlike. Eyes wide open, staring to nothing. Would’ve killed the whore, too, but she wasn’t there. And that day I upped and walked out of that little house and found my way back home, slow but sure. Resolute.”

Another laugh. Feels
good
.

“I never told nobody, ‘cept my sister. They found him, of course. I buried his ear and the knife I killed him with, but everyone just about knew I did it. But no one ever made me talk. They tried. They
all
tried. But I never told. My parents couldn’t understand, so they took it out on each other, which is what I suppose married people do. Never found the whore-woman. She just disappeared like those kind of people do. Back into the ashes and some such.”
Though I swear I killed the ghost of her in Cleveland
, he didn’t add. “But I tell you this, Priest. From that day on I had purpose. Rapture is coming, and I am ready. Ready for the end. So close.
So close.
Which is why you have to help.”

The church grows old as the two men sit in silence.

Rudiger then tells the priest of Jerusalem, and the words

Christ spoke to him.

“You say you were institutionalized in Jerusalem?”

“I was held for...observation.”

“Is it conceivable that...forgive me...is it conceivable that you are one of many who have been merely overwhelmed by the spiritual significance of the Holy Land? That what you thought you heard was nothing more than your own faith transcending logic?”

Rudiger slips the knife from the sheath and turns it over in his hand.

“Don’t matter,” Rudiger says. “You can choose to believe or not believe. What matters is my purpose, and how you can direct me in it.”

“What is your purpose?”

“To find the One.”

“Why hasn’t Christ told this to you?”

It’s one answer Rudiger doesn’t know. The source of his love and his frustration. It is the reason he’s here. “I...think He wants me to grow in this journey,” Rudiger answers. “Wants my faith to grow by finding my own answers, and only in doing so will I be successful. I’ve killed three people in my mission. They were all wrong.”

“You’ve killed
three
other people?”

“Killed two men because I thought they were the One.” He pauses. Looks at his knife. “And a woman. Jes...because I was supposed to.”

“The...the men.” The priest’s words were slow and controlled. “Did...did they die the same way Christ died?”

“Yes they did.”

Rudiger realizes his error. His killings have made national news. The priest now knows he’s sitting inches away from a man hunted across the country. Rudiger squeezes the grip of his blade and wills himself not to be impulsive.

“Have to leave now,” Rudiger says. “Need to finish up my work.”

“No. Don’t go. Let me help you.”

“If you could help me you would’ve done it by now.”

The priest’s silhouette shakes slightly, a quiet tremble. His words strain to reach Rudiger’s ears.

“Please. Not yet.”

Rudiger leans toward the slats. “You want to help me? Tell me why God doesn’t let me succeed.
He
told me to do these things. I didn’t want to. It’s all because of
Him
. But now He won’t let me finish.”

The priest remains silent.

Rudiger’s voice becomes harsh, the frustration and suppressed rage leaking out in a hiss. “That’s what I thought. I’m running out of time. Don’t you see that? Here. Here. In
this
city. I’m close. Jes need more guidance. Tell me. Who is it? Who’s next?”

The priest is silent for so long Rudiger wonders if he’ll ever speak again. Finally: “I can’t tell you who to kill next. You and I need to go to the police together, son. You can be helped. It’s the only way you can save yourself.”

Rudiger spits on the floor in anger. His knuckles strain from the grip on the blade. “Don’t need help. I need
direction
.”

“You need to find peace. And you need help to find it.” Rudiger is struck by the words.

Find peace.

Something so familiar about the words, and he senses of all the words exchanged in this shanty of wood and hope, these are the ones he’s supposed to hear.

Find peace.

“Thank you, Father. You’ve been most helpful.”

Before the priest can answer, Rudiger pushes open the door and walks out of the church, his feet taking him through a winding series of streets and alleys and back into an anonymity that serves him better than any weapon.

“CHRIST, JONAS,
you look like shit.”

“You know, sir, I never tire of you telling me that.”

Jonas kept stride with the Senator as they reached the initial security detail outside the White House. A bird chirped somewhere in the distance, and Jonas thought about how that bird had no fucking clue its nest was right next to the home of the most powerful person in the world.

“You stay up late preparing for this?”

That, Jonas thought, and some other extracurricular activities. Jonas had worked through the night as Anne slept peacefully in his bed. For the first time in a long time, Jonas found it difficult to leave a woman in the morning.

“Yes, sir.”

“So you’re not just going to wing it?” the Senator cracked.

“Not unless you want me to.”

“Not particularly.”

They were met by one of the President’s aides, a woman who looked no older than thirty. Jonas had been to the White House before but never the West Wing, and he was struck by how much smaller everything seemed than what he had expected. It was like walking onto a television studio set and finally sensing the actual proportions of something he had only ever seen on TV, and it left him feeling underwhelmed. He knew that would change as soon as he met the President.