Parishioner (18 page)

On the way up the stairs Xavier thought about the broad arc of his life, though he might not have put it in those words. He thought about how he had always been angry just below the surface, about wanting to change when confronted by Frank in that dark bar on Skid Row.

He had tried his best to become a new man. It took Frank and an entire congregation to put him on the path he now followed. But he had never done anything as brave and as singular as what Winter Johnson had accomplished almost solely on his own.

Up until then Xavier had still thought that his strength and single-mindedness were what made him special. Now he wondered whether it was these same qualities holding him back.

She was leaning against his front door doing nothing—not reading or looking at her smartphone—she didn’t even seem to be thinking. She wasn’t doing a thing, just standing there staring at the blank wall opposite her.

“Ms. Richards,” Ecks said.

“Elizabeth,” she said.

“Say what?”

“That’s what my father wanted to call me. My mother said that he lost the privilege when he abandoned us.”

“Why?” Ecks asked.

“Why what?”

“Why did he leave?”

“That’s a cruel question.”

“Maybe,” he said, taking the front door key from his pocket, “maybe not.”

“She died before I could think to ask her.”

Ecks pushed the door open and said, “Come on in.”

They sat across from each other at the yellow table. She had declined a drink. He’d poured himself a Mexican beer. She wore a pink dress festooned with big black outlines of squares. There were spaghetti straps up over her shoulders, pretending to be holding the dress up. Her pumps were white and sleek.

Benol Richards had dressed for this encounter. She was sexy and vulnerable, looking younger than her years and wise beyond Ecks’s ken.

“What can I do for you?” Ecks was saying.

She pursed her lips, considering a different meaning to the same words.

She smiled.

“Come on now, girl,” he said. “We way beyond all that.”

“Never,” she said.

He felt a flutter in his chest. It was part enchantment, part fear. This sudden feeling put him back in the stairwell, where he was climbing, climbing, and at the same time, with similar strain, questioning the value of his vaunted manhood.

He felt his nostrils flare.

Benol’s smile broadened.

“What can I do for you, Ms. Richards?”

“I said you could call me Bennie.”

Xavier laced his fingers and put his elbows on the table as Detective Tourneau had before him. He perched his chin in the soft web of skin between the forefinger and thumb of his right hand and looked hard at his guest.

“You know you don’t have to be so serious all the time, Mr. Noland,” she said lightly. “A woman sits across from you in a summer dress and smiles. That’s nice, right?”

“You and me,” Xavier said, “we been through the back door of the shit house enough times to know what it’s like.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” She was still smiling.

“That air freshener don’t take the place of good plumbing.”

Her smile vanished and was replaced with something like controlled anger. She considered things. In her eyes and shoulders Xavier could see her standing up and walking out, slapping his face, spitting on the pitted linoleum floor.

Her left nostril raised in a sneer.

“I got a lead on Brayton,” she said.

“You did?”

“You sound surprised.”

“Twenty-three years is a long time. How’d you even know where to look?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“You asked me all those questions and I told you about Beatrix Darvonia, Brayton’s old girlfriend. After thinking about it for a while I realized that she wasn’t really all that old. I mean,
I was a kid and she was maybe thirty-five, forty. So I looked her up and found her number. She was still living in the same house.”

“And you went there?”

“Of course not. I couldn’t be sure that the police hadn’t interviewed her after what happened.”

“You called?”

“I told her that I was a secretary for a lawyer and that Brayton had been named in an uncle’s will.”

“Did she say anything about the police?”

“No. She said that the last thing she heard was that he changed his name to Robert Welcher and bought part interest in a restaurant-bar called Temple Pie. It’s down in Venice.”

“Like apple pie?”

“Yes. I looked up the address and wrote it down.” She took a slip of paper from her purse and placed it on the table.

“Did you go there?”

“No. I mean, I thought about it, but since you said you’d help I thought it would be better if a man went to talk with him.”

“Temple Pie?”

“Yes.”

“I went to see that woman you told me about—Sedra.” It was Ecks’s turn to be provocative.

“What did she tell you? Did you find out where the boys went?”

“She tried to kill me.”

“She must be near eighty. How could she even fire a gun?”

“Poisoned drink and a baseball bat.”

“Oh, yeah, I can see the bump on your head. Obviously she didn’t succeed. Did you find the boys?”

“No.”

“We should go talk to her again. She knows what she did with them.”

“Why?” Xavier asked.

“Why what?”

“Why do you need to know?”

Benol shifted in her chair. There was heat to the movement.

“Two decades late and a million dollars short but I have to do what’s right,” she said. “I ripped those boys from their families. I have to try to bring them back together.”

Her sincerity was as perfect as her dress.

Xavier was back in the stairwell of his mind, reeling as if there were a hundred floors above him … and a thousand below.

“She’s dead,” he said.

“What? How?”

“She got me close enough to Death so I could tell you what his breath smells like. I barely got away from her, and by the time I got back there she was dead.”

Real grief showed itself in Benol’s face.

“Dead?” she said.

“Completely.”

“That’s terrible. It wasn’t because of you, was it?”

“She was an evil woman and got what she gave, that’s all.”

“I’m so sorry for her,” Benol said, turning her head as she spoke. She was looking out of the window into the alley. “I feel like all of it is my fault.”

There it was, the chance for him to comfort her. He could have spoken kind words or even knelt down next to her chair, putting an arm around her shoulder. Then maybe a kiss and a hug, a heartfelt murmur of,
It’s okay
.

“If they knock you down,” he said instead, “you just got to pick yourself up or get kicked in the head.”

“I don’t know if I can,” she murmured with just the right amount of reserve.

“Got to,” Xavier said as he rose from his chair. “You drivin’?”

Benol shook her head and looked up at him, confusion blending in with the sorrow.

“You better go home, girl. You want me to call you a car?”

“I don’t know if I can be alone,” she said.

“Do you know anybody? Someone you can stay with?”

“Can’t I stay here for a while?”

“I have to look for your lost boys, Ms. Richards. No time to hold hands or rest.”

Benol took in a deep breath and then exhaled. She did this again and smiled.

“I understand,” she said. “Do you have a driver you use?”

“A service. They’re right down the block. If you go downstairs they’ll be there in just a bit.”

She stood too and held out a hand.

When he took this offering she said, “You’re very kind, Mr. Noland. Very kind.”

Another opportunity for a kiss … missed.

When Benol was out the door Ecks called Winter and explained the situation.

“Take her where she wants,” Rule told his friend. “Don’t let on that you know me.”

“Okay, Ecks.”

“I don’t think that there’ll be any trouble, but don’t get out of the car. I mean, if she asks you to come in or anything you tell her that you got another pickup.”

“Got it.”

“You sure now?”

“Oh, yeah, man. Dead sure.”

“Hello?” she said, answering the phone after the third ring.

“Benicia?”

“Yes?”

“This is Egbert Noland, the man you gave your number to at the restaurant this morning.”

“Oh. You called.”

“You surprised?”

“Kind of. You know I … I never really do things like that. I mean … give my number to men I don’t know.”

“Well,” he said softly, “I’m glad you broke the rule this time. I wanted to ask you for your number but it didn’t seem right. I try not to make people feel uncomfortable.”

“You were sweet. People usually look right through those that serve them.”

“Anyway,” he said, wondering a little at the structure of her sentence, “I know this is a little awkward, but I’m going to this restaurant, Temple Pie, over in Venice this evening and I thought you might want to get a drink or maybe something to eat. I mean … we could meet down there so it wouldn’t have to seem like it was a date or anything.”

In the silence of her thought Xavier wondered about his motives.

He’s an intelligent child but he doesn’t use his mind with purpose
, Miss Logan had said to his mother at the sixth-grade parent-teacher conference.
He does things by sense or instinct. And even though he’s right often enough, he’ll never progress unless he begins to wonder why
.

“It’s the place over on Lincoln?” Benicia asked. She was using her phone or a computer to look it up.

“Yes,” he said, “that’s it.”

“I guess we could meet,” she said. “I haven’t planned dinner yet. What time?”

“Seven thirty?”

“Um …” She hummed, one last chance to say no … “Okay.”

“That’s great. I’ll see you then, Miss Torres,” he said.

“See you then, Mr. Noland.”