Authors: Gretchen Archer
SEVEN
“You’re kidding, right?”
Fantasy drove a mom car, a white Volvo XC90. I stood beside it, in front of the building Bradley Cole and I—news to me—had already moved out of. I looked in the backseat. I waggled my fingers, then said to her, “No,
you’re
kidding, right?”
Fantasy twisted in her seat. “Don’t move.” Her long legs came out of the car, the rest of her followed, and she crooked a finger at me. I turned, held up a wait-a-sec finger to my crew, and followed her.
“Are your grandmother and your ex-husband going with us?” she asked.
“Is your
kid
going with us?”
Fantasy’s smallest child—I never could remember her sons’ names because they all started with the letter K, so it was either Krane or Keef or Kite—was in the car, poking on a noisy electronic handheld game.
“You’re the one who said we were zipping down there, snapping a few pictures, then zipping right back,” she said.
“It’s up.” I pointed. “Alabama is zipping up there.”
Fantasy smiled at her small child. “He asked if he could ride. I said yes. Besides,” she said, “you brought Granny and your ex. You win.”
“I didn’t bring them,” I said. “They were here when I got here.”
“Why?”
“I got here three seconds ago, Fantasy. I haven’t figured it out yet.”
“Can you leave them here?”
“No.” I looked up at the building Bradley and I used to share. “Apparently, we’ve already moved out.”
“When did you do that?”
“Four seconds ago.”
It took an additional ten thousand seconds to get on the road. Both Granny and K, the small child, had to visit the facilities in the empty condo, and Eddie Crawford, that sorry bastard, refused to get in his car and leave until I bought him a tank of gas. My sister, Meredith, who usually shuttles Granny to and fro, was busy, and with zero consideration for me, had roped Eddie into driving Granny down for her gamble, which I’d completely forgotten about. Eddie, who all but refused to work, would use any excuse to get to Biloxi, his old hangout, and would give a ride to the devil himself to get here. He was, for a long list of reasons, eighty-sixed from the Bellissimo, but there were a dozen other casinos he was more than welcome in.
“How much, Eddie?”
“I like your hair that color.”
“Shut up. How much?”
“Two.” He batted his long black lashes at me. (As if.) “Hundred.”
“Two hundred dollars for a tank of gas? That’s not gas money, you jerk, that’s gambling money, and I’m not giving it to you.” I didn’t have a dime on me had I wanted to. Which I didn’t. “Granny?” She was shuffling our way, K bringing up the rear, still poking on his game. “Do you have any cash?”
“Honey, we already ate,” my grandmother said. “I’m full as a tick.”
We piled in, Granny in the third row of seats, a mile away. “IT’S NICE AND ROOMY BACK HERE.” Fantasy’s kid clapped his hands over his ears. “YOU NEED ONE OF THESE CARS, DAVIS.”
Eddie was following us to a convenience store two blocks away so I could buy him a tank of gas (what an ass), but his rattletrap car, a relic Lincoln Continental the size of a tugboat, died across two and a half lanes of busy Beach Boulevard.
I dug in the bottomless pit of my purse for my phone. “I’ll call a tow truck.”
“No,” Eddie the Ass said, “let the city get it. Scoot over, kid.”
I almost jumped out the window at every mile marker until the stowaways fell asleep. Two were drooling. All three were snoring. Fantasy and I were breathing sighs of relief. I caught her studying Eddie the Flea in the rearview mirror.
“He’s a total waste of pretty,” she said.
My ex-ex-husband was famous for his dark, swarthy, Danny Zuko-vibe good looks. “Let’s call him a total waste,” I said, “and leave it at that.”
Welcome to Pine Apple, Alabama. One four-way stop. One water tower. Fifty goats.
My sister owned a curiosity shop, The Front Porch, that was the ground floor of a restored antebellum on Main Street. She and Riley lived upstairs. We dropped everyone off there. Meredith was none too happy about it. “We’ll be right back,” I said. “Sometime this afternoon. Maybe tonight.”
“
Dammit
, Davis!” You’d think that was my name, Dammit Davis, because it’s almost always how my sister addressed me. (She loves me.) (I love her, too.)
“Dammit, Davis?” I was practically in Fantasy’s lap trying to get through the driver window to get to my sister. (The one I love.) “What were you thinking sending Granny with
Thing
,” my right arm shot out in Thing’s direction, “to my
home
! How about dammit, Meredith?”
“Dammit!” My niece Riley announced.
“Dammit!” Fantasy’s small child stamped a Jordan. Super.Fly.
“Jesus,” Fantasy mumbled.
“Hey.” Eddie the Thing was stretching off his nap. “Whenever you all wind this up, I’m going to need a ride to my place.”
“First of all, Eddie,” I turned to face him, “you don’t have a place. Say, ‘I need a ride to my parents’ mobile home.’ And second of all, walk.” Then to Fantasy, “Go, go, go!”
There were two hours of road between Pine Apple and Beehive, a lot of it standstill traffic in Montgomery, and Meredith let us get through all the 85/65 exchange construction before she called and said, “I hope you know Granny’s sleeping in the back seat.”
I looked in the rearview mirror. Granny was awake, upright, and smiling. Her hair was awake, upright, and screaming. “I COULD USE A LITTLE SOMETHING TO WET MY WHISTLE, DAVIE.”
I hung up on Meredith.
We found a diner in Shorter, Alabama. We chose a booth. Granny sat beside me. Fantasy pulled a thick file folder out of her bag, and I turned to Granny. “We’re going to work a few minutes while we wait on our pie.”
“The secret to a perfect pie crust is ice water and a wooden rolling pin.” Granny was wide-eyed, her little head bobbing. “And you can use your rolling pin to bop someone over the head if need be.” Then my eighty-two-year-old grandmother reenacted a rolling-pin head-bopping, complete with soundtrack. “THWACK.”
“What happened to your grandfather?” Fantasy asked from behind her hand.
“We’re not sure,” I said from behind mine.
Fantasy’s eyes were wide. Granny patted her blue hair. I patted Granny’s little bird arm.
“Why do you have a picture of Jewell?” my grandmother asked.
Double take. I flipped the eight-by-ten black and white and moved it as close to Granny’s nose as I could. “Do you know this woman, Granny?”
A crooked finger shot out. “That’s Jewell Maffini.”
“How do you know her?”
“From the Fortune Casino,” Granny said. “She played there before it was shut down. You know who her grandson is, don’t you?” Granny dragged Jewell’s picture an inch closer.
“No,” I shook my head. “I don’t know her grandson.”
“Mr. Microphone,” Granny said, “at your casino. If things don’t work out with you and your new young man, I could have Jewell introduce you.”
And this would be what caught No Hair’s eye. If Jewell Maffini is related to Matthew Thatcher, and Jewell Maffini is related to Bianca’s missing assistant, Peyton Reynolds, then Matthew Thatcher and Peyton Reynolds are connected.
“Of course, I’ll always have a soft spot for Eddie,” Granny said. “He’s a hunk.”
* * *
Beehive, Alabama. Who knew?
I knew the necessities, because I’d grown up not too far from here. It was one of many small Alabama towns named, surely, over pints of ale.
“Let’s call ye ole town Flabbergast Foot.”
“Thee’s crazed. We shall call it Horse’s Large Member.”
“What hast happened to thou?”
“A bee’s hive hath dones’t dropped on mine head.”
Well, there you go. Beehive. Every time I’d heard mention of Beehive, Alabama, it was either about the church we were here to take a look at, rumored to be outrageously large, or cheeseburgers, rumored to be heavenly. And also outrageously large.
Population: roughly five thousand. Beehive was more an exurbia of Auburn, Alabama, twenty miles away, than anything else. It was mostly residential, make that mansionential, the four corners of the city made up of subdivisions named after horse race tracks. Fountains, statues, magnolias, and elaborate guard houses announced entrances to Churchill Downs, Belmont, Saratoga, and Pimlico.
“These people have some
money
,” Fantasy commented.
“I’ll say.”
“DO YOU SEE A LADIES ROOM ANYWHERE, DAVIS?”
We found an elegant strip mall, complete with valet parking, that had a coffee shop,
Bistro de Jesus.
(“I’LL BE BACK IN A JIFFY.”) On one side of the coffee shop was a burger joint,
Our Daily Burger
, home of the heavenly burgers, and on the other side, a fancy steak house,
Holy Cow.
The next few blocks of Beehive were not as blatantly religious, but just as noticeably stylish. There were fancy banks, fancy topiary gardens everywhere, and a string of fancy mountain-stone buildings with arched stone breezeways connecting Beehive’s elementary to middle to high schools. Everything in Beehive was professionally manicured. We saw one gas station, and even it was pretty. We thought we’d reached the end of main street, which was God’s Boulevard here, having missed the church, when the road took a sudden sharp left and the church loomed before us in the distance like a divine palace.
“Good God.” Fantasy hit the brakes.
“Amen.”
“PRAISE BE.”
A vast parking lot circled the castle of a church like a concrete moat, and was sectioned off like Disney’s, segregated by reminders: Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, Fear of the Lord (who’d park there?), and Daisy Duck (kidding).
“I wonder if they tailgate,” Fantasy said.
I turned to her. “We’re on the Polar Express and this is Holy Santa’s Village.”
“IS THIS A NEW CASINO?”
At least fifty SUVs filled several long rows of Fortitude. God’s staffers, it would seem, favored Lexus. We worked our way to the front, then drove through a massive stone archway leading to the main entrance, and, stupefied, read the sign.
WELCOME TO THE
SO HELP ME GOD
PENTACOSTAL CHURCH
MARION BEECHER, SENIOR PASTOR
COME ONE, COME ALL
“Beecher?” Fantasy turned to me.
“
Beecher
?” I was dumfounded. “Isn’t that one of Peyton’s names?”
“Holy crap.” Fantasy shook her head. “What is going on?”
“WE GOT COMPANY.”
A black, four-door sedan came out of nowhere and angled itself ten feet from Fantasy’s front right bumper. Another one pulled up behind us, counter, on the back left bumper of the Volvo. NFL linebackers (they had to be) exited the cars, two each, everyone wearing black, and surrounded us. One guy behind us, I could see in the side mirror, was poking on his phone, running our plates. Fantasy and I exchanged a quick look, mapping a plan. She put an elbow on the console between us, ready to snap it open should she need its loaded contents, and with her other long arm, reached over and pressed the button that lowered the driver window.
“Gentlemen?” She smiled.
“Ma’am,” one said. “Can we help you?”
“We’re here to see God.” Fantasy nodded in the direction of the massive stone sanctuary.
“He’s not in.” The man reached inside his jacket and I had to clamp down on Fantasy’s arm to keep her from shooting him. He pulled out a printed card, not a firearm, and held it in the open window. I let go of Fantasy’s arm. “Here’s a list of worship services, Ma’am. You’ll need to either call and make an appointment with one of our counselors, or come back during one of these times.”
“YOUNG MAN!”
Oh, God.
“DO YOU HAVE A LADIES ROOM?”
“Didn’t she just go?” Fantasy whispered. I shrugged.
“Yes, Ma’am,” linebacker said. “If you’ll follow the gold signs to our gift shop, you’ll find facilities there.”
Gift shop?
“WHAT’D HE SAY, DAVIS? I DON’T HAVE ALL DAY.”
Another one of the football players spoke up. “I’ll tell you what,” he said, “just follow us.”
The gift shop was Holy Smokes Saks: shiny marble floors, sacred symphony music, and soft chandelier lighting. We followed a woman wearing a dove-gray suit through a large section of leather coats (chained to the hangers and emblazoned with the church logo) to the Ladies Lounge. Fantasy and I waited outside the double doors, smiling gratuitously, scratching things that didn’t itch, and shuffling our feet. Our four escorts kept their distance, but escorted nonetheless. We checked out their surveillance and exchanged a look agreeing that they had as much, if not more, spying going on than at the Bellissimo. Granny finally emerged, smelling like a hooker.
“THEY’VE GOT EVERYTHING IN THERE, DAVIS. LINEN TEA TOWELS, DIPPITY-DO, AND WIND SONG.”
“What’s dippity-do?” Fantasy took a giant step back.
“She means hair spray,” I said.
“What’s wind song?” Fantasy fanned her face.
“PERFUME.”
Fantasy sneezed.
“I feel like shopping,” I said.
“Let’s do it.” Fantasy shot off.
We bypassed the book section that featured the church’s two bestselling authors: Marion Beecher and God. We zipped through Casual Apparel, men’s on our right, ladies’ left, with Granny between us, and stopped near the front of the store to look around. I spotted security linebackers out of the corners of both eyes. So Help Me God’s Emporium had case after case of fine jewelry, gold, silver, and platinum pen sets, engraved this and that, and crystal everything: praying hands, miniatures of the main sanctuary, and busts of the Reverend Beecher. I turned to a different gray-suited salesgirl. “Are there photographs of the pastor?”
“Oh, absolutely!”
“Is there anything that tells the history of the church?” Fantasy asked.
“Oh, absolutely!”
We followed her, turned a corner, and found ourselves in a shrine to the Reverend. His likeness was on T-shirts, coffee mugs, and oven mitts.
The salesgirl checked us out. “Cash or charge?”
“Cash.” Fantasy and I said it together.
The girl wrapped and bagged our purchase, explained the no-refund-no-return policy, and sprinkled some blessings on us. We could not get Granny in the back seat fast enough. We couldn’t get out of the parking lot fast enough, and we couldn’t get out of town fast enough. We didn’t lose our black-sedan tail until we were safely on I-85 on our way back to Pine Apple to drop off Granny and pick up Fantasy’s small child before heading home to Biloxi.
We pulled over at an IHOP to unwrap our gift.
We found what we were looking for on page 277. A small photograph. In it, Marion Beecher sat on a throne. Bold script cut through his middle:
Pastor Beecher.
Below it:
God Bless.
Crossed hands rested on his left shoulder. Attached to the hands, standing, was a perfectly preserved, stylishly dressed middle-aged woman. The wife. On the hem of her skirt in dainty cursive:
Praise Him, Helen.
On the other side of the reverend were two adults. The feminine handwriting across both their middles read
In His Name, The Maffinis, Peyton & LeeRoy.
Except it wasn’t the Maffinis, Peyton & LeeRoy. It was Peyton Reynolds, Bianca’s AWOL personal assistant, and Matthew Thatcher, our own Mr. Microphone.
We stared at it for the longest.
* * *
The traffic through Montgomery had doubled.
“It’s not too hard to connect these people to each other.” I used my fingers to tick off a list. “Matthew Thatcher was a preacher before he worked at the Bellissimo, he was married to Peyton, who is a preacher’s daughter, and he’s related to the little old lady who loves slot tournaments. I guess our job,” I scratched my head, “is to figure out what they’re up to at the Bellissimo.”
Fantasy sneezed three times in a row.
“GASUNDHEIT.”