Parishioner (7 page)

Sedra was screaming without words now and the living room seemed even more menacing as he plunged ahead. He made it to the foyer and out the front door.

Ecks felt clumsy. It was as if his body had somehow duplicated itself while neglecting to double the motor skills. He’d become two men with four legs but still could move only one foot at a time.

“That wasn’t just no knockout powder,” the Ecks running behind himself said. “That girl
was trying to kill us with that drink.”

The Parishioner almost turned around to catch a glimpse of himself muttering.

“Run, fool!” the voice shouted, strangely echoing the desperation in Sedra’s screams.

By then Xavier was in the front yard and on his way to the sidewalk. He knew that his car was somewhere near, but this intelligence was useless to him. He started running in one direction with all the strength his four spaghetti legs could muster. The world before his eyes was reduced to snatches of scenes like blurry snapshots taken from a speeding car—through a tinted window.

He was running, almost falling, going straight ahead, away from people who were trying to destroy him. Xavier didn’t bother with any logic more complex than this. He didn’t worry about arrest or the discovery of his past. There was no later if he didn’t run right now.

There arose a sound like music, like jazz … no, a car’s horn. There was a red light overhead, a hard shove, then someone, not Sedra or the other him, shouting. At that point gravity decided to take over and he fell, landing on his shoulder, then rolling up into the air. Before he came down again, the burden of consciousness had lifted with something akin to sleep taking its place.

He woke up choking from a noxious gas that filled his sinuses.

The burning odor shot up his nose like a venomous snake writhing in and biting the inside of his head.

“What the fuck?” He rose up on a hospital bed flanked by two men and a woman.

She was a nurse, probably Korean, young, her hard black eyes disapproving. The Hispanic police captain in full uniform loomed from behind her, searching Xavier’s eyes for awareness and subterfuge. Next to the cop stood a short white man with very long fingers, dressed in a too blue suit.

Shaking his head in an attempt to dislodge the nasal viper, Xavier still had the wherewithal to wonder where his clothes were. He shopped for suits sometimes for months before he found just the right one. He was hoping that the accident hadn’t ripped the cloth too badly.

“I want to say again, Dr. Mendel, that this is not proper procedure,” the Korean nurse said
in perfect California English.

“This is a special circumstance,” the policeman murmured. Ecks knew that this man rarely raised his voice.

Across the room a thin man with a manicured mustache and a thick mat of brown hair was sitting up in his hospital bed to watch the altercation.

A television set was on, tuned to a nostalgia channel playing a repeat episode of
I Dream of Jeannie
.

Xavier grunted. His head felt like a balloon filled with opposing gases.

“It’s quite all right, Nurse Kwan,” the white man in the blue suit said. “There’s no permanent damage and the police need information.”

“The use of smelling salts went out with leeches, Doctor,” the nurse insisted.

“If you believe that we’ve acted inappropriately, make a report,” the policeman said as he put a hand on her shoulder, pushing her gently from the vicinity of the bed.

“What are you doing?” Nurse Kwan protested.

“This is a witness to a crime,” the captain said patiently. “We have to ask him a few questions.”

“I have to check his blood pressure and vitals before—”

“This is an urgent matter, Nurse. I will not hesitate to restrain and even arrest you.”

These words cut through the professionalism of the young woman’s mind-set. She understood being restrained and arrested and knew that the protection of her white uniform did not extend nearly that far.

As she exited the room, little Dr. Mendel began pulling the yellowy nylon curtains around the hospital bed. Once they were blocked from view of the three other patients in the room, both men pulled up chairs to Xavier’s bedside.

For his part the newspaper delivery man had made it to a sitting position.

“What were you doing out there, Ecks?” the captain asked softly.

“How you doin’, Guilly?” Xavier replied. “Lance.”

Guillermo Soto and Lawrence Mendel were parishioners like Xavier. The policeman had smuggled Mexican and Guatemalan laborers across any border they paid for, and Mendel performed illegal medical procedures on political prisoners around the world.

Both men had left scores of dead bodies in their wake, but they had been granted
sanctuary under the protection of Father Frank. The one rule of their church was to refrain from passing judgment on one another. So Xavier didn’t judge the men—but he didn’t like them either.

“Pewtersworth called,” Mendel said. “When the police got to you after that car ran you down they found the church card and called in. Clyde P. contacted us and we came. What’s going on?”

Xavier focused on Soto, the lesser evil, in his eyes.

“There’s a house on the corner of Kasidis and Lancaster. Anything from that?”

“A witness said he might have seen you running from there. When the police rang the bell nobody answered. It didn’t look like a break-in, so they left it alone.”

“Nobody came to the door?”

“No. Did you break in?”

“Any bones broken, Doc?” Xavier asked Mendel.

“Some bruising and swelling, that’s about it.”

“A car hit me?”

“Not head-on. It was driving past and you ran into the side. Bounced you like a rubber ball. If you weren’t drunk it might have been worse.”

“Where are my clothes?”

“Folded on the bench at the foot of the bed,” Soto said. “What were you doing there, Ecks?”

“Nothing to break my oath.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“It’ll have to be.”

Soto was in his midforties, though he looked older. He was hale and powerful but that didn’t bother Rule. He was never afraid of force—only failure.

“Are you working for Frank?” Dr. Mendel asked.

“What I’m doin’ is what I’m doin’, Doc. Don’t crowd me.”

“I could have you arrested,” Guillermo Soto suggested. “All I’d have to do is stand aside.”

“That’s your business,” Xavier said. “I can’t tell you what to do.”

“Are you going to cause me trouble?” the cop asked.

“I been in trouble since before I was born, Guilly. So much that people stay outta my way so rocks don’t fall out from the sky on their heads.”

The policeman stood. He had glistening tawny skin and deep, dark eyes. In contrast Mendel was a dry white color, like alabaster on a desert landscape. The white man had blue eyes that, Xavier knew from Expressions, had seen acres of innocent, unwilling blood.

“Take care of yourself, Ecks,” the doctor said.

“Get the fuck outta here.”

“What are you doing?” Nurse Kwan said to Xavier’s back minutes later.

He was standing at the foot of his bed trying his best to put his pants on without toppling to the floor.

He stopped and sat on the bench to rest.

“I’m going out for pizza. You want some?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Noland, but you can’t leave until you have been released.”

“This is America, honey. Here every man is free. Woman too.”

“The doctor on duty has to sign you out before I can let you go.”

“Watch me.”

Feeling stronger with something to push against, Xavier Rule stood, pulling up his pants with the same motion. There was some dirt on his suit but no tears that he could tell. Xavier not only loved his clothes but felt loyalty toward them. He’d hire a tailor to work for days to save a suit he cherished.

Nurse Kwan left. While the other patients watched he donned his chocolate shirt and lime jacket, cranberry socks and grapefruit shoes. He had just stood from tying his laces when two orderlies came in, followed by the nurse. The men were both white. One was dirty blond while the other sported a healthy brunette mop. They seemed able enough, one a bit taller and the other somewhat shorter than Xavier’s five-ten.

“Gentlemen,” Xavier greeted. “What time do you have?”

“Time for you to get back in the bed,” the taller blond said.

“If I didn’t get in the bed for a cute nurse, why would I do it for you?”

“We’re not jokin’ with you, dude,” the other orderly said in a no-nonsense tone.

Almost effortlessly Xavier reached down and broke a fifteen-inch wooden leg off the bench that had held his clothes, showing his would-be jailers that he had powerful, practiced hands.

As the bench teetered and fell he said, “Then let’s not play around.”

At the admittance office on the first floor he requested his property. When they asked him for his discharge papers he told them to call Nurse Kwan in the emergency admitting ward.

A dozen minutes later he was on the street waiting for a car that he’d called.

It was late in the afternoon and Xavier didn’t know whether he was going to vomit or experience cardiac arrest, but he stood there patiently happy to be above the ground and out of the penal system, away from the carnage he had thought was human routine.

The fifty-seven, plum-colored Pontiac sidled up to the curb and Winter Johnson leaned toward the passenger’s window.

“Hey, Ecks. Where you goin’, man?”

Winter was somewhere in his thirties and more yellow than brown. He was slight and wiry, friendly to a fault. He had been attacked by a man on Flower Street just a few blocks from Xavier’s apartment. The man was easily twice Winter’s size and had assaulted Johnson because he took exception to the way the chauffeur had glanced at his girl. The young woman in question had a siren’s figure and wore a close-fitting red dress that was shorter than it was tight.

Winter hadn’t said anything to the woman, only swiveled his head as she sashayed by.

All Xavier had to do was pull the blustery boyfriend off of Winter and shove him a few feet into a brick wall. That ended the fight and began the first true friendship in the Harlemite’s new life.

“Hey, Win,” Xavier said as he dropped into the seat next to the driver. “Thanks for getting me.”

“I had another pickup but I told the dispatcher that my brother was in the hospital.”

“You don’t have to lie for me, man.”

“That was no lie.”