The Heavenly Fugitive (27 page)

“Surprised?” Phil whispered to Rosa as he saw her suddenly lean back and open her eyes wide.

“He’s a
preacher
now? I don’t believe it.”

“No, he’s not a preacher. He just helps down here at the mission. He’s actually practicing law again.”

“Doesn’t he know Leo Marx is going to kill him if he stays around here?”

“He’s been told. Amelia told him, and then I told him. But he feels like this is the place God wants him to be.”

Rosa listened then as Ryan got up to speak. She remembered him well, especially his dashing good looks. His red hair made a vivid splash of color, and his voice, as always, was clear and powerful.

“Tonight I don’t have anything new for you,” Ryan began. “If I had anything new, it wouldn’t be any good. I knew one preacher who once said, ‘If it’s new—it ain’t true.’ That’s not exactly accurate, but basically all I want to do tonight is tell you about how I came to know Jesus Christ as my Savior.”

Kildare told his story well, and Rosa listened intently while trying to appear indifferent. She was aware that Phil was watching her out of the corner of his eye. The story Kildare told was so different from anything she had ever heard, she could not relate to it. He spoke of how he had gotten in trouble with a crime lord and had fled New York in fear of his life. He went into some detail of how he had gone downhill, until finally one night at a mission, somewhat like this one, he had heard that Jesus died for sinners.

“I’d always known that, but that particular night,” Ryan
said clearly, “I knew it was my time to meet God. There’s no magic in it, my friends. Jesus died because we were sinners. He was not a sinner, but the Scriptures say, ‘For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin.’ So my sin was placed on Jesus on the cross. All my life I’d thought that if I did more good things than bad, I’d make it into heaven. But at that moment I knew it wasn’t true. I realized I’d been risking my eternal life on a lie. Jesus need never have died if that were true.”

As he went on to relate how he had finally surrendered his heart to Jesus and God had blessed him with a new birth, Rosa was caught up with his story.

Phil was watching her cautiously and saw that her lips were slightly parted. She had feigned indifference, but now he could tell that Ryan’s testimony had touched something in her.

Ryan said, “If you need a savior, if you’re on the bottom, Jesus is the answer. You come forward tonight, and we’ll pray for you, and you’ll find Christ is the most precious thing in this world.”

Several men started going down the aisle to the front to give their lives to Jesus, but Rosa was shaken. “Let’s go, Phil,” she said. “I’ve kept my part of the bargain.”

Keeping his promise, Phil said quietly, “All right, Rosa.”

He accompanied her out of the building, waving at Ryan, who saw them and returned his wave.

Rosa did not say a word until they were in the car, and then she turned to him and said, “I didn’t understand a word he was talking about.”

“Didn’t you?”

“No, I think it’s all crazy.”

Phil was wiser than to try to talk with her in this mood. He knew she had been shaken, so he simply said, “All right, you took my dare. Now do you want something to eat?”

“Yes, I’m famished. But I get to pick the place, remember?”

She directed Phil to a small Italian restaurant, where they sat in a quiet corner and ordered her choice of entrees. During
the meal she tried more than once to shock him with stories of her escapades. Unable to provoke him, however, she finally became quiet. He spoke then of Africa and of what was happening there and of his desire to go back for a vacation.

“I wish I could go there too. I’d love to see all those animals.”

“It is indeed a beautiful place. Maybe someday.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Dom Steps In

Thursday evening loomed before Phil, and he was surprised to find himself with nothing to do—and rather lonely. Loneliness was not something he had been troubled with for a long time. Ever since he had come to the States, he had been pouring himself into his work and studies.

Now he sat in his apartment, fidgety and restless. He’d moved out of the small room he’d been renting after he got his job in the DA’s office. Back in Africa he would have picked up a gun and gone hunting across the wide plains. But here he found himself wanting company. He had met several attractive young women and had dated a few times, but nothing serious had ever come of it. It was as if he were married to his work. His job in the DA’s office was even more time-consuming than his job working as an assistant to Lee Novak in his law-enforcement activities.

Getting to his feet, he strode to the small kitchenette and poured himself a cup of coffee from the blackened pot on the stove. Amelia made fun of him for having such a relic, but it was Phil’s way to grow attached to things and prefer the old, less-effective equipment, rather than new. Setting the pot back on the stove, he sipped at the black brew, and his thoughts went to the possibilities that lay before him. He could go to a theater or, perhaps, the movies. He considered visiting the Novaks, then remembered that Lee was out of town on official business. He thought, without meaning to, of Rosa Morino and just for a moment toyed with the idea
of calling her. Then he rejected that idea. Though he’d been drawn to her for years, he knew this was not a relationship he should pursue. He worried about the young woman, knowing she still had strong feelings for him, but he did not want to nourish those feelings.

Finally, almost in desperation, Phil changed clothes and left the apartment. He headed to the club where Amelia was singing, and when he arrived there he glanced up at the name—The Black Cat. “It’s bad luck all right,” Phil muttered under his breath, but he entered and gave his hat to a young woman who smiled enticingly at him. He ignored her overtures and took a seat in the back of the club, away from the main floor and far enough away from the band so that the music would not deafen him. When the waiter asked him what he wanted, he ordered ginger ale. The young waiter leaned forward and said, “I can put something in that for you, sir.”

“Just ginger ale.”

“Why, of course, sir.”

Phil sat back and after the waiter brought his drink, he sipped at it and waited for Amelia to come on stage. He tried to shut out the raucous music the band was playing, but without success. All around him the air was filled with loud laughter, which sometimes rose above the sound of the wailing saxophones. He cared nothing for the music. Songs such as “Sheik of Araby” and “Ma, He’s Making Eyes at Me” were not Phil’s idea of good music. One song in particular seemed to sum up the whole decade: “Ain’t We Got Fun?” The women who gyrated on the floor could all have come out of the same machine—hair bobbed, skirts fringed, stockings rolled to expose the knees. They flung themselves around wildly, galvanized by the gin that their boyfriends had brought into the club in brown paper bags. When they were not dancing, they were puffing on cigarettes. Most of them had tamed their figures into a boyish appearance, the current fad. By bunching their stockings below the knees,
they blatantly announced that they wore no corsets to hold them up.

Time passed slowly as Phil waited for Amelia’s performance, and more than one woman lingered as she passed by his table. There was nothing subtle about the looks he received. He kept his head down and stared into his glass until the lights finally dimmed and the spot hit center stage.

“And here she is, our own songbird, Miss Amelia Winslow. Let’s hear it, folks!”

Phil straightened up then, and when Amelia came on, he could not help thinking how disappointed their parents would be at what she was doing with her life. Yet he himself had hope that she would one day stop running from God and let Him direct her life toward more worthwhile pursuits. At heart Phil felt she was throwing away everything that was good, but he couldn’t say that to Amelia directly. Nor did he think she would even listen if he tried to reason with her. She already knew what her family believed.

Despite the unappealing surroundings, Phil found himself enjoying the performance. Something about Amelia’s singing was immediate and reached out to her audience. All great singers have that quality, he realized. It was not just that she sang the right notes and made no mistakes, but especially during the slow tunes, she seemed to be speaking individually to each of her listeners. Some of the songs were wild—songs like “I’m Just Wild About Harry” and “Way Down Yonder in New Orleans”—and she belted them out to satisfy the customers. She had a strong, powerful voice and could project without effort.

But the raucous beat soon slowed down, and she began to sing the slow songs she did best, starting with the poignant “My Blue Heaven.” After several slow songs and ballads, she reached the end of her performance, and Phil waited in anticipation, along with the crowd, for her now well-known closing.

“I want to close with the first song I ever learned. I can’t
remember how old I was. I don’t think more than three or four. My mother sang it to me, and then I started singing with her, and so I’ll sing it for you tonight. It’s the favorite hymn of China.”

She sang “Jesus Loves Me,” and the simplicity of the words and the haunting echoes of her voice brought a silence over the Black Cat’s audience. “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. . . .”

By the time the last note had faded away, the place was entirely quiet. She smiled and said, “God bless you all” and turned to leave. The applause came then, and Phil knew by the audience’s response that there was at least something in his sister that had not completely forgotten God, something in her that touched people deeply.

Amelia immediately made her way to his table, for despite the fact that he had sat in the back, she had spotted him. “I’m so glad to see you, Phil. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

“I didn’t know myself. I was just sitting around with the mullygrubs and decided to pay you a visit.”

He stood and pulled out the chair for her. She smiled at him as she sat. “The mullygrubs—what’s that?”

“What most people call the blues, I guess.”

“I didn’t know you ever got that way.”

“Don’t fool yourself, sis. Everybody gets the mullygrubs at times.”

Amelia leaned forward. She was wearing a gold lamé dress that was fancier than she liked, but the club owners had requested it. Her hair was swept back, and there was something strange in her eyes as she leaned forward. “Do you suppose Dad or Mom or Uncle Barney ever get depressed?”

“I expect so. They’d never tell us, though, would they?”

“No, they wouldn’t. They never do talk about their problems.” She laughed shortly. “I guess they’re usually too busy with
our
problems.”

The two sat there talking, and when their conversation
turned to where the world was headed, Amelia shrugged and sipped at her drink. “I don’t have strength enough left to handle all the problems of the world, Phil. I just hide my head in the sand like the ostriches do.”

Phil smiled at her. “Well, we can’t carry all the world’s problems—and by the way, ostriches don’t hide their heads in the sand.”

“They don’t? I always thought they did.”

“No, they don’t,” Phil remarked. “Ostriches need help to digest their food. They have to swallow small rocks to help their gizzard do its job.”

Amelia laughed. “Phil, you know more useless stuff than anyone I’ve ever met!”

Phil laughed at himself. “I guess you’re right. These things stick in my head, and they’re absolutely worthless. For instance, do you ever wonder why military uniforms have brass buttons on the sleeves?”

“No, I never did, but I do now.”

“Well, while Napoleon’s troops were slogging through Russia in the dead of winter, Napoleon got tired of seeing his soldiers wipe their noses with their sleeves. So he had brass buttons pulled from the jackets of the dead and sewn onto the sleeves. Made for pretty rough nose wiping, I would guess.”

Amelia was amused and more impressed than she wanted to admit. Phil did indeed know more things than anybody she had ever known. Finally she asked, “Have you seen Rosa lately?”

“No, but I’m worried about her. I think she’s wasting her life.”

Amelia leaned back and eyed him carefully. “And you think I’m wasting mine.”

“I think you’re unhappy, Amelia.” When she did not respond, he said, “I find myself missing Africa. Life was simple there.”

Amelia thought for a moment, then said slowly, “You know, I thought I was unhappy there, but looking back, I can see it
was a good time. All of my misery was of my own making. I guess that’s always the way it is.” She saw Phil suddenly twist in his chair and fix his eyes on someone. “What is it?” she asked, leaning forward.

Phil had just seen Leo Marx and his henchman, Jake Prado, enter the club and take a seat. He studied the men carefully and, without taking his eyes off of them, said to Amelia, “I made a promise to Ryan Kildare.”

“What kind of a promise?”

“Those two are going to kill him if something doesn’t happen. I told Ryan I’d make it a little harder for them.” He got to his feet, alarming Amelia.

“Phillip, those two are dangerous!”

“So are rattlesnakes, but sometimes they need to be scotched.” He walked away from her, his back straight, and without pausing, approached Marx and Prado. “Hello, Leo . . . Jake. Kill anybody lately, Jake?”

Caught off balance, the two gangsters turned quickly, and Prado snarled, “Get outta my sight or I’ll rub
you
out, Winslow!”

“You couldn’t rub your own nose unless your boss told you to.” Phil stared hard at Leo Marx. The man’s time in prison had increased the pallor of his face, making his eyes appear as dark and deadly as ever. Phil held his gaze for a moment and then said, “I’ve got a word for you, scum.”

While in prison Marx had formed the habit of speaking without moving his lips much. “Whaddya want? You got nothin’ on me.”

“I’ll get something if I have to. Just one little word, and I’m not going to say it twice, Marx. If anything happens to Ryan Kildare, I’ll be
very
upset.”