The Everborn Page 17

  “My wife and my eldest son are waiting to meet me to pray,” he told Max. “But any insight I can give you that I haven’t already shared with the other detectives...well, you understand. For the sake of any insight that you could give me, I am at your disposal. Who did you say you were?”

  “Max Polito,” Max said, and together their hands met for a shake across the desk. “I’m very sorry about your daughter’s boyfriend, Pastor. I’m sure Alice will be back with you soon.”

  “We’re trusting in the Lord,” the pastor said, and was about to continue, but lapsed into silence.

  After a moment, the pastor went on, “Ben was a bright young man, however he faltered in his walk with the Lord. I believe utterly that he’s with Jesus right now. He and Alice had been seeing each other for...oh, a little while now. Alice always had trouble with authority.” He caught himself, “Has trouble. I mean, nothing illegal, although my wife caught her smoking marijuana in the backyard once and then there was the half-empty bottle of whiskey in her bottom dresser drawer. But this isn’t a generation gap kind of thing. I understand young people and these things are just learning experiences that young people go through. We tried to raise her right and these later years have found her making her own decisions with only herself to answer to and not really to my wife and me anymore, except of course what happens under my own roof. You know what I mean?”

  “Of course,” Max said. His cigarette was out and he rose from his seat and cracked open the door, tossed it outside, and apologized with respect, finally.

  “And Alice has been into this...” The pastor scooted his chair back, fumbled through a desk drawer, and withdrew a paperback novel. “…take a look.” He slapped the book face up upon the front of the desk beneath Max’s scrutiny.

  Max blinked.

  “God gave us His Word as an impeccable map to guide us through life’s highways and biways. This book and those like it steer us astray into the paths which lead us to destruction. I hate to sound all ‘fire and brimstone’, but evidently books like this led Ben and Alice to that godforsaken club Friday night and to that damnable motel. Look at that...this was the author I was told they both went to see...I found this in Alice’s closet a few weeks ago, part of her collection....” He pounded his fingertips upon the book cover above the author’s name.

  Max picked the book up and scanned its dark, glossy cover. The artwork depicted a voluptuous woman with greenish skin garbed in a scarlet robe, reptilian tentacles protruding from her sides before outstretched wings risen high with scaly claws. Below the artwork were the words VENOM OF THE GODS - A NOVEL BY RALSTON COOPER, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF DARKHOUSE.

  Max politely but absently flipped through the book’s pages, as though he didn’t expect this familiar little presentation. Then he said, “Uh...Pastor, what do you know about Simon Boleve?”

  Max had been almost hesitant to ask, had been patient and polite so far (in his eyes, give or take the cigarette), and when the anticipated question at last emerged from his lips, he nearly felt as though he might as well have been asking the pastor if he’d been masturbating lately. Perhaps it was his own fear of the question, which he would never admit.

  “Simon?” the pastor said, as though this was a change of subject. “Why do you ask?”

  Max shrugged with a sly innocence.

  Bradshaw continued, “Yes, of course. Well, for starters, he’s been with us...it seems for a long time. A couple years. He’s a good man. Lonely, I guess reclusive, yes, but devout. He’s kind of a mystery, that one. But I’ve learned to trust him. Sparing you any speeches about the homeless...I may be sympathetic, but I’m no fool. They can take and take from you, and you give at first, but you know when you’re being used and you’re doing no good that way. No matter how low one’s gotten, it’s gotta be give and take. Any human being who’s lost all but his or her life has something to give back to himself once there’s a helping hand. Some people just don’t take the initiative once there’s someone to help them to their feet. Where would we be, if once we took our first steps as babies and we needed someone to keep us walking for the rest of our lives? The homeless are like that, learning to walk again. That’s when the give and take comes in. For all of us.”

  “So,” Max said, sparing the interrogation, yeah, like the pastor did the speech, “you’re saying that Simon’s different. He’s a give and take kinda homeless person. You also say he’s a mystery. He’s a mystery to me too, by the way.” Max was purposely straightforward this time, and in his growing impatience he was becoming all the more sarcastic, albeit trying hard to be subtle.

  “Simon has made himself an asset to our cause,” Bradshaw told him. His mind was a flare of bias questions. “We’ve been meeting his needs and he’s been meeting ours. He helps us around, tends to our gardening, fixes what needs fixing, repaints over occasional graffiti on our walls, unclogs our toilets. Yes, he is a give and take kind of person. And he’s no longer homeless. Now what do you really want of our poor Simon?”

  “I know his history,” Max told him plainly. “And I'd like to catch up on his recent life and times.” He allowed a casual smile. “Just to set things straight and to go on to the real individuals responsible for your missing daughter and her boyfriend’s death. He might give us a clue, is all I’m saying. I just need to ask about him.”

  “Why don’t you talk to him yourself,” the pastor said. “Until he finds a more suitable place, he lives upstairs. Above the sanctuary.”

  19.

  Knocking On Scratch’s Door

  Matt McGregor had at first taken Max’s disconcerting dismissal from their meeting with a neutral curiosity. It was neutral in regards to his putting two-and-two-together, his dormant awareness, and it made him curious as to where in the hell Max went. He was also distracted by the matters-at-hand kind of things which always demanded the attention of the people in charge and today he was the person in charge.

  When Max’s motives were first suspected by McGregor, he was immersed in Mrs. Clipboard’s show-and-tell flip-book of reports. He didn’t quite catch the tail-end of her presentation but instead found himself overwhelmed with insight and wondering what to do. His first impulse was to get Max on his cell phone, which was the safest option he had; he’d always respected Max’s instincts, as well as Max’s impulses and ingenuity. Before Matt dove into any extremes which would wound Max’s cause, contacting him first proved to be the best measure possible. But Matt had seen many a man proclaim to know what he was doing and soon afterwards end life or limb in an ill—foreseen demise.

  Matt didn’t want that to happen to Max.

  Not to mention the often times when Matt would ask him if he knew what he was doing, and Max would answer that he didn’t know, that he was making it up as he went along.

  Well, that would be fine and swell for Indiana Jones to say, but Max didn’t have the happenstance charm of a screen character, and Max worried Matthew.

  He went to his car at the end of the motel parking lot, a ‘91 Chevy Caprice of weathered white and misty chrome, went for his own cell phone and dialed Max’s number. There was a busy signal. This confounded him, and he swore harshly and dialed again. Busy. He dialed Max’s home number, on a whim. Busy also. Max must be speaking to Melony, was what came to mind.

  And he swore harshly again.

  For a moment he reasoned. It never occurred to him to radio in Max’s description to the guys at the church, for Max to be held at bay until Matt arrived. If it had occurred to him, there would’ve been a number of reasons --a number of good reasons-- for enforcing the idea.

  But this was Max. He had faith in Max and he had to have legitimate reasons for the officers at the church to detain him. Reportable reasons, and he didn’t want to deal with that bullshit. He decided to keep it mum and he would handle it himself.

  Immediately.

  Just in case.

  He returned to the motel room crime scene, caught the homicide detective Hugh Updike on his way ou, and con
fided that he was on his way to the Church on the Rock to continue his investigation. It was kind of like a child informing his parents where he was going to be and he felt that way.

  If these were normal circumstances, he would’ve let other officials know just the same. Almost the same.

  But this wasn’t normal and under the circumstances, he nevertheless had to be ready for anything.

  As was usual, immediately.

  As was now, just in case.

  He set out, alone, for The Rock.

  ***

  Max followed the pastor up the rear stairwell within the church after a brief jaunt past the consoling glances of a handful of church attendees, up past the second-story choir room, until the two arrived at a door at the stairwell’s head.

  “I thought I saw Simon earlier at the service,” Bradshaw said to Max. “He usually sits toward the back. He’s so self-conscious of his looks...”

  “He must be,” Max commented.

  “You’ve seen him before, I take it.”

  “On occasion,” Max said. “But it’s been quite some time since I last did.”

  “Well, if he’s here, you’ll be seeing him again.”

  Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of, Max thought to himself, and yes, he was afraid, a little afraid, even more so than he cared to admit, but he had company, he wasn’t going to meet Simon alone, he was going to meet this prized enigma with someone whom Simon apparently respected. This gave him a subtle comfort, although his anticipations were as high as his adrenalin. If only the pastor knew what he knew.

  Or what he was convinced he knew.

  Hell, if Simon was simply a murderer, he was grateful to have respectable company to hide behind. With Max’s convictions swirling, he was beginning to hope he was about to meet just that --a murderer, or a suspected one. Not someone more, someone unhuman.

  But that was his goal, his dream, the essence of his pursuits.

  Wasn’t it?

  They reached the head of the stairs, arrived at the attic door.

  The pastor seemed to have a wariness about him just then, as if his rational self was beginning to actually doubt his own evolved opinions about Simon, was beginning to reflect upon this private detective’s investigative queries concerning his beloved handyman. The man was indeed bizarre, that Simon. He was mysterious and he was reclusive. The man had secrets and the pastor always carried the conviction that the facial scars which highlighted Simon’s features bore witness to a deep dark past.

  But then there was the issue of repentance, that Simon was born again, that with repentance there was forgiveness and an erasing of the past, no questions asked.

  Time would tell for sure, as simple as a knock on the door.

  Without a word, the pastor knocked. And then a word, a few words, to Max, “I’d expect him to be here, as he’s only usually here or around the property. He’s never really any place else. One of us even delivers his groceries and he has a car for Pete’s sake. He’s not for being out and about....”

  The pastor dug into his pockets the next moment, began to fumble with a small key chain. He sorted keys until he came to the precise one, then, inserted it into the doorknob. He knocked once more, knocked twice more, called out Simon’s name.

  Max became aware of his own sweat.

  The door unlocked.

  It creaked open into the decadent dark.

  ***

  Bradshaw took one step forward, eased further into and against the attic door until it rested half way open. The hesitancy with which he did so was an intentional result of polite respect, much like the careful intrusion into a bathroom one fears may be occupied by an embarrassing moment and a do you mind!??

  Max’s hesitancy was far more primal. To him, this was yet another door open unto mystery pervading and ageless, which was nothing new for an experienced explorer of the unknown, but this particular mystery was to Max both threatening and deadly. Max held his breath, clenched his knuckles, and peered fearfully inside past the threshold, maintaining an immediate closeness to the pastor in front of him. If only Bradshaw shared in his suspenseful dread.

  The pastor was about to call out again, but something stopped him. He stood still and motionless suddenly. There was an unmistakable rancidity which swept through the attic bowels and assaulted Max’s senses, humid as stale sweat. A dim lucidity invaded the attic space and revealed an atmosphere relatively spacious if not for the massively cluttered arrangement of dusty furniture; it gave Max the impression of having discovered a garage sale waiting to happen. He saw nothing but this at first, and it appeared as if no one was home.

  If one could call it a home.

  Max was certainly more relieved than disappointed at this, and the coast seemed clear enough to provide Max with the courage to enter the room fully and have a quick look around. With Bradshaw’s permission, of course.

  But Bradshaw remained frozen before him, blocking greater portion of Max’s view and barring him from entering further.

  “Pastor...?”

  He was at once aware that Bradshaw was trembling, but when he reached for his arm in effort to gain his attention, the pastor made an unexpected move forward abruptly, quickly, and as he did so he cried out, “Alice? Alice, oh my God...Alice...?!”

  And that was when Max came into full view of the surreal scene directly ahead and beneath the dismal daylight filtering down upon it, of a ramshackled bed and of the young woman sprawled naked and bound and motionless upon it like some wretched archaic portrayal of an innocent maiden accused and exorcised for demonic alliance, exhausted, having suffered shamefully and oh so miserably, waiting for death’s euphoric salvation to claim her and take her away.

  The realization of what he was seeing swept through Max like a turbulent bitter chill, which numbed his senses and found him at odds with how to react. He didn’t expect the sight displayed raw and blatant before him, he’d expected a great deal of things but not that, and though it now made perfect sense given his suspicions and instincts, he didn’t know what to do.

  Simon Boleve was responsible for what happened at the motel.

  But for one thing Max had been wrong. Dead wrong.

  He should’ve brought Matt McGregor with him.

  He found himself hurrying forward into the room then, just steps behind the distraught pastor, when something grabbed at him, something caught a firm hold of his jacket with such sudden surprise and with such force that it propelled him forward and into the pastor, sending them both toppling headlong one on top of the other and onto the hardwood floor, flailing and stunned and several feet short of the brass-knobbed corner of the bed.

  The door behind them slammed shut unto pale damp darkness.

  And something attacked them. The same confounding grip, which sent them falling now dug into Max’s shoulder blades and wrenched him from atop the pastor and spilled him to his side. He felt someone’s foot press dead center into his abdomen and he cried out as the back of his neck collided against something hard and painful, like the blunt corner of a low wooden table. His vision was a blur of incoherent helplessness.

  And then he began to see.

  His eyes focused, and what he beheld was a dismal figure, abhorrent and nude, bearded, wretched, stick-like fleshy thin and crouched over an impossibly bent-backwards silhouette of Pastor Bradshaw, who to no avail kicked and writhed and flung his arms in a contorted effort to free himself of the horrid oppression which pinned him down against his backside and which seemed to hold him fast by his neck with one attenuated hand until....

  ...until a swift series of see-saw strokes sent liquid gushes of thick black outwards from his throat in a grisly spew spanning for what appeared to Max to be several feet ahead of the two, rippling and splashing across the floor and upon the side of the bed, and within the next moment afterwards the figure abandoned the pastor and went for Max.

  Max impulsively thrust one foot forward to fend the figure away, successfully, locking his foot onto the figure’s midse
ction and the pushing against it with every ounce of strength and agility any one man could summon in a bout of chaotic confusion, and it sent the figure plummeting backwards across the gasping and weakening mass sprawled out below him.

  The figure spared no time in managing himself to his feet and he lunged towards Max once more, and alertly Max flung his body forward and into him, seizing his grip upon his assailant’s left arm. But to his outright dismay, the figure’s right came down upon him briskly, and something searing and sharp cut into his side beneath his jacket and dug easily below the right portion of his rib cage, releasing a debilitating abundance of agony and wetness as his elbow braced against it and he slid into a deadlock embrace against a towering piece of furniture immediately behind him.

  Max wailed.

  The figure’s right arm came down on him again. Pain roared across his upper chest and underneath his left collar bone. Across his chest again, in the opposite direction. The misshapen tower of dark furniture which braced his upper torso gave way and went crashing backwards onto the floor with a tremendous thud and the back of Max’s head fell with it into what now seemed to be the base of a short wooden bookcase riddled with hardcover books nestled snug between three rows of shelves.

  A short handful of minutes from the onset of the ambush had seen Max catapulted into a state of sheer terror and dismay until then, until the realization of what was happening came together like a magnet to his senses and he became capable of commanding his body to fend for its very life. Yet in his struggle, his foe was confounding his frenetic efforts to the point of madness and this pissed him off just enough to disregard any slightly mounting awareness as to who or what his foe actually was. If he allowed himself to give into the fears of the knowledge of what brought him here, he would’ve been defeated just as easily as the poor, pitiful pastor.