Book of Nathan Read online

  Zeus stopped as if that were the end of the story. I told Maurice to keep the prisoner talking.

  “Whoever was drivin’ the van—he had a gun,” Tyson translated.

  “A gun?”

  Maurice confirmed what Zeus had said with a nod. I looked at Yigal who seemed more surprised than me by the news.

  “Then what?” I asked.

  Tyson fed us the next chapter. The van driver was short and stocky. Holding a pistol, he jumped out of the damaged vehicle and rushed toward the not-so-banged-up sedan. He never got past the front fender. The driver of the blue car was a lot faster and tougher than the man waving his gun. The car driver wrestled the van operator to the pavement and the pistol was kicked to one side.

  “That’s when Zeus come down from underneath the pass over where he was campin’ out for the night,” Maurice explained.

  “Did he recognize either driver?”

  “No.”

  “If we showed Zeus pictures of the two men—could he identify them?”

  Maurice relayed my question and came back with the answer I expected. “He don’t think so. The one thing he might remember is the necklace.”

  Necklace? What necklace?”

  “The blue car driver. He was wearin’ a chain that had this thing on it.”

  “What kind of thing?”

  “Zeus says it was a circle made out of silver. Had a cross in the middle of it.”

  “All right. Keep digging, Maurice. Ask Zeus what happened next.”

  The two drivers were still battling it out when Zeus walked into the van’s high beams. His sudden appearance startled the two men, and the fight was over. The man driving the blue car broke free but not before the van driver retrieved his pistol and pulled off two shots.

  “Was the other man hit?” I asked.

  “Might a been,” Maurice interpreted. “Not sure.”

  “Keep going.”

  According to Zeus, the driver of the blue car took off in his sedan. Apparently the run-in with a steel column hadn’t done any serious damage to the car. The van man was in less of a hurry to leave. He picked up his pistol and walked to the rear of his vehicle. As he leaned over the motionless Benjamin Kurios, Zeus drew closer. Too close. The driver pointed the weapon at Zeus’s midsection and pulled the trigger. Nothing but a few clicks. When the man realized the pistol was useless, he dashed for his van and managed to disentangle it from the bridge abutment. The vehicle limped away leaving Zeus and what was left of Kurios in its wake.

  I had a million questions and only a few minutes left on the Visitation Center’s clock.

  “What about the wooden cross?” I asked—the alleged weapon used to beat Benjamin Kurios to death. “It was covered with blood.”

  “Belonged to Zeus,” Maurice communicated the obvious. “He made it.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know.” Everyone knew about the cross. The media had played it up six ways to Sunday. Cleric Murdered With Handmade Cross.

  “Zeus says the cops took it,” said Tyson.

  Of course they took it. It was a prosecutor’s dream.

  Maurice continued his translation. “What happened was that Zeus leaned over the preacher and the cross got some blood on it.”

  This was a monumental deviation from statements made by the two college students who stumbled onto the scene while Zeus was still perched over Kurios. The witnesses admitted they didn’t actually see Zeus hammering Kurios with the cross, but it was obvious what had happened—wasn’t it?

  “This is a really important question, Maurice,” I said. “Was Kurios dead when Zeus showed up?”

  Tyson asked and came back with an answer. “No.”

  I blinked. “No?”

  “No.”

  “But Kurios was dead when the cops arrived on the scene a few minutes after?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So, Zeus was with Kurios before he died.”

  “Yeah. He seen him pass.”

  Which must have been one of the most upsetting moments of the homeless man’s life.

  “Maurice, ask Zeus if Kurios said anything before the police showed up.”

  Another quick response. “Yes.”

  I leaned toward the TV screen. “Kurios actually spoke to you, Zeus?”

  “Yes.” Maurice interpreted.

  “You sure about this?”

  Another “Yes.”

  “So what did he say?”

  “Father Nathan.”

  “What?”

  “He say, ‘Father Nathan,’ ” Maurice repeated.

  “That’s it? Just Father Nathan?’ ”

  “He don’ remember nothin’ else.”

  Miklos Zeusenoerdorf wasn’t into lying, but he was easily confused. Maybe he did hear Kurios mutter something before he died but was the evangelist delirious? Did Zeus mistake what was being said? I tried to formulate my next question but was distracted when I picked up part of Twyla’s conversation with Beuford Krup. Something about barnyard animals.

  “Tell the truth, Mr. Krap—what’s the wildest thing you ever did?” Twyla asked.

  I put Zeus on hold and craned my head around the video station divide.

  “An ostrich!” Twyla squealed with delight. “Oh, that is so naughty!”

  “That’s it!” I shouted and ordered Yigal to get Twyla off the phone. Then I turned back to my designated cubicle and used Maurice to press Zeus for more details about the necklace worn by the driver of the blue sedan. Zeusenoerdorf came through with a slightly better description of the silver chain and medallion. “Says the round silver thing fell off the necklace durin’ the fight,” Maurice reported.

  I couldn’t be certain, but Zeus’s verbal sketch seemed to match a picture of a medallion I had seen before. A group of pro-life demonstrators had picketed a Central Jersey abortion clinic earlier in the year. One of the regional newspapers gave the incident a day’s worth of coverage, including a sidebar story about the pro-life group that mobilized the protest. I didn’t remember the Latin name of the organization, but I recalled the photo of the emblem that was included as part of the story, a silver cross set inside an engraved silver circle.

  I was about to push Zeus for more information about Father Nathan when the interview came to an end. Doc, Twyla, and Beuford Krup were trading jokes about llamas when a guard with no sense of humor informed us the Visitor Center wasn’t a comedy club. We were told to leave. Immediately.

  Twyla waved at the camera. “G’bye, Mr. Krap.” The TV went off, and we were ushered out of the center.

  “He looked so sad,” moaned Twyla.

  “Beuford?” Professor Waters asked.

  “No. Mr. Zeus.”

  She was right. Zeus looked unhappier than usual. Worse, I also spotted something else in his droopy eyes. Defeat. It took a lot of years, but it seemed to me like life may have finally ground Zeus down.

  “Careful out there,” said the same guard we had met in the main lobby a half hour earlier. He motioned to a small but boisterous crowd standing outside the entrance of the center.

  “Who are they?” Doc Waters asked.

  “They’re the real pissed-off fan club of the late Dr. Benjamin Kurios.”

  I checked out the agitated group of about fifty people—mostly women. They marched in a slow circle about a hundred yards from the entrance to the Visitation Center.

  “Those people want your boy’s head,” the guard went on. The crowd’s placards underscored his point.

  “Would be nice if they waited until Zeus had a chance to defend himself,” I mused.

  “Wait until what?” the guard asked. “Until his counselor here tries to get the nutcase off on an insanity plea? If that happens, there’ll really be hell to pay.”

  The way he talked, I knew that given the chance, the guard would join the band of unhappy protesters in a nanosecond. The blood lust for Zeus was becoming an all-American phenomenon.

  With Yigal in the lead, we marched out of the Visitation Center into
the noisy, banner-waving crowd.

  I zeroed in on a woman carrying a three-foot-by-three-foot poster board that read:

  GOD’S MESSENGER—BENJAMIN KURIOS

  Matthew 5:21

  Two young boys stood on either side of the woman. One held up a sign that read:

  WHOSOEVER SHALL KILL SHALL BE IN DANGER OF THE JUDGMENT

  Matthew 5:21

  The other pumped a placard up and down like he was at a political rally. When the kid gave his arm a rest, I got the message:

  THE WAGES OF SIN=DEATH!

  Romans 6:23

  Chapter 4

  “Jesus, Doug,” I shouted into my cell phone an hour after leaving the Orange County Jail. “Have you seen Manny Maglio’s niece? She walks, talks, and dresses like a hooker.”

  “That’s because she is a hooker!”

  “Well, why the hell didn’t you tell me?” Furious, I walked toward the front office of a nondescript motel called the Wayside. Twyla, Doc Waters, and Maurice Tyson were out of earshot to my rear, seated in a Mitsubishi that I rented in Orlando.

  “And get stuck listening to another lecture about how prostitution is anything but a victimless crime?” Doug laughed. “Don’t think so.”

  “No more surprises,” I griped. “What else should I know about her?”

  “Nothing.” Doug’s tone was so soothing I knew he had to be lying. “I don’t know why you’re pissed. Think about it—the woman’s trying to find a better life. You’re helping her get on the right track. This is what you do, Bullet.”

  I should have told Doug that hand-holding hookers was not what I did. But it was six o’clock and I was famished. I moved to the main reason I had called.

  “Tell me again—isn’t the objective of this fiasco to get Twyla a job at Universal?”

  “If you get her there, that’s what’s going to happen—yes.”

  “Maybe not,” I warned. “If she goes into that interview wearing anything close to what she has on now, even Frederick’s of Hollywood wouldn’t sign her on.”

  A long wait. “Damnit, there’s always something,” Doug wheezed. “All right, maybe we can fix the problem. There’s a Nordstrom’s department store in Orlando—at the Florida Mall. Maglio’s in tight with one of Nordstrom’s board members. I’ll see if I can get this fixed. Figure out a way of getting Twyla to the store before her interview tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Nordstrom’s? What am I, a personal shopper? This isn’t part of the deal.”

  “Yeah, well keep remembering those free plane tickets I got for you,” Doug said. “And think of me tonight when you’re lounging around that comfortable motel room. You’re paying a small price for a boatload of big favors, my friend.”

  I snapped my cell phone shut and walked into the Wayside’s office, where the manager gave me an ice-cold reception. He told me the four rooms reserved in my name by Dr. Kool’s secretary were freebies—in-kind donations the Wayside had reluctantly offered to Harris & Gilbarton in lieu of making a cash contribution to one of the charities the firm represented. The manager said he had been told the rooms would be home-away-from-home for a few visiting nonprofit dignitaries. “Instead, I’m forkin’ over four rentable rooms for two goddamned nights to a bunch of Yankee yo-yos.”

  I was tempted to tell the manager he needed a reality check. The $59-a-night Wayside wasn’t a place for VIPs. But I kept my mouth shut when he shoved four keys into my hand and jerked his thumb toward the seediest wing of the motel.

  I walked back to the car and passed out the keys. Maurice and Doc grabbed a couple of vinyl bags, which they had converted to suitcases, and headed to their respective rooms. Twyla decided to check out the Wayside’s murky pool before unpacking her pink and yellow polka-dot carry-on that was still in the trunk. I picked up my beat-up American Tourister at the same time Twyla called my name. She had been at the pool for no more than two minutes but was already carrying on a conversation with a family of four who looked like they belonged at the Wayside.

  “Bullet, come over here!”

  Mr. Logical, the voice in my head I ignored far too often, screamed don’t go there. But I was too tired to come up with an excuse to keep my distance. I trudged to the oversized puddle that the Wayside passed off as a pool.

  “This is Conway Kyzwoski and his wife, Ida,” Twyla bubbled. “They’re from South Carolina.”

  I flapped my hand and muttered an exhausted hello.

  “And these kids are Noah and A-Frame.”

  “Ephraim,” Ida Kyzwoski corrected. “It’s from the Bible. The name means fruitful.”

  Although Ephraim couldn’t be more than ten, the way he was studying Twyla Tharp suggested that fruitfulness was in his future.

  “Sit down,” Conway Kyzwoski ordered. He reached into a brown paper bag and pulled out two plastic cups. “Not supposed to have no beer by the pool but hell’s bells, we’re at a ree-sort, for God sakes!” Out came a can of Miller Lite.

  Twyla pulled me into a moldy folding chair next to an even moldier patio table. I gave in to the forces around me, took the cup of beer, and tried to figure out how Conway could see when one eye pointed left and the other tilted toward the cracked concrete that surrounded the pool.

  I was certain I had never seen Conway before, but Ida and her two offspring were another story. No question about it—they were the sign holders I had spotted at the anti-Zeus rally outside the Orange County Jail.

  “We come down here from Goose Creek,” Conway informed me. He held out a can of Skoal. “Want some?”

  “Thanks, but I don’t—chew.”

  “We’re here to do God’s work,” Ida said, studying both Twyla and me. I was sure Ida had seen us at the Visitation Center, but for some reason, she made no mention of it. Instead, she launched into a mini-inquisition. “Why are you in Orlando, Mr. Ballot?”

  “Actually, it’s Bullock,” I corrected. “Rick Bullock.”

  “But everyone calls him Bullet,” said Twyla. “You know, because he shoots straight.”

  Conway reconfigured the compliment with a snicker. “A straight shooter?”

  “Somethin’ wrong with that?” Twyla reaction was surprisingly sharp.

  It was my first inclination that there was more to Manny Maglio’s niece than makeup, a well-proportioned body, and compromised morals. If my wife were still alive, she’d be telling me not to judge Twyla by just her exterior. There could be a lot more to the woman than meets the eye, Anne would undoubtedly say. It would take a while, but I would come to find out that my wife was absolutely right.

  “Still don’t know what brings you to Orlando, Mr. Bullet,” Ida persisted. I had a feeling she already knew why.

  “Business.”

  Ida blew back my answer with a snort and turned away. She was one of those women you never noticed unless you worked at it. Unlike her husband who was beer bellied and tattooed, Ida was one hundred percent bland. Her hair was short, brown, and flecked with gray. She wore a tan muumuu that covered her pudgy body from neck to toe. If there were anything at all distinctive about her, it was the silver medallion about the size of quarter that dangled from a thin choke necklace. I recognized it immediately—it was identical to the pro-life emblem Zeus claimed the driver of the mysterious blue sedan was wearing.

  It was too much of a coincidence. Ida Kyzwoski and a man somehow connected to the murder of Benjamin Kurios both wearing the same necklace? I looked more closely at the inscription engraved on the rim of the silver disk. Quia Vita.

  “What about you?” Twyla asked Conway in a bedroom voice. “You came here all the way from Goose’s Crease?”

  “It’s Goose Creek,” Conway laughed. He leaned forward so he was no more than a foot from Twyla. “Took a few days off from work to be with the family. I’m what they call a mechanical engineer.”

  “Conway works at Boylin’s Garage,” Ida clarified. “Like Ephesians says, ‘Man must do something useful with his own hands that he may have something to share with those in need.
’ ”

  I had my doubts that Conway did his share of sharing.

  “You’re so lucky to have a daddy who knows about cars, A-Frame,” cooed Twyla. Her words lit Conway up like a torch. Ida showed her first hint of uneasiness, squinting first at her husband and then at Manny Maglio’s niece.

  Conway apparently realized his wife was deciphering the signals. He hoisted his beer can and reluctantly turned his attention to me. “So, what kind of business are you gonna be doin’ in Orlando?”

  I sucked in a lungful of Florida humidity and gave Conway as little information as possible. “We’re here for a meeting.”

  That might have been the conversation stopper if Twyla hadn’t jumped in. “Bullet knows the guy who killed Benjamin Kurios.”

  Ida made a hand motion that looked to be a combination of the sign of the cross and a swatting of the mosquitoes that were also enjoying the Wayside pool. “I see,” she said, showing no surprise.

  “We talked to the killer in jail,” Twyla boasted. The urge to clamp my hand over her glossy lips was almost uncontrollable.

  “Why would you want to do that?” Ida asked me.

  I took a tad too long to answer. Twyla kept running with the ball.

  “The killer used to live with Bullet in New Jersey,” Twyla explained. “And it could be he’s not the murderer at all! Wouldn’t that be something?”

  I guessed somewhere between Newark and the Wayside, Maurice and Doc Waters had boiled down my connection to Zeus in a way that Twyla could understand.

  “That’s not exactly what—”

  Ida cut me off. “We know who did the killing, Mr. Bullet.”

  “Well, I’m just here to talk to the suspect.”

  “Come all the way to Florida to just talk? Why would you do that?”

  “To find out for sure if the man’s guilty or innocent.”

  Ida looked at me as if I were insane. Even A-Frame and his brother appeared astonished that anyone would be crazy enough to fiddle with a case that was in the prosecutor’s bag. “Holy Father, as You say to us in First Kings, give this man wisdom to know what justice deserves to be administered,” she said.