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  “So he’s an undercover crook.”

  “Booker, aren’t most crooks, especially the good ones, undercover?” Murcheson answered.

  “Yep, because they have to be,” Booker replied. “Abeeku sounds like the brother who’ll keep one foot tapping lightly on the right side of the law, just so he can slip off and do wrong when he needs something he can’t get right. Y’all following me?”

  “Umm… hmm,” Pompey said, because he knew exactly what Booker was talking about. “Bishop Abeeku is the brother who will sell weed just long enough to pay off some bills or earn enough money for a down payment on a house or car. And then will have the gall to turn state’s evidence on his supplier, sneak and get all of the weed, and then set up somebody dumb enough to do his bidding long enough to get arrested after he’s made the money he needs for a permanent trip to the Caribbean.”

  “That is Bishop Abeeku in a nutshell,” Percy said. “But he does have information and I know that he’ll share it in exchange for a favor.”

  “And what would that favor be this time?” Murcheson queried, remembering that the last favor was helping Bobo get his son a scholarship to Evangeline T. Marshall University. That had taken some doing because the Abeeku boy had horrible grades and abysmal test scores, even though he had spent years at an excellent, high-priced English boarding school.

  “Plane tickets for him, his wife, and his three presiding elders to the Triennial Conference,” Percy answered.

  Murcheson shrugged and nodded. It wasn’t cheap but it was definitely doable, and certainly a heck of a lot easier than getting that son of his into an American university. And if he knew anything about Abeeku, Abeeku would produce the goods. Murcheson just hoped he wouldn’t try and pull something extra over on them once he got to the conference. Murcheson was just a tad bit uneasy about Abeeku’s being their sole resource for getting the goods on what was happening on the other side of the Atlantic.

  THREE

  Bishop Rucker Lee Hemphill sat up in his prized handmade leopard-skin-and-leather Queen Anne chair to sip on the cognac he had recently received from France. He swished the liquor around in the glass, inhaled the exquisite aroma, and then took a long sip.

  “Umph,” he said, “that is almost as good as sex.”

  Bishop O. Ray Caruthers, Jr., who Rucker thought looked so much like his father it was like looking at a ghost, said, “Negro, are you serious?”

  Rucker sipped some more and said, “Nahhhh… ain’t nothing that good—especially if you are lucky enough to get a hold of one of those good and freaky girls from back home.”

  He closed his eyes and inhaled the memory. It was during a moment like this that he really missed the States.

  “You are a wise man,” Bishop Ottah Babatunde said with a chuckle, and took a sip of his own drink. As much as he hated having to meet on Bishop Hemphill’s territory, he did appreciate the luxurious amenities. No one could ever accuse Rucker of not appreciating the finer things in life. He only wished that Rucker could import one of those freaky American women for his pleasure. Now that would be the perfect way to end this meeting.

  Rucker and Ray exchanged quick glances that didn’t escape Ottah’s scrutiny.

  “You Americans are so entertaining with your animated exchanges,” Ottah said, with a hearty chuckle that did not hide the deadly glint in his eyes.

  Ottah had tried his best to have this meeting in Nigeria. But they had refused because they were scared of that crazy Nigerian. There was no way they were going to go to Ottah Babatunde’s house, say something to make that big, black negro with royal family members mad, and then have to pray that he didn’t get mad enough to prevent them from going home. But they were not going to tell him that. They just hoped that Ottah couldn’t completely sniff them out.

  “Sometimes,” Ottah began slyly, “I wonder why the two of you never plan these meetings at my house. The accommodations are certainly fit for a king.”

  “Bishop,” Ray responded smoothly, “I know you live in a palace that has everything I could ever want in it. But… uhhh… I ain’t exactly comfortable with some of your countrymen, who may stop me to give me a speeding ticket for driving the speed limit, and then expect a huge helping of some American cash to pay him for my own troubles. A brother gotta watch his budget, you know.”

  Rucker snickered. Ray Caruthers had a budget to watch all right. It was so big he could have paid off half the members of the police force in Ottah’s entire Episcopal district—which was huge, when one considered the size of Nigeria.

  Ottah conceded. He knew that Americans, even the corrupt ones, were very protective of their individual rights and didn’t appreciate anybody toying with them, or being what they thought was unnecessarily unjust. His way of doing things got on a lot of Americans’ nerves.

  “I hear you, Bishops. Some things in the Old World can set the teeth of you African children in the New World on edge. I’ve been to your neck of the woods many times, and can empathize with how you feel about how we do things.”

  Both Rucker and Ray smiled in relief. They needed Ottah, and he needed them. But they did not want to make that crazy black man mad. Ottah was not the one to mess with.

  “So,” Ottah was saying. “We need to make some extra money. I haven’t paid my pastors in six months, and they are quite angry. A few have even been telling all of my business to some of your bishops over in the States.”

  “Which ones?” Ray asked. Not all of the stateside bishops were right. But there were enough to cause problems.

  “Bishops Jennings and James.”

  “I hate those negroes,” Ray said and slammed his fist on Rucker’s very expensive imported Italian table.

  “Watch yourself, man,” Rucker admonished, upset that some of Ray’s cognac had spilled on the table. He looked at one of the servants, who scurried over to clean up the mess.

  “Sorry, man,” Ray said, genuinely apologetic. He pushed back so the young man could get all the liquor off the table as quickly as he could. Ray took the fresh drink another servant was holding out to him.

  “You know,” Ray said, and slurped up his drink, “my daddy hated those negroes until the day he died.”

  “So, they are troublesome like a mosquito?” Ottah inquired. He had very little experience with Murcheson James and Percy Jennings, and was under the mistaken assumption that they were more irritating than anything else.

  “You really don’t have a clue about who you are dealing with, do you, Ottah?” Rucker asked him.

  Ottah shook his head, wondering how bad these two Americans could be.

  “Those two have a lot of clout and power and they can take a brother down in a heartbeat,” Rucker told him. “You need to do something with those blabbing preachers of yours. They have just created problems for plans we have yet to make. Because mark my words, Percy and Murcheson are not going to ignore what those preachers have told them. I’d bet some good money they are sitting down planning what to do right now.”

  Ray nodded in agreement. A preacher couldn’t do anything without those two getting up in folks’ business. They were worse than the FBI.

  Ottah frowned and made a mental note to have the churches of those preachers burned down to the ground when he got back home. He had no idea how much damage they had done when they called the powers that be in the denomination back in the States.

  “What we need,” Ray was saying, “is a way to get more folks in power who are on our side back in the States. I looked at the roster of bishops for all of the districts, and we are outnumbered. We need something that will help us buy one of the two Episcopal seats that will be open in June. And we’ll need some folks, preferably presiding elders in a few choice districts, in our back pocket.”

  “Boy, if you don’t sound like your daddy,” Rucker said, and reached out his hand for some skin.

  “Yeah,” Ray said. “But the only problem with Dad was that he wasn’t slick enough. Dad didn’t pick enterprises that could be run in t
he shadows. His stuff always had to have some kind of venture folks could actually go to.”

  “Like that ho’ house in the funeral home back in 1963!” Rucker said and slapped the side of his chair. “I was there, Ray. You ain’t never seen nothing that good in your life. And the women. Ooooo… eeee… ooooo… laaawwwwdddd if they didn’t have some women there who could lay it down, pick it back up, and toss it high, only to come back down and land right on you!”

  Ray started laughing. His daddy had been something else back in the day. Ottah looked at both of them, hoping they would let him in on this good secret.

  “Aww, sorry man,” Rucker said. He’d forgotten that only recently had the Gospel United Church voted to put indigenous folk in the administrative seats in the African districts. Back then Ottah wouldn’t have been a bishop, and he certainly wouldn’t have been invited to run with the big boys in the denomination, if he had been lucky enough to be one of the few indigenous African preachers to participate in the Triennial General Conference. Back then the bishops, presiding elders, and prominent preachers had not treated the Africans right.

  “Ray’s dad was on the same page that we are right now. He got together with some of the very people we’ll be working with, and opened up a brothel for the preachers at the 1963 Triennial General Conference in Richmond, Virginia—which is less than three hours north of Durham, this year’s conference site. That place was the baddest meeting place for preachers that I’ve ever been to. They made a lot of money and were collecting dirt on folks left and right. That is, until Percy Jennings, Murcheson James, and their boys, Theophilus Simmons and Eddie Tate, got involved. It was all over then.”

  “But didn’t two women help bust that up?” Ray asked.

  “Yeah, the late great Bishop Harrell’s grandbaby, Saphronia Anne McComb James, and her friend Precious Powers. Both of them were going with Ernest Brown’s son, Marcel. He made those heifers mad, and they helped to engineer a plan that took everybody clean out.”

  “But they are women,” Ottah said, frowning. “What business did they have being there, and then destroying something a man had built up?”

  “Uhhh… Ottah,” Ray said carefully, “they are some sisters from Mississippi and Detroit, and their man messed over them and they were not having it. That was their business.”

  “If they had been my women, I would have disciplined them and put that insubordinate behavior to a stop.”

  “African, please,” Rucker said. “They wouldn’t have been your women because in their minds you don’t know how to treat women like them.”

  “I heard that,” Ray said, cracking up. Sometimes Ottah could be so full of himself. He honestly believed that African royalty mess carried weight with black people from Mississippi and Detroit.

  “But they were the kind of women you took your pleasure with and dismissed—right?”

  Ray’s mouth hung wide open. He could not believe this African was talking about their fellow Americans like that. It was time they got Ottah straight. He’d gone too far. Ray said, “Look, DR. Saphronia Anne McComb James is a well respected First Lady of a big Gospel United Church in Atlanta, and a distinguished professor at Morehouse Medical School. She ain’t exactly the kind of sister you talk about like that. Marcel Brown was her fiancé, he cheated on her, made her mad, and she got his butt back big time. End of discussion. That girl didn’t even sleep around—not even with the good Rev. Brown.”

  “And the other woman,” Ottah said with a smirk. “What is her alleged pedigree?”

  “Precious Powers is a good and decent woman. She made a mistake and believed that Marcel was in love with her. She is married to a good man and has part ownership in a fancy women’s boutique with Rev. Theophilus Simmons’s wife, Essie. You mess with that girl, and you will get your butt kicked. You hear what I’m saying?” Rucker told Ottah with a stern expression on his face.

  He was greedy and a crook, but he wasn’t letting this man down the women in his country. He got tired of folks from other countries thinking that sisters in America were all loose and hos. For sure there were some freaky hos across the water, like Ernest Brown’s newest woman, Nadine Quarles. But they did not represent most of the sisters. Most black women were sweet, hardworking, and decent folk who deserved better than the kind of mess the Ottah Babatundes of the world were always trying to dish out when they crossed the Atlantic.

  “Okay, I stand corrected,” Ottah spat out. He was of noble birth, and detested being chastised by these commoners over women of all things. He went on. “But in my country.”

  “Brother, when we go to make this money and buy that Episcopal seat, you’ll be in our country. And don’t you ever forget that,” Ray said, and then got up to go to the bathroom. He was pissed off and would have called off the whole deal if he hadn’t been so crooked and greedy.

  Chief, Rucker Hemphill’s head of security at the district’s compound, hurried down the hall to sneeze without being heard by the men in that room. He had slipped the two servants a few American bills to let him sit near the door of the room where the meeting was taking place, so he could figure out what those three crooks were up to. Chief had been listening in on Rucker’s plots and schemes to get his hands on a lot of money for weeks.

  Unlike the bishop, Chief really did know of a way they could make money. Chief had figured out that he couldn’t pull this off without Bishop Hemphill. He wished he could, but knew that wasn’t going to happen. And he had watched Rucker carefully to make sure that he was the kind of man who would be interested in his business proposal. Only thing, he would have to wait until the other two bishops left before approaching Bishop Hemphill with his idea. Chief was not going to put his cards on the table while those other two were around.

  Chief didn’t like Bishop Caruthers because he looked like the kind of man who would sleep with your woman behind your back if he thought he could get away with it. Chief couldn’t stand Bishop Ottah Babatunde because the man was evil and stuck on himself. As far as Chief was concerned, Babatunde forgot that folks outside of Nigeria didn’t care who he or his people were—and they were not scared of him, either. Mozambique had some folks just as mean and dangerous as Bishop Babatunde. And they would take you out, toss your body in some secret ravine, and then go home to eat and catch a nap.

  Chief figured, correctly, that those other two bishops were not leaving anytime soon when two good-looking women walked into the study carrying trays loaded down with more food and liquor. Just hours ago the food, liquor, and cigars had been carried in by the male servants. He slipped the menservants a few more bills and left the compound.

  When the time was right, Chief knew that Bishop Hemphill would be very interested in what he had to say—especially after a “field trip” to his great-great-uncle Lee Lee’s watermelon farm. Uncle Lee Lee was ninety-five years old, and didn’t look a day over seventy. He, with the help of his thirty-two children, ran one of the best watermelon farms this side of Mozambique—raising the highest quality of that fruit—red, yellow, orange, and the rare black watermelon.

  But that wasn’t all Uncle Lee Lee raised. That old man had come up with something that would wake the dead. Or, to be more exact, what he had would give rise to what some men had believed to be lifeless, limp, and practically dead to the vitality they had known many moons ago.

  FOUR

  As soon as Chief was comfortable that the other two bishops were far enough out of town that they wouldn’t turn around and come back to the compound, he invited Bishop Hemphill out to Uncle Lee Lee’s farm. Chief hoped he was playing the right hand. This was the first time he had taken a chance on bringing an American out to the farm.

  Americans, black and white, were some nosy and inquisitive people. And he’d never met people who were so comfortable about being open with their thoughts and feelings. And black Americans? They were a trip—nothing like them on the planet. Chief always found it comical to watch Bishops Hemphill and Caruthers make all those faces at each other whe
never Bishop Babatunde got on their nerves with his royal-descendent talk.

  Rucker didn’t jump at the chance to take a field trip out to Chief’s great-great-uncle’s farm when Chief first approached him about this. He was not a farm boy by nature, and couldn’t even fathom what was so important that he needed to stop what he was doing to ride out to the middle of nowhere. He was knee-deep in going over the budget reports of his pastors. And this was taking more time than usual because they had started getting good at hiding money from him. He knew they didn’t like it when he raised their connectional dues, and believed that if they reported less revenue they wouldn’t have to pay him more money that never came back to make things better in their churches.

  Plus, Rucker was skeptical about taking a day off to go to this farm because he couldn’t figure out how a visit to a farm was going to help his situation. He needed a lot of money, not some fresh fruits and vegetables from some old African man’s farm. But Chief wouldn’t let up on him, and kept promising that what he wanted to show him would make his life a whole lot better. Rucker knew that Chief always put his money where his mouth was, and decided that maybe a mini-vacation to the edge of nowhere was what he needed.

  Chief had been driving the big and rugged Toyota Land Cruiser on dirt roads for over an hour. Rucker could count the houses he’d seen in that hour on his hand. They made a sharp right turn onto what Rucker could only surmise was a grass road, about three feet after seeing a beat-up wooden sign with STAMINA AND LONG LIFE written on it in green paint. If Chief hadn’t known where he was going they would have missed the turn completely. Rucker didn’t think the term “out in the boondocks” could even apply to wherever they were.

  “Why is the sign written in English, Chief?”

  “To ward off the neighbors—makes them think some rich white Europeans involved in something out here, and it keeps them away, and out of our business.”