Keeper of the Flame Read online

  “What we shouldn’t demand is a heaven or an afterlife,” the Reverend said. “This is the time for us to live the generous life here on Earth today, to live according to the ideas and philosophies of two men who walked the planet centuries ago, Buddha and John of the Revelations.”

  The Reverend pushed a couple of buttons on his laptop, and something lively I recognized from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons filled the room. Everybody sat a little straighter. People nodded at one another. The Reverend beamed on us all.

  After the Vivaldi, the Reverend talked about Buddha, about karma, about cause and effect. If we did good things, the Reverend said, quoting Buddha, then good things would happen to us in the future. Alas, he said, it worked the other way too. If we did bad things, we could expect to get bad things back one day.

  Joni Mitchell came on singing her song about paradise and parking lots.

  The Reverend had a persuasive presence. He never pressed a point too hard. He smiled and was agreeable. He looked good, his face unlined, his body erect, his grey suit fitting just right. He read some more from Buddha, offered a thought or two from John of the Revelations. Then the collection was taken.

  It was the guy from the travel agency downstairs who was passing the collection plate. He worked his way from row to row, finally reaching the very back where I sat. He gave me a slow once over. Did my face ring a bell for him? Had he spotted me in the building on the night Maury Samuels sprang me from the Reverend’s office? I put a five spot on the plate.

  The Reverend delivered a few more homilies. He played a tune by a folk singer with a nasal problem. Or was that redundant? The Reverend made a couple of announcements and suggested readings for the next week’s service.

  To wind things up, a recording by a pianist I couldn’t identify played a couple of Bach’s Variations. A jazz pianist once told me that if a person could play Bach, he could play bebop. And the other way around. That gave me an idea I might mention to the Reverend.

  When the last of the Variations faded away, a dozen of the young men gathered around the Reverend, asking questions, eager beavers looking for guidance from John of the Revelations, Buddha, and the Reverend Al.

  The Reverend was patient, even erring on the side of long-windedness in his answers to the questions, though I noticed him flicking a look at me a couple of times. I was the guy waiting in the back row, looking a little too old and out of place for services at Heaven’s Philosophers.

  Finally it was just the Reverend and me in the room.

  “My name’s Crang,” I said, approaching the Reverend. “I’d like to talk with you if you can spare a few minutes.”

  “I was expecting you,” he said, reaching out to shake hands.

  “Expecting me by name?”

  The Reverend shrugged. “Let’s just say I’ve been expecting someone on the errand you’re on, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “How about we sit in your office?” I said. “You can listen to me while I ask you to give back Flame’s sheets of lyrics?”

  “It would come as a relief to me, Mr. Crang.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  In the Reverend’s office, I couldn’t help revisiting in memory the scene of my recent embarrassment. For an irrational moment, looking across the room to the bathroom door, I felt tempted to tell the Reverend about me lurking behind the black shower curtain during his marathon piss. But I resisted the temptation. Why make myself look like a nut before we’d even begun our chat?

  I chose another conversation starter.

  “You ever think of playing a Bud Powell track during the services?” I said.

  “Excuse me?” the Reverend said.

  “Greatest of the bebop piano players. You could program a tune of Bud’s called ‘Glass Enclosure.’ Sounds like Bach, only it’s bop.”

  Even as I spoke, I knew my Bud Powell tangent was sewing confusion.

  “Put that one aside for now,” I said. “What about the nine sheets of Flame lyrics? Offensive as hell, I know they are. Sickening. But Flame would like them back.”

  “You are a lawyer, Mr. Crang?” the Reverend said.

  “How could you tell? Is it the clear look in my eyes when I stare down your answers to my questions? The quick mental processes?”

  “Mr. Crang,” the Reverend said. “I want you to tell your clients I profoundly regret my role in this enterprise, which is clearly criminal.”

  “Let me get this straight, Reverend,” I said after a small moment of silence. “You’re going no further with the half-baked blackmail scheme?”

  “I’m returning the sheets to you and performing whatever other duty you require, short of turning myself in to the authorities.”

  “And you’re not going to hold back any copies?”

  “I just want to get the one set of sheets I have in my possession out of this office and back to the rightful owner. I guarantee I will be retaining no copies.”

  “Have you made more copies?”

  “Just the one I handed to the security man.”

  “Jerome?”

  “Yes, Jerome Suggs.”

  “You’ll sign an affidavit saying as much?”

  “I’ll sign it, of course, but what exactly do you want me to say in this affidavit?”

  “That’s my department. I’ll go back to the office after we’re done with our heart-to-heart here, draw the affidavit, and bring it around for you to sign.”

  “I’m most grateful,” the Reverend said.

  “Tell me this,” I said. “How did you get your hands on the music sheets in the first place?”

  The Reverend shook his head slowly and a little sadly. “I can’t answer that,” he said.

  “You can’t answer it because you’ve no idea how the sheets came into your grasp or you can’t answer the question because somebody else will give you a hard time if you do?”

  “Can’t we just close the book on the whole wretched thing, Mr. Crang? You get the sheets back, and I get something that’s even more valuable.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “Peace of mind,” the Reverend said.

  Now that I looked at the Reverend from closer range, I could see the signs of stress in his face, the beginnings of purplish bags under his eyes, the lines in his cheeks a little deeper than maybe I expected of a guy in his line of business.

  “Why did you pull such a crazy stunt in the first place, Reverend?” I said.

  Douglas sighed and leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbows on the desk before he spoke.

  “Mr. Crang,“ he said, “you would have to understand my present situation and some of how I arrived at my current employment before I could explain why I committed what you call a crazy stunt.”

  “Your present situation?” I said. “Let’s see, Heaven’s Philosophers pays you sixty-two thousand a year plus an allowance to buy nice suits like the one you’re wearing today. Before you came to this place, you had a Catholic parish up in Markham, but you lost it when Father John Capelletti caught you making time with his squeeze, who happened to be Chuckie Domenico’s wife, Audrey, who I understand is stacked. Jackie Gabriel’s son, Georgie, lined you up for the job here at Heaven’s Philosophers on the rebound from the parish that Father John got you kicked out of.”

  The Reverend looked shell-shocked.

  “This is an invasion of everything I thought to be my private life,” he said. His voice had a quiver in it.

  “Don’t worry, Reverend,” I said, “I’m not telling anybody what I know. I just want you to understand we should go along with one another, and pretty soon this mess we’ve got on our hands will be more or less tidied up.”

  There was a sharp rap on the door. Before the Reverend could issue an invitation, the door swung open, revealing the travel agency guy. He was carrying a large-sized, plain brown envelope that appeared to be stuffed
with something, probably money.

  “The collection’s ready and counted, Alton,” the guy said to the Reverend.

  The Reverend stood up.

  “Thank you, Jimmy,” he said, reaching for the brown envelope.

  “Seven hundred and forty-eight dollars today,” Jimmy said. “That’s the highest total since you began.”

  Jimmy had an understated air about him. His clothes looked like they came from The Bay — no style to them, clothes a person barely noticed. The same went for his all round demeanour.

  “This is Jimmy Wain,” the Reverend said, introducing the guy and me to one another. “Jimmy, this is Mr. Crang. He’s interested in my work with Heaven’s Philosophers.”

  Jimmy paused a moment, staring at me, then said, “It’s good work Alton does.”

  With that, he left the room, closing the door smartly. I had the feeling Jimmy had stored my name away.

  “Speaking of money,” I said to the Reverend, “what were your plans for the payoff you expected to pry out of the Flame Group?”

  “I expected no payoff, as you call it, Mr. Crang.”

  “This was a freebie job you were taking on?”

  “I was promised a substantial donation for my little church here,” the Reverend said, waving his arm to include the office and the formal church beyond it. “Whatever the sum, I would apply the money first to a library. I want more reference material to help the young people you saw at our service this afternoon master the ideas I’m putting in their minds.”

  “Eight million bucks would buy enough books to restock the entire Vatican library.”

  The Reverend looked annoyed. “Nothing like the entire sum was ever intended for the donation,” he said.

  “Who’s supposed to get the big bucks?” I asked. “Or is that another question you can’t answer?”

  “Please, Mr. Crang, don’t ask me more,” the Reverend said. “I admit my responsibility in the whole misadventure, but I can’t go beyond myself in accepting blame.”

  “Here’s my problem, Reverend,” I said. “You’re tied up in this building with a lot of guys who operate in different worlds of crime. How do I know they won’t scramble whatever arrangement I make with you?”

  “The people you’re speaking of employ me in the church,” the Reverend said. “But that’s the end of my relationship with them.”

  “Give me a break, Reverend,” I said. “These guys meet in this office of yours two or three times a week. That makes a prima facie case for your involvement with their shifty enterprises.”

  For the first time in our conversation, the Reverend smiled. It was a nice smile.

  “Come with me, Mr. Crang,” he said.

  I followed the Reverend out of the office, down the church’s centre aisle to a desk at the back of the auditorium. I hadn’t noticed the desk before. It was close to the north wall, and on the desk’s top, there was nothing except textbooks with covers that indicated they dealt in theological subjects.

  “This is my second office,” the Reverend said, indicating the desk and the books on it.

  “If I’m guessing correctly,” I said, “when Squeaky Fallis and company convene a meeting in your office, they ban you to the particular Siberia this desk represents?”

  “They don’t care to share reports of their activities with me.”

  “And you don’t share yours with them?”

  “If I’m out here and they’re in the other office,” the Reverend said, “it’s pretty obvious that no exchange of any sort gets transacted.”

  Should I believe him? His explanation seemed logical enough, and despite his other flaws, a taste for blackmail being one, the Reverend didn’t strike me as a natural born teller of untruths. I thought I’d probably accept his version that he had no connections to the Fallis group’s criminal stuff. But I wondered what the bad guys would say about that.

  The Reverend motioned for me to sit down with him, side by side in the back row of the auditorium.

  “This affidavit you mentioned,” he said, “can you bring it here for me to sign tomorrow at about this time?”

  “How about a quicker turnaround?” I said. “I can leave now and be back in ninety minutes with the affidavit hot off my drawing board.”

  The Reverend shook his head. “I need one more day to tend to a certain matter.”

  “Tomorrow I’m out of town,” I said. “I’ll come at one o’clock Wednesday. Deal?”

  He nodded. “That would work. We have one problem with Wednesday, but I know a way around it.”

  “The problem being …?”

  “Wednesday noon, Mr. Fallis and the other associates will be gathering downstairs for their weekly social time.”

  “How about you come to my office?” I said. “Or else we can meet in neutral territory?”

  Reverend Douglas shook his head slowly. “They like to keep track of me during the hours we’re open here at Heaven’s Philosophers.”

  “Come on, Reverend. Let’s get the paper work done. It can’t be that hard to decide on a place.”

  The Reverend stopped shaking his head. “Here’s my solution. What we do, or rather what you do, is use an entrance to the building that none of the others are aware of.”

  He stood up and took a few steps to the north wall behind his desk. A thick, dark curtain hung on the wall. He pulled it back, revealing something that looked like a wooden door but had no knob or keyhole that I could see. What it did have was a lot of intricate carving in the wood.

  “You want me to come in through here?” I asked the Reverend.

  “A secret entrance and exit,” the Reverend said, looking very pleased with himself. “It was installed by Stewart Sclanders himself. You know who he is?”

  “Lumber baron and founder of Steady for Jesus.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And I’m imagining he put the secret door in place for his girlfriend, Julie Fineberg, to slip in and out. Or for him to do likewise in reverse.”

  The Reverend looked a trifle miffed that I was taking the edge off his revelations.

  “I went to see Stewart Sclanders to confirm that this was indeed a door,” Reverend Douglas said. “He was most obliging. He supplied me with two sets of keys to the doors up here and down at ground level.”

  “I can’t spot the keyhole,” I said, looking at the door.

  “You see the unicorn among the door’s carvings? Right there at waist level? The keyhole is in the unicorn’s horn.”

  The Reverend took a key from his jacket pocket, and fit it into the unicorn’s horn. Then he used the key as a leveraging tool, a substitute doorknob, to open the door. What I saw now was a ladder attached to the wall leading straight downwards in an enclosed and very dark space.

  “There’s a light switch up here and another at ground level,” the Reverend said, flipping on the switch. I leaned over, and in the glare of a set of light bulbs running along either side of the ladder all the way to the ground, I looked down two long flights.

  “The climb up looks like a cardiovascular challenge,” I said.

  “You seem in good health, Mr. Crang.”

  “And I have motivation.”

  “To get the affidavit signed, exactly. That makes you ideal for using the ladder.”

  The Reverend handed me two keys. Then he closed the door, and drew the heavy curtain that hid the door from view. He went back to his desk in what he called his second office and took a daybook out of the middle drawer.

  “I’m inking you in for one o’clock on Wednesday,” he said.

  “It’s a date.”

  Together the Reverend and I walked out of the auditorium into the open area at the top of the marble stairs. Jimmy the travel guy was nowhere in sight. Neither was anyone else.

  “I’ll be happier than you can imagine to end this sad affa
ir,” the Reverend said.

  “You didn’t mention the copy of the song lyrics that you somehow acquired.”

  “Oh yes, yes,” the Reverend said. “I know that’s important to you and your people, and I can assure you it’ll be in your possession when you leave here on Wednesday.”

  “That’s one thing I’m absolutely certain of,” I said, knowing that I already had the song sheets in my office files. Clearly the Reverend hadn’t yet checked his desk drawer for the sheets. He’d get a shock when he finally opened the drawer, but better from my point of view he should suffer a jolt than I should let the dratted sheets out of my control.

  My business with the Reverend done for the day, I trotted down the winding staircase. I paused to check the first floor. Nobody was in sight, nobody lurking on the sidewalk out front. I left by the building’s main door and drove away, feeling pleased with myself.

  Chapter Sixteen

  An hour later, I phoned Jerome.

  “The Reverend Douglas has folded his hand,” I said to Jerome.

  “He’s backing off?”

  “The Reverend says, in so many words, he’s ashamed of what he did.”

  “Man, what happened to the guy?” Jerome said. “He’s had a vision from some higher power?”

  “He’ll sign an affidavit swearing he’s got no more copies except the one he used for the blackmail.”

  “And that one, he’ll give back to us?”

  I hesitated, once again, considering whether I should tell Jerome I’d already taken possession of the copy. I came up with the same answer as before; no, I wouldn’t tell him.

  “Not to worry, Jerome,” I said. “I’ll have the Reverend’s one and only copy.”

  “When’s this happening, doing the affidavit and whatever else? Later today?”

  “Wednesday at one o’clock, it’ll be signed, sealed, and delivered.”

  “Why’s he stalling, man?” Jerome said. “You heard Mr. Carnale last week, him saying he wants this done pronto.”