Читать книгу The Apostle - J. Kerley A. - Страница 10

It was eight a.m., the oblique sun lighting a soft mist that rose from a brief morning rain, giving a ghostly cast to the tree-canopied streets of Spring Hill, Mobile’s finest old neighborhood, many of the homes dating back to antebellum times. Harry Nautilus pulled to a two-story house set back a hundred feet from the avenue, a square, white, multi-columned Greek Revival monster Nautilus thought as charmless as it was large, redeemed by the landscaping: oaks and sycamores standing in hedge circles further bordered by azaleas and bougainvillea. Lines of dogwoods paced the high fence of the side boundaries.

He blew out a breath and pulled into the long drive. His red 1984 Volvo wagon had recently expired at 377,436 miles and he’d found a 2004 Cross Country model truly owned by the little old lady who only drove it on Sundays, the odometer registering 31,000 miles.

Nautilus parked behind a gleaming red Hummer with smoked windows and was rolling his eyes when he realized it was probably what he’d be driving. He exited the Volvo wearing the suit he’d worn to the interview with Richard Owsley, coal black, the suit he wore to court and funerals. His shirt was blue with a button-down collar and the tie a red-and-blue rep stripe. The whole drab get-up was already beginning to itch.

Nautilus patted his hair, a one-inch natural with a sprinkling of gray, licked an index finger and smoothed his bulldozer-blade mustache, took a deep breath and walked to the front door. The knocker was a cast-iron version of the three crosses of Golgotha – currently unoccupied – hinged to slam the base. Nautilus gingerly lifted a thief’s cross and let it drop.

A harsh metallic clank. Nautilus stood back as the door opened to reveal one of the most impressive stacks of hair he’d seen in years, a cascade of blonde-bright ringlets that bounced atop the shoulders of a slender, and apparently confused woman in her early forties. Her make-up was old-school-thick, early Dolly Parton, but her face was model-perfect, with high cheekbones, a pert nose and lips like pink cushions. With her dress, white and embroidered with creamy flowers, she looked part porcelain angel, part country singer from the seventies. Nautilus immediately recognized her from the Willy Prince Show, the woman organizing the bused-in audience.

“Mrs Owsley, I’m Harry Nautilus. You’re expecting me, I’m told. Or hope.”

The woman stared, as if Nautilus was a unicorn. “Mrs Owsley?” Nautilus said, resisting the impulse to wave his hand before her wide, blue-shadowed eyes. “Did your husband tell you I’d be by today?”

“You’re black,” she said, just shy of a gasp.

“Since birth. Is something wrong?”

A brief pause and the woman’s startled expression flowed effortlessly into a glittering smile, teeth shining like marquee lights. “Goodness, no,” she said, reaching to touch Harry’s sleeve and tug him over the threshold. “It’s just such a surprise. All my other drivers were, well … do you folks prefer the term white or Caucasian?”

“It doesn’t really matter, ma’am. It’s more what you prefer to call yourselves.”

She canted her head in thought, followed with a tinkly laugh. “Of course. Come inside, Mr Nautilus, please.”

She led Nautilus through the wide entranceway and into an expansive living area, the walls a soft peach, the French Provincial furniture having matching cushions and looking delicate and expensive. The room was vaulted, twenty-feet tall, a pair of ceiling fans whisking high above. One wall held family photos, one the front windows. The third held a cross of dark and rough-hewn beams, a dozen feet tall, eight wide. It had been thickly coated in shellac or varnish and gleamed in the in-streaming sun.

Nautilus said, “You have a beautiful home, Mrs Owsley.”

“God gave it to us,” she said, looking to Nautilus as if expecting an amen.

He said, “Indeed and fer-sure, ma’am,” and found his voice failing. “Might I trouble you for a drink of water? I seem a bit dry.”

“Right this way.”

The kitchen was straight from Architectural Digest: beaten copper sinks, twin refrigerator-freezers, an island with a maple chopping block. The countertops were richly textured marble. Above, an eight-foot rack was hung with cooking implements.

“There’s water, of course,” Celeste Owsley said. “I also have sweet tea.”

“Tea then, please.”

A crystal vase of tea was produced from a refrigerator seemingly sized to hold sides of beef. Celeste Owsley poured a glass and handed it to Nautilus. He sipped and studied the vast kitchen.

“You must truly like to cook, ma’am.”

The woman frowned at the rack festooned with pots, pans, colanders, whisks. “They all do something, but I’ve no idea what. Thankfully, our cook likes to cook. You’ll meet Felicia, I expect. She’s a precious little Mexican girl.”

“Girl?” Nautilus asked. “How old is she?”

Ms Owsley canted her head sideways, perplexed. Somehow the huge beehive ’do remained centered. “I never asked,” she said, a scarlet talon tapping a plump lower lip. “Forty? Fifty?”

Girl, Nautilus thought, holding back the sigh as Celeste Owsley gestured him toward the wide staircase. “Now let’s meet our daughter and see how she is today.”

Owsley clicked the high heels across the floor to the foot of the broad staircase and clapped her hands as if summoning a pet poodle. Seconds passed and Nautilus heard a door opening upstairs, looked up to a teenage girl staring down, her brown hair shoulder length and a pouty look on an otherwise sweet face.

“What?”

“Well, come on down.”

The girl sighed dramatically and headed down the steps. Nautilus knew she was sixteen – research again – and her name was Rebecca. Owsley’s face lit to a zillion watts as she pointed to Nautilus like he was door number three on a game show.

“This is Mr Nautilus, hon. He’s our new driver.”

The girl scowled. “But he’s bl—”

“He’s your Papa’s choice,” Owsley interrupted, “and that means he’s the best there can be.”

The girl stared at Nautilus. A smile quivered at the edge of her bright lips.

“Fuck,” she said.

“Becca!” Owsley snapped.

“Fuck fuck fuck,” the girl said, looking pleased. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck …”

“Get upstairs! Now!”

The girl slowly climbed the stairs, repeating her mantra until it ended with the slamming of a door. Owsley sighed and turned to Nautilus.

“I’m sorry. It’s a stage. I can’t wait for it to be over.”

The meeting seemed to have reached a conclusion, Owsley leading Nautilus back to the front door. Her hand was on the knob when she turned, her eyes searching into Nautilus’s eyes.

“You have been saved, of course, Mr Nautilus.”

The same question had been asked by Reverend Owsley, early in their meeting, as if, answered improperly, the interview would be over. Ten years back he and Carson had been chasing a trio of murderous dope dealers through a dilapidated warehouse, their leader a psychotic named Randy Collins. Nautilus had been following Collins down a rotting flight of stairs when they collapsed, Nautilus tumbling ten feet to concrete, gun spinning from his hand as the maniac spun and lifted his weapon, the nine-millimeter muzzle staring straight into Nautilus’s chest as a tattooed finger tightened on the trigger.

Until the front of Collins’ face disappeared, Carson firing from forty feet away, a perfect shot in the shadowed warehouse.

“Yes, ma’am,” Nautilus replied, just as he’d done with the mister. “I was saved years ago. It was a beautiful day.”

Nautilus returned to his vehicle thinking about his interview, the written part and subsequent face-to-face sessions with Owsley. A good third of the questions had – in veiled fashion, mostly – been about his discretion, the ability to handle secrets. He’d answered truthfully, meaning that he didn’t disburse private information. There would have been other vetting, he now realized – probably a private-investigation firm – but even his enemies would have said something akin to, “Harry Nautilus doesn’t carry tales.”

Twenty bills an hour, he told himself as he buckled into his car. Drive ’em around, stay uninvolved, cash the checks. The gig is worth it, right?