“The Preacher,” he says.
“The Preacher?”
“That’s not his real name, son, it’s just what we call him.”
“Yeah? Or is that what he calls himself?”
“Both,” he says, smiling. “But I don’t know what started first. I think he’s just always been the Preacher.”
“Can I talk to him?”
“Wait here.”
I stand on the doorstep with the sun beating down on me. I can hear sirens in the distance as an ambulance speeds by a block away, maybe it’s come to the neighborhood to hand out plague vaccinations like an ice-cream truck selling ice cream. Every few seconds a thick drop of sweat tickles my body as it rolls from my armpit. Even in the heat a couple of guys walking their dog out on the street are wearing big black leather jackets with gang patches on the back. The dog is solidly built with short black hair and doesn’t have a tail. Not only does it look like it could rip my throat out, it gives me a look like it really wants to. Long strips of saliva are dangling from its mouth and it starts to growl. The only thing holding it back is a thick leash and a dog collar with small metal spikes decorating it.
“What fuck you staring at, muvafucker?” one of them asks, glancing over at me and slowing down.
I turn back to the door, hoping it will be enough for them, but it’s not. I hear the dog growling from a few meters behind me. They’ve come to the fence line. I take a quick glance back. Both men look like they weigh at least a hundred kilograms each, fat and muscle compacted beneath tattoo-covered skin. I imagine they do okay with the ladies too-but not where the ladies have any say in the matter. I knock on the door again.
“Hey, hey, fuck-knuckle,” one of them shouts.
It’s one of those common situations that people get caught up in all the time in this city on their way to becoming a statistic. Just random shit like this, and it pisses me off, and I feel like taking the gun out of my pocket and giving Christchurch some spring-cleaning.
“Hey, muvafucker, you got a problem with us?” the other one asks.
“You fucking deaf?” the first one says.
I check the door. It’s unlocked, so I step into the halfway house and close the door behind me. A glass bottle smashes against the porch and the two men keep yelling at me, but after a few seconds their yells turn to laughter, then the laughter fades as they carry on their way.
The hallway smells of body odor and cigarette smoke so strong that the actual house needs to take a shower. It branches off to a couple of bedrooms to the left and right, the doors to all of them closed so there isn’t much light hitting the hallway. There’s a staircase heading up to the right, and ahead is a large, open-plan kitchen. There aren’t any paintings on the walls, no pictures anywhere, no plants. I head into the kitchen. The guy with the cigarette burns up his arms is talking to a guy in a pair of flared trousers with holes in the knees, and a buttoned-up black shirt with a large, pointed collar. It must be button-shirt day at the house. He looks like he picked one favorite item of clothing from each decade and chose today to test the ensemble. They both look over at me.
“You’re the Preacher?” I ask.
“You’re the cop?” he asks back.
“Detective Inspector,” I say.
“Got a badge?”
“It’s in the car.”
“That why you didn’t flash it to the guys with the dog?”
“I could have flashed a sword and they wouldn’t have cared. I’m here to talk about one of the men who stays here.”
The Preacher is in his fifties, perhaps almost as much as sixty. He has a boxer’s nose and cauliflower ears and a blink rate that’s thirty percent as often as anybody I’ve ever met, which is a little unnerving-it’s like talking to somebody who’s trying to hypnotize you. He has dark hair and a lot of it, not just on his head, but thick curly hair up his arms and sticking out from the gaps between his shirt buttons. He nods toward cigarette burn guy who then wanders off, leaving us alone in the kitchen. All of the utensils are mismatched, probably from city-mission donations over the years. The only matching things in the room are a pair of holes in one of the walls, perhaps created by somebody’s head. Otherwise nothing has a twin-different types of mugs, no matching chairs, different light fittings, random drawer handles.
“We make do with what we have,” he says, watching me look around, his blink rate still slow. “We get very little government support, and we rely on the kindness of others, and like you know, there ain’t much kindness left to go around in this world. I’m the Preacher,” he says, holding out his hand.
I take it, expecting it to be strong, and it is. I keep an eye on the hair on his wrist in case it’s after more real estate.
“Coffee?”
“No, thank you.”
“Not a bad decision,” he says. “It’s bad for you, and I’m addicted to it, but many addictions are bad for you, wouldn’t you say?”
“I’m looking for somebody.”
“Everybody is looking for somebody, and I can tell you where to find him.”
“Where?”
“In here,” he says, tapping his chest, “and in the Bible.”
“I. .”
“Just kidding,” he says, and laughs softly. “I mean I’m not kidding about everybody needing to find Jesus, I’m just kidding about putting you through the pitch. I try to get all of the men staying here to find God.”
“How’s that working out for you?”
“Life is supposed to be full of challenges,” he says, “and this is no different. Do you mind?” he asks, pulling out a packet of cigarettes.
I do mind, but I shake my head. “Go for it.”
“These damn addictions,” he says. “Thankfully they’re the only two.”
“You don’t count God as an addiction?”
He smiles around the cigarette as he lights it up, draws in a lungful of smoke, then exhales.
“That’s good,” he says. “I must remember that.” He holds the cigarette out in front of him and stares at it lovingly. “Life is full of temptations,” he says. “It’s one of God’s ironies. The things that tempt us the most are what are the most bad for us. Except for religion.”
“I need your help,” I say. I show him the sketch. “You recognize this man?”
He doesn’t take much of a look and shakes his head.
“You sure? I heard from a reliable source this guy lived here. Take a longer look.”
He takes a longer look. “Yeah, maybe. Wasn’t he in Lord of the Rings? I think he was a hobbit.”
I put the sketch into my pocket. I may as well screw it up and toss it out.
“I need to speak to anybody who came here from Grover Hills.”
“Why? Somebody does something crazy and you want to blame a mentally ill person?”
“Something like that. Somebody set fire to one of the nurses who worked there.”
He takes a long draw on his cigarette, sucking constantly until his lungs can’t take any more air. “I heard about it on the news. You think that person had to be a patient?” he says, holding in the smoke.
“There are other things too.”
“Like what?”
“I’m not at liberty to say.”
“You’re not at liberty to say. Well, I’m not at liberty to say anything either. The people here, they look up to me, I have their trust. I’m not at liberty to break that.”
I pull a thousand dollars out of my pocket. “How liberal are you about receiving donations?” I ask. “This is your chance for some good karma. You just said there isn’t enough kindness in this world. We have to start somewhere, and this is it. You’re kind to me with some information, and I’m kind to you. This,” I say, shaking the cash, “can buy food, cigarettes, some new pots and pans.”
He stares at the money the same way he did at the cigarette, like it’s another addiction but one he never gets to taste, then he looks around the room as if somebody is watching. There isn’t. He steps forward to take the money but I pull it away. “Names.”
“I can’t remember them all. There were six or seven of them.”
“Were?”