Paul heard the sorrow in Buddy’s voice and was tempted to tell him that LaToya was still alive, but he caught himself. “We could spend some time in prayer later, if it would help you come to terms with the loss of our friends.”
As he expected, Buddy made sounds of interest, but, in the end, found an excuse not to pray.
When Buddy left the mission for the night, Paul phoned the hospital and got put through to Rosita. He told her he’d be over to sit with LaToya in a few minutes.
“Pastor P, just let me stay here, hokay? If you’re back at the mission for the night, then stay there and get some rest. I’m half asleep here already, and I’d rather just sack out on the waiting room couch than come all the way back there.”
“I don’t want you staying there alone. Is Manny with you?”
Rosita laughed. “You’re the man who says to live is Christ and to die is gain. How’s come you’re so afraid for my safety?”
Paul was unable to come up with a logical response. Finally he said, “I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight if I think you’re in danger. You don’t want to be responsible for me lying awake, do you?”
Rosita laughed out loud. “Good one, Pastor P. I’ll use that the next time I’m telling you not to go jogging in the neighborhood.” In an artificially nervous voice she said, “But Pastor P, I’m losing sleep with worry over you.”
“Rosie,” Paul growled in warning.
“I won’t budge from the hospital,” she promised. “I’m probably safer here, away from the mission.”
“You may be right.” Paul sighed. “Promise me you’ll keep the necklace on I gave you. And don’t head over here alone in the morning. We’ll manage breakfast. I really do want you to be safe, Rosie.”
“I promise.” Then she added, “Speaking of safe, it sounds like you survived the angry lady cop this morning. I knew you could talk your way out of it. Or did she put the bruises somewhere no one can see?”
“Good night, Rosita!”
He was listening to her infectious giggle when he hung up on her.
Paul spent awhile going from table to table pouring coffee. He spoke to everyone, called them by name, asked about their lives. He was particularly careful to speak to the women, reminding them of Wilma’s death and the danger they faced on the streets. He urged them all to sleep in the mission that night. They ignored his warnings.
O’Shea had said another woman was taken. Paul couldn’t pinpoint anyone who was missing—or rather, he noticed several regulars gone and guessed that most of them had just found food elsewhere and slept in their alleys. As he talked to these people who dwelled in so lowly a place in this world, he was more aware than ever of the way they looked and smelled and the terrible waste of their potential.
He had loved trying to reach them, and now he didn’t know why he bothered. His apathy frightened him. If he lost his zeal for the Lighthouse and couldn’t reconcile his Christianity with life as a cop, where did that leave him? Paul didn’t know who he was or what he was supposed to do with his life. He kept talking and serving and wondering how to restore his love for his calling.
After everyone had cleared out for the night, Paul went upstairs. He stood in front of his door, dreading the thought of re-entering his apartment for the first time since they’d found Melody Fredericks. The police had given him the green light to use the place again. After a long struggle, he forced himself to go in. He was met by a much-reduced swarm of gnats.
Moving quickly, he showered then found a pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt. He looked around his shabby little apartment. The Chicago summer had made the un-air-conditioned space stifling. The smell of death lingered. “How have I been able to stand living here for the last five years?”
Several gnats tickled his face. As he watched them lazily circle, he could feel the gnats he’d inhaled the morning he’d found Melody. He could taste the ones he’d swallowed.
He couldn’t bear the thought of sleeping here. “I could go to the shelter,” he said to the empty room, but he knew he couldn’t do it. Not tonight. He went to his bedroom, picked up the top mattress from his twin bed, and carried it—sheets, blankets, and all—out of his apartment and into his business office across the hall. He tossed it on the floor and dropped down on it.
The office was simply another converted apartment. A dim streetlight cast a shadowy light through the window. He lay there and stared sightlessly at the ceiling in the dark room. He couldn’t relax and he finally figured out why. He hadn’t locked the door. The office, with its old computer and its petty cash, was one of the few doors that was routinely locked.
“The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” “To live is Christ and to die is gain.” He waited for God’s peace to settle on him. “If God is for us, who can be against. “
He believed it. He believed wholeheartedly in God. But he still had to admit defeat and get up and throw the dead bolt. While he was up he doubled-checked the windows. Then he touched his cell phone and the spare Keren had left.
He said to the empty room, “Where are you, Pravus?”
The silence of the room mocked him.
In despair, he whispered, “Who are you killing tonight?”
CHAPTER TWENTY–TWO
So they took soot from a furnace and stood before Pharaoh. Moses tossed it into the air, and festering boils broke out on people and animals.
Pravus closed his father’s special Bible, the slim one still written in the ancient Latin. Pravus couldn’t read the words, but his father had told him what it said. He remembered everything.
He went to the woman, taped securely to the high table. Pravus looked at the gown hanging beside her. Eamus meus natio meare. Pestis ex ulcus.
Then he looked at her.
Boils.
He’d used burns. It was close enough. The reverend said he was like the magicians copying Moses’ tricks. He’d used that cold, hard policeman voice, and Pravus nearly choked on hate.
Pravus wanted fear.
The reverend had become less afraid in the last few days. The beast whispered that it was because Pravus had abandoned his path of choosing victims to maximize the reverend’s pain.
He’d have to fix that. He’d gotten so involved with the pleasure of the kill and the hunger for more, he’d forgotten his search for freedom for his people.
Pravus waited for full dark, then he left his plague of boils to be found later. It was getting more difficult to dump the bodies.
The police were out in force in the area around the mission. The park was staked out around the clock. He knew from police questioning that the car had been identified, and unless it was an emergency, he kept it out of sight in the underground parking lot beneath a condemned building.
Everyone was watchful. Pravus thrilled at the challenge.
When he had relieved himself of the burden, he wandered about with his typical aimless stroll, walking like he was a weakling, which covered the corded strength he’d gained by hours of exercise. He needed the strength to carry his victims so he could present the plagues to the reverend.
He went into his building determined to change and emerge a new man. Clean and well dressed. The beard that so completely changed the shape of his face, unglued and left behind.
It didn’t happen, though. He couldn’t shave. His hand shook too badly. And the beast pushed him, prodded, prowled, and gnawed.
He needed a new cell phone. But he didn’t have the patience to follow an older couple or search a car in a parking lot or an unlocked garage.
Instead he went to a store and bought one of those phones you could buy minutes with. There was no record of who bought those—the number wasn’t connected to his name, since he paid cash. Untraceable, Pravus was sure.