Knock, knock on the rectory door. Hello, we were just passing by, saw this lovely church, thought it might be a good place to get married. They’d heard about him, of course, the baldheaded priest who was willing to marry gays, his name was common currency in the homosexual communities of most American cities. He supposed sooner or later Rome would find out. Hell with Rome. Until then…
The looks on their faces when he said the words “And may God bless your union.”
Beatific.
The joy he himself felt, knowing he was bringing such pleasure, his anointed thumb making the sign of the cross first on one forehead and then the other, And may God bless your union.
Joy.
Exaltation.
But those two…
The one in black and the little redhead…
They had left him with a curious feeling of unease. He had felt for a fleeting instant that perhaps they hadn’t been homosexual at all, that perhaps the entire exercise had been a mockery. But for what purpose and to what end?
And then he remembered the questions they’d asked. While they were still sitting on the lawn chatting. Before he’d performed the ceremony.
Questions that had seemed pointed.
Well, not at first.
Merely inquiring at first about the availability of beachfront property here in Calusa.
Now that we’re about to take the big step, time to think about really settling down someplace. Seems like a nice community here, Calusa does.
This from the one all in black.
Do you think there might still be any property left on the beach?
This from the little redhead, all bright-eyed and blushing.
And then zeroing in on the Parrish house.
How about the house next door, for example? Do you think it might be for sale? Do you know who owns it? Do you think he might be interested in selling it? Would you know the owner’s name? How do you spell that last name? And it’s Jonathan, you say? Jonathan Parrish? Does he live there alone?
All this from the one in black.
He tried to remember now everything he’d told them about Jonathan Parrish, tried to remember at which point they’d seemed to lose interest and stopped asking questions.
He wished it would stop raining.
The thought of them coming back in the rain frightened him.
The two men sitting with Warren Chambers could have been nothing but cops. Or rednecks. Or both. They were both. Warren guessed neither of them liked the idea of taking orders from a nigger, but the pay was good. The one with the blue eyes was called Charlie. The one with the brown eyes was called Nick. Aside from the color of their eyes, they could have been twins. Massive shoulders and chests, thick wrists and hamlike hands. Colonel Oliver North expressions on their faces: arrogant, surly, self-righteous, challenging, self-satisfied, and smug. Warren would rather have been working with a pair of alligators, but it was tough to find experienced surveillance help down here in the boonies. Four cops in all on a daily round-the-clock basis. Six-hour shifts. Charlie had worked the six a.m. to twelve noon this morning. Nick had just come off the noon-to-six p.m.
They were sitting in a bar called Curley’s, off Route 41, near the South Dixie Mall. Warren was the only black man in the place. This was not unusual for Calusa, Florida, but Warren guessed Charlie and Nick were uncomfortable sitting here drinking with a nigger, even though he was paying for the drinks.
“We think somebody’s casin’ the house for a hit,” Charlie said.
“Pretty much what we sep’ately come to conclude,” Nick said.
They even sounded like twins.
“Have you talked to the other two?” Warren asked.
“Yeah, they ain’t seen nothin’ ‘spicious. This is just today we got all this activity.”
“This car goin’ by, two men in it.”
“Driver dressed all in black.”
“The other one with red hair.”
“When was this?”
“On my shift,” Charlie said, “the car first come by around ten o’clock, musta been.”
“What kind of car?”
“Blue Honda Civic.”
“Florida plates?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Rental?”
“Nope. You gettin’ ahead of me. Chambers. You want to hear what you payin’ for or you want to run off at the mouth?”
Knock all your fucking pearly white teeth out of your mouth, Warren thought.
“Sure, go ahead,” he said.
“Made a pass at the house, drove off in the rain, pulled in the church driveway down the road, made a U-turn in it, come on up past the house again. Made a slower pass this time, checkin’ it out, casin’ it real careful.”
“This was about what time now? Ten after ten? Ten-fifteen?”
“In there. ”
“Did the car stop?”
“Nope. Just drifted on by, slow and easy, both of them all eyes.”
“Where were you?”
“Inside the house.”
He saw Warren’s expression.
“Anything wrong with that?”
“Not if it doesn’t bother you.”
“It’s where I been settin’, too,” Nick said. “On my shift.”
“Fine. ”
“Anybody gives us static, we show the potsie, tell ‘em Calusa ED. planted us. ”
“Fine by me,” Warren said.
“ ‘Cause you looked a little troubled by it,” Charlie said.
“No, no.”
“I mean, you want us to see anybody comes in that house, best way to do it is to be inside the house our ownselves, ain’t that right?”
“Seems like the best way to me,” Warren said.
Break your fucking redneck nose in six places, he thought.
“So this was around ten, ten-fifteen,” he said, “when the car made a second pass.”
“Yeah,” Charlie said. “In there.”
“And you were where inside the house?”
“Upstairs bedroom. You get a good view of the road and also the beach if you change windows every now and then. On’y problem is there’s no air conditioning, and it gets hot as hell up there.”
“Even with this friggin’ rain,” Nick said.
Warren had noticed that redneck law-enforcement officers rarely used hard-core profanity. Redneck law-enforcement officers would shoot you as soon as look at you, but they always tiptoed politely around obscenity.
“When’s the next time the car came by?” Warren asked.
“Around twenty of twelve,” Charlie said. “Not only come by, but parked across the street.”
“Sat there how long?” Warren asked.
“Still there when I come to relieve,” Nick said. “Twelve noon.”
“Uh-oh,” Warren said.
“No, no,” Nick said.
“I knew what was happenin’,” Charlie said. “I was watchin’ the whole action from the upstairs window.”
Warren was still worried.
“We ain’t amateurs,” Charlie said, reading his face.
“I hope not,” Warren said. “But what I see right now is two people casin’ a house where one guy is staring down at them from an upstairs window and a second guy is about to walk in the front door.”
“Nobody saw me at the window,” Charlie said.
“And I spotted the car right off,” Nick said. “I cruised on by, mindin’ my own business.”
“Did they keep sitting there?”
“All day long,” Charlie said.
“And you’re telling me they didn’t know you were in that house?”
“That’s what I’m telling you. Nobody made me.”
“What’d you do, Nick? Keep driving back and forth till they made the car, too?”
“I tole you nobody made me,” Charlie said angrily.
“Me, neither,” Nick said. “I never even went by the house after that first pass. I parked up at Pelican Reef, walked up the beach, and went in the house by the back door. Relieved Charlie must’ve been about twenty to one.”