She was pale blond and somewhat sunburned. Her hair was short and she wore no makeup. She sat down opposite me, folded her hands quietly on the table before her, and waited.
I said, "Would you care for coffee, or something to eat?"
She shook her head. Her glance drifted over to her churchmates, and then back to me.
I said, "You know who I am?"
She nodded.
I said, "How are you?"
"Fine."
She had a small voice.
"Are you happy?"
"I'm at peace," she said.
Again her glance drifted to the deacons and back.
I said, "Look at me. See how big I am?" I opened my coat. "See the gun?" I took my license out and showed it to her. "See, I am a licensed private cop." She looked at me and nodded. "Now, if you want to leave with me, you can. Owens and the deacons can't stop us. And if you leave with me, I'll protect you as long as you need it."
She nodded.
I said, "Would you like to leave with me?"
She shook her head.
"Tommy Banks says you were kidnapped," I said.
"No," she said. It was the firmest sound she'd made. "No, I wasn't."
"No one tied you up and took you away?"
"No."
"You joined the church on your own?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Too much hassle," she said. "I had to get away.''
"Who was hassling you?"
She shrugged and shook her head. "Everyone."
"Tommy?"
She nodded. "Who else?" She shrugged. "Dancing was too hard."
"What was the hardest part?" I said.
"Tommy."
"A slave driver?"
"He . . . it was just that he wanted me to care about it more than I did. Him too."
"What did you want?"
"To be by myself To see what I am."
"You need the church for that?"
"Yes."
I leaned back a little in my chair. She glanced over at Owens and the deacons. Good name for a country rock group. Now with their number one single it's Owens and the Deacons. Yeah!
I shook my head slightly. Concentration wasn't what it should be. Sherry certainly didn't seem frightened. She didn't seem happy either, but her glances at the deacons were more the way a child looks to a parent than anything else.
"Tommy wants you back," I said.
"No." Very firm. Almost animated. "No."
"What's the best part of being where you are?" I said.
"I don't have to worry."
"About what?"
"About anything. Everything is simple and . . . and I don't have to think about things all the time."
"Do you love Tommy?"
"I guess so, I'm not sure. But I can't be with him."
"Too much pressure?"
"Yes."
"Pressure to dance?"
"Pressure about everything."
"Maybe you should move to San Francisco," I said.
"Huh?"
"Private humor," I said. "You don't seem happy."
She shrugged.
"On the other hand, I wasn't hired to make you happy. I was hired to find you and rescue you. But you don't seem to need to be rescued."
She shifted in her chair. She looked at Owens and the deacons. Her hands still rested, folded, on the table before her.
"Where are you living?"
"Will you tell Tommy?"
"No."
"Salisbury."
"In the branch church on Route One?" She nodded.
"Between the roadhouse and the salvage yard?"
She nodded again.
Owens and the deacons sat silently watching us across the room. All five men had their arms folded. Uniformity.
"I might come visit you now and then, Sherry. Not to hassle you. Just to visit. See if you need anything."
She nodded.
"You won't mind?" I said.
"No."
"Okay. You may as well rejoin your party." We stood. Sherry walked quickly back to Owens and the deacons. I went too.
"She says she wants to stay," I said to Owens. "I believe her."
"I should hope so," Owens said. The deacons all sat poised, like I might kick one of them at any moment.
"I told her I'd come visit occasionally. She said that was all right."
Owens didn't say anything.
"If I come to visit and don't find her, I'll start looking again. And I'll be really mad." I couldn't watch all four deacons at the same time. The one I was watching didn't blanch.
Owens said, "Let's go," and they got up and left. Owens and the Deacons. Actually Sherry and the Deacons sounded even better than Owens and the Deacons. I went out to the parking lot to find my car.
Sherry and the Deacons. Do-wop!
CHAPTER 16
I sat with Tommy Banks on the only two chairs in his studio, in a corner, near a window that looked out onto Huntington Avenue, in case anyone wanted to. We sipped coffee from paper cups. On the other side of the studio the dance company took a break. I had already begun to realize that dancers almost always moved and made little step motions even as they rested. It was as if they were always hearing music, always carving shapes in space.
"She says she wants to stay where she is, Tommy," I said.
"Of course she does, they've brainwashed her."
"No. I don't think so. She says she wasn't kidnapped, and that she's free to leave." Banks's hands were clasped in front of him, forearms on the knees. His knuckles were white.
"They've made her say that. They took her and brainwashed her. I was there, they came and took her and tied and gagged her and dragged her away in the trunk of their car."
Across the room a complex short rattle sounded as someone did a tap step, someone laughed. I kept watching Banks.
"Do you know where she is?" he said.
"Yes."
"We've got to get her out of there. I'll go with you, we'll rescue her."
"Tommy, I don't think she's a prisoner. She has a right to stay there if she wants to be there."
"She doesn't have the right to kill me," he said. His voice was tight and squeezed. "She can't kill me. I can't make it without her. I can't . . ." He shook his head. I knew he couldn't talk. There were tears in his eyes.
"I can't . . ." He tried again. "I . . ." And then he sat with his hands clenched together, and his body hunched forward. I felt like sitting that way too. I straightened up a bit to make sure I wasn't.
"They've taken her away from me," he said. "You can't let them."
He didn't look up. I didn't say anything. Across the room the dancers moved less, and their talk died down. Banks's shoulders shook.
I said, "I'll talk with her again, Tommy."
He nodded. The room was dead silent now. I stood up and walked away. No one said anything. Paul's face was serious as he looked at me across the room. I looked back at him and we both understood something at the same time. There was nothing to say about it, so we didn't speak.
I went on out and down the stairs to the street. It was a clean summer day, even on Huntington Avenue. I walked downtown, past Symphony Hall, toward Copley Square. At the Christian Science complex a few kids were trying to wade in the reflecting pool and an official was chasing them out. In Copley Square the unfriendly high rise of the Copley Place development loomed up over Dartmouth Street, the heavy equipment cluttered the area and had Huntington narrowed to one lane around the construction site. A lot of trouble. Well worth it though, it would eventually rival the Renaissance Center in Detroit for its sense of open ease and hospitality.
It was a market day in Copley Square and truck farmers were selling produce in front of Trinity Church. People sat on the low wall along Boylston Street and listened to Walkmans or drank beer or ate their lunch or looked at girls or smoked grass or did all at the same time. I moved on down toward the Common. I was trying to think. Never easy.
I didn't think Sherry had been kidnapped. I wasn't sure whether Tommy really thought she had been or not. What he couldn't do was accept that she'd left him voluntarily. I had seen the clenched refusal to let go in him and I had seen Sherry talk about the pressure he'd put her under and I could guess that she had not so much sought the church as fled Tommy. Escaped maybe was a better word.