First Daughter - Eric van Lustbader [39]
"Why would you want to help me?" Jack says.
Myron's smile deepens as it grows wider. "Because, son, that's what God wants me to do."
MYRON TASKE is minister of the Renaissance Mission Church farther down Kansas Avenue NE. The clapboard building that houses the church had once been a two-family attached house, but first one family defaulted on their mortgage, then the other. The building was put into receivership by the bank.
"Which was when we bought it," Taske says as he leads Jack through the side door into the rectory. "Lucky for us, one of the bank's vice presidents is a member of our congregation. We were searching for a new home and this became it." He winks. "Got it at a good price."
"But this area's filled with gangs, crime, and drugs," Jack says, and winces as Taske applies peroxide with a swab to his numerous scrapes, cuts, and lacerations.
"And where better to accomplish God's work?" Taske indicates that Jack should take off his shirt. "Which begs the question, what were you doing on that wild corner in the middle of the night?"
"Hanging," Jack says sullenly.
"Why weren't you home and in bed?"
Jack shrugs off his shirt. "I thought it would be safer out on the street."
The reverend stares at the black-and-blue marks across Jack's rib cage. Softly, he says, "You didn't get those to night, did you?"
Jack bites his lip.
"Father or brother?"
"Don't have a brother, do I?" Jack says defensively. How would things go for him at home if he said his father is beating him? Anyway, it isn't his father's fault that Jack is so stupid.
Myron Taske, silent, contemplative, continues his work patching Jack up. As it turns out, he is a singer, every Sunday, leading the choir in three joyous songs at the end of his sermon. He loves to sing love songs of a sort, love songs to God's grace and goodness here on earth as in the heavens. This he tells Jack as he bandages him up.
"Everyone here is black?" Jack says.
Myron Taske leans back, regarding Jack over small eyeglasses he has set on the bridge of his nose for the close work. "Anyone who wants to be closer to God is welcome here, Jack."
Finished with his work, he packs up the first aid kit, stows it back in a large armoire that dominates one wall. On the opposite wall is a painting of Christ's face, resplendent within a golden aura.
"Do you believe in God, Jack?"
"I . . . I never thought about it."
Myron Taske purses his lips again. "Would you like to now?"
Before Jack can answer, a sharp series of raps comes on the door: three short, two long.
"Just a minute!" Taske calls, but the door swings inward anyway.
The doorway is entirely filled by a man of humongous height and girth. He must weigh close to 350 pounds. He is the color of a moonless night, his eyes yellow, teeth very large, very white, except for his left incisor, which is gold. Embedded in its center is a gleaming diamond. His hands are the size of other people's feet, his feet the size of other people's heads, his skull as bald as a bowling ball and twice as shiny.
"Jeremiah Christmas, Gus, didn't you hear me?"
Gus's face, scarred along both cheeks, is like a black lamp that sucks all the daylight out of the room. His gravelly voice is just as terrifying.
"Sure I heard you, Reverend." He walks into the room on legs whose thighs are so thick, they make him slightly bandy-legged. "I wanted to see for myself who you picked outta the gutter this time."
"News travels fast," Jack says, without thinking. He sucks in his breath as Gus's yellow eyes impale him on a stake.
"Good news travels fast," Gus rumbles. "Bad news travels faster."
"Gus is a storehouse of aphorisms," Myron Taske says for Jack's benefit. "A vast storehouse."
Gus's enormous belly shakes when he laughs. He moves into the room like a sumo wrestler, like a force of nature.
Still with his eyes on Jack, he says to Reverend Taske, "This one's different, though. He's white." He squints, addresses Jack without missing a beat. "That's one butt-ugly beating handed to you."
"It was