The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [62]
Max and McGregor both faced one another at the perimeter of the parking lot, both enjoying a new smoke. The amount of spectators around them had dwindled considerably. The paramedic crew lifted the Hefty-bagged body and its gurney into the ambulance, signaling a random chorus of motor-hum from police vehicles readying to leave.
“Does Mel know you’ve taken up the habit again?” Matt remarked.
Max shrugged and flicked his ashes.
McGregor said next, “The nature of this morning’s slaying, the condition of the victim...is identical in every relevant way to the condition exhibited by Nigel’s body when it was found, excluding of course the supernatural elements. And this time we have a missing young female. With that said, there’re a few things I need to be sure of. You sent Melony to Ralston Cooper’s gig at The Crow Job to stake it out for familiar faces; Bradshaw and her boy-toy happened to be there, but Mel didn’t know them from Adam and Eve. Someone else knew them though...and knew what he wanted to do with them. Max, did Melony see Simon BoLeve that night? I’m sure he still looks just as handsome as ever....”
Max cleared his throat. “Simon BoLeve has unfailingly proven to be the most crucial link between Erlandson and the outstanding phenomena surrounding his life and Cooper’s, and played a role in a majority of unexplained murder cases involving the bizarre sightings of beings like the one you saw when we met. But I’ve been nothing but shit-out-of-luck in trailing him, everyone who tried has, and he would pop up when you’d least expect it.”
“Like Mr. McGee with The Incredible Hulk and David Banner.”
“Yeah, which made Melony’s assignment a golden opportunity, because I was certain BoLeve would be there.”
“She saw nothing then.”
“Nothing at all. But she and Erlandson....”
An officer interrupted them and McGregor excused himself and accompanied the cop back to the building, telling Max he’d only be but a minute.
Melony didn’t see him, Max whispered to himself, turned to face the direction of where he parked and then back again. But they were all supposed to have been there. All three of them.
An added thought:
BoLeve had been there.
Max had been right.
And then: Church On The Rock, Lawndale. Homeless program....
By the time it occurred to Matt McGregor that Max had up and left him, he had yet to realize the urgency which sent the UFO detective away, nor what Max had set out alone to do before anyone could dissuade him.
“Awe shit, Maxy....”
17.
Scratch and the Church on the Rock
If one were to drive west from Andrew’s neighborhood, preferably down the Redondo Beach Freeway until it narrows to form Artesia Boulevard, he would soon find himself on the borders of the cities of Hawthorne and Redondo Beach. Taking the Inglewood off ramp and hanging a right towards LAX through a sliver of the city of Lawndale, one would eventually come across a chalky-white stucco building that could inadvertently be mistaken for an auto service center with its oblong characteristics. In fact, the building at one time had been just that.
These days, one would not expect to find grease monkey mechanics laboring under the hoods of indisposed Fords. Instead, the mechanics here were feverishly laboring under the hoods of lost and ailing souls.
The Church on the Rock was founded five years ago by the Reverend Jacob W. Bradshaw under the authority of the Assemblies of Christ Foundation. Not more than several months afterwards, the church broke away from the Foundation unexpectedly due to major disagreements concerning Bible philosophy and the needs of the poor, thus becoming non-denominational. The Church on the Rock, consequently, grew to become a renown haven where the needy and homeless could seek spiritual solace and material support. Eventually, additional rooms were constructed