The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [71]
“And Alice has been into this...” The pastor scooted his chair back, fumbled through a desk drawer, and withdrew a paperback novel. “…take a look.” He slapped the book face up upon the front of the desk beneath Max’s scrutiny.
Max blinked.
“God gave us His Word as an impeccable map to guide us through life’s highways and biways. This book and those like it steer us astray into the paths which lead us to destruction. I hate to sound all ‘fire and brimstone’, but evidently books like this led Ben and Alice to that godforsaken club Friday night and to that damnable motel. Look at that...this was the author I was told they both went to see...I found this in Alice’s closet a few weeks ago, part of her collection....” He pounded his fingertips upon the book cover above the author’s name.
Max picked the book up and scanned its dark, glossy cover. The artwork depicted a voluptuous woman with greenish skin garbed in a scarlet robe, reptilian tentacles protruding from her sides before outstretched wings risen high with scaly claws. Below the artwork were the words VENOM OF THE GODS - A NOVEL BY RALSTON COOPER, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF DARKHOUSE.
Max politely but absently flipped through the book’s pages, as though he didn’t expect this familiar little presentation. Then he said, “Uh...Pastor, what do you know about Simon Boleve?”
Max had been almost hesitant to ask, had been patient and polite so far (in his eyes, give or take the cigarette), and when the anticipated question at last emerged from his lips, he nearly felt as though he might as well have been asking the pastor if he’d been masturbating lately. Perhaps it was his own fear of the question, which he would never admit.
“Simon?” the pastor said, as though this was a change of subject. “Why do you ask?”
Max shrugged with a sly innocence.
Bradshaw continued, “Yes, of course. Well, for starters, he’s been with us...it seems for a long time. A couple years. He’s a good man. Lonely, I guess reclusive, yes, but devout. He’s kind of a mystery, that one. But I’ve learned to trust him. Sparing you any speeches about the homeless...I may be sympathetic, but I’m no fool. They can take and take from you, and you give at first, but you know when you’re being used and you’re doing no good that way. No matter how low one’s gotten, it’s gotta be give and take. Any human being who’s lost all but his or her life has something to give back to himself once there’s a helping hand. Some people just don’t take the initiative once there’s someone to help them to their feet. Where would we be, if once we took our first steps as babies and we needed someone to keep us walking for the rest of our lives? The homeless are like that, learning to walk again. That’s when the give and take comes in. For all of us.”
“So,” Max said, sparing the interrogation, yeah, like the pastor did the speech, “you’re saying that Simon’s different. He’s a give and take kinda homeless person. You also say he’s a mystery. He’s a mystery to me too, by the way.” Max was purposely straightforward this time, and in his growing impatience he was becoming all the more sarcastic, albeit trying hard to be subtle.
“Simon has made himself an asset to our cause,” Bradshaw told him. His mind was a flare of bias questions. “We’ve been meeting his needs and he’s been meeting ours. He helps us around, tends to our gardening, fixes what needs fixing, repaints over occasional graffiti on our walls, unclogs our toilets. Yes, he is a give and take kind of person. And he’s no longer homeless. Now what do you really want of our poor Simon?”
“I know his history,” Max told him plainly. “And I'd like to catch up on his recent life and times.” He allowed a casual smile. “Just to set things straight and to go on to the real individuals responsible for your missing daughter and her boyfriend’s death. He might give us a clue, is all I’m saying. I just need to ask about him.”
“Why don’t you