The Devil's bed

From directly behind his right ear came the click from the hammer of a pistol being cocked. Bo felt the cold kiss of a gun barrel against the bone at the back of his head.

“Two: Love is for only a few. Don’t expect it. Three: Life isn’t fair. But some people are. Be one of them.” A small laugh accompanied the recitation. “Briefer than the Ten Commandments and the Bill of Rights,” David Moses said, “but not a bad way to live, Thorsen. Not bad at all.”

chapter forty

Surprised that I’m alive?” David Moses said. “But why would that be? Isn’t this a place that celebrates resurrection?”

Bo glanced at the Sig beside him on the pew.

“Uh-uh. Eyes on the cross.” The muzzle of the gun barrel pushed Bo’s head gently toward the altar. An arm reached alongside Bo and sent the Sig sliding to the far end of the pew.

“What now?” Bo said.

“Now? We talk.”

“About what?”

“I read about you in the papers, that they suspect you killed your boss. Anybody who has any idea of who you are wouldn’t believe that bullshit for a moment. You were framed. I’m wondering by whom.”

“How did you find me?”

Bo was trying to come up with a plan, a move that would give him some advantage. But at the moment, he could think of nothing. Moses was in complete control. Keep him talking, Bo thought.

“The real question is, how did I find you when the authorities couldn’t. They look in all the obvious places. They’ve staked out your apartment. They’re watching that farm you grew up on in Blue Earth. They’ve even got a detail posted at your partner’s place. What’s his name? Coyote? But I know you, Thorsen. And I know how you think.

“Specifically, I asked myself when a man’s got no place to run, where does he turn? To family? Too obvious. Maybe to a close coworker. But your boss is dead, and Coyote is out of town. How about a friend? I’m sure the authorities thought about that, but anyone looking at you on the surface would think you didn’t have any friends. So the question for me was, if you turned to a friend, how would I identify him?”

There was a moment of silence in which, apparently, Moses waited for a response. Bo heard the creak of the old wooden pew as Moses leaned forward and spoke into his ear.

“Simplicity itself. I secured a copy of the visitor’s log kept by the security guards at the hospital during your convalescence. Lots of cops dropped by to see you. But only one who decidedly wasn’t.”

“Otter.”

“Who gave this address to the guard.”

The quiet of the sanctuary was broken by the rise of a siren wail. It grew in volume, passed, diminished, was swallowed by distance and the night.

Moses said, “You know, I’ve been inside lots of churches all over the world trying to figure out this Christianity thing. Get this. ‘Christian soldiers are to wage the war of Christ their master without fearing that they sin in killing their enemies or of being lost if they are themselves killed… If they kill, it is to the profit of Christ; if they die, it is to their own.’ A good Catholic saint said that. Pretty bloodthirsty, don’t you think?”

“I never argue religion.”

“Gets you nowhere, right? You know what Mark Twain said? ‘If Christ were here now, there is one thing he would not be-a Christian.’” Moses laughed softly. “What do you think of this whole God thing?”

“Does it matter?”

“It does or I wouldn’t have asked. I did a little checking on you. You had a tough time of it growing up. Orphaned. In trouble with the law.”

“You had a pretty shitty childhood yourself.”

“You think so? I never thought of it that way, actually. A little lonely, maybe, but what kid isn’t? My mother was available to me probably no more or less than yours was for you. She read to me, held me sometimes, relied on me. And my other companionship was with books. You like books, too.”

“I didn’t kill my mother.”

It was almost a full minute before Moses spoke again. Whether he was thinking or fuming, Bo didn’t know, but his words, when they finally came, were oddly gentle.

“Have you ever put an animal out of its misery?”

“Don’t tell me you did it out of pity.”

“No. What I knew of love. I would do things differently now, but at the time, it seemed reasonable.”

The pew behind Bo gave another creak, more pronounced this time as Moses leaned nearer.

“Am I any worse than the God whose house this is?” Moses asked.

“The God who sends plague and conflagration and misery and suffering to whole populations who piss him off. The Old Testament, now there’s a chronicle of brutality.”

“That’s how you deal with your guilt? Pointing a finger at a greater guilt?”

“Who said I had any guilt?”

“What I’m wondering is why you’re still alive.”

“Why, I can’t say. But if you’re interested I’ll tell you how.”

“I’m interested.”

“Buckle your seat belt, Thorsen,” Moses said. “You’re in for a bumpy ride.”

chapter forty-one

At first there’d been almost nothing. No day. No night. Only darkness, perpetual and full of pain.