The Apostle. J. Kerley A.

I could almost understand.

      “Schrum’s from Key West?” I asked.

      “Lived here until he went to bible school. He felt close to the place – family home and all – and kept the house. He’s had a caretaker living there, though Schrum hasn’t visited in years.”

      “What’s wrong with the guy?”

      “Supposedly the old ticker might blow at any second. His people told us Schrum was arriving today around daybreak, and when the news got out we’d need crowd control.”

      “Schrum’s that big a deal?”

      “The guy’s network broadcasts into over seven million homes a week. He carries a big stick in conservative and evangelistic religious circles.”

      “So I should tell my br— … friend that his neighborhood’s gonna be chaotic for a while?”

      “There’ll be church buses hauling in the faithful to pay respects, prayer vigils, TV vans, that kind of thing. At least until the bucket gets kicked.”

      “Thanks, King. I’ll pass it on.”

      I channel-surfed news outlets, stopping on a woman backgrounded by a photograph of Schrum and I upped the volume.

      “… seventy-six-year-old evangelist and creator of the Crown of Glory television empire, is reportedly gravely ill and has moved from his home in Jacksonville, Florida, to the house in Key West where the influential pastor spent his early years … wife of thirty years died five years ago from ovarian cancer … no details on his illness are available, though a history of heart problems … pacemaker implanted in March …”

      I called Jeremy and told him to get used to crowd scenes.

      “It’s already started,” he moaned. “Four more news vans and two dozen halfwits weeping in the street. One lunatic is dressed in sackcloth and dragging a wooden cross. Maybe I’ll saunter over in a devil mask and tap the window. Give Schrum a heart attack so I can get some peace.”

      “Stay away, Jeremy. Crowds are potentially dangerous.”

      “You said my visage no longer graced the halls of police departments. I’m a free man.”

      A year after being identified as dead and removed from Wanted listings, I was less fearful of my brother being identified with old photos than of his need to meddle and manipulate. Despite his claimed need for peace, a crowd of emotionally distraught mourners would fascinate my brother.

      “Stay inside and let it blow over,” I said. “Promise me you’ll ignore the commotion.”

      “Can you believe this,” he said – and I knew he’d been looking out his window – “a guy with a bullhorn has started ranting about homosexuals. Interesting.”

      “Stay inside,” I told him. “Promise me.”

      “Yes, yes, of course …” he said, hanging up the phone, suddenly distracted.

       11

      Frisco Dredd sat naked save for a T-shirt and briefs in the tiny room on the southern edge of Little Havana, watching the traffic crawl down Highway 90 through a dirt-hazed window. The bathroom was a filthy toilet and a dripping sink, the shower a two-by-two recess in the wall, the plastic curtain half hanging on the broken-tile floor.

      The rooms rented by the week, mainly to the desperate, downtrodden and addicted. But the hotel-apartment was anonymous, the other dwellers transient and acknowledging Dredd with a fast nod and averted eyes, if at all.

      I live amidst the wicked until my tasks are finished … Dredd thought. He closed his eyes and recalled a passage from Malachi: “And ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet …”

      The room came furnished with a beaten couch, a lopsided chair and a wooden table. The bed was in an alcove and Dredd had stripped off the threadbare cover and stained sheets and put them in the garbage, buying a sleeping bag to put atop the mattress and a fresh white sheet to cover his body. He’d also purchased a small refrigerator and a cheap set of weights to keep his body strong.

      His body needed to stay fit: It carried precious cargo.

      Dredd started to stand, but his knees quivered and he sat heavily. When with the Jezebel last night, the power had flowed through him brighter and purer than the sun and while he worked the holy symphony sang in his head. But after he’d finished, his energy had drained away, leaving him weak as a kitten.

      Dredd looked at his briefs and saw the purple stain of dried blood. He’d been so wearied he’d fallen asleep before removing his wire. He winced as he eased the underwear down and over his animal. Dredd fought his way to standing and limped across the room to the kitchen drawer he used as a tool box. He pulled it open: hammer, vise-grips, duct tape and – tucked in back – the spool of .32 gauge copper wire and the snips. He grabbed the snips and returned to the bed, sitting on the edge with his legs spread wide, picking gingerly at the base of his animal, grimacing as he pulled up a knotted loop of thread-thin brass wire, snipping the strand. Teeth clenched against the pain – nothin’ compared to your pain and tribulation, Lord, forgive my weakness – he slowly unwrapped the biting wire from his animal, fresh blood seeping from cuts inflicted when the women were close and his animal awakened and hungered for them. But the constricting wire stopped that, the fierce pain reminding him of his holy mission.

      Gasping, Dredd dropped the crusted wire to the floor. He fell back to the mattress and began to sing in a high and whispery voice.

      “When the Bridegroom cometh will your robes be white?

       Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?

       Will your soul be ready for the mansions bright,

      And be washed in the blood of the Lamb?”

      Dredd stripped off his shirt to let the Lord see that Frisco Dredd had again fought his animal and won.

      “Lay aside the garments that are stained with sin,

       And be washed in the blood of the Lamb;

       There’s a fountain flowing for the soul unclean,

      O be washed in the blood of the Lamb …”

      After several verses, Dredd gathered his strength, pushed from the bed and went to the bathroom, dropping to his knees beside the sink. The pipes went into a jagged hole in the wall. Dredd snaked his arm through the hole until his fingers withdrew a leather rectangle with a silver cross of duct tape.

      Dredd returned to the bed. From the leather holder he withdrew a black notebook. His missions, his holy crusades, were listed within, along with valuable information: times, dates, locations, employers, routes traveled, maps, photos … Time to prepare for the next mission. Dredd thumbed open a page, a list of names. Who would be chosen? Who was next?

      Dredd held the notebook inches above his bleeding animal, showing it to the gaping wound.

      The choice was His to make.

       12

      Jeremy Ryder’s Key West home sat toward the rear of a long, palm-studded lot abloom with bougainvillea and myrtle, the front yard picket-fenced with ficus on both corners. Pastel yellow with white accenting and a deep porch, the house stood two stories tall plus an attic story beneath a high-pitched roof, a rounded tower twelve feet in diameter comprising the southern corner of the home and ending with a third-story projection with cupola. The majestic dwelling had been built in the early 1920s, when ceilings were a proper height, twelve feet. The original