"He mentioned it. You got a Buick dealer who's part of the flock, too?"

The reverend turned his head briefly as he walked down the stark hall. "How's that?"

"That's a pretty car you got out front there."

The reverend chuckled. "My one indulgence. Come along."

He led Farrow into an office and closed the door behind them. There were framed degrees and awards on the walls, no photographs indicating family. The reverend had a seat behind a cherry-wood desk and laced his fingers together, resting them on a green blotter before him. Farrow sat across from him in a leather chair with nail heads along its scrolled arms.

The reverend's hands were pink and soft. He wore a fine cotton, starched white shirt, onyx cuff links, and a black-faced watch with a small diamond set in the face. When Farrow was a young man, his father had worn a Movado watch just like it. The sight of it on the reverend's wrist tightened Farrow's stomach.

Farrow kept his eyes lowered in the hat-in-hands position. "What can I do for you, Reverend Bob?"

"I've seen you around town, Larry. With Lee and at other times, too. I'm curious - are you a practicing member of any particular denomination?"

"You're gonna have to cut down on the size of those words."

"I apologize. Do you belong to any church?"

Farrow shifted in his seat, trying to appear uncomfortable. "I did once. I'm afraid I've lapsed."

"It's never too late to come back to the fold."

"With all due respect, Reverend Bob, I'm not interested." Farrow tried a sheepish, down-home smile. "Besides, I make it a practice to have a few beers on Sat.u.r.day nights. Sometimes I have more than a few, and on Sundays I sleep in."

"We have drinkers in our congregation, Larry. Drinkers and womanizers and tax cheaters, and maybe worse. The service works for those folks, too. Especially Especially for those folks. Our church is about atonement and forgiveness." for those folks. Our church is about atonement and forgiveness."

Farrow looked directly into the reverend's brown olive-pit eyes.

"I'm not interested," said Farrow.

The reverend looked away for a moment, then returned his gaze to Farrow and leaned forward over the desk.

"This isn't about just going to church, Larry. It's about how this church reaches out to greater Edwardtown. Why, just this morning I was making my rounds out at the retirement community on the edge of town, speaking to some of our senior citizens who are in the nursing ward. I sometimes bring them candy, cards, flowers... all of that costs money."

"Tell me, reverend. What do you tell those people, exactly? The ones who are going to die."

"Why, I tell them to have no fear. That the journey is just beginning. That they're going to a better place."

"And you believe that."

"Yes."

"I envy you, then. A man who doesn't fear death."

The reverend leaned back in his chair. "How do you know Lee Toomey, Larry?"

Farrow shrugged, pausing to re-create the story he had told others in the kitchen many times before. "I got family up in Wilmington. I was heading up to Delaware to see them a couple of years back, working my way north from Richmond, where I was living at the time. I took a ride into Edwardtown on a chicken truck, decided to spend the night.

"Well, I had a beer that night at this bar in town, and the bar owner had put this bulletin board up in the head. Lee had posted a card that said he was looking for help on this one job. It was straight labor, really. I didn't want to go home and see my people with empty pockets, so I called him up and we met and he took me on.

"Anyway, I got to liking the town in those two weeks I worked for him. When the job was done, Lee, being the kind of man he is, got me an interview with the Royal Hotel's restaurant. Lee's in with those people; he's got their account. I took a dishwasher's job in their kitchen, and I been with them ever since."

"That's a nice operation they got there."

"They do real well."

"I had an outstanding dinner there one night, not too long ago: twin fillets with a peppercorn sauce, and some very good red wine. Their house red was outstanding. You know something about wines, don't you, Larry?"

Farrow said, "Why do you ask how I know Lee?"

"I was wondering if you knew him before he came to Edwardtown. From his past."

"I don't know anything about Lee Toomey's past, Reverend."

The Reverend's thin lips turned up in a gaseous grin. "So you like Edwardtown."

"Yes. How about you?"

"Well, I'll tell you. I've lived in New York and some other glamorous places, too. But it was always my dream to come to a small town like Edwardtown to build a congregation from the ground up."

And to fleece the local hayseeds for everything they have.

"I moved around a lot," said the reverend, "searching for I didn't know what until I came here."

Failure.

"And because I never had a wife or children of my own -"

f.a.ggot.

" - this congregation has become my family. I'd like very much for you to become a part of that family."

Salesman.

"You mentioned donations," said Farrow. "What could I contribute? I'm unskilled labor. I don't see a kitchen here, so you surely don't need me to wash dishes. As far as dollars go, I have next to zero."

"We don't ask for much. Whatever you could afford would be appreciated. Most people think they have nothing, but if they cut here and there... Take you, for instance. You must have a little extra something, Larry. Maybe something tucked away beyond your dishwasher's salary?"

"What makes you think that?"

"Oh, I don't know. I just happened to be talking to my friend Harry, the gentleman who owns the Wine Shoppe out on the interstate. He tells me you come by a couple of times a week to buy, what did he tell me it was, some reserve California cabernet he stocks. What does that go for, Larry, thirty dollars a bottle? Now just think if you cut out one bottle a week, what it could mean to the people we reach out to in this town."

"That's not very Christian, is it?" Farrow said genially. "I mean, asking around about my private life like that?"

"I didn't have to ask," said Reverend Bob, his tone thoughtful and sincere. "Tell me, Larry. Where were you incarcerated, exactly?"

Lewisburg. San Quentin. Whittier and Preston reformatories before that...

"You're wrong about me, Reverend. I've never been incarcerated in my life."

Reverend Bob's voice went velvet. "I have no interest in your private affairs, Larry. If you have money, where you got it ... I don't care. What you're doing here in Edwardtown is no business of mine. Neither is your past. Remember what I said: atonement and forgiveness. Now, I admit I tend to be overzealous at times. It's just that I'm so committed to building this church. I could use your help."

"I understand." Farrow forced a smile. "Give me a few days to think things over. We'll talk about this again, though. That's a promise."

"Take as long as you wish."

Farrow stood. "Take care, Reverend."

The reverend spread his hands and said, "Praise the Lord."

Farrow opened the door, closed it softly behind him, and walked from the church.

Farrow sat at the bar of Linda's, a long, deep tavern on High Street that catered primarily to tourists and the town's lesbian population, sipping a Snow Goose Winter Ale. Farrow liked to come here early in the evening, before the live folk and jazz bands took the stage, when there were very few patrons. In this hour he could drink quietly and without conversation. He was careful not to overtip the bartender, a prematurely bald graduate student, as this would only encourage the young man to talk.

Farrow took his beer and walked past the billiards tables and shuffleboards to the rest-room enclave in the back of the house, where a pay phone was mounted on the wall. He dialed a two-one-three exchange and got Roman Otis on the line.

"How we doin', man?" said Otis.

"A situation came up here that I have to take care of. After that I'm ready to roll."

"Then I'm ready, too."

"You flush?"

"I'm about busted flat in Baton Rouge and waitin' on a train. Supposed to see a man about that this afternoon. Man owes owes me some money. Gonna do that thing and then I'm clear. Could use a temporary change of scenery and some new prospects. How about you?" me some money. Gonna do that thing and then I'm clear. Could use a temporary change of scenery and some new prospects. How about you?"

"I've been living like a monk," said Farrow. "I'm doing all right, but it's time to leave."

"Where you want to meet, man?"

"You still got that cousin of yours likes to talk too much, did that Lorton jolt?"

"Yeah, Booker's out and livin' up there in southern Maryland, outside D.C."

"We'll meet at his place."

"Ain't we still hot up that way?"

"No. I read the D.C. paper every day. They've never had a thing. We've got unfinished business there, Roman."

"If you say we do, Frank, then we do."

"You mail off that photograph I sent you?"

"Did it. Listen, Frank..."

"What?"

"Remember my sister's husband, Gus? Tall guy on the white side?"

"Tall, h.e.l.l. He's a giant. Polish guy, right?"

"Some s.h.i.t like that. He played professional, Frank, long time ago. ABA ball. Was the backup center for the Spirits of St. Louis."

"What about him?"

"When I came out here, I was lookin' to invest some of my hard-earned cash. Gus had the idea we should loan out some of my money to those unfortunate citizens got themselves burdened with bad credit ratings."

"You got in the vig business. What did I tell you about that?"

"You were right. Didn't work out the way Gus planned. Gus feels real bad about it, Frank. Plus he and my sister Cissy need to put a little country between 'em for a while. So Gus is riding with me right now."

"He's all right?"

"Gus is solid. See, he couldn't play ball for s.h.i.t, Frank. Oh, he could grab a rebound or two if the ball bounced right into his hands. But they used him for something else. The coach would tell him that a certain player had been ridiculing him before the game. Basically, they'd put him in the game just to f.u.c.k motherf.u.c.kers up. This is the man who made Artis Gilmore have bad dreams. Gus sent some starters to the hospital for real, ended a couple of careers. He's tough."

"Bring him along."

"Right."

"When can you be at your cousin's?"

"Gonna take me about a week to make it across country in my short."

Farrow said, "I'll see you then."

Farrow walked back into the bar. Grace, the waitress from the Royal Hotel, was sitting on the stool beside his and working on a vodka tonic. He slid onto his seat and lit a cigarette.

Grace smiled. "Thought I'd find you here."

"How'd you know it was me?"

"You left your Kools on the bar. Not many white men I know smoke Kools, and in the five years I've lived in this town I have never seen a black in this place."

"They've got their own bars on the north side of town."

"Yeah, it's great, isn't it? That's why I moved to the Eastern Sh.o.r.e from Baltimore. People stay with their own down here in Edwardtown. It's the way things ought to be."

"Your idea of paradise, right?"

"Well, it's not perfect." She lowered her voice. "A perfect world would be no n.i.g.g.e.rs at all."

Grace laughed shortly while Farrow finished his beer and thought of his friend Roman. He noticed Grace studying her thumbnail. He said, "You all right?"

"I did this today at the restaurant. Sliced the nail halfway down to the cuticle. I haven't had a chance to cut it down or put a Band-Aid on it."

"You oughtta take care of that."