Free Underground Airlines by Ben Winters Page B

Fountain.” He winked. “I do believe you had the fish.”
    “Oh, my goodness,” I said. “How did you—”
    “I was there, brother.” He grinned, his face practically glowing with satisfaction. “Love that place.” He patted his stomach. “Love it a little too much, I think. Anyway, I caught the basic gist of your conversation, know what I’m saying?”
    “I don’t understand,” I said. “Are you—are you watching Father Barton?” Then I furrowed my brow and leaned in, catching a hunch, trusting a feeling. “Are you with Father Barton?”
    “You got it.” The grin widened. “Fact, you might say I’m more with Barton than Barton is.”
    My racing heart slowed a little. Poor old Jim Dirkson remained flummoxed and uncertain, licking his lips and adjusting his glasses, but inside I was performing a series of recalibrations. Thinking that what was emerging here might, in fact, be a positive development.
    “So you’re like a, a what—a bodyguard?”
    “Bodyguard? Shit .” The cop made a sour face. “Let’s say I keep an eye on the man, okay? Keep the shepherd from coming into any harm while he’s doing the work of the Lord.”
    “Wait, wait.” I snapped my fingers, scratched my chin, put up a little playlet called Man Remembering Something. “There was another officer…”
    “White man? Big thick neck? That’s Officer Morris. He’s my shift partner sometimes. We have dinner most nights, so I take him along when I’m babysitting, ’cause he’s a simple man. If I begged off, he might get his feelings hurt. Start asking questions.”
    “So he doesn’t know that you’re…you’re…?” I left it there, wide-eyed and tentative.
    “That I’m moonlighting with a flight crew? Running peebs up out of the Hard Four? Shit .” This time he slow-danced with the word, pulling the vowel sound out like taffy: Shiiiiiiit. “Officer Morris wouldn’t know he was on fire ’less a pretty girl told him so.”
    “So—so, I’m sorry, Officer,” I said and shrugged meekly. “I don’t understand.”
    This cop got up suddenly from the bed and stared down at me. The grin shut down to a tight line, the eyes stopped twinkling. “I heard your whole pitch, man, and I know that the padre shot you down. ‘You got the wrong man, nuthin’ I can do for you,’ the whole dog and pony. And he’s just being cautious, is all, because that’s how we do. Especially because…” He hunched forward and raised his brows. “Especially because we just did one.”
    My Dirkson eyes grew big and wide, but behind them was me thinking, I know that, brother, I know that you just did one. There’s a poor suffering child of God named Jackdaw, and he managed to drop through the floor of an Alabama cotton house on Sunday night, and y’all scooped him up and brought him north on an invisible plane, and now he’s stashed somewhere in this proud, busted northern city. And I’ve got Barton, and I’ve got Barton’s workroom, and I’ve got Winston Bibb and Whole Wide World Logistics, and now I’ve got you, you laughing idiot, and I know we will find him. Bridge and me. Goddamn Bridge and goddamn me.
    The smug cop just kept on talking. On his feet now, moving around the room, working himself up.
    “Usually, see, priest’s rule is, we do one, then we hang back. Hang back in the cut awhile. You can’t be too careful. More things we got going on, more chance there is for the soul catchers to find us.” He paced around the room, making tight circles like a tiger in a cage. “But me, see, I got a different way of thinking. I think people need help, people like you, you know, and if we’re set up, we’re set up, and we should do as much as we can. Get out the whole three million if we can. Now, this here, your woman—what’s her name?”
    A half second I hesitated before I found the name. “Gentle.”
    “Right, Gentle. In Carolina, right?”
    “Yes.”
    “Carolina. Bauxite. Yeah, see, that’s all different.