Free The Searcher by Simon Toyne Page B

entire. It was the Christ crucified, carved from pure white marble and fixed to a cross of hard wood that had been burned by the fire but not destroyed.
    I guessed from its position in the ruined church that it must have hung above the altar and I imagined how the Christ must have stared down in lament as flames consumed His Father’s house. It was a miracle the cross had survived, a miracle that I had found it, and I recalled the words of the raving priest as he pressed the Bible into my hands and transferred his mission to me.
    â€” You must carry His word into the wasteland. Carry His word and also carry Him. For He will protect you and lead you to riches beyond your imagining.
    And here He was.
    I walked into the smoking ruin of the church and took the pale Christ in my arms—His cross now mine, my burden now His. I could feel the trapped heat of the fire radiating out of the solid wood and it felt like the warmth of His love flowing into me and I realized then why God had allowed the savages to slaughter good Christian folk and burn His house to the ground.
    It had all been for me.
    He was showing me, in such a way as a simple soul like myself could understand, that the church I had to build must be strongerthan this. If it was to stand against such evil as thrived here in this blasted wilderness, it had to be like the pale Christ who had been untouched by the fiery instruments of evil that had destroyed all else.
    The church I was to build had to be made of stone.
    ----

16
    â€œH E SAID WE SHOULD STAY WHERE WE’RE AT ?”
    â€œThat’s what the man said.” Mulcahy was standing by the window of the motel, cell phone in hand, staring out through the gray net curtain at the parking lot beyond.
    Behind him, Javier paced, stamping dust and the smell of mildew from the carpet. “He didn’t say nothin’ else?”
    â€œHe said plenty, but the main thing he said was that we should stay put and wait for him to call back.”
    Javier shook his head and continued to pace. He’d already visited the john several times in the twenty or so minutes they’d been in the room and Mulcahy had only heard him flush once, suggesting either that he had terrible hygiene or he was doing something in there other than pissing. The slime shine in his eyes gave Mulcahy a pretty good idea what.
    â€œYou think Papa knows where we’re at?” Javier said, twitching and flicking his fingers as if they had gum on them.
    â€œProbably.”
    â€œProbably? The fuck does ‘probably’ mean? Either he know or he don’t.”
    The only illumination in the room was coming from the TV. It was tuned to a local news station with the volume turned low. Carlos sat silently on the edge of one of the beds, his eyes fixed on the flickering screen as if he’d been hypnotized by it. He’d been like that ever since they’d walked in the door and heard what Papa Tío had to say. Mulcahy had seen that look a few times before: once in a jail cell outside Chicago when he was still in uniform and Illinois still had the death penalty, and a couple of times since when he’d been the cause of it. It was the look someone got when they’d resigned themselves to whatever was coming their way, like a rabbit when the headlights were speeding toward it and there was no time to get out of the way.
    â€œYou got a cell phone, either of you?” Mulcahy asked.
    â€œYeah, I got a phone.” Javier said it like he’d just asked him if he had a dick or not. He held up a BlackBerry in a gold-and-crystal-encrusted case, the blank screen angled toward Mulcahy. “I switched it off though, motherfucker. I ain’t stupid.”
    â€œGood for you. Who pays the bill?”
    â€œThe fuck’s that got to do with anything?”
    â€œBecause if Tío pays the bill then he’ll be able to track it whether it’s switched off or not. Does he pay the bill?”
    Javier