Owsley hesitated. “It’s, uh, where I’ll be working for the next two or three weeks.” His tone said no more would be forthcoming, and Nautilus parked outside the guardhouse as a guard appeared from the shack, a man needing a shave and wearing the nondescript tan of the park’s security staff, more forest ranger than state trooper. He approached Owsley with a smile and outstretched hand.

“Howdy, Pastor Owsley,” the guard said in a lazy drawl. “We was told you were coming.” He checked his clipboard and looked into the Hummer. Nautilus saw his eye light on the photo shot at Hallelujah Jubilee. The guard nodded and Nautilus nodded back.

“Is Mr Winkler here yet?” Owsley asked the guard.

The guard looked down the road and pointed. “I do believe that’s your other party now, Pastor Owsley.”

A long limousine pulled beside the Hummer, the glass as black as obsidian. Owsley took a deep breath and exited the vehicle.

“You can return to the park, Mr Nautilus. I’ll call if I can’t get a ride back.”

Basically dismissed, Nautilus retreated down the road, turning the corner. He was another eighth of a mile down the lane when curiosity pulled the Hummer to the side of the road. Nautilus jogged back to the first bend and peered around a ragged pine.

As he’d surmised, the second arrival was the cranky old fart who boyed him in Key West. The wheelchair was out, the two security bulls putting the old codger into the chair. He rolled toward Owsley, stopping four paces distant, the men nodding without handshakes. After a few seconds each seemed to disappear into himself and they turned to look down the road as if awaiting a sign. Nautilus saw the old man shoot sidelong and unhappy glances at the Pastor, as if finding himself in possession of a product he would soon return.

Nautilus heard the sound of a heavy engine as the driver in the long Kenworth rumbled forward to the closed door of the corrugated monstrosity, then exited to loosen the tie-downs holding the crate in place.

When the crate was unhitched, the driver turned and looked down at Owsley. Grumpy Gramps looked at Owsley. The security guy looked at Owsley. Nautilus looked at everyone, then at Owsley.

Everyone seemed to be waiting for the Mobilian pastor to do something, but no one seemed quite sure what, especially not Richard Owsley, nervously tugging the burgundy tie. After a halting step, he clumsily hoisted himself on to the bed of the trailer and took a bible from his jacket. He set the bible atop the crate, having to stand on tip-toe. He lowered himself back to the ground.

The old man didn’t look impressed.

A mobile crane emerged from the structure and hooks were attached to the top of the wooden crate. The crate was lifted from the trailer bed, shifting enough to send the bible into a slide, falling from the crate to the dirt, landing with the sound of a wet rag hitting concrete.

No one moved. It was like the air had frozen and time had stopped. Seconds passed.

The man in the chair went apoplectic, pointing, screaming, his face red with anger. No one moved, especially Owsley, who appeared terrified into catatonia.

“Do something!” Nautilus heard the man scream at Owsley. “DO SOMETHING!” The man sounded on the verge of insanity.

Then, like an actor who realized he’d missed a cue, Richard Owsley jolted into motion. He strode toward the bible, not so slow as to diminish urgency, not so fast as to seem ruffled. He walked like a man on center stage, the spotlight snapping on, about to deliver the soliloquy of his life.

The man in the wheelchair stared as Owsley crouched and retrieved the bible from the dirt. He appeared ready to dust it off, but paused as if taken by a better thought. Instead of patting the book clean, he thrust it into the dirt, rubbing it furiously against the ground.

The old man’s mouth dropped with horror.

Owsley pulled the book from the dirt and fanned its pages open with one hand while the other threw dirt between the pages. As he packed the book with soil, Owsley’s eyes rolled back in his head and he began babbling nonsense.

“In the name of Walalalalballummmashabba, I beseech you Almighty God to allullalllahtendonanan …”

Glossolalia, Nautilus realized. Speaking in tongues.

Twitching like a spastic and ululating like a drunken auctioneer, Owsley stumbled in widening circles, shaking dirt from the pages into the air, into the building, across the bed of the trailer, over the swinging crate.

“Alileelalahilalahiateshanonana …”

Owsley spun to the half-mile-distant cross at the park entrance and dropped to his knees, tipping forward until his forehead thumped the ground.

“A-shallalalaballacallahadalla … balacabatedah … nomomo …”

Face in the dirt, bible clutched to his chest, Owsley seemed to wind down. Long seconds passed before he stood unsteadily and shook a trance-like expression from his dusty face. He walked to the suspended crate and pressed the bible against its side. The crane rumbled toward the building at a snail’s pace, Owsley walking beside and keeping the bible in firm contact with the crate.

Owsley consecrated the dirt, Nautilus realized. Patting the dirt from the bible would have been the expected move, removing defilement from holy scripture. But instead, Owsley had rewritten the script on the fly, removing the taint from the dirt, consecrating it, making the ground holy. Making the site holy.

And maybe making himself holier in the process … a man connected to God?

If so, it seemed a master stroke, at least in the eyes of old Crabby Appleton, suddenly looking at peace and rolling a respectful dozen feet behind Owsley as he followed the Pastor into the building.

Nautilus blew out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and headed back to Jacob’s Ladder.

32

Roland Uttleman stood in the sun-dappled backyard of the Schrum home, cell phone to his ear. He said, “I’ll tell him, Hayes. I’ll go up there now.”

Uttleman entered the house, quiet, the only occupant Andy Delmont, sitting at an upright piano and playing a one-finger melody.

“You been upstairs recently, Andy?” Uttleman asked.

“I sang him some hymns and we prayed. Then I ran to the pizza place down the street and got him some food.”

Uttleman rode the elevator up and tried the knob. Locked. They should have taken the damn lock off before Schrum arrived.

“Let me in, Amos.”

“I’m not in the mood.”

“Hayes talked with his eyes at the site, Amos. The truck arrived with section one. Pastor Owsley and Eliot were there when it was transferred inside.”

The door opened, Schrum’s wary eyes peering out.

“How’d it go?”

Uttleman walked into a room reeking of dead flowers and Italian sausage, half a pizza on the floor beside the bed. Uttleman sat atop his desk and crossed his arms. “Pastor Owsley put a bible atop the crate as it was being lowered from the truck. But the crate wobbled and the Good Book fell into the dirt.”

Schrum looked sick. “In the dirt? Lord Jesus, Eliot’s demanding I return and take over, right? I know how he translates these things.”

Uttleman’s face brightened into a broad smile. “Good news, Amos. Pastor Owsley seized the moment and turned a shitstorm into roses. The man has the instinct. I don’t think you’ll be needed until the final event.”

“Praise God,” Schrum said, shoulders dropping in relief. “I think we need to celebrate.”

Schrum went to the closet and retrieved a bottle of single-malt Scotch. He poured two fingers in a pair of glasses and handed one to Uttleman. Uttleman sloshed the fluid in his glass and studied Schrum.

“How’d you know, Amos? How’d you figure it out in one meeting?”

“Figure out what?”

“That Owsley could pull this off?”