witness

. Believe me when I say that you have a stake in this experiment almost as great as my own.

You think you will say no, but I know you quite well, my old friend, and I believe that after you read the enclosed letter, you will change your mind.

All best regards,

Charles D. Jacobs

The wind howled; the sound of snow hitting the panes of the door was like fine sand. The road to Boulder would be closed soon, if it wasn’t already. I held the smaller envelope, thinking something happened. I didn’t want to know what, but it felt too late to turn back now. I sat on the stairs leading to my apartment and opened the enclosure as a particularly savage gust of wind shook the building. The handwriting was as shaky as Jacobs’s, sloping down the page, but I knew it at once. Of course I did; I had received love letters, some of them quite hot, in this same hand. My stomach went soft, and for a moment I thought I might pass out. I lowered my head, the hand not holding the letter covering my eyes and squeezing my temples. When the faintness passed, I was almost sorry.

I read the letter.

Feb. 25, 2014

Dear Pastor Jacobs,

You are my last hope.

I feel crazy writing that, but it’s true. I’m trying to reach you because my friend Jenny Knowlton urges me to do so. She is an RN and says she never believed in miracle cures (although she does believe in God). Several years ago she went to one of your healing revivals in Providence, RI, and you cured her arthritis, which was so bad she could hardly open and close her hands and she was “hooked” on OxyContin. She said to me, “I told myself I only went to hear Al Stamper sing, because I had all his old records with the Vo-Lites, but down deep I must have known why I was really there, because when he asked if there were any who would be healed, I got in the line.” She said not only did the pain in her hands and arms disappear when you touched her temples with your rings, so did the need to take the Oxy. I found that even harder to believe than the arthritis being cured, because where I live a lot of people use that stuff and I know it is very hard to “kick the habit.”

Pastor Jacobs, I have lung cancer. I lost my hair during the radiation treatments and the chemo made me throw up all the time (I have lost 60 lbs), but at the end of those hellish treatments, the cancer was still there. Now my doctor wants me to have an operation to take out one of my lungs, but my friend Jenny sat me down and said, “I am going to tell you a hard truth, honey. Mostly when they do that it’s already too late, and they know it but do it anyway because it’s all they have left.”

I turned the paper over, my head thudding. For the first time in years, I wished I were high. Being high would make it possible to look at the signature waiting for me below without wanting to scream.

Jenny says she has looked up your cures online and many more than hers appear to be valid. I know you are no longer touring the country. You may be retired, you may be sick, you may even be dead (although I pray not, for your sake as well as my own). Even if you are alive and well, you may no longer read your mail. So I know this is like putting a message in a bottle and throwing it overboard, but something—not just Jenny—urges me to try. After all, sometimes one of those bottles washes up on shore, and someone reads the message inside.

I have refused the operation. You really are my last hope. I know how thin that hope is, and probably foolish, but the Bible says, “With faith, all things are possible.” I will wait to hear . . . or not. Either way, may God bless and keep you.

Yours in hope,

Astrid Soderberg

17 Morgan Pitch Road

Mt. Desert Island, Maine 04660

(207) 555-6454

 • • •

Astrid. Dear God.

Astrid again, after all these years. I closed my eyes and saw her standing beneath the fire escape, her face young and beautiful, framed in the hood of her parka.

I opened my eyes and read the note Jacobs had added below her address.

I have seen her charts and latest scans. You may trust me on this; as I said in my covering letter, I have my methods. Radiation and chemotherapy shrank the tumor in her left lung, but did not eradicate it, and more spots have shown up on her right lung. Her condition is grave, but

I can save her.

You may trust me on this, too, but such cancers are like a fire in dry brush—they move fast. Her time is short, and you must decide at once.

If it’s so goddam short, I wondered, why didn’t you call, or at least send your devil’s bargain by Express Mail?

But I knew. He wanted time to be short, because it wasn’t Astrid he cared about. Astrid was a pawn. I, on the other hand, was one of the pieces in the back row. I had no idea why, but I knew it was so.

The letter shook in my hand as I read the last lines.

If you agree to assist me while I finish my work this coming summer, your old friend (and, perhaps, your lover) will be saved, the cancer expelled from her body. If you refuse, I will let her die. Of course this sounds cruel to you, even monstrous, but if you knew the tremendous import of my work, you would feel differently. Yes, even you! My numbers, both landline and cell, are below. Beside me as I write this is Miss Soderberg’s number. If you call me—with a favorable answer, of course—I will call her.

The choice is yours, Jamie.

I sat on the stairs for two minutes, taking deep breaths and willing my heart to slow. I kept thinking of her hips tilted against mine, my cock throbbing and as hard as a length of rebar, one of her hands caressing the nape of my neck as she blew cigarette smoke into my mouth.

At last I got up and climbed to my apartment, the two letters dangling from my hand. The stairs weren’t long or steep, and I was in good shape from all the bike-riding, but I still had to stop and rest twice to catch my breath before I got to the top, and my hand was shaking so badly I had to steady it with the other before I could get my key into the slot.

The day was dark and my apartment was full of shadows, but I didn’t bother to turn on any lights. What I had to do was best done quickly. I took my phone off my belt, dropped onto the couch, and dialed Jacobs’s cell. It rang a single time.

“Hello, Jamie,” he said.

“You bastard,” I said. “You fucking bastard.”

“Glad to hear from you, too. What’s your decision?”

How much did he know about us? Had I ever told him anything? Had Astrid? If not, how much had he dug up? I didn’t know and it didn’t matter. I could tell from the tone of his voice that he was only asking for form’s sake.

I told him I’d be there ASAP.

“If you want to come, of course. Delighted to have you, although I don’t actually need you until July. If you’d rather not see her . . . as she is now, I mean—”

“I’ll be on a plane as soon as the weather clears. If you can do your thing before I get there . . . fix her . . . heal her . . . then go ahead. But you will not let her leave wherever you are until I see her. No matter what.”

“You don’t trust me, do you?” He sounded as if this made him terribly sad, but I didn’t put much stock in that. He was a master at projecting emotion.

“Why would I, Charlie? I’ve seen you in operation.”

He sighed. The wind gusted, shaking the building and howling along the eaves.