Page 85 of Never Flinch

The assembled autograph hunters began to converge on Kate… then, the unexpected. Chrissy and Spacer watched, amazed, as the big man with the bat came busting out of the crowd and went for Kate. Watched as the skinny older woman serving as Kate’s security kicked a chair in front of the batman and sent him sprawling.

“Goal!” Spacer cried, and chortled.

The autograph wolves on Pershing got nothing signed—Kate and her assistant were gone in a flash—but Chrissy has no interest in valuable memorabilia. She got the actual room numbers from Spacer, and then ditched him.

Now Kate’s room is dark, and so is 306, the assistant’s room. In between, in 304, the skinny bodyguard has neglected to close her drapes. Chrissy can see her striding back and forth, gesturing, yanking at her hair, and jabbering away on her phone. Before tonight, Chrissy didn’t see her as a problem, but the speed with which she reacted to the batman has caused Chrissy to rethink her assessment.

The skinny bodyguard ends the call. Closes the drapes. A few minutes later, her light also goes out. It’s time for Chrissy to go back to her own place on the other side of town, a shacky collection of cabins called the Davenport Rest. Thanks to Andy Fallowes, she could afford better, but it’s all she deserves.

As she pulls onto the gravel apron in front of Cabin 6, her phone chirps softly (Chris, with whom she shares the phone, has a far more masculine ring). It’s Deacon Fallowes, calling from one of his endless supply of burners.

“How goes the hunt, dear one?” he asks.

“Well, let’s put it this way,” Chrissy says. Her voice is low, with a kind of Bonnie Tyler rasp. “She’s breathing borrowed air.”

“Where are you?”

“Davenport. She’s going to Madison next. It’s a day off. I’ll sleep in a little, then follow. I may be able to take her there, but if I’m going to accomplish our goal without sacrificing myself, Buckeye City might be the best bet. Kate got shoved out of her date there by some singer, but they’ve rescheduled her for the night before. Singer gave up her final rehearsal, or sound check, or whatever they call it. I heard it tonight.”

“How?”

“The cancelation and date change I got from McKay’s website. The rest… I met some people tonight who know just about everything. Autograph hunters, but on steroids. I think I can find them in every city on her tour. Some of them even follow her from place to place.” Then, belatedly: “Are we having a safe conversation, Deacon?”

“This phone is going into the river as soon as we’re done talking.” As always, Fallowes’s voice is low and pleasant. “Your mission is taking longer than I expected.”

“I got the wrong one in Reno, but that was just supposed to be a warning, anyway. In Omaha, the assistant intercepted the anthrax you sent. I vandalized her luggage. Left a message. Now they have a security woman, and she’s pretty good.”

Silence for a moment. Then Fallowes says, “This isn’t a prayer situation but a real-world solution we’re aiming for, and I can’t emphasize how important it is.” His voice rises and begins to take on that good old gospel pulpit rhythm. “The world must see there’s a price to be paidfor apostasy. This woman cannot be allowed to preach her witchcraft. Exodus 22, dear one—Exodus 22.”

“Yes,” Chrissy says. “I know it well.”

“And remember if you should be caught—God will protect you, but Satan is wily—you did this on your own.”

Chrissy feels a dull resentment at that, and perhaps Fallowes gets a sense of how she feels. He isn’t the devil, but heiswily.

“I wish it could all be a simple case of black and white, like with Brenda’s Bitches. Do you remember them?”

Chrissy smiles for the first time that night. “How could I forget? Those stupid scooters. That was quite a day, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Yes it was. A hallelujah day for sure. Get some rest. I’ll call again.”

But I can never call you, Chrissy thinks.That would be risking your own precious butt, wouldn’t it?

She is horrified at such an ugly, resentful thought. It’s aChristhought, and although he resides inside her—in a real sense, he is her Siamese twin—she sometimes hates him. As, she supposes, he sometimes hates her.

No, we are two.

Our secret.

Cabin 6 consists of one room with an attached bathroom the size of a closet. The bed sags. The overhead light globe is filled with dead flies. The place reeks with the wet-socks aroma of advanced mildew. In one corner, a pallid and warty toadstool has oozed up between two boards.

She thinks:Expiation.

He thinks:Soonest begun, soonest done.

They think:No, we are two. Separate and equal. Our secret.

Sometimes she gets tired and thinks,Why bother thinking about escape? Why bother when the expiation never ends? Why does God have to be so cruel?

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