Page 11 of Go Now
‘I need to tell you something,’ she said, suddenly.She knew she wouldn’t be able to focus until she’d got it said.
‘G’head.’
She told him about Cox.The promise of disciples, carrying out his orders.The significance of the second commandment. Marcus listened gravely, as he always did.
‘One question,’ he said, eventually.‘Have you told Winters?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
She rubbed her eyes.‘I guess because… well, partly because I don’t want it to be true.Don’t forget, he’s got me on the hook about all of this.In the last case, he sent those messages to me.He lured me to the church where my Dad was killed.It’s about me in some way, and I really, really don’t want it to be.It creeps me out.’
‘I can understand that.But.’
‘The other reason is, we don’t know if Ashworth’s murderdoeshave anything to do with breaking the commandments.There are dozens of other possible reasons.And even if his killer is someone with a religiously-motivated grudge against his artwork, that still doesn’t mean it’s got anything to do with Elijah Cox.There are plenty of other Bible freaks out there.It’s just too early to tell.And I don’t want to go heading down the wrong path when we still know so little.For all I know, Winters might pull me off the team; you know how she rolls, she prefers doingsomething, anything, fast, to not doing anything, and she does it before you’ve even put the phone down.And I don’t want that.Do you?’
Marcus gave a grunt.
‘Is that the grunt that means, “No”?’
He smiled, faintly.‘Of course, I don’t want you off the case.But I don’t want you on it, in danger.’
‘Apart from anything else, this crime scene doesn’t look anything like the ones in the last case.Remember, he left me all those little coded messages?There’s no sign of them here. I don’t, at the moment, feel as if this has anything to do with Cox.’
Marcus took this in for a while and then nodded.'And if you get the slightest hint that it might be down to Cox?'
'Then I tell you, and I report it to Winters.Of course!Why wouldn't I?'
‘That’s it,’ Marcus said, looking her right in the eye.‘Why wouldn’t you?’
+ + + + + +
He liked this new place.It took longer to get to, especially at night, when the path was less clear.But for every loss, there was a gain.No people ever came this way, day or night, so the spot was his, and his alone.The tree with the roots that grasped the riverbank like an old man’s hands.The smell of mud: strong and fungal, like semen.And the music of the stream, the birds: the chickadee and the titmouse.It was very special.Once in the night he saw an owl flash past like a ghost.
His thoughts had become clearer.The anxiety that sat just below his ribs, like a peach-stone, that started with a low throb when he woke up and rose to jagged crests with each task and obligation and encounter of the day… All gone.He hadn’t felt this good – this free, this clean, thispure– in ages.As The Man had assured him he would because he had done the Lord's work.The Lord wasn't angry with him anymore.
He remembered it in snapshots.Going to the locker at Grand Central Station.His hands were trembling and sweaty as he took out the package the Man had left for him, the instructions.Getting lost on the subway. The artist: friendly, puzzled, turning hostile.The bewildered look in his eyes when the spray hit him and he couldn't move.Afterwards: washing his hands at the sink.The shopping list on the door of the refrigerator.He'd laughed about that; what would the artist need Cheerios and soap for, in Hell?Kept on laughing, then on the subway, all the night's energy pouring out of him, the laughs turning to sobs.Not pity, not sorrow, only pure, sweet joy.The carriage was full of people, but not one of them looked at him.
And the next day, back in the mountains, a family was on the trail.Histrail.The father said 'Howdy, the mother just stared, and pulled the children close.He was angry, took a wrong turn.But it wasn't wrong at all. It was just right. Further upstream, protected by a thick stand of chestnut trees.It was like a little slice of Eden, perfectly designed around him.The tree roots formed a little staircase down to the riverbank, ending exactly where the clay was thickest; that overhanging branch was just ideal for his bucket.When he plunged his hands in, he felt he was holding onto the planet itself, feeling it turn beneath him, pulsing in his hands.
He quickly filled the bucket, enjoying the cool, slippery feeling of the clay between his fingers, up his arms.The idea of harvesting it any other way was unthinkable.To touch this stuff, which was the raw essence of His Creation, with some cheap, harsh, ugly thing made in a factory, would be like delivering a baby on a shovel.Or cutting a diamond with a chisel.An act of sacrilege, every bit as brazen and appalling as that man Ashworth and his so-called art.
Ashworth had realized the gravity of his sin, in those precious, vital moments between the first blow and the second.The so-called artist – ‘striving for originality and revelation’, so he’d said in the newspaper interview – had been far from original in death. He'd threatened, pleaded, and insulted in that order.Then offered money, bargained, promised, and in the end, left this life in a state of deep, deep regret.As they all did, when they realised that God was in the room and that God did not forgive.
And God did especially not forgive those who broke His second commandment.
He thought back to that day in the little gallery in New York, everywhere so hot and dusty.The day when everything had changed.The rest of the group from the hospital shuffling past, barely noticing.While he was transfixed, pinned by magical beams of light and shade to those sculptures in the corner.Twelve of them, like the Apostles. He had cried, because he’d thought never seen anything so beautiful.
And because it was wrong, it was a sin.His grandma had told him so.To imitate Creation was to imitate the Creator. He was going to burn in hell for loving the sculptures.
But The Man had explained it so simply.How could something this beautiful be a sin?God is the source of all beauty, all gifts, all talent. The sinners are those who've been given that talent and use it mock God, to shame the faithful, to cheapen the sacred. For them, there is no mercy, only torment.
The Man had this way of making it all okay, with his words, and with his clear, blue gaze.
What The Man hadn't said, perhaps had left to his disciple to discover for himself, was how remarkable it was, to be right up close to someone in their final moments.It was a privilege granted only to a few.Your eyes looking straight into theirs, you seeing your own image in their dilated pupils.Exploring the surface of their skin, like a distant planet, the tiny marks and grooves, the stray hairs they'd missed when shaving, the faint pulsing of a muscle beneath the sweating flesh of their neck.Feeling their final breath against your cheek.
He recited the words he’d said over Ashworth’s twitching body:
