Sacred

“Wrong,” I said.

He nodded. “Exactly. He needs his new family now. He’s told he’s made progress, but he can slip anytime. There are other classes to take, other steps to follow, other levels to reach. And, oh, by the way, someone asks him, have you ever read Listening for the Message?”

“The bible of the Church of Truth and Revelation,” Angie said.

“Bingo. By the time our hypothetical guy realizes he’s part of a cult and going deep into hock with dues and tithes and seminar and retreat fees or what have you, it’s too late. He tries to leave Grief Release or the Church, he finds he can’t. They have his bank records, his PIN, all his secrets.”

“You’re theorizing here, though,” I said. “You don’t have hard proof.”

“Well, on Grief Release, I do. I have a training manual for counselors which advises them specifically to get financial information from their clients. I can bury them with that manual alone. But the Church? No. I need to match membership rolls.”

“Come again?”

He reached into the gym bag by his feet, pulled out a stack of computer paper. “These are the names of everyone who’s ever received treatment from Grief Release. If I can get a copy of the membership rolls of the Church and match them, I’m on my way to a Pulitzer.”

“You wish,” Angie said. She reached for the list, rifled through it until she found the page she wanted. Then she smiled.

“It’s there, isn’t it?” I said.

She nodded. “In black and white, babe.” She turned the sheaf of paper so I could see the name halfway down the page:

Desiree Stone.

Richie unloaded nine inches of hard-copy printout from his bag and left it on the table for us to sift through. Everything he’d found on the discs so far was there. He also returned the discs, having made copies for himself last night.

Angie and I stared at the stack of paper between us, trying to decide where to start, and my phone rang.

“Hello,” I said.

“We’d like our discs,” someone said.

“I’m sure you would,” I said. I dropped the mouthpiece to my chin for a moment, said to Angie, “They’d like their discs.”

“Hey, finders keepers,” she said.

“Finders keepers,” I said into the phone.

“Have any trouble paying for things lately, Mr. Kenzie?”

“Excuse me?”

“You might want to call your bank,” the voice said. “I’ll give you ten minutes. Make sure the line’s clear when I call back.”

I hung up and immediately went into my bedroom for my wallet.

“What’s wrong?” Angie said.

I shook my head and called Visa, worked my way through the automated operators until I got a person. I gave her my card number, expiration date and zip code.

“Mr. Kenzie?” she said.

“Yes.”

“Your card has been revealed to be counterfeit.”

“Excuse me.”

“It’s counterfeit, sir.”

“No, it’s not. You issued it to me.”

She gave me a bored sigh. “No, we didn’t. An internal computer search has revealed that your card and number were part of a large-scale infiltration of our accounting data banks three years ago.”

“That’s not possible,” I said. “You issued it to me.”

“I’m sure we didn’t,” she said in a patronizing singsong.

“What the hell does that mean?” I said.

“Our attorneys will be contacting you, Mr. Kenzie. As will the Attorney General’s Office, Division of Mail and Computer Fraud. Good day.”

She hung up in my ear.

“Patrick?” Angie said.

I shook my head again, dialed my bank.

I grew up poor. Always afraid, terrified actually, of faceless bureaucrats and bill collectors who looked down on me from above and decided my worth based on my bank account, judged my right or lack of right to earn money by how much I’d started out with in the first place. I worked my ass off over the last decade to earn and save and build upon those earnings. I would never be poor, I told myself. Not again.

“Your bank accounts have been frozen,” Mr. Pearl at the bank told me.

“Frozen,” I said. “Explain frozen.”

“The funds have been seized, Mr. Kenzie. By the IRS.”

“Court order?” I said.

“Pending,” he said.

And I could hear it in his voice—disdain. That’s what the poor hear all the time—from bankers, creditors, merchants. Disdain, because the poor are second-rate and stupid and lazy and too morally and spiritually lax to hold on to their money legally and contribute to society. I hadn’t heard that tone of disdain in at least seven years, maybe ten, and I wasn’t ready for it. I felt immediately reduced.

“Pending,” I said.

“That’s what I said.” His voice was dry, at ease, secure with his station in life. He could have been talking to one of his children.

I can’t have the car, Dad?

That’s what I said.

“Mr. Pearl,” I said.

“Yes, Mr. Kenzie?”

“Are you familiar with the law firm of Hartman and Hale?”

“Of course I am, Mr. Kenzie.”

“Good. They’ll be contacting you. Soon. And that pending court order better be—”

“Good day, Mr. Kenzie.” He hung up.

Angie came around the table, put one hand on my back, the other on my right hand. “Patrick,” she said, “you’re white as a ghost.”

“Jesus,” I said. “Jesus Christ.”

“It’s going to be okay,” she said. “They can’t do this.”

“They’re doing it, Ange.”

When the phone rang three minutes later, I picked it up on the first ring.

“Money a little tight these days, Mr. Kenzie?”

“Where and when, Manny?”

He chuckled. “Oooh, we sound—how shall I put it—deflated, Mr. Kenzie.”

“Where and when?” I said.

“The Prado. You know it?”

“I know it. When?”

“Noon,” Manny said. “High noon. Heh-heh.”

He hung up.

Everyone was hanging up on me today. And it wasn’t even nine.

10

Four years ago, after a particularly lucrative case involving insurance fraud and white-collar extortion, I went to Europe for two weeks. And what struck me most at the time was how many of the small villages I visited—in Ireland and Italy and Spain—resembled Boston’s North End.