The King

“Praise the Lord,” Fuller said, and the crowd cheered as if they were at a World Cup football match, not a church service. “I know you all aren’t here to see me. I know who you came for.” The crowd’s cheers turned to laughter. Kingsley was going to hurt himself if he didn’t stop rolling his eyes so hard.

“It’s Wednesday night,” Fuller continued. “And that’s Ladies’ Night. So I’ll get out of the way now and let my beautiful wife, Lucy, take over. Lucy?”

Lucy Fuller might have been a beautiful woman if she had anything behind her eyes other than religious zealotry. Her dark eyes burned with God’s fire, and the smile she aimed at the camera was fierce and flinty.

She and her husband exchanged a chaste kiss as he handed the pulpit off to her. The crowd applauded the kiss, at her wave to the masses, at her shy laugh at herself while she got behind the microphone.

“My handsome husband,” Lucy Fuller said into the camera. “He’s all mine, ladies. No one get any ideas.”

Kingsley was getting ideas.

“I want to talk about something very serious tonight,” Lucy Fuller began. “I want to talk to you all about something we don’t talk about enough in this world. And that is sin.”

The crowd got very quiet.

“We live in a dark world,” Lucy continued. “And it’s getting darker everyday. You only have to turn on the television to see it—pornography being sold to our children as music videos, movies that teach our kids it’s okay to have sex whenever they feel like. And homosexuality is becoming increasingly accepted by society every day as if it was just another way to be and that’s okay. Well, it’s not okay. Not okay at all.”

And the crowd went wild.

Lucy’s tirade went on for the next thirty minutes. Nothing escaped her censure—books being taught in public schools that encouraged godlessness, politicians at the highest levels of office who cheated on their wives while telling everyone else how to live, network television for showing teenagers having sex without consequences, stores selling pornography, explicit music lyrics, people getting divorced, women having abortions left and right, kids painting their fingernails black and worshipping Satan.

This was a woman who needed to get laid.

As much as he had to grit his teeth to do it, Kingsley stayed for the entire sermon. When Lucy Fuller was finished calling out everything in the entire world that gave anyone the tiniest bit of pleasure or entertainment, she received a long, loving hug from her husband and a standing ovation from the crowd.

She ran off the stage in tears, overcome by her own message.

Kingsley slipped out the front and waited by the stage door in the back. He didn’t have to wait long.

Ten minutes after the end of her sermon, Lucy Fuller stepped out the door into the alley. She’d changed from her navy blue power suit with its ankle-length skirt and white frilly blouse to a plain black skirt and blouse. She’d repaired her makeup from her crying jag and now looked calm and collected.

He didn’t speak to her, didn’t let himself be seen. But he did follow her. She walked purposefully, her high heels clicking on the concrete in a quick staccato. Where was she going in such a hurry? Kingsley had to know. Once he noted the make and model of the car she walked to, Kingsley headed back to his own. When she pulled out of the parking lot, he tailed her. He kept several cars between them, made sure she never noticed he took the same turns she took. After a few minutes he realized they were heading back into the city, back toward Manhattan. She was alone and in a hurry. All good signs she was doing something she shouldn’t be doing.

In twenty-five minutes, they were in familiar territory. In a few more minutes, they turned on to Riverside Drive. Kingsley fell back as far as he could without losing her entirely. She got away from him for a minute, but then he found her again. She’d pulled up in front of a house.

His house.

Kingsley parked his car against the curb and watched.

He watched Sam walk out the front door carrying an envelope.

He watched Lucy Fuller roll down her passenger-side window.

He watched Sam toss something through the car window and walk back into the house.

He watched Lucy Fuller drive away.

Kingsley got out of his car and walked into his own house feeling as if he were entering the home of a stranger or an enemy.

He found Sam in his office, flipping through files.

“Hey,” she said, giving him a smile. “I thought you’d be at Mistress Felicia’s all night.”

“How much are they paying you?”

“What?”

“How much are the Fullers paying you?”

Sam dropped the files she was holding on to Kingsley’s desk.

“I asked you to stay away from Lucy Fuller,” she said. “You promised me—”

“And you said you were on my side. We all make promises we can’t keep.”

“King, listen. I can—”

“How much are the Fullers paying you?” he asked again.

She paused, went silent. She seemed to be weighing her words, weighing her options. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this coldly, bitterly angry. Not even when Marie-Laure had died. Not even then.

“More than you are,” Sam finally said.

“So much ‘more weight,’ right?” Kingsley asked. “All that matters to you is more money.”

“Suits like mine are expensive,” Sam said.