Deacon King Kong(36)

Now her face hardened, and a space opened up between them again. “Warrant on. And while y’all is throwing them warrants around, maybe y’all can throw a warrant at the person who stole our Christmas Club money. There’s a couple thousand in there, I expect.”

“What’s that about?”

“Christmas Club. We gathered that money every year for us to buy our kids toys at Christmas. Hettie was the one who collected the money and kept it in a little box. She was good about it. Never told a soul where she put it, and every Christmas she handed you your money. Problem is, she’s gone now and Sportcoat don’t know where it is.”

“Why not ask him?”

Sister Gee laughed. “If he knew, he’da gived it back. Sportcoat wouldn’t steal from the church. Not for drink even.”

“For drink, I seen people do worse.”

Sister Gee frowned at him, frustration etched across her clear, pretty face. “You’s a kind person, I can tell. But we is poor folks here in this church. We saves our little dimes for Christmas presents for our children. We pray for each other and to a God that redeems, and that does us well. Our Christmas money’s missing and likely gone for good, and that’s God’s will, I reckon. To y’all police, that don’t mean nothing other than maybe old Sportcoat mighta took it. But you’re wrong there. Sportcoat would throw hisself in the harbor before he’d take a penny from any soul in this world. What happened was, he got drunk out of his mind and tried to clean this place up in one big swoop. And because of it, you ain’t never seen so many cops turning up rocks trying to get hold of him. What’s that say to us?”

“We want to protect him. Clemens works for a pretty rough bunch. That’s who we’re really going after.”

“Then arrest Deems. And the rest of ’em who’s selling whatever the devil wants.”

Potts sighed. “Twenty years ago I could’ve done it. Not now.”

He felt the space between them close up, and he wasn’t imagining it. Sister Gee felt it as well. She felt his kindness, his honesty and sense of duty. And she felt something else. Something big. It was as if there were a magnet somewhere inside him pulling her spiritually toward him. It was odd, exciting, thrilling even. She watched as he rose and moved toward the door. She quickly stood and walked down the aisle with him, Potts humming nervously, picking his way past the woodstove and down the sawdust-covered aisle to the door as she watched him out the corner of her eye. She hadn’t felt that way about a man since her father showed up at school one afternoon to walk her home after a boy in her class got beat up by some white kids, the feeling of comfort and safety that radiated from someone who cared about her so deeply. And a white man, no less. It was an odd, wonderful gush to feel that coming from a man, any man, especially a stranger. She felt like she was dreaming.

They stopped at the vestibule door. “If the deacon turns up, tell him he’s safer with us,” Potts said.

Sister Gee was about to respond when she heard a voice from the vestibule say, “Where’s my daddy?”

It was Pudgy Fingers. He’d wandered upstairs and was seated in a folding chair in the dark next to the church front door, his eyes covered with their customary shades, rocking back and forth as he always did. In the basement, the choir sang, obviously no one bothering to fetch him, since Pudgy Fingers knew his way around the church as good as anyone and often liked to wander about the tiny building on his own.

Sister Gee placed a hand on his elbow to stand him up. “Pudgy, g’wan back to rehearsal,” she said. “I’ll be right there.”

Pudgy Fingers reluctantly stood. She carefully spun him around and placed his hand on the stair railing. They watched him work his way downstairs and disappear into the basement.

When he was out of sight Potts said, “I expect that’s his son.”

Sister Gee was silent.

“You never told me what building your man lives in,” he said.

“You never asked it,” she said. She turned to the window, her back to him, and rubbed her hands nervously as she gazed out the window.

“Should I go down and ask his son?”

“Why would you do that? You see the boy’s not all the way there.”

“He knows where he lives, I’m sure.”

She sighed and continued to stare out the window. “Lemme ask you, what good does it do to squeeze the one person around here who done the little bit of good that’s been done?”

“That’s not my call.”

“I already told you. Sportcoat is easy to find. He’s around these parts.”

“Should I write that down as a lie? We haven’t seen him.”

Her expression darkened. “Write it down however you like. However the cut comes or goes, once y’all take Sportcoat to jail, social services will have Pudgy Fingers. They’ll ship him up to the Bronx or Queens someplace and we won’t see him no more. That’s Hettie’s boy there. Hettie was in her forties when she had him. For a woman, that’s old to have a child. And for someone who lived a hard life like she did, that’s very old indeed.”

“I’m sorry. But that’s not my department either.”

“Course not. But I’m the type of person that goes to sleep if something comes along that don’t interest me,” Sister Gee said.