90

            One weekday morning a month later, Anthony was at home, writing in his office, when a text message arrived on his new cell phone.  It came from an unknown phone number—but when Anthony read the message, he immediately knew the sender’s identity.

Want to chat? Come to front porch

            He went upstairs and removed two ice-cold cans of Coke from the refrigerator.  He took them to the veranda.

            He also brought his Beretta, wearing it in a hip holster for all to see.

            Bob sat in a rocking chair on the porch, legs crossed, a smart phone resting in his lap.  He wore aviator sunglasses, a University of Georgia baseball cap, cargo shorts, blue flip flops, and a rumpled Hawaiian shirt.  Like a professor on summer vacation.

            There was no car parked in front of the house.  Anthony suspected that Bob had taken care to conceal his vehicle.

            Anthony settled into the chair next to him and offered him the cola.  Bob took it, popped the tab, and enjoyed a long sip.    

            Anthony tilted his soda toward Bob’s pale legs.  “You need to work on your tan.”

            “Where I’m going, I’ll have plenty of opportunity to do that.” Bob grinned. 

            “I don’t expect you’ll tell me where you’re going.”

            “Somewhere with lots of sun.”

            Anthony took a sip of the Coke, gazed out at the sun-splashed day.

            “I’m sorry about your granddaughter, Kelley,” Anthony said.

            “I never expected it to happen.”  Bob’s voice was bitter.  “I was a fool.  I thought the man understood boundaries, would never violate the blood relative of his closest associates.”

            “He’s evil,” Anthony said. 

            “Many of his victims went with him willingly.  With others, he applied force.  Kelley was one of those latter ones.”

            “Again, I’m sorry.”

            Bob stared at the soda can in his hand as if wondering how it had gotten there.  “Afterward, Anthony, she couldn’t handle the shame.  She got her mother’s prescription sleeping pills and painkillers . . .” He pushed out a ragged breath.  “The church kept it out of the media, as we were expert in doing.  But I wasn’t the same after that.”

            “It finally became personal for you,” Anthony said. 

            “After twenty years,” Bob said.  “I finally found myself with a conscience.”

            “Clever tactic, to build the coded message around her name with the anagram.”

            “I had to guard against the possibility that the Bible would fall into the wrong hands.  If one of the Armor of God soldiers had somehow gotten it, they would have found out who Kelley was and dismissed the book as meaningless, a teenage girl marking up her study Bible.”

            “Why not go to the media yourself with the expose?”

            “I would have been incriminating myself, Anthony.  You’ve read the files?  My name is all over them.”

            “You could have sent it to the media anonymously.”

            “That would not have been satisfactory.  My point was not only to expose the bishop and the church.  I wanted a shot at redemption, and I thought I could get it by letting someone else expose them—someone who’s lost so much because of what I did.”

            Bob removed his sunglasses.  He noted the gun on Anthony’s hip, and anxiety glinted in his eyes.

            “Galatians, chapter four, verse sixteen,” Anthony said. “ ‘Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?’  I figured out what you meant by that—even though in the file from fifteen years ago, you still omitted your own name as the one who killed my father.”

            “But you knew,” he whispered.

            “In the back of my mind, I think I knew from the moment you contacted me.” Anthony grunted.  “That didn’t stop me from trying to beat the answer out of the bishop.”

            “I thought you might kill him.  In fact, I actually hoped you would.  You write those violent thrillers about that vigilante, Ghost.”

            “Ghost is a fictional character, Bob.  Killing the bishop would’ve given him the easy way out.  There are punishments worse than death.”    

            “No truer words.”  Bob finished the cola and placed the can on the small table between the chairs.  “So?”

            “So, what?”

            Bob glanced at the Beretta again.  “What’re you going to do about me?”

            “I’d long vowed that when I finally came face to face with the man who killed my dad, I was going to put a bullet in his head.” 

            Anthony drew the pistol out of the holster, and chambered a round.  Bob tensed, looked ready to bolt from the porch.

            For a few seconds, neither of them spoke.

            “But I’ve since changed my mind,” Anthony said.

            “Thank God.”  Bob sighed, visibly relieved.

            “I’ve been reading the Bible a bit lately,” Anthony said.  “That surprises me, really.  After all the terrible things I’ve seen in this world, I never thought that old book had much to tell me about anything.  I’m not saying I plan to start attending church anytime soon—though my wife would love that—but I’ve been reflecting on some things.”

            Bob said nothing.  Waited.

            “I’m going to leave you with a scripture to consider, for a change,” Anthony said.  “After I give it to you, I don’t ever want to see you again.”

            Bob was quiet. 

            “Isaiah, chapter fifty-five, verse seven,” Anthony said. “ ‘Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.’ “

            Bob bowed his head, hands clasped as if in prayer.  “I’d like to believe that, Anthony.  I really would.”

            “Good-bye, Bob.”      

            Bob slid on his sunglasses, and descended the veranda steps.  He pushed through the front gate and ambled down the sidewalk, hands in his pockets, and soon disappeared around the corner. 

            Anthony sat outside for a few more minutes, sipping cola and enjoying the sunshine. 

            Then, he went inside and called his nephew.  He had promised to take the kid fishing one day, and he intended to keep his word.