|
"So, do you believe you could help me find my grandson, maybe even bring him home again?" She waited with infinite patience for me to commit myself or refuse her -- one way or the other. Her manner said, plainer than any words, mine would not be the first refusal. If she heard another "I can't help you," she would simply try someone else; sooner or later somebody would say "Yes." Whether or not that person could actually do anything for her was another matter entirely. Mercifully, my telephone shrilled at that moment and I grabbed it before Jackie could return to her desk from the copy machine. She rolled her eyes at me, knowing I was dithering and stalling. "Sheila Casey speaking," I said into the phone after mouthing a silent "I'm sorry" to the rail-thin old woman seated across from me. She smiled slightly, nodding that she understood. I felt vaguely ashamed of myself. "Have I caught you at a bad time?" came the baritone rumble of my better half, George Halley, husband and brightener of my every day. "I'm glad you called, sir," I said, looking away from Mrs. Byrd while at the same time realizing this wasn't going to save me; either way I fell off the fence, I would no doubt suffer bruises. "Let me guess: You have a prospective client you aren't sure about. Is that about it?" "Right on the money as usual, sir," I answered, scribbling fake shorthand on a pad as I spoke. "What can I do for you?" "You can tell me if you're up for dinner with a client of mine tonight, a real pain in the kiester I'd better placate since one of my sterling security guards shot his slavering Doberman, killing the varmint before it could bury a set of three-inch fangs into him. Some people just have no consideration when it comes to other people's valuable canine property at all, I guess." "I'll be happy to do that, sir. What time may I expect you?" George was smiling, I knew; I could hear it in his reply. "Well, gorgeous, that depends on whether you want to join me in a little physical exertion before or after our alleged night on the town." "I think afterwards would be preferable, sir, don't you?" "More than likely, assuming I will still be fully equipped for such pastimes after his wife gets through chomping on me regarding her pain and suffering over the loss of her sweet little doggie, something her husband assures me we can expect until she's poured down enough of my champagne to dull her inconsolable agony." "How nice for you, sir," I blathered on, signaling to Mrs. Byrd I was about through with this important business call. "Okay, Babe -- see you about six; we have to meet the Guldens at seven-thirty. That do it for you?" "That will be fine, sir. See you then," I replied as I hung up the phone, writing "5:00" very plainly on my notepad. It was now four-thirty, and I was making sure that Mrs. Byrd believed I had an important client due shortly. Grabbing myself mentally by the scruff of my neck, I made a beginning. "Now, about your grandson, Mrs. Byrd. Under the circumstances of what you've already told me, I really don't see how I can help you." She waited, her head tilted slightly, gentle smile locked firmly in place, her gloved hands resting atop her handbag in her lap, deep-set eyes fastened somewhere beyond my left ear. I could see she was accustomed to rejection, and she wasn't about to make this easy for me. Mrs. Byrd was eighty-four, a widowed mother of five, grandmother of -- count 'em -- seventeen. An unworthy thought flitted across my mind when I'd heard that figure: she had been a one-woman population explosion. My own grandmother would have said Mrs. Byrd was a "gentlewoman of color," supremely dignified, rigidly proper, soft spoken, unfailingly correct. Add to that the fact that she raised four of her grandchildren by herself and that all her children and most of her grandchildren were college-educated and now professional people -- well, it was an impressive record for anyone. The hitch was that one of these grandchildren, the youngest of them all, recently disappeared without warning behind the "walls" of the latest fuzzy-minded sect of some weirdo, a man calling himself Master Joash. The young man vanished as surely as if he had been whisked to Saturn by little green men with three sets of eyes -- per head. This grandson was the delight of her old age, a smiling and handsome lad of nineteen. His delight in the world around him was a testament to her parenting abilities since he was the youngest of the four she raised, her daughter and son-in-law having been killed in a car crash when Anthony -- her grandson -- was only four, his oldest sibling only ten at the time. Mrs. Byrd was still sitting here, waiting for me to state my position without the equivocation of my earlier attempt to turn her down. I was having a hell of a lot of trouble in just saying "No" to this woman, and I had to fill this silence with something. "One thing I don't understand, Mrs. Byrd, is why you are at your age the only one who's trying to do something about your grandson. Don't his brothers and sister feel any responsibility toward him?" "But you see, Mrs. Casey, they are very busy people with families of their own to concern them. That leaves me as the only one with time on my hands." She smiled, looking at me briefly before returning her attention again to the imaginary spot to my left. Maybe I'd been wrong in my estimation of her skill as a parent; it would appear she'd neglected to instill a sense of family unity and responsibility in at least these three. As if she could read my thoughts, she added, "Of course, too, there is the fact I told them I would take care of locating and hiring someone to find Anthony; they are all expecting to pay for the services of such a person. All my children do what I tell them, no matter how grown-up they consider themselves." This time when she looked at me, her look was straight and firm. I couldn't imagine a circumstance that would allow any argument with that look from children, grown or not. However, I was not so bound, and the thought of wading around in the quicksand and swamp of a religious cult made my skin wriggle. With her next words, I no longer suspected her of mind-reading capabilities, I was absolutely certain. "You know, Mrs. Casey, this Master Joash -- he is not a truly Christian minister. There is, I've learned, no bible, no apparent belief in God, nor in Jesus, the resurrection of the body -- nothing of what I believe. There is only the worship -- and it is worship -- of this terrible heathen, this anti-Christ, as their adored mentor. He has utterly destroyed the very will of the people around him. He has stolen my grandson. And he has broken my heart." And with that, the first and only tear leaked from the corner of her eye, tracked the wrinkles on her powdered cheek, and dropped from the edge of her jaw, leaving a darker spot on the starched white collar of her navy blue dress. She didn't move, her eyes still politely avoiding mine, waiting for me to tell her I was sorry, but I just couldn't help her. "Mrs. Byrd, I don't know what I can do, but I'll give it a try." That actually came out of my sizable oral cavity, the orifice which was forever flapping open at the most unfortunate of times. Mrs. Byrd's smile widened ever so slightly, and I had the most peculiar feeling I'd just been outmaneuvered by a master. Mrs. Byrd, now moving with speed before I could change my mind again, was already counting out greenbacks on the corner of my desk. I watched with amazement the transformation from a delicate and nearly motionless supplicant to the wiry and quick-fingered person into which she had changed in the blink of a dry eye. "Will a retainer of six-hundred be enough to get started?" Before I could answer, she further explained, "I have been given one thousand each from David, Grady and Tess; there will be twenty-four-- hundred left whenever you need it. If that is insufficient, I'll return to the children for more." She paused while counting when I couldn't find my tongue for a moment, then added, "I can increase the retainer, Mrs. Casey, if you wish." "No, no, Mrs. Byrd," I stammered, getting my wits collected finally. "Six-hundred will be fine to get me off the ground." She snapped down the last century note and slid the neat stack of bills toward me. I raked them in and thanked her. The glitter in her eye confirmed my new-found conviction that this was a devious woman indeed, one seldom thwarted from reaching any desired goal -- in this case, my help. "Now, Mrs. Byrd, you'd better give me all the details you can about Master Joash, every blessed -- I use the word loosely -- thing you can think of regarding him and your grandson." I turned the fraudulent page over on the notebook, ready to write down what she could tell me. "Well, Mrs. Casey, 'blessed' doesn't come into it, but I'll do my -- oh, look at the time," she said, pointing to the Regulator clock hanging on my wall over the inner door to my office. "If I heard correctly, you have another client due in just a few minutes." She raised her eyebrows and was peering downright coyly over her reading specs at me, pinning me to my own seat. I came clean. "What I have, Mrs. Byrd, is a handsome husband who will be home quite some time later than that, ready to wine me and dine me with an obstreperous client of his own." She said nothing, but smiled sweetly at me. Somehow I knew I'd get away with nothing around this woman; she'd spent years seeing through subterfuge from any lesser mortal. Jackie stayed on to put my notes in some sense of order -- to make them at least legible, considering my scrawl -- and the three of us pulled together as much of the bits and pieces, the minutiae of Master Joash we then knew. I would come to learn much, much more. Some of it I would share with Mrs. Anna Byrd, some of it I would take to my grave with me. |