In Death 27 - Salvation in Death

She narrowed her eyes. “I need to do a search for major heists, robberies, burglaries, illegal deals between six and eight years ago. Maybe six and nine, but that’s the cap. And run the baptism records. Then I need to find a cop who worked that sector back when Lino would have been an active member of the Soldados. Somebody who’d remember him, give me a picture.”
    “Why don’t I take the first search? I so enjoy heists, robberies, and burglaries. And I did deal with dinner, so deserve a reward.”
    “I guess you did, and do.” She sat back. “How big a bitch was I when I got home?”
    “Oh, darling, you’ve been bigger.”
    She laughed, held out a hand. “Thanks.”
    Backstage at the recently reopened Madison Square Garden, Jimmy Jay Jenkins, founder of the Church of Eternal Light, prepared to greet his flock. He prepared with a short shot of vodka, followed by two breath strips, while the voices of the Eternal Light Singers poured in faith and four-part harmony through his dressing room speakers.
    He was a big man who enjoyed good food; white suits—of which he had twenty-six and wore with various colorful bow ties and matching suspenders—tailored for his girth; his loving wife of thirty-eight years, Jolene; their three children and five grandchildren; those occasional sly swigs of vodka; his current mistress, Ulla; and preaching God’s holy word.
    Not necessarily in that order.
    He’d founded his church nearly thirty-five years before, laying those bricks with sweat, charisma, a talent for showmanship, and the utter and unshakable faith that he was right. From the tent revivals and country fields of his beginnings, he’d erected a multibillion-dollar-a-year business.
    He lived like a king, and he preached like the fiery tongue of God. At the knock on the door, Jimmy Jay adjusted his tie in the mirror, gave his shock of white hair—of which he was not-so-secretly vain—a quick smooth, then called out a cheerful, basso, “Y’all come!”
    “Five minutes, Jimmy Jay.”
    Jimmy Jay beamed his wide, wide smile. “Just checking the package. What’s the gate, Billy?”
    His manager, a thin man with hair as dark as Jimmy Jay’s was white, stepped in. “Sold clean out. We’re going to take in over five million, and that’s before the live-feed fees or donations.”
    “That’s a godly amount.” Grinning, Jimmy Jay shot a finger at his manager. “Let’s make it worth it, Billy. Let’s get out there and save us some souls.”
    He meant it. He believed he could—and had—saved scores of souls since he’d first taken the road, out of Little Yazoo, Mississippi, as a preacher. And he believed his lifestyle, like the diamond rings on each of his hands, was reward for his good works.
    He accepted he was a sinner—the vodka, his sexual peccadillos—but he also believed only God could claim perfection.
    He smiled as the Eternal Light Singers finished to thunderous applause, and winked at his wife, who waited in the wings, stage left. She would enter as he did, meet him center stage as the back curtain rose and the towering screen flashed their images to the back rows of the upper balconies.
    His Jolene would take some of that spotlight, and just glitter and glow in it like an angel. After they’d greeted the crowd together, after she’d done her signature solo, “Walking by His Light,” he would kiss her hand—the crowd loved that. And she would return to the wings while he went to work, saving those souls.
    That would be the time to get down to the serious business of the Lord.
    His Jolene looked a picture to Jimmy Jay’s loving eyes. As they began the routine they’d made their own over decades, her pink dress sparkled in the stage lights as her eyes sparkled into his. Her hair was a mountain of gold, as bright and shining as the trio of necklaces she wore. He thought her voice when she broke into song as rich and pure as the forest of gems along that gold.
    As always, her song brought them both to tears, and brought down the house. Her perfume drenched him, saturating his senses as he kissed her hand with great tenderness, watched her walk offstage through the mist of moisture. Then he turned, waiting until the last clap had died to hushed silence.
    Behind him, the screen blasted with light. God’s spear through the gilt-edged clouds. And as one, the crowd gasped.
    “We are all sinners.”
    He began softly, a quiet voice in a silent cathedral. A prayer. He built, in volume, in