The Trinity Game

twenty-three years old.
    The lost sheep had fulfilled his duty, and the world was safe from whatever upheaval Tim Trinity might have wrought. AndFather Nick would never know about the involvement of the council in Vatican affairs.
    Conrad turned off the monitor and removed the headset as the flight attendant arrived with his drink.

    The nearest hospital was Tulane, and Daniel found Pat there. But Pat was still in surgery, so Daniel used the opportunity to get the cuts in his hands stitched up and a butterfly bandage on his split lip where he’d banged it against the wall.
    He left Tulane and walked numbly down the block to a diner. He was running on empty, knew he needed sustenance, so he forced himself to eat, even though he had no appetite and couldn’t taste anything.
    He wandered back to the hospital. Pat was now in a recovery room, asleep.
    Daniel pulled a chair beside the bed and sat with his uncle’s blue Bible in his lap. He noticed the red splatters on the cover, which made his chest ache. He took the Bible to the bathroom and washed the blood off. As he was drying the cover with a paper towel, the book fell open in his hands.
    There was an envelope taped inside the front cover. It was full of photographs, snapshots of him as a boy and his uncle as a younger man. Fishing together in a river somewhere in Mississippi…sunbathing on top of the Winnebago…eating chilidogs at the Varsity.
    Daniel wept.

    It was late when the cab dropped him back at the Saint Sebastian’s Boys Athletic Club. He used his key to open the door and headed straight for the office couch.
    But he couldn’t sleep. He switched the light back on, left the office, and went to the room where Trinity had slept.
    On the cot was the bulletproof vest Trinity had chosen not to wear without telling anyone. On top of the vest, a piece of paper.
    Daniel picked it up and read his uncle’s handwriting…
    LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
OF REVEREND TIM TRINTIY
    (Born Timothy Granger, New Orleans)
    I’m not big on long goodbyes, so I’ll be as brief as I know how. I realize a lot of people think I’m crazy, but I do declare that as I write these words I am of sound mind and body.
    I hereby appoint my nephew, Daniel Byrne (Hi Danny!) as the sole executor of my estate. He’ll make sure it gets done right. He’s reliable that way.
    Now, I got a lot of money. Don’t know how much, really, it’s been coming in so fast of late. Last I checked we were crossing one hundred and fifty million, ($150,000,000) if you can believe that. That’s a right smart number of zeros.
    Well, here’s what I want done with it:
    Take a third of the money and put it to use in the small towns where I preached in tents all those years (Danny will remember). Just spend it on whatever those towns need.
    For the general welfare, as the saying goes.
    Take the rest of the money, two-thirds of it, and use it to help rebuild the parts of New Orleans that need it the most.
    That’s it, folks. Short and sweet, as promised. Now I gotta go and meet my maker. It’s time.
    Be good to each other.
    Love,
    Tim

New Orleans, Louisiana – four weeks later…
    A n autopsy revealed that Tim Trinity had been carrying a tumor the size of a small quince in his head. Atheists said the tumor meant that the Trinity Phenomenon was not evidence of a God. Believers said the tumor was God’s instrument.
    And since nobody could explain how the predictions worked, most folks just went on believing, or not believing, whatever they believed, or didn’t, before the whole thing began.
    Daniel was getting on with the business of grieving, and he was grateful for the grief. Of all the miracles he’d witnessed in the past two months, perhaps the greatest of all was that he’d reconnected with his uncle. This is what the grief taught him, and the pain of this loss was better than the emptiness he’d felt when they were estranged.
    He felt like he’d found
himself
again. He felt truly blessed.
    He made it down to Dulac once a week, and on the last visit was surprised to see that Pat had already lost the crutches. Having taken a bullet for the cause, Pat didn’t even complain when Daniel said thank you.
    Julia had become quite a sensation in the world of journalism. She still wrote for the
Times-Picayune
but also traveled on joint assignment with CNN. Daniel was living with her—until he found an apartment, they said—but she was away as much as she was home these days.
    He missed her when she was