Comeback

3

Lunch for the staff on crusade days was simple and short; bowls of salad, slices of bread, plastic cups of tea or apple juice, all laid out on long folding tables in whatever arena they found themselves. It's true this was an inexpensive way to feed a crowd, but Archibald's motives went beyond the squeezing of a dollar. He wanted his angels, his choir, his assistants, all his boys and girls to be cheerful and energetic and sparkling during the crusade to come, not bogged down by great sandwiches of cheese and meat, dulled by rich desserts, logy with milk shakes. And the staff enjoyed it, too, enjoyed the camaraderie of paper bowls and plastic forks, the rough fellowship of bleacher seats while eating and big open barrels for their trash afterward, the sense of coming together in peak condition to face the long and arduous campaign ahead: the saving of souls.

Dwayne Thorsen always ate like that anyway. He didn't see how people could stuff their faces with all that bad crap available to the idiots of this world. He'd eaten sparingly as a child back in Kentucky, out of necessity—they were poor— had turned necessity into virtue, and now virtue had become mere habit. But a good habit.

Among the first to start lunch, and the absolute first to finish, Dwayne discarded his implements in the empty trash barrel and began a roving tour of the facility, a kind of stubborn prowl, movement mostly for its own sake, to relieve the pressure he felt, the weight of responsibility on his shoulders. The rest of them could laugh and joke together down there in the bleachers, take it easy, pay no attention to their surroundings, and if something screwed up they'd just shrug and go on about their business. Because avoiding the screw-ups was not their business. Not even Archibald's business, not really. The smooth functioning, the seamless progress, the glitch-free continuation of the William Archibald Crusade; that was Dwayne's business.

This is what he'd learned in the Marines: Do not ask why, only ask how. That's the philosophy he'd carried out of the Marines and into his work with Archibald, and it's what made him so valuable. Irreplaceable. Whether Archibald were sincere or a phony, or some mingling of the two, wasn't Dwayne's concern. His only concern was that the crusade go forward with no bad publicity, no awkward snags, no loss of money, no distractions from the task at hand. None.

His roving of the stadium showed the security weak spots, showed the crowd-control difficulties, but showed also the advantages of the terrain, the narrow-funneled egresses, the vast clear space at the center of the stadium that meant no troublemaker could get very close to Archibald during the crusade without being seen and intercepted.

Dwayne visited the money room—fairly well concealed, fairly well protected—he visited the temporarily erected cubicles where counseling would be available at the end of the crusade, he visited the sexually segregated changing areas where the choir and angels would soon be getting into uniform (he didn't think in terms of 'costumes' but 'uniforms'), he visited the public restrooms and the refreshment area, he personally tried every door that was supposed to be locked and opened every door that was supposed to be unlocked.

Half an hour before the gates were to be flung wide to the paying public, Dwayne noticed from high in the stands Tom Carmody making his way across the Astroturfed field toward the dressing rooms, and even from way up here something about the man's posture snagged his attention. When something within Dwayne's area of responsibility was wrong, out of alignment, not exactly where or how it should be, he'd always spot it right away, and in this moment he could see that something about Tom Carmody was well and truly bent out of shape. The discouraged slope of those shoulders, the defensive clench of that ass, the fatalistic half-grip of those dangling hands as he made his way across the great open space; if they'd been back in the Marines together, Dwayne would know those signals could only mean one thing. A fellow bent on desertion.

But desertion? Here? If that were it, if Tom Carmody were merely planning to quit this livelihood and take his miserable long face somewhere else, Dwayne Thorsen would do nothing but cheer him on his way. Help him pack. But Tom wasn't leaving, not willingly, Dwayne was sure of that much. And here, in William Archibald's crusade, what would be the equivalent of desertion?

Dwayne followed Carmody into the dressing rooms, and came upon him hanging up his angel robe on a hook on the wall of the small and simple doorless cubicle he'd been assigned. His makeup tubes were already laid out on the narrow white Formica shelf in front of the mirror. His jacket was tossed on the floor in the corner; another bad sign. Dwayne said, "How you doing, Tom?"

Carmody jumped, guilt all over his face and in his every move. Guilt about what? Had the son of a bitch already found his reporter? Was he in here wired? Was he walking around with camera and tape recorder to expose the villainy of the William Archibald crusade? Dwayne considered, for just an instant, having Carmody searched, right here, right now, but realized at once and reluctantly what a mistake that would be if it turned out he'd jumped the gun, if Carmody were still merely gearing up for his betrayal, whatever form that betrayal would take.

The son of a bitch can't even look me in the eye, Dwayne thought, as Carmody said, "Oh, hi, Dwayne," and busied himself with an unnecessarily long search in his canvas tote bag for his clothesbrush.

Dwayne stood in the cubicle doorway and watched Carmody brush the robe, too hard and too long. Unconsciously echoing the counselors who would be at work in nearby cubicles in just a few hours, he said, "Anything you want to talk about, Tom?"

"What? No, Dwayne, everything's fine!"

Scared eyes, weak mouth, defensive hunch of shoulders. Oh, you'll bear watching, my lad, Dwayne thought. "Well, if you get troubled about anything, Tom," he said, doing his damnedest to put some warmth into his voice and failing even more than he knew, "I want you to think of me as somebody you can count on, somebody you can trust. A friend." He choked on the word, but got it out pretty smoothly, all in all.

A panicky smile played like summer lightning over Carmody's ashen sweating face. "I appreciate that, Dwayne," he said. "Thank you for— Thank you for worrying about me."

"Oh, I worry about everybody," Dwayne told him, with his own ghastly smile. "You know me."

"I sure do, Dwayne," Carmody said.

Dwayne nodded, and turned away. I wish I could send the son of a bitch on night patrol, he thought, and shoot him.