The Cinderella Murder

13

Three hundred fifty miles away, in downtown San Francisco, Steve Roman’s cell phone rang. The screen identified the caller as “AG.”

He felt himself smile. The directive that Steve move to the Bay Area was a sure sign that he was trusted, but he missed seeing Martin Collins in person. Maybe the church would ask him to return to Los Angeles. Or perhaps Martin would be coming north for another big revival.

“Steve Roman,” he answered. Steve, like Steve McQueen. Roman, like a gladiator.

“You’re well?” Martin never identified himself during phone calls. It wasn’t necessary. Anyone who had witnessed one of Martin’s sermons knew the distinctive sound of his voice. Steve had first heard Martin’s voice when a friend brought him to a revival in the basement of a Westwood tattoo parlor fifteen years earlier. Since then, he’d listened to Martin’s preaching for hours-in person, on cassette tapes and then CDs, and now via streaming audio from the Internet.

Over the years, Steve had worked his way closer and closer to the inner circle. Advocates for God used a circle metaphor for a member’s relationship to the church. It wasn’t a hierarchy. Martin wasn’t the top; he was the center. And through the center, the word of God could be heard.

“Yes,” Steve responded. “Thank you, as ever, for the opportunity.”

When Martin decided to expand AG’s reach beyond his Southern California megachurch, he had dispatched Steve here. Even though Steve preferred the sunny glow and glitz of Southern California to the gloomy, windy Bay Area, he always expressed gratitude to AG for the opportunity. The church had found a studio apartment for him above Market Street and secured a job for him with a home-alarm company, Keepsafe.

Mostly, he was thankful for his new identity. He no longer used drugs. He didn’t hurt people anymore. With the help of Martin Collins and AG, he was on a path to find himself by serving the Lord and the poor. He had even transformed himself physically. Before he ventured into the basement of that tattoo parlor, he had been skinny, with long straggly hair, often unwashed. Now he did a hundred sit-ups and push-ups every single day. He ate healthfully. He kept his hair shaved close to the scalp. He was hard, lean, and clean.

“Do you need something?” Steve offered.

Steve thought of himself as Advocates for God’s own private investigator. He gathered dirt on former church members who tried to sully AG’s reputation, often by slipping in and out of the homes of Keepsafe’s customers unnoticed. When Martin got wind that a federal prosecutor was looking into the church’s finances, it was Steve who had conducted the surveillance to prove the lawyer was cheating on his wife. Steve was never certain how Martin handled the crisis, but once he gave Martin photographic proof of the affair, the murmurs of an investigation disappeared.

His work for AG wasn’t always strictly legal, but Martin-and Steve-saw it as a necessary evil to keep tabs on people who tried to suppress the church and its good works.

“Yes. I need you to keep an eye on someone. And to send a message when the time is right.”

There was something about the way that Martin said “send a message” that made Steve’s skin prickle. Steve closed his eyes and thought to himself, Please, no, not that.

He accepted this life, in a noise-filled studio overlooking a traffic-filled street, in a city where he knew no one, because he was a better person here than he had ever been when he made his own choices. It had been years since he’d inflicted physical pain upon another living being. What if he tried it again and liked it too much? But then he reminded himself not to question the supreme Advocate for God.

“Whatever you need.”