Parishioner by Walter Mosley Read Free Book Online Page B

you break in?”
    “Any bones broken, Doc?” Xavier asked Mendel.
    “Some bruising and swelling, that’s about it.”
    “A car hit me?”
    “Not head-on. It was driving past and you ran into the side. Bounced you like a rubber ball. If you weren’t drunk it might have been worse.”
    “Where are my clothes?”
    “Folded on the bench at the foot of the bed,” Soto said. “What were you doing there, Ecks?”
    “Nothing to break my oath.”
    “That’s not good enough.”
    “It’ll have to be.”
    Soto was in his midforties, though he looked older. He was hale and powerful but that didn’t bother Rule. He was never afraid of force—only failure.
    “Are you working for Frank?” Dr. Mendel asked.
    “What I’m doin’ is what I’m doin’, Doc. Don’t crowd me.”
    “I could have you arrested,” Guillermo Soto suggested. “All I’d have to do is stand aside.”
    “That’s your business,” Xavier said. “I can’t tell you what to do.”
    “Are you going to cause me trouble?” the cop asked.
    “I been in trouble since before I was born, Guilly. So much that people stay outta my way so rocks don’t fall out from the sky on their heads.”
    The policeman stood. He had glistening tawny skin and deep, dark eyes. In contrast Mendel was a dry white color, like alabaster on a desert landscape. The white man had blue eyes that, Xavier knew from Expressions, had seen acres of innocent, unwilling blood.
    “Take care of yourself, Ecks,” the doctor said.
    “Get the fuck outta here.”

    “What are you doing?” Nurse Kwan said to Xavier’s back minutes later.
    He was standing at the foot of his bed trying his best to put his pants on without toppling to the floor.
    He stopped and sat on the bench to rest.
    “I’m going out for pizza. You want some?”
    “I’m sorry, Mr. Noland, but you can’t leave until you have been released.”
    “This is America, honey. Here every man is free. Woman too.”
    “The doctor on duty has to sign you out before I can let you go.”
    “Watch me.”
    Feeling stronger with something to push against, Xavier Rule stood, pulling up his pants with the same motion. There was some dirt on his suit but no tears that he could tell. Xavier not only loved his clothes but felt loyalty toward them. He’d hire a tailor to work for days to save a suit he cherished.
    Nurse Kwan left. While the other patients watched he donned his chocolate shirt and lime jacket, cranberry socks and grapefruit shoes. He had just stood from tying his laces when two orderlies came in, followed by the nurse. The men were both white. One was dirty blond while the other sported a healthy brunette mop. They seemed able enough, one a bit taller and the other somewhat shorter than Xavier’s five-ten.
    “Gentlemen,” Xavier greeted. “What time do you have?”
    “Time for you to get back in the bed,” the taller blond said.
    “If I didn’t get in the bed for a cute nurse, why would I do it for you?”
    “We’re not jokin’ with you, dude,” the other orderly said in a no-nonsense tone.
    Almost effortlessly Xavier reached down and broke a fifteen-inch wooden leg off the bench that had held his clothes, showing his would-be jailers that he had powerful, practiced hands.
    As the bench teetered and fell he said, “Then let’s not play around.”

    At the admittance office on the first floor he requested his property. When they asked him for his discharge papers he told them to call Nurse Kwan in the emergency admitting ward.
    A dozen minutes later he was on the street waiting for a car that he’d called.
    It was late in the afternoon and Xavier didn’t know whether he was going to vomit or experience cardiac arrest, but he stood there patiently happy to be above the ground and out of the penal system, away from the carnage he had thought was human routine.
    The fifty-seven, plum-colored Pontiac sidled up to the curb and Winter Johnson leaned toward the passenger’s window.
    “Hey, Ecks. Where