First Daughter (24 page)

Jack was sorely tempted to describe in detail Hugh Garner's manhandling of Peter Link, but decided against it. Instead, he said, "I have a hunch. If it doesn't pan out, I'll drop it and we'll be back to square one."

He knew he was on edge. Why would any of the four order him tailed and attacked? Was it Armitage they wanted silenced? The state of unknowing was not a pleasant one for him. He resisted the urge to call Bennett; he knew the chief would contact him as soon as he had dug up anything of substance.

A bell sounded as they entered the bakery. The place was much as he remembered, full of the delicious swirl of butter, sugar, yeast, baking bread. He remembered in vivid detail the first time Gus had taken him here. In his mind's eye, he could see Cyril's goons standing around, reading the racing forms, waiting for their orders to dispense drugs or weapons, pick up payments, and if the envelope was a little light, to deliver a bloody payment of their own. He remembered the balding man behind the counter who gave him a chocolate-chip cookie. And Cyril himself, with his dark, olive eyes, his Slavic cheekbones, and his sinister air. Today, however, there were only a couple of elderly ladies buying their daily bread. They
smiled at him as they walked out with their sweet-smelling purchases.

"Name's Oscar. Can I help you?"

A short, squat man in a baker's apron, with a monkish fringe of hair around the circumference of his milk chocolate scalp and a wide flat nose that must once have been broken regarded them with curious eyes and a welcoming smile. The current All Around Town bakery was a couple of light-years from the shop Cyril Tolkan had presided over.

"I'll take a square of crumb cake." Jack turned to Nina. "And you, sweetheart?"

Nina, unfazed, shook her head.

Jack grinned at Oscar. "The missus is a bit shy in this neighborhood."

"I understand completely." Oscar had a spray of freckles over the flattened bridge of his nose. He placed Jack's crumb cake in a square of paper on the top of the glass case. Addressing Nina, he said, "How about a chocolate-chip cookie?" He picked one out of the pile, held it out. "No one can resist one of our chocolate-chip cookies."

Jack remembered. Even stale it was good.

Nina gave a tight smile, took the cookie.

Jack took out his wallet.

"The cookie's on the house," Oscar said.

Jack thanked him as he paid. He bit into the crumb cake, said, "Delicious." As he chewed, he said, "I wonder if Joachim is around."

Oscar busied himself arranging a tray of linzer tortes. "Friend or business?"

"A little of both."

Oscar seemed to take this nonanswer in stride. "The boss'll be back tomorrow. He's in Miami Beach, for his mother's funeral."

Jack looked around the room, munched on his crumb cake. "You know what time he'll be in?"

"First thing in the morning," Oscar said. "I just got off the phone with him." He took a tray of butter cookies from a thin lad who'd appeared from the oven room. "Any message?"

"No." Jack finished off the crumb cake, brushed his fingertips together. "We'll be back."

Oscar held aloft a couple of cookies. "Something for the road?"

Jack took them.

T
HE
R
ENAISSANCE
Mission Church is more than a place of worship for Jack; it's his schoolhouse. It doesn't take long for Reverend Taske to unearth the root of Jack's reading difficulties. As it happens, he's studied a bit about dyslexia, but now he studies more. Every evening when Jack arrives after work at the Hi-Line, Taske has another idea he's found in some book or other pulled from libraries all over the District.

One evening Jack is particularly frustrated by trying to read a book—this one is of poems by Emily Dickinson. He lashes out, breaks a glass on Reverend Taske's desk. Immediately ashamed, he too-quickly picks up the shards, cuts the edge of his hand. After throwing the glass into the wastepaper basket, he goes over to the armoire, takes out the first aid kit. As he does so, his eye is caught by something on the floor of the armoire. Pushing aside some boxes, he sees what looks like a door.

Just as he's pushing the boxes back in place, Reverend Taske comes in. Within the blink of an eye, he seems to take in the entire scenario. He holds out his hand, and once Jack gives him the first aid kit, gestures for Jack to sit down. He looks at the cut on Jack's hand.

"What happened?"

"I was having trouble reading," Jack said. "I got angry."

Taske searches to make sure no tiny bit of glass has lodged itself in the wound. "The glass means nothing." He begins to disinfect the wound. "But your anger needs tending."

"I'm sorry," Jack says.

"Before you allow your temper to flare, think about why you're angry." Taske bandages the cut, then indicates the armoire. "I expect you're wondering where that trapdoor leads." He regards Jack sternly. "I can trust you, can't I?"

Jack sits up straight. "Yes, sir."

Reverend Taske gives him a wink. "You see, back in the thirties, when liquor was outlawed, these buildings were under the control of bootleggers—people who dealt in illegal liquor. There's a tunnel under here that leads into Gus's back room." He closes up the kit, puts it away. "Now, let's get back to Emily Dickinson."

"I'll never be able to get it," Jack says in despair.

Taske bids him put down the slim volume. "Listen to me, Jack. Your brain is special. It processes things in a way mine can't—in three dimensions." He hands Jack a Rubik's Cube. "The idea here is to get a solid color on each side of the cube. Go on. Give it a try."

As Jack turns the cube, understanding comes to him full-blown, and he manipulates the mind-bending puzzle. He hands the cube back to Taske. Each side is a solid color.

"Well, I can't say I'm surprised," Taske says. "All the current literature claims you wouldn't have trouble solving Rubik's puzzle, but four minutes!" He whistles. "No one else I know can solve this, Jack, let alone so quickly."

"Really?"

Taske smiles. "Really."

T
HOUGH IT
'S in a run-down neighborhood that could charitably be called marginal, the Renaissance Mission Church attracts a high level
of media coverage and, therefore, attendance from local politicos. This is due to the benevolent work Reverend Taske does, rehabilitating hardened criminals of thirteen or fourteen, turning them into citizens of the District who make tangible contributions to their neighborhood. Taske's admirable goal is to rehab the entire area, not by inviting white entrepreneurs to take over failing black businesses, but by creating black entrepreneurs who have the tools to turn these businesses into moneymaking operations. Unfortunately, in his neighborhood, the businesses that make the most money are those that run numbers, deploy prostitutes, deal drugs. Old habits are hard to break, especially those that have proved painlessly lucrative for their bosses. No schooling is needed, no learning to abide by the laws of the Man. No need to become civilized—or even civil, for that matter. All that's required is muscle, guns, and a pair of brass balls.

That includes Andre. After taking his lumps from his boss, Cyril Tolkan, for beating up on Jack, Andre has moved up Tolkan's crooked corporate ladder with alarming rapidity. Part of his motivation, of course, was to get out of Tolkan's doghouse, but far more worrying is the flame of his ambition, which is burning brighter than even Gus had imagined. Andre never comes to the church anymore, and ever since Reverend Taske returned from Andre's new lair with a black eye and a lacerated cheek, he doesn't even mention his name. Gus, enraged, wanted to go after Andre himself, but Taske wouldn't let him. Jack happens to overhear their conversation early one Sunday morning, which takes place in the rectory, where Jack is laboriously working his way through
The Great Gatsby
. The novel is interesting because, like Jack himself, Gatsby is an outsider. But it becomes downright fascinating when Jack, thumbing through a biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald he takes out of the local library, learns that the author was, like Jack himself, dyslexic.

"I've had enough standin' aside while Andre goes off on ev'rybody," Gus says.

"You just can't abide him taking business from you," Reverend Taske responds.

"Huh! Looka whut he did to you!"

"Occupational hazard," Taske says. "You're not my daddy, Augustus. I can take care of myself."

"By turnin' the other cheek."

"That's how I was taught, Augustus. That's what I believe."

"Whut you believe ain't nuthin' but a jackass's brayin'."

Jack sucks in his breath. He is compelled to get up, creep down the hall, put his eye to the crack between door and jamb he makes by pulling with his fingertips. In his limited line of vision, the Reverend Taske is eclipsed by Gus's planetary shape.

"Because your ire is up, I'm going to ignore your insult to me, Augustus, but I can't overlook your blasphemy toward God. When we're done, I want you to make penance."

"Not today, Reverend. I gots no truck with turnin' the other cheek. Moment I knuckle to that, I'm shit outta business. You-all gonna tell me that if I don't do fo' myself, God will?"

"I am concerned for your immortal soul, Augustus," Taske says slowly and carefully.

"Huh, you best be concerned with things that matter, like whut you gonna do 'bout expenses round here now that yo' famous bank vice president got indicted for embezzlement. Reg'lators gone pulled the plug on all his deals, including the one that's been keeping this place afloat fo' three years."

Jack hears the creak of a chair, figures the reverend has sat heavily down. "You do have a point there, Augustus."

"Now, you know I make a lotta money, Reverend, an' I'll give you as much as I can."

"The church isn't here to drain you of every penny you make."

"Still an' all," Gus perseveres, "whatever I can muster won't be enough. You gotta think long-term."

"If you have a suggestion," Taske says.

It's at that point that Jack knocks on the door. There is a short startled silence, at the end of which Taske's voice bids Jack enter.

Jack stands in the doorway until the reverend beckons him into the room. "What can I do for you, Jack? Having trouble decoding Fitzgerald's prose?"

"It's not that." Jack is for a moment at a loss for words. Taske looks weary, older. Why hasn't he noticed this before? Jack asks himself.

"Augustus and I are in the middle of a discussion, Jack," Taske says kindly.

"I know, that's why I came in."

"Oh?"

"I couldn't help overhearing."

"Huh, you betta close that door good," Gus says, "so you the on'y one."

Jack shuts the door firmly, turns around. "I heard about the money crisis."

"That's none o' yo' business," Gus says darkly.

"I think I have a way out," Jack says.

The two men seem to hang suspended between disbelief and raucous laughter. The thought that a fifteen-year-old has seen a way out of the fiscal quicksand the Renaissance Mission Church has unceremoniously found itself in is, on the face of it, ludicrous. Except, as both men know, each in his own way, this is Jack—and Jack is capable of extraordinary leaps of logic that are beyond either of them.

So Taske says, "Go ahead, Jack. We're listening."

"I was thinking of Senator Edward Carson."

Taske frowns. "What about him, son?"

"He was here last week," Jack says. "I read the papers—you assign me to do that every day, and I do."

Taske smiles. "I know you do."

"I noticed that Senator Carson got a lot of great press out of his
visit here. He even spent some time with the parishioners before and after the service. He said he used to sing in his choir back home in Nebraska. I heard him accept your invitation to sing with our choir today."

"All true," Taske agrees. "What exactly is your point, Jack?"

"There's an election coming up this fall. Senator Carson's campaign war chest is big. According to the papers, he's the party's great future hope. The bigwigs are rumored to be grooming him to run for president one day. Him being here last week and this, I think the rumor's true. But to make a successful run, he's going to need every vote he can get. Last time I looked, there weren't too many blacks living in Nebraska, which is where the Renaissance Mission Church comes in."

"Huh. Sounds like the kid's on to sumthin'," Gus says. "Yes, indeed."

Taske's mouth is half-open. Jack can just about see the gears mesh in his mind, the wheels begin to turn.

"I don't believe it," Taske says at length. "You want me to offer him votes for funding."

Jack nods.

"But we're one small community church."

"Today you are," Jack says. "That's the beauty of the idea. You're always talking about expanding beyond the neighborhood. This is your chance. With Senator Carson's backing, the Renaissance Mission Church could go regional, then national. By the time he's ready to make his run at the presidency, you'll be in position to offer him the kind of help he'll need most."

Gus laughs. "This here boy thinks as big as the sky."

"Yes," Taske says slowly, "but he has a point."

"Carson's gotta go for it," Gus cautions.

"Why won't he?" Jack says. "He's a successful politician. His livelihood depends on him making deals, accommodations, alliances. Think about it. There's no downside for him. Even if you should fail, Reverend,
he gets a ton of national press for helping a minority raise itself off its knees."

"Jack's right. The idea makes perfect sense," Taske says. He's chewing over the idea, looking at it from all angles. "And what's more, it just might work!" Then he slams his palms down on the desk as he jumps up. "I knew it! The good Lord bringing you to us was a miracle!"

"Here we go," Gus growls, but Jack can see he's as proud of Jack as Taske is.

"My boy, who would have thought of this but you?" The Reverend Myron Taske takes Jack's hand, pumps it enthusiastically. "I think you just might have saved us all."