The Warning (7 page)

“Fine.” He handed Buddy the open Book, pointed to the bottom of one column. Start right there, First Corinthians, chapter twelve, verse four.”

Buddy found his place and read aloud. “‘There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit.'”

“Okay. Now I want you to stop thinking of this as something that is going to make you declare yourself as an old-style prophet. Instead, see this as simply one more responsibility in your life as a believer. You have been given a
message
. And the message is for the
common good
.”

Buddy saw where this was headed and tried to steer away from it. “You don't even know what the message is yet.”

“Hear me out.” Pastor Owen was not to be distracted. “Now, if the Lord has indeed given you the gift of a message, how can it be for the common good unless you share it?”

“It can't, I guess,” Buddy mumbled.

“Exactly. How this is to be done is not for you to determine, do you see? If the Lord is truly behind this, then He will show you exactly where and how the message is to be shared. If He had wanted somebody who would have sprung directly into the limelight, appeared on television, and declared the message to the world, He would have gone elsewhere. If He has chosen you, then He has chosen you with some special purpose in mind. Simply keep your eyes and ears open, Buddy. He will open the doors if this is indeed His will.”

Clarke Owen stopped there and waited long enough for Buddy to have a chance to object. When Buddy remained silent, Clarke asked, “Do you want to tell me what you think you heard?”

Buddy took a deep breath and let it out. He set both hands on the open Bible. He took another breath. “I think there's going to be a major financial collapse. An economic disaster. Followed by a time of commercial famine.”

The pastor remained stock-still, his gaze steady. “When?”

“Just over a month.” Buddy's voice cracked under the strain. He swallowed and tried again. “In thirty-seven days, the third Tuesday of next month.”

Buddy waited for the soft voice to calmly dispel his fears, to echo all he had told himself through the previous night's sleepless hours. How it was natural in such unstable times to be worried. How things had often been far worse than now, and somehow disaster had been averted. How every economic indicator now said that things were good and getting better.

Instead, Clarke nodded once. A slow up and down, and then he said, “I think you should share this with the deacons.”

“Clarke, no, I—”

“You know there's a finance meeting tonight. I want you to tell them what you've just told me.” Before Buddy could object further, Pastor Owen lowered his head. “Now why don't we join together in prayer and ask the Lord to show us exactly why He has spoken to you, and what it is He intends for us to do.”

–|
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NINE
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It seemed the longest afternoon of Buddy Korda's life.

As soon as lunch was over, he fled to his study. Sunday afternoons usually began with a nap on his couch, but today he started wearing a path in the carpet, pacing from the window to the door and back again. The idea of standing in front of the church's deacons and declaring he had received a message from on high was appalling.

Then a thought struck him. And he stopped in his tracks. His first smile of the day spread across his features. An expression of pure bliss.

Buddy walked over to his desk. He seated himself and pulled over his pad. He had always liked to have important points down in writing. He ignored the feeling that he was trying to make a deal with God. He was a banker and had a banker's eye for details. He simply wanted to get his understanding down in black and white.

A sign. That was it. He needed a sign before he gave himself up to this. A sign.

He wrote a contract, at least in his mind. On paper he simply put down a few terse words, numbering them one, two, and three. But in his mind it was set down as firmly and precisely as a loan document. He was asking for three signs. If a man as strong as Gideon could ask for two, then Buddy Korda needed at least three.

First, his darling shy wife would not only agree to go with him and be there in public at his side, but she would suggest it herself. Second, his wayward brother would not only return to the church, but he would offer to work with Buddy on this. And third, every single member of the finance committee would agree that Buddy Korda had received a message from God.

Buddy folded the paper and slid it into his top drawer. He released a contented sigh. If the signs did not appear, he was going to be able to walk away from this with a clear conscience. The first two signs were pretty impossible, but the third was straight from a fairy tale. The finance committee couldn't be unanimous over how much coffee to serve for the Wednesday night Bible study.

Buddy leaned back in his chair, thoroughly satisfied with the world.

He found Molly working in the kitchen. “You busy?”

“No more than usual.”

“I think it's time I told you what's been going on.”

His wife had a quiet way of moving, as though she wanted to pass through life without disturbing a single blade of grass. She glided over, pulled out a chair, and seated herself.

Buddy laid it out flat. No inflection, no embellishments. The nightmares and the pains and the Bible passage. He finished with the previous day's prayer time. Then he stopped and waited.

After lunch Molly had changed from her Sunday clothes to a housedress, one with a stiff collar that reached almost to her chin. All her dresses and blouses and nightgowns had high collars. They helped to hide her scar.

Molly was a naturally shy person. To have such a vivid scar only amplified her natural reserve, turning it into almost a phobia. She had spent much of her life hiding from public inspection. Even if Buddy had been determined to go ahead with this crusade, he could never have asked his wife to join him.

And yet, when she finally spoke she said, “I knew it was something like this. Even before you told Paul to wait with the new business, I knew.”

“You did?” His voice sounded dull in his own ears. “How?”

“I don't know. But I did. And I knew it was something I was going to need to do with you.”

Her eyes were brown, like her hair had been before age had turned it to strands of silver. Buddy stared into them now, looking straight into her heart. He felt shocked beyond speech.

“I've been praying about it all week. And the only thing I've felt come to me is how happy I've been these past few years, with the boys grown and busy with their own lives.”

Buddy wanted to ask, What about how you are with strangers? What about the bad days, when you ask me to drive you to the shopping mall and walk around with you so you don't have to be around strangers by yourself? He wanted to ask her all these things and more, but not because he was interested in her response. No. There was too much honesty in Molly's words for him to be less than fully honest with himself. He wanted to push her away from where he felt she was headed.

“I was glad to be a mom,” Molly confessed. “But I'm much happier being a grandmother. It means I can concentrate on being a wife again.”

She had often said this to him these past few years. The words had come to be an intimate confession just between the two of them. Buddy waited for her to finish with something like, I don't want to leave this now. He even wanted to speak and say the words for her, because he most definitely did not want to be anywhere but here. Yet the words simply would not come.

She looked around the kitchen. “I like being just the two of us. I like being here with you at home.”

He reached over and took her hand. He wanted to push away what he was hearing, what it might mean. But the love that welled up in him for his wife gentled away his ability to object.

“It's home the way we like it, quiet and cozy.” She looked around again, sad this time, as though she was already saying good-bye. “I'll miss it.”

He finally managed to force out the words, “We're not going anywhere.” Yet even before the words were out of his mouth, Buddy knew they were wrong.

Molly did not answer him. Instead she simply reached over and placed her free hand on top of his. She sat there, looking around, looking at him, and then back again at their home. Her gaze was quiet and searching, seeing beyond the walls and the years, saying farewell to all that was and once had been.

Buddy hung his head. Never had the message seemed more real than at this moment. Nor the calling more dire.

Finally he rose from the table. Molly's gaze lifted with him. “Where are you going?”

He looked down at his wife. He answered, “I have to go see Alex.”

–|
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TEN
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Buddy found Alex where his older brother spent every Sunday—at work.

Buddy drove under the banner announcing that the dusty lot was home to Korda's Fine Used Cars. He stopped and stared through the sun-dashed windshield to where his elder brother stood with a couple beside a car festooned with bunting and balloons. Alex was waving his arms about, which meant he was closing a sale. Buddy had spent a lot of time watching his brother and wishing things had turned out different than they had.

His brother was bigger all around than Buddy. Taller, wider, broader. Bigger smile, bigger hands, bigger heart. Alex Korda was one of those people who never learned to adjust to the real world. Buddy had known this long before Alex had gone through what Buddy had always called his change of life.

When Alex was eighteen he had fallen head over heels in love with a girl down the street. She, too, had claimed to love him, which was all the impetus Alex had needed. He had courted her and wooed her, or so everyone had thought. Especially Alex. Together they had set a date for the wedding. Two days before they were scheduled to be wed, the girl had left town. No word, no nothing for almost a month. Then a letter had arrived, and she had confessed to having fallen for a drummer in a band that had passed through town.

Alex had done exactly as she had requested, which was to walk over and pass the news on to her distraught parents. Then he had packed a bag and left town himself.

He had been drifting ever since. Oh, he had returned to Aiden six months later. But he had not been the same Alex. The smile was still there, the hearty voice and the friendly hello. But the man behind it had never returned from the horror of seeing his dream dashed on the rocks of reality.

There had been other women. A lot of them. And in between the ladies there had been an on-again, off-again love affair with the bottle. Three years earlier, Alex had finally sworn off the booze for good. He had joined AA and regularly attended the meetings. But he had never returned to church, never again set foot inside the doors, not even to see his two nephews get married. As far as Alex was concerned, when his fiancée had walked out of his life that day, she had carried God off with her.

Buddy sat in his car and waited for Alex to shake the couple's hands and send them inside to where his assistant sat ready to draw up the papers. Buddy reflected that there was still a chance he might get away with doing nothing.

Alex sprinted over to Buddy's car and opened the door. “You gonna sit there all day?”

Buddy climbed out and said what he did every Sunday. “Missed you at church this morning.”

Alex gave his easy laugh, seeming to all the world a happy-go-lucky dreamer. “You're the second person who's told me that today.”

This was new. “Who was the other?”

“Ah, now. That would be telling.” He checked his watch. “Do I have the date wrong, or did we plan things different this month?”

“No, nothing's changed.” One Sunday a month, Buddy came out and checked Alex's books. Another Sunday, he invited his brother for a family dinner. The other Sunday afternoons, Buddy simply telephoned for a long chat. They saw each other fairly often during the week, but the Sunday contacts were Buddy's way of reaching out. Buddy had been praying for Alex since Alex had disappeared, which was forty-four years ago. “I've got something I need to talk with you about.”

“Come on inside then.” Alex walked with the rolling gait of a big man. He was tremendously strong and possessed the jaw of an ox. No wonder the ladies swooned over him. Walking alongside, Buddy felt dwarfed by his brother and saddened by the missed opportunities. Alex had so much to offer the world. So much goodness. So much heart. Buddy found himself sighing a lot whenever he spent time around his brother.

Alex led him into the long trailer converted into an office. Couples were seated in front of both desks used by Alex's salesmen. Alex gave the entire room a cheery wave and led Buddy down the narrow hallway. The trailer smelled of antiseptic cleaner and old coffee.

Buddy followed Alex into the back room. On the side wall were three letters framed and hung like diplomas. They were from the sales managers of the three main car dealers in Aiden, all offering to buy Alex's stock and hire him as manager of their used-car divisions. He was that good.

Alex spotted the direction of Buddy's gaze and warned, “You're not going to start on that old thing again, are you?”

“No, that's not why I'm here.” The fact that Alex was already on the defensive cheered him, and the fact that it cheered him made him feel guilty. Buddy shook his head to clear it. God knew him well enough to know that he would not want to take on the task of messenger. There was nothing wrong with being honest. And the truth was, he more than half hoped the signs would not arrive.

“What's got you so worried, little brother?”