The following continues the April 21, 1949 entry in the Rocky Stone notebooks:
The sun had yet to appear on the horizon when the Reverend Hosea got into his car and drove off, leaving me and Gloria watching him go from the comfort of the sidewalk. He made his decision and we weren't part of it. He wanted to find his wife all by his lonesome and he'd get himself killed if he thought it was going to be just that simple. The red tail lights of his car gradually pushed together and merged in the distance. I looked at Gloria and I knew we both thought the same thing. My Buick sat at the ready, waiting for us to climb inside and follow.
There are not that many paths through the desert, so we stayed behind at a good distance, always being sure that he didn't get too far away. Gloria would watch the road ahead for a while, then turn and study my face with a confused look, as if she didn't understand it. After a while I couldn't stand it any more. “You got something to say?”
“Yes,” she said, simply. “Why are you doing this?”
“Maybe I like the guy. Maybe I think the moment he steps into a room with Max Blank he'll disappear shortly thereafter, never to be found again. Funny you should ask, because I was wondering the same thing about you. At least the Reverend is a client of mine, but you? Max isn't the type to pay an investigator who sabotages him.”
Her quick laugh exploded in a snort. “No, he wouldn't be. Lucky for me, I'm not working for him.”
“That's what I get for taking your word, I suppose. So why are you doing this?”
She started to speak, but the first time out of the gate no noise escaped her lips and she had to try again. The second time she made a noise like a rusty swing and I could see a tear fall out of her eye. It rolled down her cheek and landed at the corner of her mouth. She swiped it away and got a hold of herself.
“I wanted Mike Godatz dead.”
“You got your wish.”
“You see, my sister—Delores—she... She was driving home...she wasn't even speeding...and she got pulled over by a cop...”
Another sad story, one of the many. Seems her sister Delores went through the same scam Marjorie did all those years ago, but as Gloria explained, her sister's tale had a different twist after Mike Godatz took advantage of her. Delores was charmed by the man somehow, so charmed that she ended up working as an “escort” at the Gehenna Tavern. Two years she was there under his influence, unable to leave, unable to live with the guilt, until one day she decided to rid herself of this world and all its misery. Scratch one more young and innocent girl from the ledger.
“I found out about Mitch from a friend. He was trying to find all the women Mike Godatz had ruined so naturally I signed up to help him. I was just sixteen. I found twenty-five women willing to testify, but neither one of us could find the one woman he wanted to find: Marjorie. It killed Mitch. I saw what it did to him.
“So, years later I became a private eye. Three weeks ago, I get word that Mitch had found Marjorie, and it burned me to my core. He was too good for her. I made it up to myself that she would pay for all she had done. And now she is. Or soon will.”
We reached route 66 and we were driving west. A few trucks got in the way and blocked my view of the Reverend's car but I could still follow all right.
“You still haven't answered the question,” I said. “Why come along with me on this wild adventure?”
“Because,” she replied, sorrowfully, “those twenty-five women were my sisters. They were Delores. They all had the same story Delores did. Despite everything...Marjorie is my sister, too.”
The dawn broke and the Reverend pulled into the lot of a roadside diner, probably to get some breakfast before the long road ahead. We passed him by and kept on going until we were out of sight. I pulled the car into a service station and waited for whoever was minding the pump to wander out and do his duty. We stared at a garage in the back until a tired old man in overalls lumbered out of it. He didn't look happy at the intrusion and he spit on the ground.
The old man was halfway across the driveway by the time another car pulled up beside us, and who should pop out but the Reverend Cornelius Hosea, waving at us and smiling. I couldn't help but smile back at him. I got out.
I said: “You can't do it alone, you know.”
“I am well aware of that. As I drove along the highway, all I could do I was ask for help in the matter.” His smile broadened. “You would seem to be my answer. Will you forgive a man arrogant enough to think he can handle everything by himself?”
An odd question, but it made me smile back at him. “I got a right to criticize?”
How can Rocky and the Reverend get Marjorie out of the clutches of Max Blank? Find out next week in The Adventures of Rocky Stone!
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