42 Leslie

Today was truly a blessed day.

Leslie had been praying on it long and hard. He'd been asking Jesus why the geniza hadn't been delivered into his care yet. And the one word that came back to him was humility. Just the word humility, banging around in his old gray head, thinking about his appearances on cable news and those op-eds in the Democrat-Gazette about America becoming a godless country. Were his impassioned pieces about bringing God back into the classroom really about exalting Him, or had Leslie been talking for his own glory? He and Roberta had a long discussion about humility and service unto Him as they watched the sunset at the lake house, figuring that maybe the International Museum of the Bible would never happen.

But then early this morning—before first light—came the phone call, and all the worry and fretting had just melted away. God is good, and he answers the prayers of the righteous. The geniza would finally be his and would be a centerpiece to the multimedia center on the banks of the Arkansas River, a beacon to the world of the ancient, modern, and living history of the Word of God. Like he told folks time and again when they asked, Leslie Grimes wasn't a collector. He was a storyteller of history, without the interference of high-tower academics and those left-wing atheists. The museum would demonstrate that the Bible had always been the pure, unadulterated Word of God and hadn't changed a lick in thousands of years. It was the record of God's lips to the human ear. This was his role in history. Even to be just a footnote to God's Word sure would be something.

"What was that, Mr. Grimes?" asked his son-in-law, Brian. He and Brian were in the back of this big cargo van he'd taken from the Tomes and Treasures warehouse that afternoon. "I can't hardly hear back here."

"I said the Bible is the record of God's lips to the human ear," Grimes said.

"Are we gonna eat supper at the casino?" Brian said. "I sure am hungry. Heard they have a fancy steakhouse down there."

Leslie shook his head. Quick to hear. Slow to speak. Slow to anger.

Up front and behind the wheel, Leslie had brought along Bubba Kinkaid, a retired state trooper and a member of his Baptist church Bible study. There wasn't a tougher man alive to watch his back before he authorized the transfer of funds, the payment on delivery after all the money he'd paid up front. Absolutely no foolishness with Bubba around. And sitting up in the shotgun seat was the man who would validate the true and authentic geniza. Ole Ronnie Scott himself, a true-life evangelical Indiana Jones who'd traveled the globe searching for lost artifacts of the Bible. He'd searched the world for everything from Noah's Ark to the Lost Ark of the Covenant. Ronnie even wore one of those Aussie flop hats and a leather jacket when he'd met them at the tarmac that morning. Leslie immediately flew him from Dallas on his private plane for the big occasion. "Wouldn't miss it," Scott said, tipping the brim of his hat.

Leslie wasn't too thrilled about having an exchange of such holy artifacts at a den of iniquity like the Sam's Town Resort and Casino. But Peter Collinson said his new business partners had insisted on it. Leslie didn't like the sound of new folks being involved but trusted that once he could get in the room with Peter and his people, he could handle the negotiations.

Bubba Kinkaid parked the cargo van in the casino lot and walked around to open up the sliding door for Leslie and Brian. Kinkaid popped open an umbrella over him as they walked, the big red neon sign for the casino shining in the gray, rainy day.

"I sure don't like this, Mr. Grimes," Ronnie Scott said, the rain beading on the brim of his flop hat. "Collinson promised to be an adviser on Deeper Devotion and help us find some army folks who worked with those missionaries in Iraq. I swear I could never get that man on the phone."

"Peter Collinson is a player on the international stage," Grimes said. "But he still has time for his family and his faith. I trust him."

"But the money—"

"I know," Grimes said, dodging the puddles in the parking lot. He now held the umbrella, Brian and Bubba trailing behind them. "I know. But if I didn't do something, everything would've been destroyed. The Taliban would've rolled those holy tracts and used them to smoke their hashish and opium."

Leslie was in full CEO mode that morning with his navy power suit, lavender dress shirt, and blue-and-white striped tie. As he walked into the lobby of Sam's Town, he pulled off his gold glasses and dried them with the show hankie. A miniature western town had been constructed above the lobby, ringing it with a dry goods store, livery stable, dance hall, and even a little church. Bubba Kinkaid watched every bit of the lobby like a gosh dang hawk.

The lobby was abuzz that morning, phones ringing at the welcome desk, men with walkie-talkies running to and fro. Leslie figured there must be some trouble in the casino. Someone had surely been overserved at the blackjack tables. They kept walking toward the elevators, security folks running past them, winding their way around two new Chevy trucks advertising "The Big Holiday Giveaway."

Bubba Kinkaid punched the button for the fifth floor, up to what Peter Collinson had called the high roller suite. As Bubba reached across, Leslie saw the butt of a big pistol he kept holstered under his black blazer.

"You want me to get us a table?" Brian asked. "Down at the steakhouse?"

Leslie pinched his nose, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. He'd already been through all this with Brian. He was there because he was a former Razorback offensive lineman with a behind larger than a steer. They needed him to look tough.

"We're not here to eat, Brian," Leslie said, folding his silk hankie and placing it back in his breast pocket. "We're here to pick up one of the most important archaeological finds of the twenty-first century. Does your gosh dang gullet have a problem with that?"

Brian didn't say a word and the men crammed into the elevator for the short ride up to the penthouse floor.

"I didn't mean nothin' by it," Brian said to no one in particular.

Leslie's heart nearly skipped a beat; a kid at Christmastime couldn't compete with what he was feeling as they exited the elevator. He couldn't wait to have all the pieces of the geniza safe in the cargo van, hightailing it back over the river to Arkansas. He would soon be able to touch the Word of God from only a century after the death of Christ.

The four men walked the long hallway, only to see the suite door was wide open. Bubba Kinkaid looked to Grimes and Grimes nodded, ole Bubba pushing his way inside. Leslie followed and walked into a large living space with tall gold lamps, big plushy couches, and even a baby grand piano by a plate glass window looking out onto the rain-swept Delta and Mississippi River.

And then there were all the dead men.

Several dead men splayed out all over the floor and into the hallway back to the bedroom.

Leslie Grimes couldn't speak. Bubba Kinkaid pulled his gun.

Brian just walked out of the room, a confused look on his big, dumb face, and ole Ronnie Scott took off his adventurer's hat and started to make retching sounds.

"Good god almighty," Bubba said. "Better get you out of here, Mr. Grimes."

Through a second window facing the parking lot, Grimes could see a circus train of police cars with flashing blue lights headed south toward them on Highway 61.

Bubba touched Grimes's elbow, and Grimes shook him away.

"It's here," he said. "Damn it. It's here. Help me find it."

Bubba Kinkaid said something about looking out for his best interests, but Leslie Grimes didn't hear a word of it. The words sounded as if they were both underwater, mumbling really, his legs feeling like he was walking through jelly from dead man to dead man. Two of them had on blue windbreakers, Bubba toeing one over to his stomach to see "FBI" written in yellow letters. The other men wore fancy blue jeans and high-necked sweaters, with expensive pointy-toe cowboy boots. They looked as large as gorillas at the zoo, weightlifter types with shaved heads and goatees.

"Check the bedroom," Grimes said. "He promised two large boxes. Small enough for us to carry out of here."

"Nothing's here."

Grimes walked into a bedroom, finding mirrored walls and a huge circular bed for the depraved. Another dead man at the foot of a mirrored wall. He checked the closets and the bathrooms and Bubba ran into the room yelling, "Security is here, Mr. Grimes," he said. "We need to get gone. Someone called in gunshots."

The man in the bedroom (a third federal agent), shuddered a bit, not quite dead, like an old engine trying to sputter to life or one of those plastic divers he'd had as a kid, the wind-up mechanism about petered out. Grimes stooped down onto one knee and then the other, pressing his right ear to the man's mouth. Grimes was praying silently to himself, please let him find the geniza. Please, dear God. I am your servant.

"Fuck that," Bubba Kinkaid said. "We're gonna be cornholed five ways from Sunday if I don't get you out of here. This is a goddamn bloodbath."

Grimes shooed him away, glaring at him for using such language.

"Where's Peter Collinson, son?" Grimes said. "Where is Peter?"

"He fucked us," the agent said. His eyes glassy, blood all over his chest and down his leg. There was a pistol not six inches away from his right hand.

"Who?" Leslie Grimes said. "Who did this?"

"Everything was a lie," the man said. "All of it."

And then the man slumped over, maybe dead, maybe not, and Grimes didn't have a moment to say a good word or two for his immortal soul. Bubba Kinkaid was already at the entry door to the suite ushering him out with his hand. Grimes could hear the police sirens, wondering what had happened to the great adventurer Ronnie Scott, as he followed Bubba as fast as his spindly old legs would go. Leslie's heart was racing something awful, sweat rolling down from his old gray head into his eyes, running down metal steps faster than he'd moved in decades.

Bubba opened the fire exit to the lobby, and the men ran out as the EMTs and police ran in. They slowed a bit, trying to walk real casual past the Great Christmas Giveaway trucks and cardboard standups with ladies in red bikinis promising "A Winner Born Every Minute at Sam's Town. Come on. What Do You Have to Lose?"

Grimes glanced back and saw that either he or Bubba Kinkaid had been tracking blood through the lobby. Two policemen stopped them as they tried to bust out the door and back to the van—Brian and his T-bone dinner be damned—and asked them to hold up for a moment.

Leslie Grimes swallowed and bent over to catch his breath, his tie flopping down to the floor. All he could think about was how his momma sure would be disappointed in this whole damn mess. "Hold on a minute, Officers," Grimes said. "Can we all just take a moment to pray?"