Second Coming: Chapter 8
One of the secret service men was at the front of the office when I arrived the next day. He was wearing a less conspicuous white button-up shirt and khaki pants but had the recognizable curled wire of a headpiece traveling from his waist to his ear. As I stepped through the door, I was greeted by Sharon’s eyes guiding me to the office door to her right. Joseph’s voice came to me usher me inside. “Terrence, if you could?”
Inside was The Pastor at his desk, with the assumed holy man standing beside him. With back against the front wall was Officer Jude in the plain dark colors of his posse. “Good Morning Mr. Jackson.”
I forced out a smile and allowed my bag to fall from my shoulder and into my hand. “What’s new?”
Jude cleared his throat and stood up. “You haven’t come into contact with Hank Matthews since yesterday, have you?”
I looked to Joseph, then out back to the outside of the office. “He still hasn’t come back? Northing’s happened to him, I hope?”
Joseph sighed and looked to his lap. “So you haven’t either?”
“Well, there are details about that man that you should be familiar with.” Jude touted, moving to the door to shut it. “Mr. Cummings, can I assume you are content with your campaign manager being privy to certain information?”
Joseph sat up and nodded. “He is my left hand, so of course.” With such strange words on his breath, he looked up and winked at me. “Symbolically speaking of course. I recently came to the conclusion that his holiness best be at my right hand, as he is in the scriptures.”
Jude grunted and shut the door heavily, swinging it heavily just beside me. Joseph leaned slightly in my direction. “Your importance has not changed in the slightest of course, Terrence.” He muttered under his breath.
“Returning to the topic of Mr. Matthews.” Jude spoke, trudging about the room. “As you do not have the manpower or connections here, we took the liberty of doing a background check on those you’ve hired. Mr. Jackson is, of course, squeaky clean. Your Hank Matthews, however, has multiple convictions of credit card fraud- a felony, in this case- along with a few minor charges.”
I jumped to look to Joseph, who held steadily nonplussed. “I know very well, officer. That’s why I took him in. Jesus Christ is about forgiveness. And if you don’t believe me-” He paused to laugh and smack the edge of the desk adjacent to the supposed holy man. “-well, you can ask him yourself.”
A barely audible tongue click came from the agent, who turned about to stare at the wall. “Mr. Cummings, your faith is admirable, but I encourage you not to offer it up to just anyone. Mr. Matthews has served his sentence for his past crimes, but do not think-”
“If the man’s done anything against me, then it shall be my retribution he faces, not the retribution of the land’s crazed legal system.”
I grit my teeth and looked to the ground to keep myself from reacting any more violently to Joseph’s statement. Jude opened the door enough for Joseph’s wife and daughter outside to hear. “So be it, but we’d still love to hear from you if you happen to come across him. No guiltless man suddenly disappears out of the blue.”
I caught Joseph rolling his eyes as I turned back to his desk. I took a deep breath before speaking up. “Joseph… I think there may be reason to look over your accounts and spending so far, just in case…”
Joseph pursed his lips, then turned his face up to me in a smile. “When Hank gets back, I’ll surely ask the man to sit down with me and we can look over the books, ya’ll as well. Now, back to work, my boy. We’ve got an office to run for!”
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