By now, several people had gathered around to watch. And the music, which had been at near ear-bleeding level since Jinnah’s arrival, had stopped. But Jassy hadn’t bothered to lower her voice.
The last thing Jinnah needed here was a scene. He switched desperately from the defensive to the offensive. “Look, this has nothing to do with your nakedness. Everything I wrote about you and your cult — and it is a cult — was true,” Jinnah said, lowering his voice. “Does the naked truth hurt so much?”
“Let me tell you a thing or two about truth —” Jassy started.
“Tell me what you know about Andy Gill.”
The question landed like a low blow in a boxing match. Jassy closed her mouth for the first time since she’d bumped into Jinnah. His instincts tingled. Yes. On the right track at last….
“Andy who?” said Jassy fiercely. “I don’t know an Andy Gill.”
Her eyes cannot meet mine. She’s a bad liar, Jinnah thought.
“His family is very anxious over his whereabouts. He left home in your company several weeks ago, according to his father.” Jinnah pressed his advantage. “And I have reason to believe he would like to speak to me about — several things.”
“I don’t know him and I hope I never see your stupid face again!” Jassy stomped off and was swallowed by a crowd of teens, who eyed Jinnah as if he were some lascivious ogre. He turned to find a nice, safe corner to crawl into and ran right into Manjit.
“Manjit, darling! What a surprise!”
“Hakeem. Who was that young woman?”
“A former interview subject who objected to a story I wrote. That’s all, my love,” said Jinnah, shrugging.
“And do you interview all of your subjects while they are naked?”
There was no logical response to this question. In fact, Jinnah knew the entire episode was a black pit into which he would be sunk for months, even years. He was about to confess the entire truth when Manjit put up a warning hand.
“Not now, Hakeem. Why have you brought Saleem here?”
“I brought him here to work, not for fun, Manjit. He’s on assignment.”
“You went against your own word so you could use your son to pursue a news story?”
The words shook Manjit’s head for her. They were lost on Jinnah. This was partly due to his ability to hear an ugly truth and have it bounce off his emotional armour, but mainly because his attention was elsewhere. Near the exit, Jassy was pitching into the doorman — likely for letting Jinnah in. It was his subconscious that picked up the urgent tone in Manjit’s voice and yanked him back to attention.
“I’m sorry, my love — you were saying?”
“I said don’t you think it’s about time you took our child labourer son home, Hakeem?”
“Of course, darling. I’ll just go get —”
But when Jinnah’s eyes finally peeled away from Jassy and the doorman and focused on the dance floor, there was no Saleem. Manjit looked at her husband. Jinnah knew his eyes were twin revelations of guilt behind his tinted glasses. Her words from earlier this evening echoed in his head: “The problems aren’t on the dance floor. They’re around the edges, in the parking lots, the washrooms….”
“Sonofabitch,” muttered Jinnah.
* * *
Jinnah burst through the crowd at the front door of the building and felt like a drowning man breaking surface. Panting, he put the two Phenobarbitals into his mouth and swallowed them dry. Where the hell was Saleem? He didn’t need Manjit’s accusing look to know this was his fault. What if he was already shooting up in the parking lot? No, he couldn’t be — wouldn’t be. Surely he’d raised his son — okay, surely Manjit had raised his son better than that. He found his cellphone in his hand and he almost used the speed-dial to call Graham for help. His finger was on the button when a small circle of teens hanging around the steps broke apart, revealing Saleem at the centre. To Hakeem’s immense relief he appeared unharmed and still in his right mind.
Jinnah’s heart rate had scarcely begun to slow when he heard a disturbance in the parking lot. Standing at the top of the stairs by the doors, he had a perfect view of its source. A gang of teens was approaching, singing loudly, marching in a tight formation, and sweeping errant ravers before them like a scythe. They were dressed in white bomber jackets bearing logo of the warrior Archangel Michael and his flaming sword. Shit, it’s the crusaders. Hobbes’s God Squad. Led by the Reverend Hobbes himself. All hell was about to break lose. Without reflecting on the irony of that thought, Jinnah sprinted down the steps and grabbed Saleem by the collar. His ring of friends, having spied the God Squad, had already started for the building.
“What —”
“Inside,” Jinnah snapped, hauling Saleem up the steps, pushing and shoving against the rest of the teenagers seeking sanctuary inside the abandoned church.
“Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!” Hobbes roared through his megaphone. “It has become a dwelling place of demons, a haunt of every foul spirit, for all nations drunk the wine of her impure passion….”
The God Squad had made it to the foot of the stairs. Jinnah and Saleem were one step from the top and could go no further. A surge of people trying to get out the door had met the tide of teens trying to get in and become a hopeless whirlpool of pushing, shoving humanity. Hakeem and his son were being squished, elbowed, kicked as young men and women flailed, trying to move. It was like being in the mosh pit without the music.
“What’s going on, Dad?” asked Saleem. “What’s happening.”
“I believe the Christians call this ‘tough love,’ Saleem,” Jinnah gasped as someone trod on his Guccis.
“Repent! Repent! The wages of sin is death!”
Hobbes was standing at the bottom of the stairs, haranguing the crowd, backed up by over a dozen God Squad members. Hadn’t anyone thought to call the cops? Jinnah would have done it himself, but his arms were pinned to his side. Where the hell was the doorman when you needed him?
Suddenly, Jinnah became aware of a hush over the crowd. Perhaps a dozen people had entered the old church, but only one person had come out into the cleared space. Standing alone at the top of the stairs, facing down the Reverend Hobbes was Lionel Simons himself, a dark figure facing the forces of white glaring hatefully up at him. Jinnah groaned inwardly. Caught between a rock of ages and a hard place.
“Reverend Hobbes, good evening,” said Simons, his voice firm and commanding. “How good of you to come to the party.”
“Blasphemer!” roared Hobbes, abandoning his megaphone. “How dare you desecrate this holy ground?”
“I think it was one of your denominations that abandoned this as a place of worship,” said Simons, smiling. “It felt lonely. We’ve restored its sense of purpose.”
“Drug dealer!” shouted Hobbes. “Corrupter of youth! How dare you talk of worship! It’s the devil you bow to, Simons!”
Simons’s smile faded. He walked slowly down the steps. Jinnah found himself among the crowd watching from the front of the porch as the Rave Messiah towered over Hobbes like some dark angel.
“We worship life, we do not deny it, as you do,” said Simons calmly. “As you will not listen, you are not welcome to our feast. Go, and take your God Squad with you.”
Jinnah found himself holding his breath. He could easily imagine these two men of peace murdering each other. How many years had they been waging a war for the hearts and minds of kids just like Saleem? For a long moment, there was near silence as the two men glared at each other. Then, another figure