Blood and Oranges by James Goldsborough (latest books to read txt) 📗

“You’ll meet him soon enough.”

“And . . . ?”

“Doesn’t seem like a good time to get married.”

“That’s what Cal told me in Paris,” said Maggie.

“And was I right?”

“No, Cal. You weren’t,” she snapped. “Changing the subject: Tell me about Sister Angie.”

He looked closely, wondering what Lizzie might have said in her letters. “She’s still recovering, trying to prepare for a nasty trial—if that’s what you mean.”

“What I meant was—how could Uncle Willie have done it, run off with a girl like that, put his career at risk, his life? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Didn’t you do something like that?”

“Oh, come on, Cal.”

“And it’s not fair to say ‘a girl like that.’”

“Ah, well then, a girl like what?”

“I told you two years ago, right here in this apartment. I think they were in love.”

“I think I was asking about you,” said Maggie.

“Well, stop it, please.”

It was getting prickly, and they exchanged long looks, looks of people who need each other too much to go to the mat. “Do you think she’ll take his place?” she said at length.

“It depends on the congregation. And on Eddie, who is on the board.”

“And on the trial,” added Lizzie.

“The trial, of course.”

“Do you miss Willie?” Maggie asked Cal.

“Of course, I miss him,” he said, surprised at the question. “We went through a lot together. Won’t you miss Eddie when he’s gone?”

She thought a moment. “I don’t know. Maybe I won’t. The brothers were both so—so, how to say it, wrapped up in their own lives. Not fathers in the usual sense. I can’t ever remember doing anything with Dad.”

“They had their own lives,” said Lizzie. “But how could you not miss Dad? He’s part of you, just like he’s part of me. Of course you’ll miss him.”

“What strikes me,” said Maggie, who had lit up, smoking more than ever since returning, “is how different we are from our parents. Did you hear Dad at dinner with ‘peace in our time?’ How can anyone say something like that with what’s happening in Europe? That’s why he hates the president, because Roosevelt wants to do something about Hitler. With Dad and Mother, it’s all bank accounts and charge accounts. What’s in it for me? They never ask—what’s the right thing to do?”

“Why should we be like them?” said Lizzie.

“Some children take after their parents,” said Cal.

“Sure,” said Maggie. “If you admire them, why not? Uncle Willie would have loved to see you come into the church. Dad has always wanted to take you into his businesses. You could be a bootlegger, own a gambling ship in the bay, live in a big house in Bel Air. Or Lizzie or I could do it. None of us ever showed the slightest interest.”

“Because?” said Cal.

“Because we all want to do something of value. At least to try.”

“I think Dad tried to do something of value,” said Cal, uncomfortable.

“A lot of good it got him,” said Lizzie.

“And your children,” he said. “How do you know they’ll take after you?”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Maggie said.

“Because maybe they’ll want charge accounts and a big house in Bel Air.”

“Not if we raise them right, teach them right.”

“It doesn’t always work like that. Children react—just like we did.”

“Do it their own way,” said Lizzie.

“Or leapfrogging,” said Cal, “to take after their grandparents.”

“Heaven forbid,” the women said together, laughing, ending the tension.

Chapter 21

The trial began November 14, six months after the murder. The Superior Court of Los Angeles held that there was no reason to move it out of the city because there wasn’t a city in the state or the country that didn’t know all the details. The newspapers took full advantage of the delay, and Herman Anzug, the judge unfortunate enough to be assigned to the case, knew the chance of finding jurors who didn’t know the story were about as good as finding someone in Hollywood who didn’t know that Clark Gable had married Carole Lombard. But knowing the story didn’t mean they had made up their minds, and Anzug, who’d used every means he knew to get off the case, had no doubt he could empanel a jury.

“You’re finished as a judge and maybe as a husband if you go through with this,” his wife Hilda told him. “If you’re not careful you’ll have every woman in the county against you in the next election.”

Anzug knew—or at least Hilda knew—that murder charges were only part of the trial, and the easy part at that. Sister Angie had not been idle. As “acting” pastor at the temple, she’d used her time in recuperation to meet with the Soldiers. The temple directors, led by Eddie Mull, did not want her named to succeed Willie, but were finding it hard to stop her. Willie’s memorial service had sent her star soaring. Where the directors saw ambition and sin, the Soldiers saw love and penance. They also liked the idea of a woman in the pulpit. Cal stayed on to help her. Willie would have wanted it, and he wanted it himself. Keeping her on helped keep his father alive. That was part of it.

She filled the temple just as Willie had done—the difference being the presence of more women, especially single women. Never had the temple had more contributions or KWEM more listeners or advertisers. Letters poured in from women across the nation. The memorial service had done it. Angie was the martyr risen from the ashes, the standard-bearer for women everywhere. Her message was clear: women could no longer be abused with impunity. The “message of Wrigley Field,” she called it.

Beyond sympathy for the battered woman who had survived by the grace of God, there was curiosity. Could she preach like Willie, bring the sick and lame down the aisles to be healed and reborn? Henry Callender, identified in newspapers as Willie’s closest friend and collaborator, compared her to Mary Magdalene, purified and reborn. Skeptics attacked her more ferociously than they had Willie—for how much easier it is to abuse a