The Hunt for Lilywhite (part five)
In which we meet the man himself.
Previously in The Hunt for Lilywhite (series 2 of The Bone Angel):
We return to the present after a look back at the start of the Hunter’s messy mission and his meeting with the real Father Teodoro.
After learning about the Hunter’s mission to find Lilywhite, Maddalena has taken refuge at LeeLee’s apartment. While the Hunter and Claudia discuss Moon Road business over coffee at the Hummingbird Cafe, Maddalena gets a phone call - if she can just find her phone.
New to the series? Missed an episode? You can catch up here.
Back to the present…
Maddalena rummages through the pile of her bloody clothes from last night, coming up with her purse crammed into a crease in the chair. The phone inside keeps ringing as she fumbles with the clasp.
“Are you OK?” No preamble, just Shady Steve with worry in his voice. “Been calling but you didn’t pick up. Look, I heard what went down last night.”
A considering pause. “You in jail, Mad?”
Relieved, Maddalena curls into the chair. Steve’s a standup guy, always looking out for her even though Rosie Jo didn’t want to marry him. “No. No, I’m all right. I just —”
“Where are you?” Steve’s talking fast, like he’s afraid somebody will overhear. “No, don’t tell me, better I don’t know. I just want you to be safe.”
“I am, Steve. I am. They didn’t get me. Yet.”
That blood, all that blood, the smell of sweat and tequila rising all around her as Paco’s belly pressed her to that gritty wall . . . it all rises up again and she feels briefly sick. But that image swiftly fades, replaced by others: beating wings and gunshots echoing in the Cathedral of San Clemente, cheap warm wine and a disturbing conversation in the bell tower high above the city streets.
“I didn’t want to do it,” she blurts. “But Paco — he made me.”
Steve sighs. “Whatever you did he had it coming. But I sent you to him. And I’m sorry for that.”
The cat Gideon circles Maddalena’s bare leg, meowing hopefully. She’s never been fond of cats, but it’s oddly comforting to run her fingers through his shaggy orange fur. He headbutts her foot as Shady Steve continues.
“I was just trying to get out of here clean. Listen, Mad.” Is he actually near tears? “I’m heading out tonight, got a ride down to the border. But I needed to tell you.”
Shady Steve has been a part of Maddalena’s life since he and her sister were dating, all those years ago. He’s always been there in the background, even after Mom died and Rosie Jo married that Anglo guy and moved them out to the coast. She swallows hard.
“Hey, I know, Steve. You did the best you could.“
“I wanna make it right, help you out,” Steve rattles on, and Maddalena wonders how much he’s had to drink. “Gonna leave you a little something, have Peony put it in the usual spot. It’ll be there when you’re able to get it.”
Now Maddalena feels like crying. But she’s struck by a wondrous idea. “If you really want to help me . . . can you give me Mose’s number?”
The silence is dead and lasts a while. Just as Maddalena begins to wonder if Steve’s passed out or hung up, he says quietly, “I haven’t heard from Mose in months. Why do you want to talk to him?”
Mose: cheerful round faced kid with a shock of dirty blond hair and a ready smile, always getting teased for his weight and his clumsiness. Maddalena used to sit with him at lunch when they were both in seventh grade. She’d never have known him if his uncle Steve and her big sister weren’t hot and heavy, but she liked him — a fellow misfit in a school full of cliques and snobs. She hadn’t talked to him since those days, but now he might have a line on the Hunter’s mysterious target Lilywhite.
“Just, you know,” she makes herself speak lightly. “I’ve got something to ask him. You said he was a gamer, right?”
Steve laughs, but he’s not amused. “You wanting to get into the gaming thing? I don’t know much about it but I hear they hate girls. Mose has changed a lot, you know? Stay away from that shit.”
The cat sinks his teeth lovingly into Maddalena’s ankle. Wincing, she tries one more time. “It’s, it’s really important, that’s all. Maybe his mom has a number for him?”
Another pause. Maddalena imagines wheels turning in Steve’s brain. Finally, “Don’t bug Cassie. She’s got enough going on. I’m gonna text you the last number I have for him. And there’s this forum he used to talk about. I’ll send that too.”
Maddalena breathes again. “Thanks, Steve. And — I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too, baby girl. Send you a postcard from Puerto Penasco, yeah?”
Then he’s gone. Maddalena stares at the phone until it chimes to tell her a text is coming in.
“Sorry, cat,” she says, getting up. “I got to do some business.”
In the old neighborhoods on the fringes of downtown, little stuccoed houses stand in rows. Here, iron gates covered in vines stop at the sidewalk line and the windows are tall and narrow, covered in curtains made of lace and knotwork. Tiny front yards overflow with bright daisies and pyracantha bushes. It’s a district full of knife-edge young lawyers and boho sculptors, and the old ladies who came here when they were young wives.
On Houston Street, the end house hides behind a screen of verbena and a thick hedge of untrimmed shrubs. It was painted pink once, but now that’s faded to a kind of sad blush color, seamed with stucco cracks and old patching. A Mexican horse blanket hangs over the one front window and the door’s been locked and barred for years. Lilywhite only goes out the back, through the adobe garage with its gleaming black Town Car parked inside.
He’s a strange milky haired little man in that nasty little house, where the carpet crunches underfoot and the living room chairs are full of dirty dishes tied up in trash bags. Every so often, he turns off the water. He gets the feeling that information travels through the pipes and that’s how they’re watching him. When that happens, he doesn’t wash dishes. Or himself. You can’t be too careful.
The last time the messenger came, he’d assured Lilywhite that he was safe, that divine protection lay around the house and he could pursue his calling in peace, certain no demonic forces could pierce that holy wall.
Lilywhite knows you must trust the gods completely, especially when you’re a chosen one. But old habits die hard.
Tonight, he turns on a light, just one, in the kitchen, listening to the frantic rustle of cockroach legs in the drawers and in the walls. One, the size of his little finger, stares at him from above the refrigerator. He stares too, goggling at it up close till it waves its antennae irritably and skitters away.
He’s giddy drunk with what happened this night, and sure now more than ever that the time is coming nigh. His priesthood will bear its fruit and his army will rise to welcome the true gods, who ruled at the dawn of time. Gods stronger than Jehovah and Odin and Zeus and all the others combined, and way more worthy of the worship of men.
Humming his favorite snatch of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Lilywhite plops a dollop of peanut butter into a Styrofoam cup. He tops it with a forkful of canned tuna and a sprinkling of frozen peas and makes his way through the piled newspapers and haphazard bookshelves to his computer.
The moony glow of the screen in the darkness makes him think of what he saw tonight and he shivers, buzzed with adrenaline and delight. Cradling his cup of peanut butter and peas in one hand, Lilywhite finger-picks the keys with the other, logging in fast to the Brotherhood’s messageboard.
Here,everybody knows everybody – Aryans, Nords, Odin’s Chosen, Sons of Christ and the whole lot – and it’s cool because they’re all aiming for the same goal: opening the way for the old gods’ return. And tonight, Lilywhite took another step toward making that happen.
He can’t wait to tell the Brotherhood what he’s done.
Behind the scenes:
Lilywhite’s house is typical of the charming stucco and adobe houses you see in old neighborhoods of cities like Las Cruces, El Paso and Tucson. And his peculiar nighttime snack is one that was actually consumed by a very strange person I once knew.
Mose, Lilywhite and the others of the Brotherhood are inspired by an ugly incident that took place some years ago in online gaming spaces. Called
”Gamergate,” it was a harassment campaign against women in the gaming world, but it grew into a larger war against feminism and diversity. Gamergate fueled the grievances of the “manosphere,” that online community of incels and “men going their own way” wrapped in their hatred of women.
Those are people who’d be ripe for recruiting to the worship of a tribe of macho god beings promising to restore them to their rightful place at the center of the universe, don’t you think?
Let’s see how it all plays out.
To help readers navigate this sprawling series, I’ve created an episode guide, with links to every previous installment. You can find it at the top of this episode, and also here.
Next up: Maddalena searches for Mose, the Hunter learns who’s trying to thwart his mission, and we learn what Lilywhite did to advance his cause.
Till next time —
JM
Loved this.
The description of his house is wonderfully disgusting. The peas, tuna, and peanut butter only add to that feeling.
As to the world of gamers, I once worked at a table top gaming store. Everybody at the job was great, and we had a lot of lovely regulars, but there were a few customers who had problems with women. Guys like that can sour what should be a fun experience.