Purvis laughed softly.“Said?He didn’t say things.He revealed them.”
Kowalski rolled his eyes.“Jesus, not this again.”
Purvis turned on him.“Don’t mock what you don’t understand.Listen.Heknewthings about me.Things I’d only ever mentioned in my prayers.He knew.”
Kate let the silence stretch a moment, then said quietly, “Oh I know.So you think he was a prophet.”
Purvis’s eyes glittered.“Not a prophet.A teacher.You people never understood him because you only listen with your ears.He was trying to show us what’s real — that the world we live in is the lie, and the lie we fear is the truth.”
“Sounds familiar,” Kate said.She took a deep breath.“Did he ever talk about me?Or my father, Dr William Valentine?”
Purvis frowned at her.“Why would he waste words talking about you?And who’s your father, anyway?”
It was an interesting response, she thought.Genuine, if contemptuous.It suggested Cox’s obsession with her was something personal, private.Or perhaps he only shared it with his closest followers.
“Did he tell you where he planned to go after here?”
Purvis’s smile was slow and pitying, like a man watching a child struggle with arithmetic.“He doesn’t go places.He arrives.That’s the difference.”
“Was he planning anything specific?”
“Yeah,” Kowalski muttered.“Freedom.”
Purvis shot him a glare.“He was planning salvation, salvation through and by means of revealed truth.”
Kate closed her notebook.“Alright, Tray.Thank you for your time.”
“That’s it?You don’t want to understand?”
“Oh, I understand,” she said softly.“I just don’t mistake manipulation for revelation.”
He stood abruptly.“You’ll see.Everyone will.You can’t lock the light away.”
“Guard,” Kate called.
“What doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy, and walk humbly in His way?”
“That’s lovely, Tray, thanks.”
He was gone in a storm of muttering before the door even closed.
Kowalski let out a long breath.“Sorry about that.He’s… been like that ever since Cox got to him.”
“He converted him?”
“Brainwashed him, more like.Cox had this way of talking — calm, patient, like he already knew what you were going to say.He’d ask these questions that made you doubt yourself.Stuff like, ‘When was the last time you felt real?’or ‘Who do you serve without knowing it?’Tray ate that shit up.”
“And you?”
“I thought it was BS.The guy’s smart, sure — scary smart — but just another crazy underneath it all.He just had a way of making you want to impress him.He’d get you talking, then somehow you’d find yourself telling him everything.”
“And what did you tell him?”
By way of an answer, Kowalski fished a small piece of paper out of the breast pocket of his overalls and passed it across the table.Kate looked at it, but didn't pick it up.
“What’s that?”
“My commissary account.Fifty dollars, and I’ll talk.”
