“In every way. And he gave me this.”
The woman opened her coat, dragged down the neckline of her sweater, showed Cindy a tattoo above her breast. It was done in black ink, the lettering having an Asian cast. Looked to Cindy like it had been etched by an amateur, but the message was clear.
SAVED BY JESUS & I LOVED IT!
“He’s the only one who ever gave a crap about me,” said Flora. “He looked out for me after I left home last year.”
Cindy tried not to show her shock: Flora had been living at home until last year?
“Yeah. I’m seventeen,” said Flora. “Don’t look at me that way. I’m doing what I want with my life.”
“You’re using meth, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. It’s like heaven. Sex on ‘ice’ gives you orgasms that take your head off and last for a week. You can’t imagine. No, you should try it.”
“It’s going to kill you!”
“Not your problem,” Flora said, snapping her coat closed. “I just wanted to speak up for Bagman.”
Flora turned away from Cindy and started a fast, loping walk up Townsend.
Cindy ran after her, called her name until Flora stopped, turned around, and said, “What?”
“How can I find you again?”
“You want my pager?” the teenager sneered. “Maybe I should give you my e-mail address?”
Cindy watched Flora Gold stride away until she dissolved into the distance. Flora Gold. She got it now. It was the name of a product used to keep flowers fresh longer.
And what about that tattoo?
SAVED BY JESUS & I LOVED IT!
Cindy tried to make sense of it. How had Bagman saved Flora? She was a meth head. An addict. She was going to die.
Flora had said that Bagman Jesus had given her the tattoo, yet the wording was strange, sexual. It almost seemed like a brand claiming ownership.
What kind of saint branded a devotee?
Chapter 44
A SECURITY GUARD knocked on the conference room door. Cindy looked up, as did everyone else in the editorial meeting.
“Miss Thomas, there’s a vagrant standing outside. A lady. Says she has to talk to you and won’t leave. Causing a real scene down there.”
“Well, this was bound to happen,” said Cindy’s editor, Therese Stanford. “Post a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward…”
“Can you just take her name or something?”
The guard said, “Says her name is Flora and that you want to talk to her.”
Cindy told the group that she’d be back in five minutes and took the elevator down to the lobby, then walked through the revolving door and out to the street.
“I’ve been thinking,” Flora Gold said without preamble.
“About the reward?”
“Yeah. What does it mean, ‘leading to the arrest and conviction’?”