Chapter 7 - The Man in the Pinstripe Suit
John Grimshaw stood inside the Greenway Cemetery for the third time this month. The first time he had visited Michael Pratt, the second his wife, and now, on the third day in November, John entered the cemetery to visit his daughter and last living relative; excluding second cousins and in-laws. In what world would God make such a world for man? Where he'd be forced to bury the two women he loved most. And all within the same month…Why God, why, oh why, oh why.
Angelina’s grave was no more than a mound, her freshly laid soil looked nothing moreto John than like an anthill. Flowers surrounded that anthill in a vibrant collage of colours, each one of the donors seemingly unaware that Angie only liked daffodils. The type she used to pick as a child and hold up under her chin to see if she liked butter.
John placed the bundle of daffodils he purchased down and seated himself opposite the grave on the bench: 'There you are kiddo' A cigarette found itself in his hand, but before John could light up, a shadow swallowed him.
“Good evening sir,” Said a voice as clean and crisp as a jazz band melody. John looked up to notice the man casting the enormous shadow was everything but large. Looking down at him was a man with bright eyes, dark skin, and gleaming white teeth. His eyes were pale diamonds as if one day they shone like blazing meteors. Now, however, they seemed to have depleted into nothing more than chips of ice.
“May I sit?” he asked through his set of immensely white teeth and accented voice. John nodded hoping against hope this man wasn’t about to try and sell him something. Something about the man threw him off; whether it be his gleaming smile, open approach, his suit, or the obsidian bowler hat he wore to cover what John expected to be a shiny bald head, he wasn’t sure. The man on a whole looked to be plucked straight out of the reboot of The Matrix, this one featuring no good actors and a tenth of the originals budget.
The man stood there a while strangly—all one-hundred and forty pounds of him, as if waiting for someone else to move from the empty seat next to John? John looked over to the seat next to him, wondering for a moment whether there was something nasty on the seat, something that would cause the man to hesitate, but there wasn’t. Just an empty seat. John looked up at the man scrupulously, trying to figure out whether he had a screw loose when the man sat down and...nodded to the open air beside him? All the while that large beaming smile was still tattooed across his face unable to fade.
“Thank you.” He said to no one in particular, his eyes peering out ahead. John picked up the fresh scent of daffodils that seemed to ferment from the man, and like some mediocre magician, he pulled a set of brightly coloured daffodils from the inside of his baggy suit jacket. Yellow burst from his jacked like an exploding sun and the man buried his face in the flower’s scents.
“Been smelling these all week John.” The stranger said. It took John a heartbeat before he realized the man knew his name. He looked at the man inquisitively.
“Do I know you?”
The man didn’t respond but continued to smile at the open-air before them. Seconds stretched out between them as uncomfortably as nails running down a blackboard until at last the man’s face dropped.
“No, I’m afraid not.” He said reluctantly. “And this next part is usually the part that convinces me to stop trying.”
John was looking at the man intently trying to read what this man was up to. He was not just odd but filled with some unseeable knowledge or pain John did not obtain himself, like a man forced to keep a dark secret from the rest of the world.
“Stop trying what?” John asked, keeping the irritation from his tongue.
The man finally turned to face him. Those faded blue eyes looking ready to flood.
“To try and help people John. My name is Gabriel Walker”
The man held out a hand between them, John took it, unable to notice how long the man’s fingers were; John’s mother would have called them piano fingers.
“I’d have introduced myself, but you seem to already know,” John said forcing the grip between them to become tighter. This seemed to only extend Gabriel’s smile, any more and that smile would become terrifying rather than spectacular.
“I best tell you now Gabriel. I’m not interested in anything you might be selling, or peddling. Quite frankly, if that’s what you do here in this graveyard, I’d take out some life insurance.” John added.
Gabriel broke his teeth apart to chuckle, high and mightily as if John just told the best joke on this earth. He held Gabriel’s hand a moment longer then let go. Without looking away, Gabriel nodded at him then stood. John watched as he placed his bundle of daffodils on Angie’s grave delicately, then return to his seat.
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“You seem like a straight-road type of guy Mr. Grimshaw. So, I won’t waste either of our time. What I'm about to say might sound odd, perhaps...antagonistic.” John didn’t respond, he wanted to let the man continue. “I know your daughter Angelina.”
The choice of words, primarily being the word ‘know’ didn’t cross John’s mind who only sat there and began to light up his cigarette, absently listening and waiting for the punchline, some offer to join a church, or cult. Did the vicar put Gabriel up to this? It would make sense on the account he didn’t get on with the Vicar much these days, any days for that matter. Initially, the friction between John and the vicar evolved when his wife spent more time at the church than at home. This was after she was diagnosed with cancer, and whatever that vicar offered Lucy, John could not. Gabriel did afterall dress like one of them too, with his pinstripe suit and proper manner.
“M’kay,” John said through lips cradling a cigarette. “I’m afraid she never mentioned you, Gabriel. How long did you know her for?”
“I’ve only recently known her,” Gabriel said with utmost clarity, capturing every word carefully. “Since her passing.”
John paused, cigarette dangling loosely from his upper lip. He felt hot blood flood his body the way it did before the rage. Gabriel had been watching him intently and rose with such rapid speed, John guessed he had retreated in this fashion before on more than one occasion.
“I know how this sounds Mr. Grimshaw,” Gabriel said trying to keep the nervousness out of his voice, but it was too late, his body had already forsaken him and made his fear clear enough.
“If you’ll allow me to explain. Angie warned me about something. Something I need you—”
John stood up, a man possessed as his hands balled into fists. Fresh grief toook over and he was upon Gabriel before he could retreat a single yard.
“Don’t you ever call her Angie,” John spat without understanding how Gabrial knew her by that name. He gripped Gabriels blazer. Gabriel’s slimness gave him much more material to grab and for a fleeting moment John wanted to lift him up into the air; he knew he could if he dared, and the option danced before him seductively. John gritted his teeth, crushing the filter in his mouth, and somewhere in his mind, he was aware of a voice.
‘You’re losing your temper, John. People are watching.’
It was his wife’s voice, Lucy’s. With the sudden lapse into sanity, he threw Gabriel away attempting to create as much space between him and Gabriel as possible, exactly like he had with Rose, only this time he threw his target instead of retreating away, sending Gabriel sprawling across the grass. The bowler hat that was nested on his head rolled off, merrily spinning like a coin trapped in a loop.
Then Gabriel must have said something, or at least John assumed it was him. He was unable to hear it properly. Gabriel landed hard on his back, his broomstick legs arching upwards to the clouded sky above, he flipped over onto his stomach, apparently anxious to retrieve his hat which still rolled around on the circle of its rim.
“I fucked her till she bled!” A voice called out. It sounded distorted as if being shouted underwater. John looked around completely in shock, only now aware of the cemetery surrounding him. People were watching, a woman tapped her husband on the shoulder and the man looked up with protective interest. They seemed to hear that voice too. John looked back at Gabriel who was covering his bald head with the bowler hat. John exhaled heavily, feeling his own wave of anxiety wash over him. He’s lost his temper and that voice? It had chilled his blood and John realized it wasn’t Gabriel that spoke it or any of the people around him.
“I’m sorry Mr. Grimshaw. Truly I am.” Gabriel said as if no physical confrontation had just occurred. John spat out the cigarette filter still clinging to his mouth. The rest of the cigarette was on the ground, it must have fallen during the sudden attack. With deep sorrowing horror John realized he had lunged partly over Angie’s graveyard to get at Gabriel. Broken flower-stems and petals lay strewn across the soft dirt.
He could see the gentlemen that had been alerted to their ruckus begin to approach. Thankfully while John was picking up his broken cigarette Gabriel rescued him.
“It’s okay,” Gabriel said warmly to the investigating bystander. “Just a misunderstanding.”
John did not look up while he retrieved his broken smoke from the ground, too ashamed to look at anyone in the eye after his bout with rage. He knelt and began tidying up his daughter’s grave, moving the petals and aligning the broken stems when that familiar shadow eclipsed him again.
It was Gabriel, only this time he was holding out a card.
“Please call me when you’re ready. I will pay for your lunch and if you do not believe me or don’t want to believe me. I’ll respectfully leave you alone forever Mr. Grimshaw. But know this: I believe lives are at stake. You wont understand now, but you will in time if you give me a chance...Please Mr. Grimshaw.”
John felt another wave of hot anger rush through him at the sight of that ‘business card’ hanging in his face. Something about the gesture however seemed genuine, so John snatched the card. Not knowing whether he’d take it home or simply toss it on the ground the moment Gabriel left. All he wanted right now was to clean up the mess he had made on his daughter’s grave.
When John had finished tossing the loose petals in a nearby bin, he realized Gabriel had disappeared. If not for the perfectly flat card in his pocket, John might have convinced himself he imagined the man. He looked at it intently.
Gabriel. J. Walker
Mystic
John flipped the card over and read a phone number and email address. His hand went to flick the card away, but some observing judge over his shoulder caused him to simply hold onto it.