The Further Tales of Tempest Landry Read Online Free PDF Page A

your damndest to push me down into hell. And you know they don’t love me down there.”
    “You represent the greatest threat in the history of existence, Tempest Landry. Until you accept the judgment of heaven nothing that is sacred is safe.”
    “But if a man is innocent and heaven is in the balance then shouldn’t heaven accept its fate and fall for what it has lived by?”
    The question seemed silly to me.
    “There’s this dude up in prison,” Tempest said then, “that says people used to think that the sun circled the earth instead’a the other way round. He said that if a scientist questioned that lie that the church would put him in prison, torture him, even kill him. That true, Angel?”
    “Yes. Yes, it is.” I looked up at the door wondering if they would break it down or knock civilly.
    “Was them bishops and priests sent to hell for killin’ poor men for tellin’ the truth?”
    “Not always.”
    “Will Judge Beam and Darryl Cruickshank be given black marks for sending Ezzard Walcott back to prison even though they knew he was innocent of the crime he was sentenced for?”
    “Probably not. The overall scheme of their actions is to provide justice, not deny it. Heaven makes allowances for lapses in judgment.”
    “Lapses in judgment? You know they got me put up wit’ men fightin’ and killin’ an’ rapin’ over the way people walk. It’s blacks against the whites against the browns every day, Angel. You know old Basil Bob would fit in there like Jack Horner’s thumb.”
    “Are the police after you now, Tempest?”
    An expression of surprise crossed the convict’s face. He gauged me as he often did. A two-bit hustler and adulterer before he died, Tempest tried to turn every situation to his favor though he was not what I would call the classic definition of evil.
    “If the cops was to find a runaway convict sittin’ in your office they might be inclined to arrest you, wouldn’t they, Josh?”
    “Yes. Especially since I knew you.”
    “You could tell them that you intended to call them as soon as you could.”
    “I suppose.”
    “Is that what you plannin’ to do?”
    “No,” I uttered.
    “I didn’t catch that, Angel.”
    “I said, ‘No, I will not turn you in.’ ”
    “And you wouldn’t lie and say that you would have?”
    “No.”
    “So you could go up to prison with me. We could talk about sin all day long. I’m sure I could convince you once we were nose to nose with some truly evil men.”
    “Mr. Angel,” the intercom said.
    “Yes, Roxanne?”
    “There are three other gentlemen out here. They say that they’re looking for an Ezzard Walcott.”
    “Have them wait a minute.”
    Tempest was smiling at me.
    “I will go with you to the front, Tempest. If they want to arrest me, I’ll tell them that I know of your innocence, that the State of New York knows it too. I will join you in prison rather than break the rules by which I am bound.”
    “Or,” Tempest suggested, “you could get the On High to move me to another body, change the status of this one, or, even better, to commute their verdict an’ let me in on one’a the lower rungs of heaven. You know I prefer Harlem to the Pearly Gates but I’d rather heaven than hell.”
    “I cannot.”
    Tempest grinned at my consternation.
    The door behind him flew open and three men came in followed by my young secretarial assistant, Roxanne Riles.
    “Ezzard, we all gotta be back at work in six minutes or they gonna cancel our work pass, man.”
    The man, a brown-skinned, straight-haired gentleman, wore an orange suit too. They all did.
    “Okay, Garcia,” Tempest said. He got to his feet and stretched like a lazy cat. “Angel, me and the boys downstairs an’ two blocks down cleaning up litter in Central Park. It’s what you call work release. They got us in a special holding facility here in Manhattan an’ every day they let us out to strut and strain as a reward for good behavior—and other things.”
    “But