Joseph Wambaugh - The Black Marble

Chapter 1

The Batushka

An explosion of chrysanthemums, candlelight, Oriental carpets, Byzantine eyes. Plumes of incense rising between two a cappella choirs, blown heavenward by chanting voices.

The man in the yellow rubber raincoat swayed unsteadily and raised his sturdy arms toward those marbling clouds of incense enveloping the Holy Virgin. Her eyes were sweet.

Other eyes were reproachful, severe. Byzantine eyes. A kaleidoscope of ikons, small and large: saints, holy men, madonnas. All around him the faces on the ikons stared with great, dark, unrelenting eyes.

From time to time the man in the yellow rubber raincoat would wobble against the burly woman standing next to him.

Finally shed had enough. Zhopa ! she muttered.

He answered her in English: Yes, Im terribly sorry.

Then both choirs burst forth with the tragic, timeless, Slavonic invocation: Blessed art thou, Lord God of our Father have mercy on us.

The man in the yellow rubber raincoat was overwhelmed by the enduring pathos in those Russian voices, and by the clouds of incense he breathed gratefully, and by the low gilded ceiling and the throngs of believers standing shoulder to shoulder. He kept looking about at the quixotic tapestry of ikons, and the huge ikonostasis screen. Great dark sad eyes. The ikon of the Virgin and Child nestled among apricot and butter and salmon carnations. The batushka raised the pomazok to brush the sign of the cross on the forehead of the first in a long queue of communicants.

The communicant was sleek and feline. Her gray coat was damp from the rain. It flared from a belted waist, and the fur cuffs and hem matched the fur in her hat. She wore calf- molded, gray leather boots. The man in the yellow rubber raincoat was overcome by her beauty when the batushka brushed a cross of holy oil on her forehead. She could have stepped from the stage of an opera by Glinka or Borodin: a maiden fallen from a troika in the forest. The man in the yellow rubber raincoat could almost imagine flakes of luminescent snow on the fur of her collar.

But it wasnt fur, not real fur anyway. And she wasnt R ussian, and she certainly wasnt a maiden. She was third- generation Anglo-Irish, currently living with a second- generation Ukrainian, in church on R ussian Christmas only to please his great-aunt, who was going to loan them fourteen thousand dollars unsecured for a Jaguar X-J-12, which she needed about as much as she needed those tight boots cutting off her circulation.

The room capacity was limited to three hundred. There were four hundred souls crowded into that modest cathedral for vesper service. Yet few residents of Los Angeles knew that this holy night, Thursday, January 6th, was the eve of Russian Christmas. There was a far holier day to anticipate on Sunday. They all knew about that one. And this year, praise God, it would be celebrated in nearby Pasadena! Super Bowl XI.

The voices: Blessed art thou have mercy on us.

The man in the yellow rubber raincoat felt a bubble of sourness in his throat, swallowed it back, belched, and staggered sideways into the burly woman.

This time she wanted to make sure he understood. In accented English, she said, Asshole! And jolted him with a plump elbow to the ribs.

Uh! the man in the raincoat gasped, his wet cinnamon hair whipping across his eyes.

Go home! she whispered. You damn dronk. Go home! And she gave him another jab in the belly.

Uh! he belched. Yes, Im terribly sorry.

Then he turned, holding his stomach, and staggered toward the door, through the press of standing believers, out of this pewless teeming house of God.

When he got to the door, something clashed at his feet. A small boy said, Hey, and grabbed his raincoat.

Here, the boy said, handing the man a set of glinting handcuffs, one steel ratchet dangling open.

Yes, Im terribly sorry, the man in the yellow rubber raincoat said, taking the handcuffs and shoving them down inside the front of his belt.

One moment, candlelight and incense and color. The next, darkness cold and wet. But then, always just beyond, was black and cold and rainy night.

Lord God, have mercy.

The man in the yellow rubber raincoat couldnt get the handcuffs tucked inside his belt. He didnt understand that the belt buckle had slid around to his hip. He groped and pulled at the belt, causing the handcuffs to fall down inside his underwear. The steel was cold, and he cried out as the open ratchet gouged his genitals.

The man in the yellow rubber raincoat struggled. He leaned against the wall of the cathedral, in the shadows, and thought about it. If he was logical and calm it should be very easy to extricate the handcuffs. But he was shivering in the rain. He lurked deeper in the shadows and stealthily withdrew the bottle of Stolichnaya from the pocket of his raincoat. He tipped it up, swaying, and in just seconds the silky flood of Russian vodka warmed him to the toes.

Now he stopped shivering. Now he could think. Except that he was reeling and had to sit. He plopped down on the front step of the cathedral. Right on the tip of the serrated edge of the steel ratchet, lined up directly with his scrotum.

A bent and withered usher inside the cathedral thought for a moment he heard a man scream. Impossible, he shrugged.

Now the man in the yellow rubber raincoat had totally lost the belt buckle. It was all the way around the back, as was the holster and bullet clip. The fly on the old loose poplins was pulled six inches off center. He groped and tugged. He pulled upward, which was the wrong way. The harder he pulled the harder the steel ratchet gouged deep into the wounded sac. He couldnt find the fly. It too had disappeared. He thought he had his pants on backward.

The bent and withered usher inside the cathedral cocked his head and looked toward the ikon of St. Isaac high on the wall. This time he was certain he heard a man scream.

Three women arrived late for Christmas vesper service. One was seventy-three years old, an immigrant and monarchist who had never stopped bemoaning immorality and anarchy in America, who dreamed of her bones being buried in Russian soil. She crossed herself and threw her arms around her two daughters and shrieked in horror. There, by the old monastery garden, framed by the onion dome of the Holy Virgin Mary Russian Orthodox Cathedral, a howling dervish, a phantom with matted soppy hair, was twirling in the shadow of the golden cupola. His yellow rubber raincoat was spread wide. His dripping pants were torn down around his ankles. Both hands held his genitals. He moaned ghostlike, doing a lonely mad waltz in the rain.

Now, over the heartbreaking Slavonic chorus, the bent and withered usher thought he heard a woman screaming. He cocked his head and offered a prayer to St. Isaac about the baffling indignities of advanced age.

The man in the yellow rubber raincoat was exhausted from the tremendous battle. His handcuffs were on the pavement, as was his four-inch Smith and Wesson .38 caliber revolver, as was a set of keys and a dirty handkerchief. Now he was sitting, bare buttocks in a rain puddle, pulling his underwear back up over his knees, realizing that his pants had not been on backward after all.

Five minutes later, he had all his equipment stuffed into the pockets of his raincoat al ong with the bottle of Stolich naya. His fly zipper was torn completely off his baggy poplins and dangled between his legs. He stumbled thankfully back into the church.

Have mercy on us Holy God Immortal Have mercy on us.

He was once again hot and smothering in the damp press of communicants, watching a slender erect man at least eighty years of age, wearing a threadbare olive topcoat, drop to both knees before the ikon of the Virgin and Child. The old man bowed with grave reverence and stood unassisted before the batushka , aglow in the candlelight. The old man bent to the cross in the hand of the priest and kissed the golden bas-relief of the crucified Christ.