In a few minutes, the straggling outer tents of the encampment came into view. She slowed, getting a feel for the crowd. It was noon, and people were moving around everywhere. There was the smell of frying bacon in the air. As she neared the first line of tents, people stopped to stare. She nodded in a friendly way, receiving hostile looks in response. The crowd seemed a lot more tense than on Friday—and no wonder. They weren’t stupid. They knew they weren’t going to get away with threatening police officers. They were waiting for the second shoe to drop. She just had to make sure they realized she wasn’t that shoe.
She entered one of the crooked lanes, feeling all eyes on her, hearing whispered comments. The words Satan and unclean reached her ears. She kept a friendly smile on her face, an easiness in her walk. She remembered her professor in Social Dynamics saying a crowd was like a dog: if you showed fear, it would bite; if you ran, it would chase.
The path was familiar, and in less than a minute, she found herself approaching Buck’s tent. He was sitting at a table out front, reading a book, totally absorbed. The same officious man who had accosted her and Grable two days before—Buck had called him Todd—suddenly appeared in front of her. Already a crowd was forming. Nothing ugly: just curious, silent, and hostile.
“You again,” the man said.
“Me again,” Hayward replied. “Here to chat with the reverend.”
“They’re back!” the man cried to the others, stepping forward to block her way.
“Not ‘they.’ Just me.”
The murmur of the crowd rose like an electric buzz. The air was suddenly tense. Hayward glanced back, surprised at how large the crowd was growing. Focus on Buck. But he remained reading at the desk, ignoring her. From here, she could make out the title: Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, Reader’s Digest Edition.
Todd advanced to the point where he was almost—but not quite—touching her with his body.
“The reverend can’t be disturbed.”
Hayward felt a twinge of something uncomfortably like doubt. Was this plan of hers really going to work? Or was Wentworth right, after all?
She spoke loudly enough for Buck to hear. “I’m just here to talk. I’ve got no arrest warrant. I just want to talk to the reverend, one human being to another.”
“Prevaricator!” someone shouted from the crowd.
She had to get past this aide-de-camp blocking her way. She took a step forward, brushing him.
“That’s assault, Officer,” Todd said.
“If the reverend doesn’t want to talk to me, let me hear him say it himself. Let the reverend make his own decisions.”
“The reverend asked not to be disturbed.” They were still touching, and it gave Hayward the creeps, but she sensed a back-down in the making.
She wasn’t wrong. Todd took a step back, still blocking her way.
“Roman!” came a cry from the crowd.
What is it with this Roman shit? “All I ask is five minutes of your time, Reverend,” she called, leaning around Todd. “Five minutes.”
At last, Buck laid down the book with great deliberation, rose from the table, and finally raised his head to look at her. The instant her eyes met his, she felt a chill. On Friday he’d seemed a little unsure of what he’d wrought; perhaps amenable to persuasion. But today there was a coolness, a calmness, a sense of utter self-confidence she had not seen before. The only emotion she sensed in him was a passing flicker, perhaps, of disappointment. She swallowed.
“Excuse me.” She tried to step past the guardian.
Buck nodded to the man, who took a step to the side. Then Buck looked back at her, but the look was such she was unsure whether he was seeing her, or seeing through her.
“Reverend, I’ve been sent by the NYPD to ask you and your followers a favor.” Keep it chatty, informal, nonintimidating. That’s what she had learned in negotiations training. Let them think they’re making the decisions.
But Buck showed no sign of having heard.
The crowd had fallen ominously silent. She didn’t turn, but she sensed it had grown enormous by now—no doubt much of the encampment.
“Look, Reverend, we’ve got a problem. Your followers are ruining the park, trampling the bushes, killing the grass. On top of that, they’ve been using the surroundings as a public latrine. The neighbors are complaining. It’s a health hazard, especially for you all.”
She paused, wondering if any of this was sinking in.
“Reverend, can you help us out here?”
She waited. Buck said nothing.
“I need your help.”
She heard restless murmuring in the crowd behind her. People were flowing in around the back side of Buck’s tent, filling her field of vision. She was truly surrounded now.
“I’ve got a deal to offer you. I think it’s a fair deal. A straight deal.”
Ask what it is, asshole. It was crucial to get him talking, asking questions, anything. But he said nothing. He continued looking at her, looking past her. Christ, she had somehow misjudged him—or something had changed since their last visit. This was not the same man.
For the first time, the real possibility of failure loomed before her.
“You want to hear it?”