‘It was a test to see how you’d respond. After what happened with Barbara Kelly, they’re worried. Repentance is contagious. They’ll administer many such tests in the days and weeks to come. I think they probably figured that they were safe with you, though. After all, you never displayed any signs of being principled before. You were hardly likely to start now.
‘The pressing question remains, Mr Tate, what is to be your fate? You’ve been a bad man: you’re a corruptor, a proselytizer for ignorance and intolerance. You thrive on fear, and finding easy enemies for the weak and bitter to hate. You fan the flames, but plead innocence when the ugliness of the consequences becomes apparent. The world is a poorer, more benighted place for your presence in it.’
The Collector stood. From beneath his coat he removed a gun, an old .38 Special, its grips worn, its metal dulled, yet still handsomely lethal. Tate opened his mouth to shout, to scream, but no sound emerged. He tried to worm his way into the corner, covering his face with his arm as though it might shield him from what was to come.
‘You’re panicking, Mr Tate,’ said the Collector. ‘You haven’t let me finish. Hear me out.’
Tate tried to calm himself, but his heart was beating and his ear throbbed with renewed vigor, and he welcomed the pain of it because he could still feel it, because he was still alive. He peered over his forearm at the man who held his life in his grasp.
‘Despite all of your manifest failings,’ the Collector continued, ‘I feel reluctant to pass final judgment upon you. You are almost damned, but there is room for doubt: only a little, a scintilla. You do believe in God, don’t you, Mr Tate? What you talk about to your listeners, hypocritical and untruthful though it may be, has some roots in a blasted version of faith?’
Tate nodded sharply, and consciously or unconsciously, joined his hands as if in prayer.
‘Yes. Yes, I do. I believe in the risen Lord Jesus. I was born again in Christ when I was twenty-six.’
‘Hmmmm.’ The Collector made no effort to disguise his doubt. ‘I’ve listened to your show, and I don’t think your Christ would recognize you for one of His own if He spent an hour in your company. But let’s leave it up to Him, as you’re such a believer.’
The Collector ejected all six bullets from the gun into the palm of his right hand before carefully reloading three of the chambers.
‘Ah Jesus, you got to be kidding,’ said Tate.
‘Taking the Lord’s name in vain?’ said the Collector. ‘Are you sure that’s how you want to start off your greatest test before God?’
‘No,’ said Tate. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’m sure the deity will put it down to the stressful nature of the situation.’
‘Please,’ said Tate. ‘Not like this. It’s wrong.’
‘Are the odds too generous?’ suggested the Collector. ‘Too ungenerous?’ He looked perturbed. ‘You drive a hard bargain, but if you insist.’
He removed one of the bullets, leaving two rounds in their chambers, and spun the cylinder before pointing the gun at Tate.
‘If your God wills it,’ he said. ‘I say “your” God, because He’s nobody that I recognize.’
The Collector pulled the trigger.
The clicking of the hammer on the empty chamber was so loud that Tate was convinced for a moment he had heard the bullet that was to kill him. His eyes were screwed so tightly closed that he had to concentrate just to force them open again. When he did so, the Collector was looking with a puzzled expression at the gun in his hand.
‘Strange,’ he said.
Tate closed his eyes again, this time as a prelude to a prayer of gratitude.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Jesus Lord, thank you.’
When he finished, the gun was again pointing at his forehead.
‘No,’ he whispered. ‘You said. You promised.’
‘It always pays to be certain,’ said the Collector, as his finger tightened on the trigger. ‘Sometimes, I find that God’s attention wanders.’
This time, Davis Tate heard no sound, not even God’s breath in the exhalation of the bullet.