Tampa Bay Noir by Colette Bancroft

Author:Colette Bancroft
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Akashic Books
Published: 2020-07-07T16:00:00+00:00

THE MIDNIGHT PREACHER

by Sarah Gerard

34th Street

The Victory Motors building was squat and run-down, some of the windows partially covered with thick Styrofoam panels painted electric blue, molding and crumbling. Others were covered in plywood or a crosshatched layer of plastic. A low overhang provided shade. Two long, narrow signs taped near the top of the windows read, IN HIS NAME, in a seventies color palette and retro computer font.

A sign on the door read, No Trespassing: Violators Will Be Shot, Survivors Will Be Shot Again. Another, illustrated with a human target, read, We Don’t Call 911.

I was looking for the Live Crusade, particularly for Buck Hill, who used to have his studio in the back office of Victory Motors. The televangelist had disappeared from the airwaves and Internet without a trace two days after the election of Donald Trump, a week prior. I’m a freelance writer, and had convinced the Tampa Bay Times to let me look into his disappearance.

A stack of printed-out articles and e-mails sat just inside the front window, with a Post-it on it that read, Trump stuff, file. The article on top was dated 2013, and attributed to “Capitalist Evangelist” radio host Wayne Allyn Root, who had variously aligned himself with the Republican, Libertarian, and Tea Parties, and endorsed Trump in the 2016 presidential race. The front door was ajar.

At the sound of the bell, a tiny, frail-looking old man emerged from the back office. I assumed this was Clive Waters, owner of the car lot, whom I had read about in an old issue of the Times. Waters had donated the office space to Hill, explaining, “I like what he’s doing. One-third of the population is up at that hour anyway. Better they find Buck than temptation.”

There appeared to be no one else at Victory Motors that day, save for a longhaired cat, asleep on a rolling chair. I asked Waters if Buck was there. It took a moment for him to understand that I was talking about Hill.

“He hasn’t lived in St. Petersburg or had his office here in several years,” Waters said.

Indeed, there was no remnant of a production studio in sight. I informed him that Victory Motors was still listed as the Live Crusade headquarters.

“We collect Buck’s mail for him and send it down to Naples,” he said.

He looked at me suspiciously. I smiled to reassure him that, as an attractive young woman, I was no one to fear. Usually, a smile was enough to convince people to give me information. “Do you know why he stopped broadcasting?” I asked. I decided to follow this with, “Is he okay?”

Clive relaxed. “Maybe he’s getting ready to do something big.”

I looked around the Victory Motors office again. The state of disrepair suggested no one was doing business there anymore. I thanked Clive for his time and left, heat waves warping the asphalt back to my car, crosshairs at my back.

More interesting than where Buck Hill had disappeared to was why I wanted to know in the first place.

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