his

yellow, and red ones didn’t, or if they did, they generally weren’t going to part with it. That’s what his Daddy had taught him. He sprinkled his sermons with Bible quotations proving that it was no sin to hate unbelievers—or to act on that hatred. After all, those people had placed themselves beyond the pale of God’s forgiveness. They had not and would not repent. They should be purged from the body of mankind. “If thine eye offends thee, pluck it out!” he stormed, and his legions of followers went out looking for offending eyes, their own blind to mirrors.
Most of his prosperity he owed to his own cleverness, but there were times when he needed that little helping hand—just as he had thought he might. Like the time when his network of informers let him know that Newsweek had found his ex-wife, and she was going to spill some embarrassing things about him. Or that one of his many ex-mistresses was going to write a tell-all biography. Or that the IRS was planning an audit.
All he had to do was whisper Lightman’s name, and his request, and by midnight, it was taken care of.
By twelve-oh-one, he was truly, sincerely, repenting that he had ordered his wife’s murder—or whatever other little thing he had requested. Truly, sincerely, and deeply, confessing himself to God and showing that repentance