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Chris leaned back in disbelief, instinctively breaking out in silent tongues as matter of sheer self-preservation. Danny still had his eyes on his beloved pastor but his mind was far away. At home. At home with Jesus, in Heaven, right up by the throne. Holding on to it with all his might.
In one straight line and in one single breath he said,
“Lighten up boys and rejoice, that’s an order!” said Harold later as they were having lunch. “This thing is a great idea! Only God could’ve thought of something like this, amen?”
It was a great idea. The sort of idea that only God would be crazy enough to think of. A church with a detective agency. Who would have believed something so preposterous? So utterly ridiculous? This was indeed groundbreaking stuff.
With a detective agency they could reach out to people in rather more unusual situations. People who wouldn’t normally come to church for an investigative service, as it were. People at the end of their rope, in desperate need. No doubt as a result of tragic and difficult circumstances. Crying out to God but not realizing it. The church could be right there, providing that helping hand, ministering unto salvation and healing before things get out of hand, before a person takes the law into their own hands.
“But what about the detecting part of the job?” asked Chris soberly.
“You’ve got the Spirit of the living God to guide you!” exclaimed Harold, finishing his asparagus soup. “It’s a cinch!”
Chris and Danny exchanged worried glances again.
“A holy cinch,” they muttered under their breaths in unison.
There’s was no arguing about it. God had spoken. All Chris and Danny could do was get home that evening, get on their knees before God and pray.
“Father, in the name of Jesus, tell us this is just a big mistake. Or else, just take us home. Either way is fine with us.”
Before long, however, the Holy Spirit began to work in their hearts also. A peace came over them. It still didn’t make a slightest bit of sense, except for a sense of it being the right thing.
Danny picked up the phone on his bedside table and called Chris.
“Listen Chris,” he said, “I think I’m getting a peace about this.”
“So am I,” said Chris. “I didn’t expect it. And I’ll tell you one thing, I certainly wasn’t praying for it.”
“I know what you mean.”
They sat quietly a moment, pondering what on earth was going on, what their Heavenly Father was up to this time.
“Listen Danny,” said Chris quietly, breaking the silence, “What does a private eye really do?”
Danny thought about it for a long moment.
“Um,” he began. “I’m just gonna carry on praying here for a bit, and maybe tomorrow we can go out and try to find a book about it or something.”
“Good idea, talk to you in the morning.”
We know the rest. It’s the usual drill. The congregation’s all fired up, there’s tons of prayer going on, our boys receive the laying on of hands, blessing, anointing with oil, setting apart for ministry.
Then there’s all the practical things to think about. Such as preparing an office in church, private investigator license applications, the usual introductory coffee and chitchat at the District Attorney’s office downtown, business cards need printing, some basic equipment needs to be bought.
“Guns!?”
Chris and Danny gaped in disbelief at their pastor.
“Oh come on!” retorted Harold sharply, “Where’s your boldness!? Your vision!?”
He came around his desk and eyed them both with a heavy sigh, like a college professor before two disappointing students.
“Come on, boys. Do you or do you not have the full armor of God?”
“Yes sir, we do,” the boys replied, avoiding his glance.
“So what are you worried about!?” he barked, “The guns aren’t going to be loaded! We just want you to look the part!”
He put his hands around their necks and looked closer at them, like a loving father with his two sons.
“By the way,” he said, “You two might want to start pumping some iron...”
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The following is not an excerpt. It is a presentation. It provides useful and amusing background information to the world of Jordan & Ferraro, making all the more enjoyable the story of the two most reluctant, unlikely and unfortunate private dicks in crime-fighting history in Los Angeles.
"God’s been speaking to us!” exclaimed the pastor of
Mountain View
International
Church,
Harold Pierce, as he entered the church offices. “Everybody in my office, now!”
He thundered through the carpeted landscape and everybody got up with a look of expectancy and excitement and headed after him. Chris and Danny glanced at each other with familiar concern.
“In particular Christopher and Daniel!” he roared as he reached his office door.
So it was, they were told, that while Gwendolyn Pierce was passing out baked wonders and good English tea to the elders and senior pastors on the previous evening, the Spirit of God confirmed what had been up to that point a “holy rumor” in the leadership ranks.
The church was moving into new territory, starting a new, unique branch of ministry and it was going to be run right from the church office, no fuss, no frills. And it was going to involve Chris Jordan Jr. and Danny Ferraro. The two of them were longtime members of the church. Young men, raised, nurtured and trained for service in the
Kingdom
of
God.
After years of traveling as evangelists and laboring on the mission field God had called them both back to
Mountain View
around the same time.
This was two months ago and both felt that God wanted them to work together in some way. But they had no idea how, or with what.
“So, Harry,” Danny began cautiously, managing a smile, “In what way does this involve us?”
Harold eyed them both, savoring the moment. There’s nothing like a clear and confirmed instruction from God and the subsequent joy of sharing it with everyone concerned. Beaming, and with a confident slap on his big twenty-pound preacher’s Bible, he proclaimed:
“You two boys are going to become private investigators!”
Chris’s and Danny’s eyes sort of glazed over and their hearts and breathing stopped. Nothing noticeable.
“And that'd be in the name of Jesus!” added Harold joyously as if he were standing in the pulpit.
With that the boys’ basic functions kicked in again and they just stared at him, stunned, speechless. “Holy shock,” Harold used to say in Bible class. “A case of prophet’s panic,” was another one. Gwendolyn’s favorite in fact.
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The main characters in the story of the Mountain Valley Detective Agency are, of course, these two reluctant detectives. Called by God to do something exceptionally unusual. That is, within church circles at least.
In the story about Jordan & Ferraro at the Mountain View Detective Agency (byline: “We See Everything From Up Here”), Chris Jordan Jr. and Danny Ferraro will be drawn into all kinds of dangerous and dramatic situations in the line of ministerial duty. Answering the call of individuals in peril, up against a dead end in life or otherwise in difficulty, they’ll provide a service second only to more or less everybody in the business in the entire
county
of
Los Angeles
.
But there’s one big difference and it’s fundamental to the
Mountain View
agency. Our two would-be heroes will pray with you. Whoever you are, client, victim or bad guy, it makes no difference. A prayer of salvation is part of the job. It could also be a significant part of getting out of a job safely, but that’s another matter.
If you want to hire the services of the Mountain View Detective Agency you’d better get ready to be saved. That’s the deal. It won’t cost you nothin’ to hire these boys. Except your life. It’s viewed as one of the church’s many services to the community. And if, on top of that, you still want to pay some kind of a fee just call it a gift and send it to the church.
Our characters:
CHRISTOPHER JORDAN JR. is in his late twenties. He’s an ordained minister and has spent a number of years in mission fields in faraway places. His parents, Chris Jordan Senior and Laverne, pastor a small church back east. Jordan Senior’s very much a minister of the old brimstone school and Laverne’s one of them ol’ gospel singers who’ll crack your crystal. And that’s when she’s rehearsing. Chris Jr. has three sisters, Patti, Cindy and Grace. They’re trying to break into contemporary Christian music and have quite a following in their local area.
Chris was called to the foreign mission fields in his late teens. Now that he’s a bit older, he can admit to a sense of rebellion being a contributing factor to that desire. So, the Lord had a few things to deal with in Chris’s heart, and the inhospitable jungle regions of South America and the plains in the heart of
Africa
, proved very effective to that end.
He’s been through some rough stuff. Trying to save children too far malnourished, collecting and burying bodies of villagers caught in a guerrilla attack. He’s been shot at by ivory hunters in Africa and drug barons in
Colombia, and
once been mistaken for one himself and been shot at by US agents.
He’s had malaria twice. He caught it both times when stepping off a plane at the exact same bush airstrip in
Burundi.
Chris always worked very hard and when building supplies ran out he found church planting to be an excellent cure for boredom. On one occasion he walked out into the bush, found himself a native tribe and got acquainted. Held meetings all day long till sunset, then he sat with them around the fire at night just talking about Jesus. At least, he’s pretty sure that’s what he did because he didn’t know the language. It was all done in the Spirit. Chris spoke in tongues for six weeks straight.
Not before then did it turn out that one of the older tribesmen had once been a student at
Cambridge
,
England
. The man had returned to his native
Africa
after the Second World War, sought out a tribe, found this one and settled down, his back firmly against modern civilization.
“Why didn’t you say anything!?” asked Chris in the seventh week, looking quite dumbfounded.
“Dear boy,” the man began, drawing long on his very odd-looking pipe, “I was so fascinated by the Lord Jesus, it didn’t occur to me.”
When he said that Chris just started laughing. He couldn’t help it, the whole situation was so far out. Perhaps it was also a reaction to how tired he suddenly felt.
“Tell me,” said the man after a moment, “Where in all the world did you learn to speak fluent Wazbuli?”
Chris managed to calm down and looked at him, “Wazbuli huh? Is that what it is?”
He broke out in laughter again, praising God.
“Man, I never heard of Wazbuli in all my life!” he shouted.
The man didn’t bat an eyelid, he just drew slowly on his pipe and muttered,
“Extraordinary.”
Chris decided early to give the best years of his life in service to God and wait with getting married. A decision he took with Danny and a bunch of other guys, after a long and inspired bible study by Harold in a closed room with no girls.
Now that he’s back from overseas, feeling that God wants him to stay put and move into other things, he’s beginning to think it’s time to settle down. He’s not going out of his way to find a girl, but instead trusting in the Lord about the whole issue. Which would’ve been a whole lot easier hadn’t He gone and told him to become some sort of an absurd private investigator.
Despite all the hard work and the physicality of the mission field, Chris is really more of the studious type. Not very into sports, he likes reading and always tries to find a methodical approach to solving practical situations.
Chris has known Danny since his early teens and he’s a close friend. They’ve always wanted to work together in some way in God’s work. It was painfully difficult for them both to accept that they were going in different directions about ten years ago.
But now, at long last, their vision of working shoulder to shoulder in the
Kingdom
of
God
, “brothers in holy arms,” as Harold put it, looks set to happen. In a way neither of them would ever have thought possible.
Ever since he was a kid DANNY FERRARO’s been somewhat stage struck. He always liked being up there, getting attention. He’s mellowed a bit in the last few years, though.
It all started at a huge kids camp organized by a bunch of churches working together. The leaders wanted kids to give a testimony and tell everybody why they believe in Jesus. And this particular leader, Jeff, he must’ve been around 40 years old (actually he was 19 - Danny was 9), kept pestering him about saying something in front of everybody. Danny kept refusing. There was no way he was going up there in front of all those people.
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But Jeff won the battle of wills and Danny got up there in front of a massive ocean of staring faces.
In one straight line and in one single breath he said,
“Hi I’m Danny Ferraro I’m eight years old and I think Jesus is cool because he died for me and rose from the dead on the third day ‘cause hell couldn’t keep him and now I’m saved amen.”
He glanced over at Jeff who gave him a solid thumbs up. Danny stepped away from the mike but then he jumped right back and said,
“And if you want to you can be saved too.” And he trotted off the stage.
As can be expected this piece of anointed elocution touched just about everybody, but none more than Danny himself. This was the turning point. Young Daniel Ferraro had been bitten by the ministry bug. All of a sudden he wanted to give his testimony all the time, and he was really bugging Jeff about it.
“Listen Danny!” shouted Jeff at his wits end, “You’ve been up there twelve times! If I let you up again you’re liable to get shot at with BB guns!”
Danny looked up at him and said,
“I ain’t scared.”
Danny’s father
Antony
is originally from
New York. Furth
er back the family hails from northern
Italy. The
traditional romanticized immigrant story is exactly what Danny’s Grandpa Stefano experienced. He came over on the boat from Europe, passed the Statue Of Liberty on the way into
New York
harbor, found a little rinky-dink pad and getting himself a job. As a cabbie, naturally. In fact, Stefano was one of the first drivers to get the new Checker Cab when it came out.
Before long he met Elizabeth, the lovely brunette who worked mornings in Alfredo’s Deli on East 52nd, who could whip up the best Italian coffee and sub sandwich anywhere in the Big Apple.
And the rest became Danny’s history.
His father never did follow in Danny’s Grandpa’s cabbie footsteps. Instead he and his wife Jean had a little interior design company. They furnished mainly small businesses, offices, coffee shops, diners and the occasional private home.
Antony
had a love for furniture making and Jean started out working with interior decorating in
New York
, where she grew up. When Danny was born they started thinking about moving to
California
where Jean’s folks and her brother had settled, attracted by the film industry.
Along came Danny’s little sister Stephanie just over a year later and that settled it.
“Get ready, we’re coming!” said Jean on the phone to everybody’s absolute delight and they packed the old Chevy Nomad to bursting point and headed Out West. So, Danny found himself growing up in
Los Angeles
and the whole family is now part of the
Mountain View
fellowship and loving the Lord.
For a while during his teens Danny wanted to be a stuntman in the movie and television business. His uncle was best pals with a stuntman and whenever this guy had some time off he’d come around. Usually with one of his limbs in a cast. Danny listened to his stories and went off to learn to drive motorcycles, quads, boats, jet-skis, learnt hang gliding, horse riding and worked out. It was another one of those bugs.
Contrary to everybody’s expectations he did get to do a few commercials for the local LA stations during this time. Nothing spectacular, just scenes like riding off into the sunset, slipping over on a brightly waxed floor, walking into a lamppost, things like that.
The whole idea mellowed out later and he started to get more into ministry. He committed himself and his best years to service for the Lord and with the backing of the church he’s been traveling extensively, even abroad, as an evangelist. Either alone or with a team. Many times he’s hooked up with a major Christian musical act joining them on lengthy tours as a part of their ministry.
Danny was in love with Mary-Ann for a while, a beautiful girl in church. It started about two, three years ago. She was in Bible school and working on her singing career while he was out in ministry.
They planned to marry when Danny was 30, after the ten years he wanted to give fully to the Lord had passed. But it didn’t quite work out that way and the whole thing is now over. She wasn’t ready to wait for him after all. None of it was helped by the fact that she was on the receiving end of a fair amount of attention from elsewhere.
Danny had bought a ring in
Boston
to give to her. A stylish thing it was.
“Very subtle and very classy,” Gwendolyn Pierce said of it, “Mary-Ann will love it.”
She didn’t. That is, the meaning of it. Danny was simply too much, too late.
This was all quite recently and though Danny has sorted it out with her, and with God, he still feels it somewhere inside. His confidence took a knock and so did his trust in girls, as a species.
Danny likes good old Italian home cooking. He likes sports, including motor racing, but never has the time to engage in any of it himself. He has a more spontaneous nature than Chris, a dryer sense of humor and a slightly shorter temper. Both share a boldness and a profound stubbornness when it comes to standing on the God’s promises in the Word. But it comes out differently. In a way they complement each other.
Often, Danny will speak about Jesus to somebody, let’s say a crook they’ve just encountered in a tense situation. Danny will lay it on hard and fast, mercilessly, often leaving the guy weak at the knees and at the point of tears.
Chris takes over with a softer and more practical approach. Opening the pocket New Testament, reading a few passages to him, explaining the work of the cross. And he’ll lay a comforting arm over the shoulders and finally pray with him unto salvation.
Usually, to the poor guy’s great relief.
To stand in front of a big crowd, even a hostile one, and talk about Jesus is right up Danny’s street. In a situation like that he feels at home. He loves that immediate feedback, reading an audience, following the Holy Spirit and knowing that powerful anointing when speaking about Jesus to an unknown crowd.
Being a private investigator is something totally different and he doesn’t know what to expect from this crazy idea. Danny was given a T-shirt once, by a well-known Christian artist who shall remain nameless. Printed on it are the words: “Why me Lord?”
Danny Ferraro has been wearing that old T-shirt a lot recently...
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HAROLD PIERCE is in his early sixties, the pastor of the
Mountain View
International
Church
in
West Hollywood
and has been for the last ten years.
He has done quite a few things in his time. Been a US Army Chaplain, a prison chaplain, even walked the last mile a few times. He tried the mission fields but found that the tropical climate broke him out in a rash so he changed to
Alaska
where he, on the very first afternoon, started a revival in a town with the sizeable population of eight.
Come dinnertime the church was up and running and he could get back on the dog-sled and carry on to the next location.
Harold’s energetic. Every Christmas he always says: “Next year I’m going to slow down, I promise.” But it never happens. He has military blood in him and he’s a stickler for discipline. “Holy discipline,” he calls it. All you gotta do is walk with God and, well, that’s it. No stupid questions asked. Lack of faith is simply irritating.
The Mountain View Detective Agency has got his imagination going. Though he’s not a part of the team as such it’s with youthful enthusiasm he embraces the activity, seeing himself as a sort of commander in chief, mission organizer, strategic adviser, supplying encouragement and inspiration with final spiritual responsibility. He refers to the church office as ‘HQ’ and over the phone he says things like: “Roger that, bless God.
Mountain View
out.”
GWENDOLYN is Harold’s English wife, a warm, loving and supportive person in her sparkling mid-fifties. She’s good at baking and gets her tea in monthly shipments straight from her cousin’s special shop in
Hertfordshire
,
England
.
Harold’s more of a black coffee man himself but out of love for Gwen he decided to teach himself the science of tea and is nowadays quite a connoisseur and a most daring blender.
RALPH DUCKMANN, a short guy in glasses, pushing thirty. He’s the very able do-it-all for the church magazine. Writer, photographer, art director, editor and everything else. 'High Life, The Magazine Of The Mountain View International Church', is Ralph’s baby. A quarterly publication of certain repute.
He’s been married to Pam, a school teacher, for going on five years and they have no children.
Ralph is a perfectionist and his drive for the glossy quality and appeal of the magazine sometimes clouds his understanding as to the reason for its existence in the first place.
He’s artistic, intense and typically wavering in self-confidence. But a fatherly word from Harold is usually all it takes to bring him down to speed. He’s always on the job, runs around the office, helpful and eager to please, but has
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a hard time when the church computer network plays up. Ralph is really fired up by this detective thing and considers our private investigators to be top priority.
He can see the full page, four-color ads, clever headlines and the gripping articles with the dramatic pictures. Boy, we’re talking journalism at its best. Trouble is, all this enthusiasm tends to get in the way and it doesn’t make it easier for Chris and Danny.
LINDSAY SCHWARTZ, 27, Harold’s secretary. She’s also his niece. Lindsay’s a really nice girl, pure-hearted and attractive in a homely sort of way. In the church office she dresses in a combination of countryside sweetness and Wall Street professionalism.
Slightly star struck she enjoys very much all the well-known celebrity pastors and singers who visit
Eagle
Mountain
. Despite a whimsical element Lindsay’s a very good secretary, a fast typist and she speaks Spanish. Invaluable to Harold, who doesn’t.
She’s also about the only one in the entire office who knows how to reboot the church computer network. And she has an amazing head for small facts, such as names and dates and who said what and when. Seemingly useless bits of information which often turn out to be extremely useful.
Lindsay’s not married. She lives by herself in a nice apartment, has two cats whose names are Paul and Barnabas and she keeps up on new Christian books and new Christian music. She drives a small car because she finds big ones hard to park.
Lindsay’s been a good friend of our two boys for a long time and has always had a special weak spot for Danny. Nothing that causes too much heartache but, nevertheless, she remains appreciative of any attention he may send her way.
Now that the church has started The Eagle Mountain Detective Agency and Danny and Chris are private investigators, she feels she’s closely involved with something very glamorous and exciting. Harold has whispered to her to help the boys as much as she has time, with any secretarial duties they might require. She doesn’t mind, and it hasn’t burdened her that much, as the boys, nor anyone else, really knows what they’re doing.
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