Jack had been in the rectory to St. Joe’s immediate left, but not the building to the right where Maggie was hurrying up the front steps, passing a sign that read Convent of the Blessed Virgin.
A nun? Maggie was a nun?
Well, it sort of fit with her uptight personality. But he guessed she wasn’t too uptight, otherwise Cordova would have nothing to hold over her. And since she was connected with St. Joe’s, Jack had a pretty good idea who had referred her: Father Ed.
Okay. One mystery solved. But another remained. Why blackmail a nun? Seemed like a waste of effort. Nuns didn’t have any money—unless Maggie came from a wealthy family.
Jack glanced at his watch. Five to four. He’d promised to take Gia and Vicky out to dinner, but that wasn’t till seven. Maybe he’d invest an hour or so here and see if he could learn any more. Maybe Maggie wasn’t a nun. Maybe she merely worked at the convent…but he doubted that.
He spotted an all-purpose convenience store/take out/coffee shop eater-corner from the church. Maybe he could watch from there.
He crossed over and bought a cup of stale coffee in the traditional blue-and-white container from the Korean proprietor. No sooner had he stepped to the window and taken his first bitter sip when Maggie reappeared. She’d changed into a gray skirt and jacket over a white blouse. Her hair was tucked under a black wimple with a white band. She hurried down the convent steps, up the church steps, and disappeared inside.
Well, that settled the is-she-or-isn’t-she question. But Jack wanted a little more info. He stepped outside and crossed back to the church, dribbling his coffee onto the pavement as he went. On the far side he tossed the empty cup into a trash basket, then climbed St. Joe’s front steps.
To the right, white vinyl letters snapped into a black message board that listed the Mass schedule. Sunday had one every ninety minutes till noon, then one last chance at four.
To the left, a worn black-on-white sign heralded the Church of St. Joseph’s Renovation Fund and sported a thermometer to track the progress of contributions. One-hundred-thousand-dollar increments were listed to the left of the graduated column up to the goal of $600,000; the red area that marked the level of contributions hadn’t even filled the bulb. Not surprising, considering the chill economic climate and the low-income level of the parish.
Jack edged through the entrance and stood in the vestibule. The nave stretched ahead through a second set of doors. A sparse crowd for the four o’clock Mass, so he had no trouble spotting Maggie. She sat behind a well-dressed man. Occasionally she’d lean forward and whisper something. He’d nod and she’d lean back.
The priest on the altar was not Father Ed; he displayed about the same level of interest in what he was doing as his parishioners, which was not much. Jack tuned him out, trying to get a fix on the relationship between Maggie—if that was her name—and her man friend. He’d thought at first that they might be having an affair, but he sensed a distance between them.
About halfway through the Mass the man rose and sidled to the aisle, then headed back toward Jack. He looked to be about fifty, with a good haircut and features that might be described as distinguished looking except for the haunted look in his eyes and the circles beneath them. He gave Jack a friendly nod and a reflexive smile as he passed. Jack nodded back.
Jack counted to five, then stepped to the front doors. He watched the man stand on the corner, looking for a cab. It took a couple of minutes but he snagged one and it headed uptown.
Jack leaned against the rusty iron railing by the building-fund sign and waited. Soon the parishioners began to filter out. He spotted Maggie among them, head down, lost in thought.
“Sister?” he called softly. “Can I have a word with you?”
She looked up and her initial look of confusion vanished in wide-eyed shock.
“You! How did you—?”
Jack motioned her closer. “Where can we talk?”
She glanced around at the final parishioners straggling from within and heading down the steps.
“In a moment this will be as good a place as any.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No. I can’t be seen strolling around with a man, and certainly not sitting in a bar with him.”
Jack noted the emphasis on “bar.”
He lowered his voice. “What’s your real name, sister?”
“Margaret Mary O’Hara.” She flashed a tiny smile. “The kids at the parish school used to call me ‘Sister M&M.’ They still do, but now they spell it differently.”
Jack returned her smile. “Sister Eminem. That’s cool. Better than Sister Margaret. That’d make you sound ninety years old.”
“Around the convent I’m known as Sister Maggie, but lately I have felt ninety years old.”
Movement caught Jack’s eye. He spotted a white-albed altar boy at the front doors, kicking up the hooks that held them open.
“Hi, Sister,” he said as he spotted her.
“Hello, Jorge,” she said with a genuine smile, wider than Jack had ever seen from her. “You did a good job today. See you in school tomorrow.”
He nodded and smiled. “See ya.”
When the doors had closed she turned back to Jack.
“Obviously you followed me. Why?”
“Too many unanswered questions. But at least now I know who referred you. Does Father Ed know you’re being blackmailed?”
She shook her head. “No. He just knows I need help and can’t go to the police. I went to him for advice and he suggested you. Did…did he hire you for something?”
“You’ll have to ask him. My memory’s very unreliable.”
The answer seemed to please her. “That’s good to know.”
“Are you and that man I saw you with in the photos together?”
“I’d really rather not say.”
“Fair enough.” Jack looked around. They were alone on the steps, alone on the deserted street. A man and a nun standing a good two feet apart. No one could infer anything improper from that. “How bad can the photos be?”
She looked at her feet. “He sent me copies. Very bad. Nothing left to the imagination.”
“Well then let me ask, How much can they hurt you? I’m assuming you were with a guy, but even if you weren’t, I mean, they made some openly gay guy a bishop, so what could—?”
“Good gravy, Jack. Those were Episcopalians. This is the Catholic Church.”
Good gravy?
“You’re kidding, right? After what Catholic priests have been up to?”
“Some Catholic priests. None that I’ve ever known. But this is different. Nuns are different. My order would banish me. I’d be out on the street with no home, no savings, and no job.”
“Seems pretty cold.”
“I love my order, Jack. But more than that, I love serving God and I love teaching these children. I’m a good teacher. It’s not false pride when I say I can and do make a difference. But even if I was allowed to stay in the convent, I couldn’t be allowed to teach.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Those pictures threaten everything I hold dear in my life.”
Jack watched her and wondered how so many facets of her life had combined to ruin it. If she’d been Margaret Mary O’Hara, single public school teacher, she could thumb her nose at Cordova. Yeah? So? But she was Sister Maggie and that was a whole other ball game.
“Okay, answer me this: How much money do you have?”
“We take a vow of poverty but are allowed to put a little away for special circumstances. Whatever I had is all but gone now, paid to that…that…”
“Yeah, I know. Any family money you can tap into?”
Her mouth twisted. “My father’s long dead, my mother died over the summer, penniless. Every last cent she had was eaten up by the nursing home.”
“Sorry to hear that. But I’m confused. Having seen the way this creep operates, I can’t understand him going after someone with a vow of poverty. He tends to like deeper wells.”
&nb
sp; Sister Maggie looked away. After a few heartbeats she sighed and pointed to the sign behind Jack.
“He wants me to steal from the renovation fund. I’m one of the overseers.”
“Really.” This was an interesting twist. “How could he know that?”
Another look away. “It has to do with the photos. I can’t say any more.”
“All right then, why not simply quit that position?”
“He said if I don’t pay, or if I quit working with the fund, he’ll make the photos public and ruin me and the fund. The fund’s having such a tough time as it is, a scandal will sink it.”
“Whatever they show, you can say they’re fake. You wouldn’t believe how they can manipulate photos these days. Seeing used to be believing. Not anymore.”
“First off,” she said, “that would be lying. Secondly, I have been working closely of late with the other person in the photos. What they show would not seem so preposterous to anyone who knew us.”
“So what you’re saying is even if they were fakes, very good fakes, they’d still mess up your life and the building fund.”
She nodded, started to say something, but couldn’t get the words past her trembling lips.
Jack felt his jaw clench as he watched tears of helplessness rim her eyes. Sister Maggie seemed like good people. The thought of that slimy, belly-crawling son of a bitch turning the screws on her, and probably enjoying every minute…
Finally she found her voice. “He stole something from me…a very private moment…”
“And you want it back.”
She looked up at him. “No. I want it erased.” She pointed to her heart. “From here”—then touched her forehead—“and from here. But that can’t happen while those pictures are out there.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it.”
She looked into his eyes and didn’t seem to like what she saw there.
“But without violence. Please. I can’t be a party to violence.”
Jack only nodded. No promises. If an opportunity to put the hurt on the slob presented itself, he might not be able to resist.
He’d have dinner with his ladies tonight, then he was going to pay a visit to fat Richie Cordova.
7
After a quick shower and a change of clothes, Jack stuck Sister Maggie’s hundred-dollar bill into a padded envelope, addressed it to Cordova, and dropped it in a mailbox. Just in time to make the late pickup.
Then he stopped in at the Isher Sports Shop on the way to Gia’s. The front doorbell jangled as he pushed through. Jack wound his way toward the rear of the store through the tilting, ready-to-topple shelves overcrowded with basketballs, snowboards, baseball bats, even boxing gloves. He found Abe, proprietor and sole employee, out of his usual spot behind the rear counter and over by the rack of hockey sticks. He was talking to a young woman and a boy who looked maybe ten.
“All right,” Abe was saying to the boy in a testy tone. “Stand up straight already. Right. Unstoop those shoulders. No jaded slouch till you’re at least twelve—it’s a law. There. Now you should look straight ahead while I measure the stick.”
Abe with a sporting goods customer—usually a theater-of-the-absurd playlet. Jack stood back and watched the show.
Abe stood five-two or-three and was a little over sixty with a malnourished scalp and an overfed waistline. He wore his customary half-sleeve white shirt and black pants, each a sampling menu of whatever he’d eaten during the course of the day. This being the end of the day, the menu was extensive.
He grabbed a handful of hockey sticks and stood them one at a time in front of the kid. The end of the handle of the first came up to the level of the kid’s eyes.
“Nope. Too long. Just the right length it should be, otherwise you’ll look like a kalyekeh out there on the ice.”
The kid looked at his mom who shrugged. Neither had the faintest idea what Abe was rambling about. Jack was right with them.
The second stick reached the kid’s chin.
“Too short. A good match this would be if you were in your skates, but in shoes, no.”
The end of the third stick stopped right under the kid’s nose.
“Perfect! And it’s made of graphite. Such tensile strength. With this you can beat your opponents senseless and never have to worry about breaking it.”
The kid’s eyes widened. “Really?”
The mother repeated the word but with narrowed eyes and a different tone.
Abe shrugged. “What can I say? It’s no longer a sport, hockey. You’re equipping your kaddishel to join a tumel on ice. Why put the little fellow in harm’s way?”
The mother’s lips tightened into a line. “Can we just pay for this and go?”
“I should stop you from paying?” he said, heading for the scarred counter where the cash register sat. “Of course you can pay.”
Her credit card was scanned, approved, a slip was signed, and she was on her way. If her expression hinted that she’d never be back, her comment left no doubt.
“Get out while you can,” she muttered to Jack as she passed. “This guy is a loon.”
“Really?” Jack said.
Abe had settled himself onto his stool and assumed his customary hands-on-thighs posture as Jack reached the counter. Parabellum, his blue parakeet and constant companion, sat in his cage to the right pecking at something that looked like a birdseed popsicle.
“Another highwater mark in Abe Grossman customer relations,” Jack said, grinning. “You ever consider advertising yourself as a consultant?”
“Feh,” Abe said with a dismissive gesture. “Hockey.”
“At least you actually sold something related to a sport.”
The street-level sports shop would have folded long ago if not for Abe’s real business, locked away in the cellar. He didn’t need sports-minded customers, so he did what he could to discourage them.
“Not such a sport. Do you know they’re making hockey sticks out of Kevlar now? They’re expecting to maybe add handguns to the brawls?”
“Wouldn’t know,” Jack said. “Never watch. Just stopped by to let you know I won’t be needing that transponder I ordered.”
“Nu?” Abe’s eyebrows lifted toward the memory of his hairline. “So you’re maybe not such a customer relations maven yourself?”
“No, she’s still onboard. It’s just that I’ve already dealt with the guy who’s squeezing her. He’s the one the last transponder led me to.”
“Cor-bon or something, right?”
“Close. Cordova. Some coincidence, huh?” He waited for Abe’s reaction.
“Coincidence…” His eyes narrowed. “You told me no more coincidences for you.”
Jack hid his discomfort. “Yeah, I know, but coincidences do happen in real life, right?”
Abe shrugged. “Now and then.”
“Watch: I’ll probably find out he’s a closet Dormentalist.”
“Dormentalist? He’s a rat, maybe, but is he meshugge?”
Jack told him about Maria Roselli and her missing Johnny, then asked, “You know anything about Dormentalism?”
“Some. Like a magnet it attracts the farblondzhet in the head. That’s why the Dormentalists joined the Scientologists in the war against Prozac back in the eighties. Anything that relieves depression and allows a clearer view of life and the world is a threat to them. Shrinks the pool of potential members.”
“I need to do a little studying up. What’s the best place to start, you think? The Web?”
“Too much tsuris separating fact from opinion there. Go to the source.”
He slid off the stool and stepped into the little office behind the counter area. Jack had been in there a few times. It made the rest of the store look neat and spare and orderly. He heard mutters and clatters and thuds and Yiddish curses before Abe reemerged.
“Here,” he said as he slapped a slim hardcover on the counter. “What you need is The Book of Hokano, the Torah of Dormentalism. More than y
ou’ll ever wish or need to know. But this isn’t it. Instead, it’s a mystery novel, starring a recurring hero named David Daine, supposedly written by Dormentalism’s founder, Cooper Blascoe.”
Jack picked it up. The dust jacket cover graphic was a black-and-white melange of disjointed pieces with the title Sundered Lives in blazing red.
“Never heard of it.”
Abe’s eyebrows rose again in search of the Lost City of Hair. “You should have. It was number one on the Times’ bestseller list. I bought it out of curiosity.” He rolled his eyes. “Oy, such a waste of good money and paper. How such a piece of turgid drek could be a bestseller, let alone make number one, makes me dizzy in the head. He wrote six of them, all number ones. Makes one wonder about the public’s reading tastes.”
“Whodunnit?”
“I have no idea. Couldn’t finish it. Tried once to read The Book of Hokano and couldn’t finish that either. Incoherent mumbo jumbo.” He pointed to the book in Jack’s hand. “My gift to you.”
“A bad novel. Gee, thanks. You think I should buy The Book of Hokano then?”
“If you do it should be used already. Don’t give those gonifs another royalty. And set aside a long time. A thousand or so pages it runs.”
Jack winced. “Do they have Cliff Notes for it?”
“You might find something like that online. All sorts of nuts online.”
“Still, millions of people seem to believe in it.”
“Feh! Millions, shmillions. That’s what they say. It’s a fraction of that, I’ll bet.”
“Well, it’s soon going to be a fraction plus one. I’m a-goin’ to church.”
“You mean you’re joining a cult.”
“They call themselves a church. The government agrees.”
Abe snorted. “Church smurch. We should listen to the government? Dormentalists give up control to their leaders; all decisions are made for them—how to think, what to believe, where to live, how to dress, what country even! With no responsibility there’s no guilt, no outcome anxiety, so they feel a mindless sort of peace. That’s a cult, and a cult is a cult no matter what the government says. If the Department of Agriculture called a bagel an apple, would that make it an apple? No. It would still be a bagel.”