“There was something I had to do before I left.”
Debbie placed a knife next to the cheese. She said, “Five years in an African village—”
“Fran had to work on the prosecutor.”
“I know, but Rwanda. Couldn’t you have gone someplace else? How about the South of France?”
“I was there,” Terry said. “Fran liked my taking Uncle Tibor’s place, the family tie-in. The prosecutor liked it, too.”
“You told me you heard Confessions,” Debbie said, handing him a cheese and cracker. “Is that true?”
“Once a week,” Terry said with his mouth full.
“Come on—really?”
“They tell you their sins, you tell them to love God and don’t do it again. And give ’em their penance.”
“The guy who stole a goat was real?”
“From around Nyundo.”
“The one who committed murder?”
“I took care of him, too. Gave him his penance.”
“Don’t tell me you said Mass.”
She watched him fix another cheese and cracker and put the whole thing in his mouth.
He said, “The first time,” and stopped to finish chewing and swallow. “I was visiting Tibor, still in the hospital. There was already talk about a genocide being organized. Now we hear on the radio that it’s started—Hutu militia, the bad guys, armed with AK-47s, machetes, spiked clubs, are killing every Tutsi they can find. Tibor tells me to go home and get everybody in the church, quick, and they’ll be safe.”
Sanctuary. Debbie knew about that from The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
“We’re in the church, everybody’s scared to death and want me to say Mass. I thought, well, we could say some prayers. No, they want a regular Mass and Communion, ‘Because we know we going to die.’ That’s what they told me. They’ve already accepted it and there was nothing I said made any difference. I put on the vestments—I look like a priest and I know how to say Mass, so I did. I got through the first part, right up to the Consecration, and that was when they came in, all of a sudden shooting, hacking with their machetes . . . I stood there and watched them kill everyone in the church, even the little kids, infants they held by the feet and swung against the wall, the mothers screaming—”
Debbie said, “They didn’t fight back?”
“With what? They knew they were gonna die and were letting it happen.”
She stood with him at the counter not saying a word now. She watched him take a drink, then another, finishing what was in the glass. She picked up her cigarettes and offered him one. He shook his head. She poured Scotch into his glass, added an ice cube. He let the drink sit on the counter. She lit a cigarette. Now he took one from the pack and she flicked the lighter again, the one the guy in the party store had given her. Terry drew on the cigarette and laid it on the edge of the ashtray.
He said, “I didn’t do anything. I watched.”
“What could you do?”
He didn’t answer.
“You keep seeing it happen.”
“I think about it, yeah.”
“Is that why you stayed? You didn’t do anything and it bothered you? You felt guilty?”
It made him hesitate, maybe surprised, hearing something he hadn’t considered.
“Why you spent five years there?”
“I told you why.”
“You felt if you left—”
“What?”
“You’d be running away?”
He shook his head. “It didn’t—I can’t say it made me want to, you know, get revenge. I couldn’t believe I’d seen all those people killed, most of them hacked to death by people they knew, their neighbors, friends, some even related by marriage. The Hutus were told to kill all the Tutsis and they said okay and tried as hard as they could to do it. How do you understand that and take sides if you’re not with one or the other? Even when I saw a chance to do something it wasn’t planned or something I’d even thought about.”
“What did you do?”
He picked up his drink, sipped it, and put it down.
“The day I left I killed four young guys, Hutus. They were in the church that time five years ago. I killed them because one of them bragged about it and said they were gonna do it again. They were sitting at a table in the beer lady’s house drinking banana beer and I shot them with my housekeeper’s pistol.”
There was a silence.
Debbie drew on her cigarette, patient.
“You’re not kidding, are you?”
“No, I killed them.”
“Did it help?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Like now you’ve done something? Struck back?”
He said after a moment, “It didn’t seem to have anything to do with what happened in the church.”
“You weren’t arrested?”
“The military are Tutsi. One of them helped me get away.”
He was solemn about it, his expression, his tone. Still, he seemed at ease with what he had done. Debbie moved closer and touched his face, feeling his beard and cheekbone. She said, “Tell it that way, the scene in the church. That’s your sermon.” She gave his cheek a pat, brought her hand down and picked up her drink.
Terry said, “Yeah, well, that’s the idea. Visit parishes and get permission to make a special appeal at Sunday Mass. Fran got me a directory of the Archdiocese and I wrote down the parishes I want to visit and the names of the pastors. I’ll start on the east side, the ones I’m familiar with.”
“You’ll work your tail off,” Debbie said, “and it’s nickel-and-dime.”
“I’ve got pictures of little kids, orphans.”
“Are they heart-wrenching?”
“They’re alone in the world and they’re hungry. I have shots of them digging through garbage dumps—”
“The only way to do it,” Debbie said, “and score big, you buy a mailing list of Catholics. Start with one area, a few thousand. Send a brochure that features your story, your pitch, pictures of the starving kids, flies crawling around on their little faces, in their mouth—”
“I’m not sure I have any with flies.”
“That’s all right, as long as they’re heart-wrenching. And, you include a postage-paid return envelope.”
Terry said, “The cost of that alone—”
He stopped, Debbie shaking her head.
“There’s a little note on the envelope that says, ‘Your stamp will help, too.’ ”
“What’s all that cost?”
“A lot. Way too much. And it’s work.” She said, “Wait,” and stubbed out her cigarette. “You get a Web site on the Internet and do it, paganbabies dot com.”
“There aren’t that many pagans anymore. They’ve all been converted to something. A lot of Seventh Day Adventists.”
“Orphans dot com. Missions or missionaries dot com.” Debbie stopped. “It’s still a lot of work. You know it? I mean like stoop labor, no fun in it. We could get into it and find out the Web sites are already taken.” She said, “I don’t even like computers, they’re too . . . I don’t know, mechanical.” She went into the refrigerator for another tray of ice, turned with it to the counter, to Terry, the face she thought of as saintly, and said, “What’s the matter with me? You’re not raising money for orphans.”
He said, “That’s what you thought?”
“You’re using them.”
He said, “I don’t like the idea especially, but do you think they care?”
Debbie levered open the ice tray. “Well, if all you’re looking for is a score, to get you back on your feet—”
He said, “I thought you understood that, once you had me unfrocked.”
She dropped ice cubes in their glasses saying, “You know, that gives me an idea,” taking her time, as though the thought was just now creeping into her mind. “I’ll bet if you helped me out—”
“Yeah . . . ?”
“You could make more than you ever would with your
sermon, as good as it is.”
“Help you get Randy?”
She said, “Would you?” and watched him grin and shake his head in appreciation, bless his heart, at times appearing to be a simple soul.
“Get him to hit you this time? I think I might’ve suggested that.”
“You did, but I don’t want to be seriously injured. Like settle but never walk again. Accidents, you never know what might happen.”
He said, “Yeah, but it’s your specialty. You must have all kinds of ways to fake it, you little devil.”
Debbie let that one go. She put a fresh hit on their drinks and turned to Terry with his.
“You said, ‘They were sitting at a table in the beer lady’s house drinking banana beer and I shot them with my housekeeper’s pistol.’ Your exact words. I may never forget them.”
She watched him sip his drink.
“Were you scared?”
She watched him shake his head.
“In my mind it was done before I stepped inside.”
“Didn’t they . . . come at you?”
“I didn’t give them a chance to.”
“You walked in and shot them?”
“We exchanged a few words first. I asked ’em to give themselves up. I knew they wouldn’t. So you could say I knew going in I was gonna kill them.”
12
* * *
TERRY, IN HIS PARKA, waited as Debbie drove off past hedges and old shade trees. No palms or eucalyptus, no banana trees in sight, or hills rising out of a morning mist, only manicured lawns like fairways and homes Terry saw as mansions. Debbie gave her horn a toot and he waved with a lazy motion of his arm, raised it and let it fall. He turned to see Fran standing in the entrance, one of the double doors open, and followed the brick walk up to the house; a wide expanse of limestone blocks painted beige, the windows and twin columns of the portico trimmed in white. “Regency,” Fran had told him, “copies from a picture Mary Pat clipped out of Architectural Digest.”
“Another five minutes,” Fran said, “I’d be out of here. You wouldn’t be able to get in the house.”
He had on white poplin warm-ups that gave him a puffy look, Terry seeing a snowman in elaborate tennis shoes.
“I thought you were going to Florida.”
“I am, I got a limo service takes me to the airport.”
He didn’t seem happy about going. Or something else was bothering him.
“That’s what you wear on the plane?”
“For comfort,” Fran said, “it’s a three-hour flight. You have your breakfast?”
“I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee. All Debbie has in the house is instant.”
“She’s a kid,” Fran said. “Her idea of coffee is cappuccino, in a restaurant.”
“How old would you say she is?”
“I know exactly how old, she’s thirty-three, still a kid.”
“What’re you trying to tell me,” Terry said, following Fran inside, “even if I wasn’t a priest she’s still too young for me?”
Fran brought him from the foyer past a curving staircase, through the formal dining room and butler’s pantry to the kitchen before he spoke, Fran facing him now from across a big butcher-block table. “Somebody sees you leaving her apartment, seven in the morning, what’re they supposed to think?”
“We grilled hot dogs last night, kosher,” Terry said, “with the skin. After that we sat around talking. It got late, I could see she was tired—”
“I told her on the phone, call me, I’d pick you up.”
He thought Fran would ask where he’d slept—it was a one-bedroom apartment—but didn’t seem to want to touch that. So Terry said, “You worried I might’ve gotten laid?”
No smile, Fran’s tone almost grim saying, “I’m talking about appearances.”
No, he wasn’t, but Terry went along. “I appear, seven in the morning or whenever, who knows who I am? Do I look like a priest in this?”
“You told me you bought a suit.”
“I did.” Fran had given him his Brooks Brothers credit card and he’d driven to the mall in Mary Pat’s Cadillac—Fran having a fit when he found out and had to inspect the car for dings. “I pick up the suit today, after five.”
Fran said, “Aw shit,” sounding worn out. “Your meeting with the prosecutor’s at one o’clock.”
“I’ll be there.”
“One o’clock sharp at the Frank Murphy. I know I told you.”
“You did, I just don’t have a suit. I have the Roman collar, one of Uncle Tibor’s, and one of his Mandarin shirts—has a little notch up here to show the collar. I tried on his suit. It was so shiny you could use it as a mirror to comb your hair.”
Terry grinned, hoping Fran would, but he didn’t.
“Fran, I could wear a dress, I’m still a priest.”
“You scare me sometimes, you know it? Mr. Casual.”
“Fr. Casual. I’ll speak to him in Latin.”
“You’re not funny.” Fran seemed about to say something else, but then looked at his watch and hurried out of the kitchen.
Terry had already spotted the coffeemaker. He found a can of Folgers in the first cupboard he opened and was running water from the tap, waiting for it to get cold, when Fran appeared again.
“My car’s here.”
“How’d you know?”
“It’s supposed to be here at seven-fifteen and that’s what time it is. Listen, Terr. Don’t fuck up, okay?”
“I won’t.”
“The wrong attitude alone could keep the indictment active.” Fran paused. “Buddy, I went way out on a limb for you. I said the Pajonnys hired you to drive a truck, ten bucks an hour. You were going to Africa and needed some extra expense money. I offered to give you whatever you needed, but you wanted to work for it—it’s the kind of guy you are, hardworking. Yes, you knew you were transporting cigarettes but had no idea it involved tax fraud or you wouldn’t have taken the job. You don’t know who bought the cigarettes or what they did with them. That’s your story and you stick to it. You nervous?”
“Why? I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“That’s good,” Fran said, “that’s the attitude to have. Any questions?”
“I can’t think of any.”
“You gonna walk me out?”
Terry said, “Sure,” and turned the water off.
Fran hadn’t moved. “I forgot to tell you, Johnny called. His number’s by the phone in the library. Call him—you don’t want to piss him off. But you also want to hold your ground. By that I mean you don’t owe him anything, not a dime. You can’t admit to anybody you received a payment. Johnny tries to get tough, back off, you’re not kids in the schoolyard now. He threatens you, tell Padilla, the prosecutor. You don’t want that asshole on your back.”
“Johnny or the prosecutor?”
Fran said, “You can’t help it, can you? Your normal reaction is to be a smart-ass. I imagined coming back from Africa, all you’ve been through over there, you’d have changed, become more serious . . .”
Terry nodded, waiting.
“. . . show a sense of responsibility, and gratitude. You know how much I sent you altogether, counting what I paid for the T-shirts? Over twenty thousand dollars. You write and tell me about the weather and, ‘Oh, thanks for the money.’ ”
Terry said, “You wrote it off, didn’t you, as a contribution?”
“That’s not the point. What about the cigarette money? With the three trips you must’ve taken off with fifty grand, counting the Pajonnys’ cut from the last one. You spent all that?”
Trying to find out if he had any money. Terry said, “Fran, I was over there five years.” And that was all he wanted to say about it.
“I read one of your letters to Mary Pat, the one you opened up in a little more than usual, that had all the smells in it. I commented that you were starting to sound like your old self again. You know what Mary Pat said? ‘Is that good or bad?’ ” Fran said, “You see what I mean?” br />
Terry wasn’t sure, but nodded again, squinting just a little, showing Fran he was giving it serious thought, while Fran seemed to stare at him as long as he could before looking at his watch again.
“I gotta go.”
Terry waited on the front steps until the Lincoln Town Car was out of sight. He went into the library, saw two numbers for Johnny on the message pad—his home and what looked like his cell phone—as he dialed Debbie’s number. As soon as she answered Terry said, “He’s gone.”
Man, last night. Late night decided his future for him. It would have to come one day at a time, but the trip looked full of promise all the way.
Just talking about it, Debbie telling stories . . . First offering to twist one if he wanted. “A yobie? Sure, why not.” She appreciated his name for it and said that’s what she’d call a joint from now on, a yobie. See? Looking into the future together. They sat on her secondhand St. Vincent de Paul sofa toking and grinning at each other, sipping their drinks, getting high while they looked for a way to score off Randy. Now loaded. A fact she hadn’t mentioned before. Married a wealthy woman, divorced, but left in good shape, with a few million and a restaurant downtown.
“We’ll get to that,” Debbie said. “I think I told you, the first time he asked to borrow money he showed me a picture of his boat?”
“The one he didn’t own,” Terry said.
“That’s right, but what I didn’t mention, it had my name lettered on the back end, debbie, and under it, palm beach. He said he renamed it because he was so crazy about me. And oh, by the way, could I spare a couple of grand.”
“How’d he do it?”
“Wait. Okay, now this is later, after he wiped me out and took off. It’s been a couple of months and I’m in Florida visiting my mother. I stopped by the marina Randy was always talking about, looked around and there it was, a forty-six-foot cutter named debbie with palm beach under it. I asked in the marina bar if anyone knew a guy named Randy Agley. The bartender goes, ‘You mean Aglioni?’ A salty old guy sitting at the bar goes, ‘Randy, that’s the creep went around taking pictures of the boats. We ran him off.’ I asked if they knew where Randy hung out. The bartender tells me to try the Breakers, where guys like Randy troll for rich broads. The old guy says try Au Bar, he saw him there a couple of times. Okay, at the Breakers I find out Mr. Agley is not allowed on the premises and Au Bar isn’t there anymore, it’s something else. I thought I’d struck out. But then right after, I have my mom out to dinner at Chuck and Harold’s, we’re almost finished and there’s Mr. Wonderful himself. He has a drink in his hand and his sights on two women at a table. They’re dressed casually but you can tell they’re Palm Beach, the hair, simple jewelry but the real thing. Randy waits till they’ve ordered their drinks before moving in, the cheap fuck. I’m watching—it’s obvious they don’t know him. He gives them some bullshit for a couple of minutes, something like, ‘Didn’t I see you charming ladies at the Donald’s last week? No? Then it must’ve been . . . ‘ He joins them. Pretty soon the women are laughing and he’s not even funny, has no sense of humor at all. I used to throw lines at him, ideas, off the top of my head? Like I’d say, ‘My boyfriend is so good-looking, when he goes out he has to wear women’s clothes,’ beat, ‘or else he gets mobbed by babes.’ Randy would think about it with a blank look on his face, then turn on this fake laugh that sounds like ha ha ha. He wasn’t fun. He had no idea how to get into a goof.”