Blue World (48 page)

have freedom?“

“You’ve gone mad,” McDowell managed to say.

“No, sir. I’ve gone sane. Look at us! Three blackbirds in a golden cage! And we sit in here and study and read and do not connect with that!”

He emerged from the bathroom, passing McDowell, and pointed through his window. “The real world. Where everybody isn’t a saint, sir. Oh, we’re full of great advice and platitudes! We speak, and medieval iron falls out of our mouths! We’ve got to come to grips with the world, sir! With real people! Flesh and blood, not… marble statues and numbers on a damned budget sheet!”

“Holy Lord,” McDowell breathed, retreating. “I think we need an exorcist.”

“And that’s just what I mean!” John said. “We’ve got to stop putting all the blame on Satan, and start understanding why there’s evil in humans.

And when we do come eyeball-to-eyeball with Satan, we shouldn’t blink and run back to the church! No! We ought to have guts enough to follow the devil to hell and fight him on his own turf!“ He looked from the monsignor to Darryl and back again, his eyes anguished. ”If we don’t, who will?“

Darryl lowered his face and put his hand to his forehead. He guessed now what had sparked this tirade: John’s visit to the porno parlors of Broadway.

“I’m sorry,” John went on. Then corrected himself. “No, I’m not sorry. That’s how I feel. I’m not sorry at all.”

“I am,” the monsignor said, recovering his icy composure. “You’re in serious need of counseling, John. Serious need. At ten o’clock I’ll have a list for you of functions and meetings you’ll attend while Father Stafford and I are at our convention. When we return, you and I are going to have an in-depth discussion about your future at the Cathedral of St. Francis.” He started to stalk out, then halted. “Can I trust you to attend those functions and your duties as a priest in this parish, or shall I contact Bishop Hagan?”

“You can trust me,” John told him, and McDowell strode quickly away.

“Your can is in the jam,” Darryl said. “Have you flipped your lid, John? This isn’t like the old you!”

“The old me is dead,” John answered. “And thank God for it. I was deaf, dumb, and blind.”

“And now you think you can see?”

“Now I’m not afraid to look.”

Darryl started to respond, but the words crumpled to ashes before he could get them out. Their residue left a bad taste in his mouth. “I don’t know,” he finally said, and threw up his hands. “I just don’t know.” He walked away, befuddled and furiously trying to sort it all out.

John closed the door and returned to the bathroom. He took a One-A-Day and an iron pill. His eyes looked like red jellyfish. He’d slept hardly at all after awakening to hear her crying, but he hadn’t moved again all the long, rainy night. He’d known she didn’t want him to see her like that, defenseless and beaten, holding a pillow and sobbing into it. He wasn’t going to be able to see her today; nor tomorrow, nor any day through Wednesday. He yearned to tell her who he really was, but for that he needed to be with her, in person. It would be a shock, to say the least. No, no; she wasn’t ready for that yet, and neither was he.

He went to the window and peered out at the wet street. How was he going to stay in contact with Debbie--look after her, as it were--and still carry out his duties here? It was impossible! His first responsibility was here, yes, but still… there was no telling what she might get into if he wasn’t around.

Right. She’s a big girl, jerk! he told himself. She got along for twenty-six years without you, didn’t she? Yeah, he thought, and look at the mess she’s in. He feared she would do something rash, because she was torn up about not getting the movie part, or that she was going to overdose on cocaine, or… well, the list of what-ifs was endless and scary. I need to be in two places at once, he thought. Or at least I need another set of eyeballs.

Eyeballs. Hold it.

John went to the Yellow Pages. He found the listing for Detective Agencies, wedged between Designers, Underground Earth Houses, and Devotion for the Day. Then he looked through the agency listings until he found one close to the church; it was Investigations Unlimited, and its address was about four blocks north. The ad said the agency specialized in Missing Persons, Marriage and Business Suspicions, Runaways, Surveillance and Photography, Bodyguarding and Security. At the bottom of the ad was “The Hoss Is the Boss.”

Well, John thought, it was worth a shot. He particularly liked the Bodyguarding and Security part. He dialed the number.

A gruff, throaty voice answered on the third ring. “Investigations Unlimited. The Hoss Is the Boss.”

“I’d like to make an appointment, please. For today, if possible.”

“Hold on a minute. Let me check with my secretary.” There was a pause. Then: “How about thirty minutes?”

“No… it’ll have to be this afternoon. Say one or one thirty?”

“One it is, friend. Got you down on my schedule book in red ink. What’s the name?”

“Father John Lancaster.”

“Oh. I see,” the voice said carefully. “I’m Hoss Teegarten. You come on in at one, I’ll take care of you pronto.”

John hung up. Sat there for a moment wondering how he was going to pay for this. Well, he still had three hundred and sixty-two dollars of Joey Sinclair’s money. It would be put to good use after all. Then John looked up Florists, and he called one with an address in North Beach and ordered a dozen red roses to be delivered to the apartment of a Miss Debbie Stoner.

On Greenwich Street, a creaking elevator took John up to the fifth floor of a building that had so many patched earthquake cracks in it he was amazed it hadn’t slid apart like slices of cheese on a slick platter.

The office of Investigations Unlimited had one of those frosted-glass doors straight out of

The Maltese Falcon, and John felt a little like a hunched Peter Lorre as he rapped on the glass. He expected to hear a Bogart snarl.

Instead, there was nothing but an erratic thump… thump.

Then a pause. Another thump.

And another one, quickly following. He knocked on the glass again, louder. Still a thump.

A silence.

Thump… thump.

Followed by the squeal of a chair’s springs.

John turned the door’s handle and opened it.

It was a single small room with a desk, a file cabinet, and stacks of newspapers, letters, and other papers in cardboard boxes. There was no secretary, and the window was grimy. A coffee cup and an ashtray full of cigarette butts sat on the desk; a cigarette was still smoking. John craned his neck in and looked for signs of life.

A fat man in a red-striped shirt and overalls was plucking darts out of a taped-up, perforated photograph of Jim and Tammy Baker. He had a Walkman on his cueball-bald head, and even from this distance John could hear cranked up rock music. The man suddenly looked toward the door, his electric-blue eyes widening. He had a curly, unkempt ginger-hued beard. His gaze skidded toward the grinning dartboard and then back to John. “Friends of yours?” he asked.

“Certainly not.” He hesitated, about to turn and leave.

“Come on in!” Hoss Teegarten said with a broad smile. He stuck Tammy right between the eyes. Then he stripped off the Walkman--The Doors’ “Riders on the Storm” pounded out--and popped the tape out. “Sit down,

Father,“ he said, motioning with a big hand toward a dusty green chair. ”Right there in front of my desk!“

John entered reluctantly. The place looked like a crazed rat’s nest. Teegarten made a show of straightening papers that he then unceremoniously dumped into a box. He had three chins and a round moon face with a nose like a tulip bulb. His beard hung down over his chest. “Sit down! please!” Teegarten insisted, and John eased himself into the little-used chair.

“You’re a little early, aren’t you? I didn’t expect you until one.” Teegarten sat down, and the chair yelled.

“It’s six minutes after one,” John said patiently.

“Oh. It is?” He shook his wristwatch violently, then gave a weak smile. “Cheap watch.”

“I think I’m in the wrong place.” John started to rise.

“Now, hold on, Father! Just one minute, okay? Tell me who this is.” He swiveled laboriously around. Behind him was a rack with a multitude of hats. He plucked a huge cowboy hat off and put it on his head. “Who do I look like?”

The Pillsbury Doughboy, he thought, but of course he didn’t say it.

“Hoss!” Teegarten said. “You know! From

Bonanza!

Everybody always says I look like him. Dan Blocker. He died, but he was Hoss. That’s me too.“

“I think I’d better get back to the church.” John got up and went to the door.

“The Cathedral of St. Francis, you mean? Where you’ve been a priest for going on four years? And before that you were a priest at a small church in San Mateo for three years? And before that you were at the Grace of St. Mark Catholic Church in Fresno? Is that right?”

John stopped, hand on the knob. He turned slowly toward Hoss Teegarten.

The fat man leaned back, dangerously, in his chair and cupped his hands behind his Hoss-hatted head. “You were born in Medford, Oregon, your parents moved to Fresno when you were twelve years old. Neal and Elaine Lancaster still live there, do they?”

“Yes,” John said.

“And your dad owns part of a Ford dealership. Anything else I ought to know?” He grinned.

“How did you… get all that information?”

“It’s amazing what you can do over the phone, if you put your soul into it. I called the bishop. Hagan’s his name, right? I talked to his secretary, Mrs. Weaver. Bet you didn’t know you were talking to an eccentric old rich dude who wanted to donate some heavy cash to a young priest who helped his wife cross a busy intersection while her arms were all full of shopping bags.” He wiggled his eyebrows up and down.

“What was the point of going to all the trouble?”

Hoss laughed huskily, took off his hat, and sat up. “I don’t have such a great office, do I? Don’t have a whole lot of clients either. So I wanted you to know: you’ve got a job for me, I’ll do my damnedest… uh… darnedest.”

John stood there thinking it over.

“You want to tell me how I can help you, Father?” Teegarten urged.

John returned to his chair. He refused a cup of watery coffee from Teegarten and said, “I’d like someone watched. Protected, really. You do bodyguarding, right?”

“Plenty of it,” Teegarten said, smoking a fresh cigarette.

Somehow John didn’t believe him, but he plowed on. “It’s a girl. Her name is Debbie Stoner.” He gave him her address. “She’s… an actress.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s she in?”

John traced a scratch on the desk. “She’s…” Go ahead, he told himself. “She’s… an erotic actress.”

“You mean porno,” Teegarten said, and the O puffed a smoke ring.

“I want you to watch her. Protect her. I don’t know what I want… but…”

“You want her to have a guardian angel,” Teegarten supplied. He smiled beatifically.

The deal was struck. Teegarten agreed to keep tabs on Debbie from tonight until Wednesday morning. He would follow her--at a discreet distance, of course--and let John know where she went, whom she saw, and who went in and out of her apartment. Also, if she went to any clubs or discos--like the Mile-High Club--he would be nearby to keep an eye on her. And if she got in any trouble? “I don’t have a brown belt for nothing,” he said.

Teegarten gladly accepted the three hundred and sixty two dollars as a first payment, and then he put on his Sherlock Holmes deerstalker hat.

John got out before his better judgment overcame his need to be in contact with Debbie, if only through the eyes of Hoss Teegarten.

And as John left the office and stepped into the rickety elevator, Giro’s wife, Anna, plucked the photograph of Debbie Stoner off the display of contest winners. “This is her, Julius!” she said, beaming at the stocky dark-haired young man who stood before her. “Now, have you ever seen a more beautiful face than this?”

“Yeah, she looks fine. She’s a fox, huh?”

Giro grinned and slapped him on the back. “Since when do you know about foxes? He’s my blood, Anna! Watch out for him!”

“Aw, Uncle Giro,” Julius said, embarrassed by all this attention. He’d been dreading this visit for two months, ever since his father had made the arrangements for him. Uncle Giro and Aunt Anna had a nice apartment, up on the floor above the grocery, but Uncle Giro snored and Anna talked his head off when all he wanted to do was go out and score a little San Francisco action. He knew the story: they said a cable snapped every time a virgin crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, and it sure didn’t look to him as if it were in any danger of collapse.

“She’s a sweet girl!” Anna told him. “You should count your lucky stars you should ever meet such a sweet girl!”

“Does she live in the neighborhood?”

“Anna, he’s got that gleam in his eye!” Giro said. “Look at his brain turn!”

“She’s cute.” Julius stared at the photograph. He had a good eye for faces, and she really did look nice. Maybe it was the right decision to come to San Francisco, after all.

“She goes back with the rest of the winners!” Anna told him; she took the photograph and returned it to the display. Then a customer came in who wanted some marinated mushrooms, and Giro went back to get them for him. Anna had to tend to the register for a kid who was buying a Rolling Stone and a pack of Life-Savers.

Julius drifted to the magazine rack.

Now, here was the hot stuff! he thought, and instantly picked up a

Cavalier.

Paged quickly through it, found nothing of real interest. But next to it on the rack was another magazine, entitled

X-Rated Movie Review.

“Wow!” Julius breathed softly. He picked up the magazine and this time slowly turned the pages, taking in all the action.

Good lookers, all. Where’d they get these foxes? They must grow ‘em on trees in L.A., he thought. Whore orchards. He ate the tanned, lush, straining bodies with his eyes. And the names: Cyndy Funn, Paula Angel, Tiffany Glove, Debra Rocks, Heather…

Wait a minute. Wait. Just. One. Minute.

This face he’d seen before. Hadn’t he? It was…

Julius blinked. This had to be a mirage. Sure. It had to be.