Daughter of Darkness (2 page)

    "You give him any sleeping pills?"

    "Three of them. But obviously, they didn't do much good. So let's let him watch TV." She turned to the woman on the cot. "This is the man who found you."

    Ron grinned shyly, obviously intimidated by the woman's beauty.

    "Thank you, Ron," the woman said.

    "My pleasure, ma'am." Then, to Sister Mary Agnes, "Maybe I should put a time limit on him. Two or three hours, say."

    Sister Mary Agnes fought back a smile. The men loved to boss each other around, to act as her lieutenant. The men were harder on each other than she could ever be.

    "Just get some sleep, Ron," Sister Mary Agnes said gently, "and let Harrigan worry about himself."

    "Okay," Ron said, obviously disappointed, obviously eager to go up to the TV room and boss Harrigan around a little. "If you say so, Sister."

    He nodded to the young woman and walked carefully out of the infirmary.

    "Is that mine?" the woman said, staring at the billfold.

    "I assume so. I asked Ron to go check the alley. See if he could find anything you might have dropped."

    The wallet was a good one. Fine leather, hand sewn. The nun opened it up. "Well," she said, "Whoever you are, you seem to be doing pretty well for yourself."

    "Why do you say that?"

    "There's over a thousand dollars in your wallet."

    "Why would I carry that much money?"

    Sister Mary Agnes shrugged. "I don't know. But your clothes are expensive, too."

    "They are?"

    "Ralph Lauren."

    "Is there any ID in the wallet?"

    "No. Just the money."

    The woman closed her eyes, rested the back of her hand on her forehead, as if she had a terrible headache. "This doesn't make any sense. Any of it."

    "The big thing right now is to just take it easy," the nun said. "Don't get any more worked up than necessary. You're safe, that's the important thing. How about a Diet Pepsi or something?"

    "I am pretty dry."

    "Good. I'll be right back, then."

    Sister Mary Agnes walked through the empty first floor. Fifteen picnic tables were spread out over the wide concrete floor. In the back was the kitchen. The shelter fed up to two hundred men and women a day. The Archbishop saw to it that Sister Mary Agnes' shelter never ran out of food. It was said that the nun intimidated the Archbishop and that he would do anything to avoid a confrontation with her. Sister Mary Agnes had heard this same story many times. She didn't believe it but it was amusing to think about.

    She passed the steps that led to the second floor. Up there, forty cots covered a large room. In the winter, men slept on blankets on the floor, anything to get out of the cold. The Archbishop saw to it that Sister Mary Agnes was also kept in sheets and blankets.

    Sister Mary Agnes walked more slowly than she had earlier in the day. At her age, a certain melancholy came over her at day's end. She had gone to the convent straight from the farm, back when she was sixteen years old. She'd served as a nurse in World War II, and had gone into the concentration camps with the American armies. She still had screaming nightmares about the camps. The camps changed her. She hadn't believed in true evil until she saw them. She'd believed, up until then, that virtually all men and women could be redeemed if only they would submit to God's wisdom. But the camps showed her otherwise. The camps showed her that there were men and women who were truly evil and could never be redeemed. Years later, when she found out that the Vatican and the Pope had helped key Nazis escape to South America, she knew that true evil had even claimed the souls of her own clerics. This had engendered in her a profound and long-lasting crisis of faith. She came back to Chicago in 1949 and went to work in the ghettos of the city. Only through working with the poor and the outcasts was she able to find Christ again.

    In the dark kitchen, the nun went to one of the two super-size refrigerators a local merchant had donated to the shelter after the good sister had given him an hour-and-a-half lecture (right in his own store) on the true meaning of charity. She was used to being in the kitchen at this time of night. Her old friend Michael Coffey often stopped in for a diet soda about now.

    Coffey… she smiled when she thought of him. All the guilt he felt for the death of his wife and daughter. She'd been able to help him at least a little bit. And for that she thanked God.

    She wondered where Coffey was now…

    

    

    There were three kinds of cab drivers at the Windy City Cab Company. The first was the lease driver, who paid the company daily for the cab he drove. The second was the owner-operator, who paid a weekly leasing fee and who would own the cab when the lease had been paid. The third was what they called the medallion driver. This meant that you bought and owned your own cab.

    Three years ago, Michael Coffey had been a Chicago homicide detective. His police career ended on a snowy November night when an escaped killer surprised Coffey in a dark apartment. Coffey killed him. Two years earlier, the man had murdered Coffey's wife and daughter. What made the situation even worse was that while the shooting was taking place, Coffey was out with some of his cop buddies bowling and drinking beer. If only he'd been home…

    Her maiden name had been Janice Cooperman. She'd lived down the block from him as they were growing up, this in a neighborhood over by DePaul University. He was Catholic, she was Jewish. Both his people and hers said it would never work. They said this when he started walking her home in fourth grade; they said this when he took her to their very first eighth grade dance; they said this when he gave her his class ring in eleventh grade; they said this when they took a junior-year apartment near Northwestern, which they both attended; and they whispered it at their wedding, where a priest
and
a rabbi conducted the ceremony. Little Janice Cooperman with the long, dark bangs and the big, dark eyes and the devastating sweet smile. He'd fallen in love with her that very first day her folks moved in down the block; and he loved her still. And would always love her.

    Soon after his confrontation with their murderer, Coffey took early retirement and bought himself a new Ford and, after getting his chauffeur's license, became a cab driver. He no longer felt he could be a reliable cop. There were too many emotions surging through him to remain completely rational. Despite the fact that all his friends thought he was crazy, he liked the city at night. Yes, there was violence, but there was glamour and excitement, too. The job also let him do something else he had a passion for. He was able to sleep late in the morning, usually hitting the sack around two a.m., and then get up and spend some time at the typewriter. He had sold his first novel last year, a paperback original about a rookie cop. The book had won him decent if not remarkable reviews and a contract for a sequel, which he was halfway through. He had framed reproductions of his first cover hanging up in no less than four rooms in his house. His sister Jan had suggested that maybe he could hang one on the front door. That was one thing about the kid sister he'd always loved so much. She was a true Coffey, a smart-ass from the get-go.

    There were a number of conventions going on in the city, so Coffey had spent a good deal of the night in the Loop ferrying guys back and forth between expensive hotels, past Blooomingdale's and Brooks Brothers and Neiman Marcus, and out to the North Pier where a number of yacht parties were going on. The new night spots were especially popular tonight: the Hard Rock Cafe and Michael Jordan's and Rainforest and the House of Blues. Conventioneers were apparently getting hipper, no longer settling for the same old same old. Nobody had barfed, nobody had picked a fight with him, nobody had asked him to find them hookers. Coffey felt blessed. He'd drive over and have a soda with Sister Mary Agnes, and then call it a night.

    He kept the window rolled down. It was one of those smoky-smelling autumn nights in the city. Hot and ripe. Indian summer.

    

    

    The front of the shelter was dark. Coffey had a key, so that was no problem. He usually let himself in anyway. This time of night, you could generally find Sister Mary Agnes in her tiny office going over the books, or in the infirmary trying to calm somebody who had delirium tremens or was experiencing some bad drugs. If the person looked to be in serious trouble, Sister Mary Agnes always called an ambulance right away, then phoned ahead to a nearby ER to let them know who was coming and what the trouble was. Coffey was amazed at how little the nun slept. Partly this was due to her nightmares. The nun had told him all about going into the concentration camps. She'd brought the Holocaust home to him in a way that he'd never experienced before. No wonder she had nightmares…

    The front part of the ground floor was in shadow. In fact, the only light Coffey could see anywhere came from the infirmary. Coffey, a slender, intense-looking man with unruly black hair, made his way to the light.

    He peeked in and was stunned by what he saw. The woman was startlingly gorgeous. Classically so. He just stood there in the doorway, looking at her as she lay there, apparently sleeping. Her face suggested so many things, beauty, intelligence, eroticism, humor, and yet-great sorrow.

    And then he realized
why
the sleeping woman appealed to him so much. Because she resembled
Janice
so much…

    The resemblance was almost chilling.

    But what was anybody so lovely and so well-dressed doing in a homeless shelter? And where was Sister Agnes?

    The woman said, "Have you seen the Sister?" Her eyes were open now. They were as beautiful as the rest of her.

    "I was going to ask you the same thing."

    "She went to get me a soda. But she's been gone a long time."

    "She'll be along, then." He couldn't take his eyes off her.

    "You… you look as if you've seen me before," the woman said quietly. "Do you know who I am?"

    What a strange question to ask-almost as if
she
didn't know who she was. "No, I'm afraid I don't." Then, "My name's Michael Coffey, by the way."

    The woman made a hapless face. "That's one of the things the Sister and I are trying to figure out."

    "Oh?"

    "My name. I can't remember it. She thinks it may be amnesia of some kind." The woman looked absolutely terrified. And he didn't blame her.

    

    

    The woman was sitting up on the cot when Sister Mary Agnes reached the infirmary.

    The woman put her lovely face in her long, shapely hands. "This is such a nightmare. I can't remember anything."

    Sister Mary Agnes stepped forward and handed her a can of Diet Pepsi. "Here, sweetheart, you said you were dry."

    The woman looked up, took the can, and quietly thanked the nun.

    Sister Mary Agnes said, "Coffey drives a cab now, but he used to be a homicide detective. Maybe he can help us."

    "The first thing we need to do, is get you to a hospital," Coffey said. "You need to be examined by a doctor or two. Then you need to go to the police. They can help you find out who you are."

    "Maybe by that time," Sister Mary Agnes said, "your memory will've come back. Most amnesia goes away pretty quickly."

    "I'll be happy to drive you in my cab," Coffey said. "Free."

    "That's an offer he only makes to pretty women," Sister Mary Agnes said. "The 'free' I mean."

    The woman suddenly clutched her head, a whimpering sound coming from her throat.

    "What's wrong?" Coffey said.

    "Headache," the woman said, a moaning tone in her voice now. "Motel room."

    Coffey and the nun looked at each other. Motel room? Was the woman having some kind of breakdown?

    "We really need to get you to an ER," Coffey said.

    Coffey and the nun went over to the woman and helped her to her feet. Her slender hands still clung to her head and her face was a portrait of near-intolerable pain. Sister Mary Agnes hurried to her medicine supply and grabbed a large bottle of aspirin. She dumped three into the palm of her hand and then rushed over and fed them to the woman one at a time, who chased them down with Diet Pepsi.

    

    

    "How's your head?"

    "Better. Amazingly so."

    "You stick with Sister Mary Agnes, and you can't go wrong."

    The woman smiled. "Apparently."

    There was a sadness to the empty streets at this time of night. Coffey had once seen an Edward Hopper exhibit at the Art Museum. Ever since, empty midnight streets had always reminded him of Hopper's paintings, the lonesome sitting alone in diners while darkness prowled around them, hungry, relentless, and sometimes fatal. They always looked so small and scared. Hopper's people. This part of Downtown South was Hopper country, the neon burning in the windows of ancient taverns, the ancient rusted cars, and the occasional sad winos shambling down the streets.

    "She sure is nice," the woman said.

    "Sister Mary Agnes?"

    "Yes."

    "Yeah. She sure is."

    "How do you know her?"

    "She was my shrink for a while."

    "Your shrink?"

    He looked over at her. "I started drinking more than I should." He told her what happened to his wife and daughter. And he told her about his novel, his new life. "The liquor started to affect my work. I tried AA. I even tried a detox clinic. Neither one worked for me. So one night I found this homeless guy crawling around in the street-he was in really bad shape-and since I was near Sister Mary Agnes' place, I decided to take him there. That's how I met her. After she cleaned up the poor guy and got him into bed. she asked me if I wanted a cup of coffee. I said yes, and I've been seeing her ever since."