Deadly Blessings (36 page)

The church dwarfed the rundown buildings
surrounding it; small homes, most were single level structures with
broken siding, all in desperate need of paint and structural
repairs. Or, better yet, a bulldozer.

After driving past it, I parked in the
church’s lot, a half block away. Small, asphalt, it hadn’t been
resurfaced in a decade, judging from its many cracks and
indentations. The sun had disappeared behind new gray clouds, and a
breeze had kicked up. Pulling my jacket on, I headed into the wind
and toward the front of the church.

The Milla Voight—Matthew Breczyk story had
taken over my life. I thought back and tried to recall the moment
it happened. The moment I’d reached the point of no return. I knew
without a doubt that if I were able to nail Bruno today, I’d have
the key to all the answers I sought.

I reached in my jacket for the hundredth
time since I left, to verify that my microphone sat safe in place.
Without time to go home and change, I’d been reduced to stripping
off my T-shirt and now wore nothing under my hooded sweatshirt
except my bra. Brought a whole new meaning to underwire, I thought,
feeling half-naked. The tiny microphone head sat snug between my
breasts, taped in place, deep enough that it couldn’t be seen
despite the sweatshirt’s zipper front pulled low. No chance of any
contact with fabric. Thank goodness we were meeting indoors, I
thought. In this whistling wind, I’d never make out a word of the
conversation when I got back.

Keeping my head down, negotiating the uneven
sidewalk in front of battered and shuttered homes, I shivered. I
saw nothing but dirt, everywhere—the tough, dusty kind, that kids
didn’t even like to play in because digging produced only
misshapen, rocky lumps. I couldn’t see a patch of grass anywhere,
though that had little to do with the onslaught of fall. Tiny city
parkways were nothing but hard earth, scuffed and littered with
debris. Even the weeds had been frightened away, apparently. Beer
cans and bottles, used diapers, and discarded piles of furniture
were strewn everywhere.

A group of young men loitered across the
street, the wind bringing their quiet conversation whipping past my
ears so fast I couldn’t make out anything except that they spoke in
Spanish. The area made me nervous and as long as they ignored me,
I’d ignore them.

Judging from the long white streaks running
down its walls, pigeons made their home in the church’s upper
nooks. Now the cooing creatures circled a bit of food out front,
eyeing me warily, waiting till I was less than a yard away before
they flew off in a flapping huff. They’d been pecking at a fried
chicken leg. I looked up at the rooftop they’d scattered to.
“Cannibals,” I scolded them.

The church’s crazy house steps leaned
downward to the left, and as my hand skimmed the cold iron
banister, I felt it wiggle in response. A quick look around and I
realized that any handicapped, wheelchair-bound parishioners would
have a devil of time getting into the structure for Mass. And a
slow-moving elder could easily get caught in this neighborhood’s
gang cross-fire. Thank goodness for Channel 50 and the Mass for
Shut-Ins. Maybe by watching from home, they’d save their hides as
well as their souls.

The church could have been quaint. Like a
diamond in the rough, however, the setting robbed it of grandeur.
Had it been magically transported to a sprawling meadow in England,
with misty fog surrounding it at daybreak, there would be no end to
the tourists lining up for a peek inside.

The huge front doors were recent additions.
Tall, they were made of shiny ribbed steel. The uneven surface
designed to fend off graffiti attacks, I supposed. Whoever decided
on that had been only marginally successful. There were a couple of
slogans that were distinguishable, if you tilted your head a
certain way. “Jesus loves the Savior Souls,” and “Gangstas for
God,” were my two favorites.

“
Hey,
chula
.”

The raised voice came from across the
street. Kitty-corner from the church. A group of four young men
watched me, with apparent interest. I looked up. The speaker, a
rangy Hispanic fellow, pushed himself up from leaning over the side
of a rusty red pickup truck. Two of the others, both average in
height and weight, kept their eyes on him, as he started to saunter
around the vehicle. While I would call the fourth guy heavyset if I
were trying to be polite, the truth was he was fat. Real fat. He
sprawled across the pickup’s open bed, one leg dangling off the
back as he watched us, his mouth hanging open, making him look
stupid.

Ignoring the gangbangers, I tugged at the
closest, left-hand door. Locked.

The leader spoke again. “You too late for
church, baby. Maybe you come over here, and I give you something to
pray for?”

Loud guffaws from the three other guys.

The worst thing, I knew, was to show panic.
All four of these guys sported the same red knit hats, worn tight
against their heads. The fat guy’s long wavy black hair strung out,
messy, and long enough to drape over his shoulders.

Looking around the immediate area, I
strained for the sight of a slightly beat-up white van. Nothing. I
fixed the speaker with my best withering stare. “Thanks for the
offer, but I’ll take a rain check.” Oh, that was smooth, I
thought.

He turned toward his friends and shrugged. I
knocked ‘em over with my wit, yup. But the movement stalled him
long enough for me to try the right-hand door.

Locked, too.

“
You
pretty for a
chica
blanca
,” he said to me, starting across
the street again. “Maybe I come over there, help you
out?”

The three other fellows straightened, moving
around from the far side of the pickup like a pack of wolves,
gathering behind him. The big guy hoisted himself forward, gingerly
putting weight on one foot. I could tell he didn’t really want to
move unless he had to.

“
I’m fine, thanks,” I said,
feeling a tremor in my throat, hoping it didn’t sound as bad as it
felt.

So far the conversation wouldn’t do more
than make Jeff curious. I looked around again but still didn’t see
the white van he drove up here. I hoped he was near. We’d separated
on Lake Shore Drive and I kept him apprised of my location as I
drove, wishing we had come up with some sort of two-way
communication. But with this wind, whooshing about, whipping my
hair, he might not be able to hear me, regardless.

Half a block away, my car wouldn’t do me any
good. Even if I tried to run for it, I’d still have to fumble with
the keys and unlock the door before climbing in. I swore my next
car would have automatic locks and one of those remote control
openers.

If I lived long enough to get a next
car.

Smiling through my rising panic as the
fellows approached, shuffling across the street, as though they had
all the time in the world, I thought twice about the fact that
people thought gangbangers were basically stupid. I had no doubt
that these fellows knew precisely what they were doing, exercising
exquisite psychological torture on me, knowing I had nowhere to
run, and nothing to do except watch them get closer.

I widened my smile, as though dismissing
them, as though utterly unafraid, but hearing the pounding of my
heart in my ears, a panicked thrumming. I headed instead to the
farthest set of doors.

On the way, I noticed it. A doorbell.

A doorbell on a church.

I didn’t have time to analyze how very
peculiar it was that there should be a doorbell sitting prim on the
edge near the right center door, I just pushed it and hoped that
the fact that it was cracked didn’t mean it wasn’t working.

I pushed it twice more, listening intently,
hoping to hear the chimes reverberate in the church to send
someone, anyone, scurrying over to answer my plea.

Nothing.

The four guys made it to my side of the
building, and continued to shuffle my direction. As they neared, I
noticed that all four of them wore long blue jeans flared out in
wide bell-bottom hems, the right leg of which skimmed the sidewalk,
fraying the dirty bottoms even further. White strings from the
ragged fabric dragged behind them like tiny streamers across the
filthy street. Their left cuffs were turned up, doubled, exposing
the light blue inside of the denim. All four. All the left side.
Some sort of gang allegiance, I figured. They spoke in Spanish, and
something they said caused one of the two slimmer fellows to smile,
showing a gold front tooth.

“
Maybe she don’ like dirty
Mexicans,” gold-tooth said, pronouncing the word “Me-hee-cans.”
“Wha’ you think, Rico?”

Rico, the leader, made a long noise of
assessment. “I think maybe you right. Maybe we should teach her a
lesson, eh? Show her what a Latino Lover can do for poor lonely
white babe. Give her big treat, eh?”

Three of the guys sported teardrop tattoos
on their faces. The fat guy didn’t have any, but the guys that did,
had at least two, each. I’d heard once that teardrop tattoos
signify a killing. If that was true, between the three of them,
they’d killed seven.

Deep breath, I told myself.

Even if Jeff were nearby, he probably
couldn’t pick up their words, so he might not know the panic that
rose in my chest, though I bet the microphone was close enough to
pick up the thumps of my frantic heartbeat. I half wanted Jeff to
appear, but I knew that his presence could impede my plans. “I’m
okay, Jeff,” I said quietly, hoping he was listening.

Standing as close to the doorbell as I
could, I leaned on it again, like a lifeline. At the same time my
mind raced trying to come up with a plan to talk my way out of this
confrontation.

“
Hey, wait a minute,” I
said. Where this chutzpah was coming from was anybody’s guess. I
acted on pure instinct. The tougher prey appeared, the less
appealing it was. Or so the Discovery channel claimed, in their
special on the hunting rituals of Amazon Wildlife.

Rico got close enough that I could smell
fried food on his clothes. His eyelashes, straight and black,
sloped downward, giving his brown eyes a relaxed, yet no less
sinister look. His dark leather jacket flapped open, and beneath
it, despite the cold, he wore a silk shirt, unbuttoned halfway
down. A heavy gold charm, Christ on the cross, hung right where the
buttons started, in the center of his hairless chest.

The back of my brain chose this moment to
chastise me for not ever investing in the pepper spray my friend
Maria kept nagging me to buy. I could hear my own voice, tsk,
tsking, telling me what a fool I’d been to wander about a known
rough neighborhood without any means of self-protection.

“
Yeah?” Rico
said.

“
You aren’t gonna mess with
me.”

The four of them laughed. “Oh yeah? And why
not?”

I fixed my gaze on the gold crucifix at
Rico’s chest as I tried desperately to remember the lessons from a
single self-defense class I’d taken four years ago. Eyes, groin,
knees. I thought those were the places I ought to target. Or maybe
not. I couldn’t remember. And that half hour class had assumed a
one-on-one attack. Not four on one.

The fat guy hung back a bit. Maybe three on
one. “Holy ground,” I said, opening my hands, a little. Not too
wide. I wanted to keep all my body parts out of harm’s way. “Bad
karma. You don’t want to mess with hurting folks on God’s
turf.”

“
Okay,” he said, glancing
around, as though the Almighty would choose that moment to wing him
with a bolt of lightning or something. His three friends watched
him, as though for guidance. He reached out and touched my hair,
letting it fall around his fingers. “You right,” He lifted the
crucifix from his chest and touched it to his lips before turning
to address the fat man. “We take her back to your place, eh
Fernando?”

I sucked in a bit of breath.

Then I heard it.

A wonderful noise. A metallic chunking
vibrated next to me as the front door opened.

I never thought I’d be so happy to see
Father Bruno.

In a quick second, he assessed the
situation. The four guys backed up. “Alex, is there a problem?”
Bruno asked.

“
Don’t worry about it,
Padre,” Rico said. “This a domestic here. This my woman.” He
grabbed my arm so fast that I didn’t notice Bruno opening the door
wider, again.

“
Let go, asshole,” I said,
forgetting my self-defense lesson as I tried to wriggle out of his
grip. My foot shot out, and I almost connected with his knee. And I
would have, if he hadn’t backed up just then.

Turning around I saw the reason. Ro. Big old
nasty Ro. The same gorilla who’d beat the bejeezus out of Sophie
just a couple of days ago, had moved close, to stand next to
me.

“
Rico,” he said in a low
voice. “What’d I tell you about comin’ on this side of the
street?”

I could tell by the way Rico’s grip loosened
that the bold look he wore was mere bravado. When his three buddies
started to move off, Rico shook my arm for attention. “Why don’ you
tell me you belong to this mother?”

Rico flung me away,
muttering in indecipherable Spanish. I watched them depart, heading
back to their perch around the red pickup truck.

“
I’m sorry about that,”
Father Bruno said. “But I trust you’re not the worse for wear?” He
waited for my nod before continuing. “Good, let’s get inside then.
It’s frigid out here.” He extended his fleshy palm toward the open
metal door. “After you.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

I led our little three person parade; Ro
brought up the rear.