Do You Want to Know a Secret? (42 page)

“Buon giorno
, Vittorio.”

“Buon giorno
, Padre. How are you today?” Vittorio asked with a thick accent.

“Fine, Vittorio.
Un po’ caldo, no?”

“Si
, Padre.”

The priest traveled on, opened the confessional door and entered, closing the door behind him and settling himself on the hard seat. He placed a small purple stole around his neck. In the silence of the cathedral, he strained to hear footsteps over the noise of the floor polisher. The design of the confessional called for the small light in his box to change from green to red when someone knelt in the adjoining box. That was the design.

The reality was that the light had long ago burned out and no one had bothered to replace it, especially since so many confessions were now done face to face in “reconciliation rooms” on the other side of the cathedral.

The shoes clicked on the marble floor.

Parting the heavy red velvet drape and going into the box, Dennis knelt on the small wooden kneeler in the darkness. The walls were lined with soundproofing tiles, a touch of modernity seemingly out of place in a Gothic cathedral. Through the pin-dots in the screen, the outline of Father Alec’s profile could be seen. There was an awkward silence.

“Father, I’m the man with the funny red hair. I wanted to talk to you last night at the dinner, but you left right after the invocation.”

“Go on.”

“Well, I’m afraid you know that Bill Kendall and I had a financial arrangement. I borrowed a good deal of money and Bill Kendall was making sure that I paid it back. But I think you know this already.”

“I can’t say whether I know anything or not,” said the priest.

“Okay, Father. I understand. But you can imagine that I wasn’t unhappy when Bill Kendall took his own life. I thought I was home free.”

Silence.

“But then, Bill’s psychiatrist decided to turn the screws. Now he’s dead, too.”

Father Alec felt he needed to ask the question. “Did you have anything to do with his murder?”

“No.”

Did the answer come too quickly? Father Alec couldn’t tell. But if his penitent was not here to confess the sin of murder, then what was it? “Why are you here?” the priest asked pointedly.

A pause.

“As far as I know, there were only three men who could ever expose me. Two of them are dead. There’s only one left.”

“Is this a threat? Are you threatening a priest in his own confessional?”

The wooden kneeler was uncomfortable. Dennis shifted his weight.

“I just want to feel safe. I haven’t felt safe for a long time.”

“You can trust the seal of confession. I am bound to go to my grave with anything you tell me here.”

Dennis realized that the priest was offering him the chance to unburden his heart. That wasn’t why he’d driven down the turnpike this morning. But maybe he shouldn’t miss the opportunity to bind the priest to the sacramental seal. After a few moments, the fallen-away Catholic found that the words came back so easily. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been twenty years since my last confession. These are my sins.”

The priest listened.

“What do you plan to do now?”

“I’ll take care of things in my own way, Father.”

Chapter 93

Nate Heller was
giving himself a birthday dinner. Admittedly, it was a Saturday, but it was his forty-sixth birthday and no one had called all day. He was surprised Win hadn’t said anything. His friend had always remembered.

Win concentrated on the campaign. It seemed as though there was nothing else in the world.

The waiter brought the covered dishes to the table. Beneath the lids rested Nate’s favorite orange-pressed duck, shrimp and lobster sauce, and fried rice. Nate took a sip of cold Chinese beer and licked his lips. Happy birthday to me.

Today had been spent like the others before it, working toward the goal. Nate, Win and Joy met to discuss the last of the preconvention traveling schedule. Joy had been preoccupied and didn’t really seem to be focusing on the business at hand. It worried him. She had to be on top of things. None of them needed her slipping up.

He had let her think that he’d bought her explanation of the meeting with the priest in that Newark hospital.

Damn it! Another complication. The priest from Bill Kendall’s funeral. The priest in the will. For sure, Father Fisco had not wanted to talk about abortion.

Just what he didn’t need. Things were going so well. The AIDS Parade for Dollars was succeeding beyond his best expectations. The publicity for the campaign had been wonderful and public approval ratings for the project were high. All from his idea.

Nate felt his throat constrict and the crispy duck was hard to swallow. Joy’s damned affair wasn’t going to muck things up. No way. Did that damn priest know something? God, he hoped not.

Nate stifled a burp as the waiter cleared away the empty dishes and brought a steamy hand towel along with a plate of sliced oranges and a fortune cookie. He tore the orange away from its rind with his teeth, intent on getting every last bit of the juicy goodness. Cracking open his cookie, he read the Confucian version of God helps them who help themselves. That was true in any society, in any language. Nate had spent most of his life helping himself, realizing that no one was going to do it for him. He reached for his wallet and checked his watch.

He had to catch the late shuttle to Newark. He wanted to schmooze the judge, take him out to dinner tomorrow night maybe, let him get the idea that he’s a sure bet for a federal position. Pete needed a little stroking, too. Keeping it up for Yelena was getting more and more difficult for him, but she was too valuable a resource for the cause.

Nate felt a burning feeling in his chest. He must have eaten too quickly. Or it was simply that his stomach always churned these days. Worrying about the loose cannon didn’t help.

The loose cannon. Eliza Blake. As far as he was concerned, Eliza Blake couldn’t be trusted.

“Happy birthday, dear Natey, Happy birthday to you.”

Chapter 94

New York’s Fifth
Avenue was almost deserted on Sunday morning. Early as it was, it would be good to get inside the cool cathedral. The sun, barely poking through the skyscrapers, was already heating up the city’s macadam and concrete.

Arriving half an hour early for the 8:00 A.M. Mass ensured that Jean’s entrance wouldn’t be missed.

Sad that it should have to be this way. But there was really no choice. Jean knew, or would soon know, everything in Bill Kendall’s personal files. Everything.

There she was! Clutching her little white summer pock-etbook in front of her, her face looking pinched and strained. Genuflecting at an empty pew, Jean stepped in and knelt to pray. Throughout the Mass, her bony fingers rubbed the glass beads of her rosary, her lips moving silently.

At Communion time, Jean rose to take her place on line. Her head was bowed so reverently as she approached the priest. What a sanctimonious prig! Why couldn’t she have just kept her nose out of it?

There was a special term for it, wasn’t there? Viaticum. The
last
Communion.

As the priest placed the thin wafer on her tongue, Jean was unaware that she was receiving her viaticum, the spiritual food for her final journey.

The cathedral pews were far from full at such an early Mass, so there was no problem keeping Jean in sight as she moved to her seat. Jean in her prim cotton dress and cardigan, God forbid she should have bare arms in church.

Soon that pious busybody would be silenced forever.

Funny, if you’ve killed once, it was easy to kill again.

“The Mass is ended. Go in peace.”

“Thanks be to God,” Jean replied.

Chapter 95

As she descended
the steps of St. Patrick’s, Jean didn’t notice that she was being followed. Walking toward the subway station, her mind was on getting to KEY, making a copy of the files in Bill’s office and going to meet Eliza.

Jean was thinking of her beloved Bill as the train roared into the station and she felt the violent push from behind.

July