Moot (3 page)

Jimmy considered Isabel’s
face. “Cute. Too cute for a place like this. Sorry, don’t recognize her.”

“I figured.” I slid the
crumpled journal page over and tapped it with my fingertip. “This mean anything
to you?”

Jimmy let the paper lie,
reading the scribble from above. Even with one eye false and the other cloudy,
I could see them frost over. “Nothing to me,” it said. “Looks like gibberish.”

“I’d never play poker with
you, Jimmy. Doesn’t mean I can’t read a lie.”

Jimmy looked at me,
something blazing behind its one good eye. “How’s the family?” it leered.
“Keeping well?”

I stiffened. “Stick to the
subject.”

“Those girls still run you
ragged?” Jimmy leaned forward, painted lips carved into a smile that wouldn’t
fool a blind man. Its voice was empty as my wife’s marriage vows. “Why, they
must be adults by now. Any grandkids on the horizon?”

I fought the urge to drive
my fist through that smirk. “You’re still a sick twist, Jimmy,” I managed.

“And you’re still dull.
Death hasn’t changed that.” Jimmy feigned a yawn. “Show yourself out, Pasco.
I’m not interested in what you’re selling.”

The moot made to leave. I
grabbed its forearms, pushing my mug up close. “Let’s not mince. I don’t like
being here, so let’s bypass the dance. I’ve got a girl who went all churchy,
stole some cash, and vamoosed. A doornail writes a note, that’s all I have to
go on. You know something. Who’s this
Nex
?”

“What should you care,
some spoiled breather brat wants to dance on her grave?” It spat in my face.
“Look at yourself. Detective Pasco, always worried about the lifers.”

“What do you know about
it?”

“Everyone knows. You’re
shuffling blind in the light. You’ve lost touch with who you are. There isn’t a
Greytowner
around who doesn’t know this word. And
none of them will tell you a thing.”

“Talk,” I said, squeezing
tight. “Or I’ll cause you so much hurt you’ll go bankrupt trying to put
yourself back together again.”

“You’re a traitor to your
race, Pasco. You know what we call you? The self-hating moot. The lifer lover.
The great dead dick, pretending a pulse.”

“
Talk.
” I snapped
its left arm like a matchstick. Letting go, I whipped out Marion and pointed
her at the approaching doorman. The room went quiet, the band ceasing its
desecration of Cole Porter. all eyes now on the Dudley Pasco floorshow.

I looked back at Jimmy,
arm bones splintered through skin, its face mild, as if I had just suggested we
go grab a bite.

“How’s Marion, Dud? You
allowed conjugal rights? Keeping the bed warm for when she gets out?”

I pressed the gun against
Jimmy’s neck.

“I’ll puncture your
brainstem, babe.”

“Did the razor hurt, Duds?
Such a clichéd exit. I’d figured you to eat your gun.”

“You’ll be a brain in a
jar. Really limit your career choices.”

“Boring,” it said. “I never
liked you in life, Dud. I like you less now. The
ol
’
S&M.”

“What?”

“That’s where you’ll find
your girl. That’s where they all go.”

I let go, warily watching
the doorman as I stood to leave. “And what happens at St. Mike’s?”

Jimmy looked at me, almost
sadly, rubbing the open bone. “Maybe you’ll wake up.”

#

St. Michael’s of
the Celestial Anima Cathedral had been an oozing blotch of pessimism since its
erection. Nestled among some of the shoddiest buildings in the ghetto, it
should have been a beacon of hope by default. Instead, its grand archways and
eloquent gothic spires somehow expressed a sardonic outlook on the futility of
existence, as if its low-balling architects had foreseen
mootkind
and infused the stonework with apathy. It made a perverted sort of sense that
Bishop O’Shea found a home there.

           
After his conviction following one
too many kicks at the underage can for the Holy See to ignore, the
ol
’ S&M had been unceremoniously forsaken. Even moots
didn’t bother with it, preferring to attend services in one of the other
Greytown
churches.

The roads grew steadily
worse the farther you trekked toward
Greytown’s
heart, and it was full night by the time I made my way to St. Mike’s. I’d had
to walk the final dozen blocks, the streets barely walkways through a
wilderness of concrete and steel, lit only by the occasional working
streetlamp.

I approached the facade
cautiously. A few candles flickered behind its windows, beams of sickly light
fighting vainly against the murk. From within, a lone voice warbled in the
theatrical cadence of what could only be a sermon. After a pause, a chorus of
“Amen.” A wheezy pump organ began to gasp a barely recognizable rendition of
“Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear.”

I tried the doors. Locked.
I took a few steps back, looking for another way in.

“Help you?”

I swallowed a yelp. A
hatchway in the door had slid silently open and a bored-looking lifer looked
out, his tumbledown face lit from beneath by candle.

“Sorry, you frightened
me.” I made a show of regaining my composure. “Is this St. Michael’s? I’m not
sure if I have the right place...”

“You here for the sermon?”

“Yes, the sermon. I
apologize for being so late.” I could make out a collar and cassock, but if
this
mook
was a man of the cloth, I was the pope.
Most clergymen I’ve come across have fewer facial scars. And more teeth. “The
roads, you see...”

The man smirked. “Helps
keep out unwanted guests.” He squinted at me. “I don’t think I know you,
Mr....?”

“Smith.” I took my hat off
and held it to my chest in both hands, taking a step back into the shadows.
From behind the fake priest I heard the music mercifully end. A shout of "
Hallelujah
!"
reverberated
through the passageways. “Dudley Smith.”

“This is a private
meeting, Mr. Smith. And I don’t know you.” The trapdoor began to shut.

I reached out and blocked
the opening. “There must be some mistake,” I stammered while I pulled at the
panel. “Madame Destiny said I would be welcome. She said
Nex
was the one I needed to see. Please, I’ve brought the money.”

He paused. “Show it.”

I hurriedly fumbled at my
pockets and finally held up my billfold, letting it drop through my grasp.
“Dammit.” I bent down, hugged myself to the door below the opening. “Sorry,
it’s dark out here,” I called out. “Could I get a light?”

The man pushed his head
through the opening for a better look. I reached up, linked my fingers behind
his head, and yanked, crushing his throat against the wood and holding fast. He
shook briefly while his lungs wondered where all the air went.

I let go and he slid back,
thudding to the floor. Reaching in, I fiddled around blindly for the latch
until the door swung open with a creak that couldn’t sound more ominous. I
picked up my wallet and stepped inside, kicking the false priest as I passed.
Half to make sure he was out cold. Half to make sure he knew I had been there.

The voice became clearer
as I crept forward in the murk, holding Marion out in front. I heard "
death
," and "
God
," and "
absolution
." A lot of
"
Amen
!"
s
. And finally, as I neared the inner entrance to the main chapel, "
communion
."

I pulled the door open a
crack and peeked in. Candles lined the walls, directing balletic shadows about
the room. At the opposite end an enormous wooden crucifix loomed over an apse,
the eyes of its tortured inhabitant wide and judgmental. Beneath its gaze,
between the pews, a group of about thirty worshippers lined themselves up. I
couldn’t make out their faces, not in the gloom, not with my eye. I opened the
door as wide as I dared and slipped inside.

The organist launched into
an abysmal interpretation of “Amazing Grace.” The queue calmly shuffled
forward. I sidled up the left aisle, keeping to the dark. A figure in religious
vestments stood atop the dais, placing a communion wafer in each obediently
open mouth and offering liquid from a garish chalice. The music droned on, the
organist a suspiciously mature altar boy.

I edged closer, crouching
behind a pew. I could see faces now. The parishioners were all lifers; old and
young, men and women, several races. The only thing they seemed to have in
common was their attendance. Those finished with communion had retaken their
seats. A few had their heads lowered in prayer. Or slumber.

I scanned the
parishioners, not seeing her.

I felt a slight prickling
in my upper back. Then, my chest. I tried to stand but remained fixed to the
pew. The knife pinned me to the wood like a butterfly on display.

“Still moving, Mr. Smith?”
The voice breathed in my ear, each word a croak, as if their speaker recently
had his windpipe violently pulped. “What a clever little moot you are.” The
most definitely not a priest pried Marion from my hand while I futilely pushed
against the bench. “I don’t like clever little moots, not at all.”

The barrel of my gun
pressed up behind my ear.

“Careful with that, she’s
a present from Mom.”

He cocked the hammer, a
disrespectful click that ripped through the quiet. The priest paused and looked
over, sizing up the situation. I could make out a wispy Van Dyke staining a
weak chin, lips equally at home in a smile as a scowl. Its eyes glinted, lenses
opaque with scratches. A tendril of fear tickled my gut as the former Bishop
O’Shea took me in, frowned, then resumed its theological ministrations.

“You work for a moot?” A
few of the faithful had noticed me. None looked particularly compelled to
intervene.

“Quiet,” the
henchpriest
hissed.

I scanned the faces. A few
candles had snuffed themselves out, making identification difficult. Near the
procession’s end I thought I could see a ponytail, maybe a dress.

“Seems odd, you working
for a moot,” I went on. “What with your noticeable antipathies.”

“I don’t like moots. I do
like getting paid.” He motioned the gun at the lineup. “These people? Five
large each.”

An elderly Chinese couple
stepped forward in unison and accepted the Eucharist. I watched them potter
back to their seats, the man staggering near the end, the woman weakly pulling
him along. I looked back and saw Isabel Lopez joyfully open her mouth to accept
a wafer placed serenely on her tongue by the good Bishop. She took a few tastes
from the vessel, crossed herself, and peacefully retook her seat, the last
supplicant of the evening.

“What now?” I said. “We
all go in peace? Something like that?”

“Now, Detective,” O’Shea
intoned, “we begin the crossing.” It spread its arms outward to the
congregation and began reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Smiles lit their faces –
those with eyes still open. Isabel’s face beamed with sleepy contentedness. Her
eyelids drooped closed, then opened again. All around her, members of the
congregation began to drop their heads.

“You have done so well,
children,” said the moot, its prayer complete. “Very soon now, you take the
next step toward eternity.”

“Sounds like quite the
deal,” I called out. “Anyone get in on this who
doesn’t
have five
grand?”

The henchman
pistol-whipped the back of my head. I put my hands up, performing the actions
of the wounded. My legs tensed beneath me.

“Ignore this heathen,” the
moot continued, unfazed. “He is unworthy of the gift God has bestowed upon him.
Embrace the darkness when it comes, it shall last merely a moment. And then...”
the smile of a kindly Samaritan creased its face as it gestured to the wooden
messiah “...you shall know the rapture of his righteous love.”

“Rapture?” I shouted.
“That’s the grift?”

“I said!”

Another blow to my
head.
 

“Be!”

Another wallop.

“Quiet!”

I pushed up with my legs.
The knife resisted, its blade carving into me, sliding off a rib. I yanked
myself left and fell free, dodging the next blow.

Off-balance, the henchman lurched
forward into the pews. I grabbed the knife, now loosened in its berth, prying
it free. Before the
henchpriest
could regain his
footing I blundered toward him, knife out, an ample flap of me dangling loose
beneath my arm. The blade met his chest as Marion’s barrel met mine.

He pulled the trigger
twice as I plunged the knife in. I felt one of my lungs deflate. He fired once
while he fell, once more while he bled out. I pried Marion from his grip as he
died.

The organist was
scrabbling for something beneath his robes. I put a bullet in his neck before
he could draw. O’Shea managed two steps before I shot out its kneecap.