Requiem for Moses (21 page)

“That’s tough. It has to be a very personal list. Judas.”

They laughed.

“The capos of the Holocaust,” Koesler went on. “Maybe Meir Kahane, maybe Henry Kissinger, maybe Elliott Abrams. I don’t know. How about
your
list of Christian villains?”

“If you’ll pardon me, that’s too easy. Hitler, Stalin, Pétain, Al Capone, Quisling, Oliver Cromwell, Mengele … I could go on and on. Now, if we dipped into Islam,” Feldman continued, “on the plus side might be Muhammad and Saladin. On the minus side, the Ayatollah Khomeini and Saddam Hussein.

“The point of course, is that every religion has its angels and its devils.”

“Yes, yes,” Koesler agreed. “And each of the world’s great religions teaches some version of the Golden Rule. Some subjects follow it; others ignore it. Which brings us back to Chesterton, who said that the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.”

“So, you see,” Feldman said, “we got stuck with Dr. Green. But, not to worry: You did not introduce us to Green. We have known about him for a long time—a very long time.”

“You do … uh, I mean, you have? But I thought he was a stranger to the synagogue.”

“Oh, but yes. Regardless, we knew all about him and what a bad name he was giving us. A Jewish doctor! How could we not know about him? What’s that story you tell about old John McGraw and the New York Giants?”

“You mean the one about a Giants player getting injured and Muggsie McGraw going out to home plate with a megaphone and asking if there was a priest and a doctor in the stands? And one doctor and twenty-three priests came forward.”

“The very story. Well, if you want to be medically attended as well as possible, go to a synagogue of a Shabbat. If anybody got sick, there would come forward one rabbi and twenty-three doctors. Oh, yes, we know Dr. Green.”

“Then can you tell me, why is he scrambling for the last nickel? I mean, he’s a doctor—a surgeon. Isn’t it safe to assume he’s very comfortably well off?”

Feldman turned his cup upside down in the saucer, an indication to their waitress and a reminder that this meeting was drawing to a close.

“Your question has two … no, three considerations.

“First: We will not soon see many benefits held for physicians. With rare exception, they make a respectable income.

“Second: There are physicians who lose their position, especially specialists. Salaries are being cut. This is new, brand new. Doctors today are being brought down from their God-like thrones. They used to be masters of all they surveyed. Now, hospital administrators are cutting back on salaries. Or, in order to hold down costs, the administrators forbid some medical procedures.

“This is all foreign to the doctors. They used to order whatever medical procedures they wanted. They decided how long patients would convalesce in the hospital. They called in specialists—and to hell with all the added costs.

Third: Dr. Green is nearly on a plane by himself—thank God. From all I’ve heard about him, from contacts I’ve had with the man, I’d say he has no moral philosophy at all.”

There it was again,
thought Koesler. The same evaluation as that of the nurse who had worked with Green: that he was amoral.

“Take abortion, for instance,” Feldman said. “Now there’s a procedure that is rife with moral, philosophical, theological questions. My guess is that Green doesn’t give a damn for any such consideration. I don’t know that he’s ever performed an abortion. But if he did—or if he refused to—his decision would have nothing to do with good or evil: It would be measured by whether it was profitable, in any sense of that term, for him.”

Koesler immediately called to mind Claire McNern and her involuntary abortion at the hands of Dr. Green. And she hadn’t even known she was pregnant. The sole reason for that operation was that it served Green’s purposes.

Koesler guessed that Green was not a sociopath, incapable of telling bad from good. But it was not a major step away from that to measuring actions not by good and evil but solely by personal gain—the What’s-in-it-for-me? philosophy.

“In any case,” Feldman said, “I think these three things go together in the understanding of Moses Green and his obsession with wealth. Physicians tend to be well off. They are beginning to see the widening cracks in their position of eminence. All that, plus Dr. Green individually has no one to please but himself.

“And it is only accidental that he happens to be a Jew. Catholics, Protestants, Muslims—even so-called Humanists—all of them have their Dr. Greens.”

Koesler nodded, as he too turned over his cup.

“One final item you should understand in your appreciation of Dr. Green,” Feldman said. “And that is how tied into this is Mrs. Green.

“To illustrate: Have you heard what they worked out in combined Amway sales?”

Koesler shook his head.

“Briefly, Green did not lower himself to sell soap and carpet cleaner and the like door to door. What happens is the doctor recruits his patients to become salespeople for Amway. He recommends them to, and passes them on to his wife, who signs them up. That way, Green and his wife are not making their money from selling products; they get a percentage of what their sales force makes.”

“How much do they earn that way?”

“It figures to be about half a million dollars annually.”

“Wow!”

“And that amount is tacked on to his many investments. And that amount is tacked on to the income from his medical practice.”

“Wow!” Koesler was truly impressed.

All vestige of humor had passed from Rabbi Feldman’s face. “My friend,” he said in his most serious tone, “be careful. You are dealing with a man for whom death is a long way down the list of bad things that can come to him. And some of the players in this drama have a similar list of priorities.”

“Come now,” Koesler demurred. “I’m in no danger.” But even as he spoke, he thought of the confidences that had been imparted to him at the wake. And he wondered.

As they rose to leave, Feldman said, “Remember: Be careful!”

Koesler recalled the recently learned acronym CYA. It hadn’t occurred to him CYA might apply to him.

Chapter Sixteen

In 1920, when Sacred Heart Seminary was built, it stood all by itself on otherwise undeveloped land, on the fringe of the city of Detroit. The seminary was the dream of Bishop Michael Gallagher, who saw the need for a large institutional structure to train future priests for service in the Detroit diocese. The bishop didn’t have the money to finance this, or many other monuments that he was to erect.

All these buildings, including the seminary, became the headache of Gallagher’s successor, Edward Mooney, who, in 1937, reluctantly became the sixth bishop of Detroit. Since Mooney was an archbishop, the diocese of Detroit was ipso facto raised to the rank of an archdiocese. In 1946, Mooney had the added distinction of being named a Cardinal— Detroit’s first—by Pope Pius XII.

As a Cardinal, he was popularly perceived as a “Prince of the Church.” Popular perception also noted that he would be in
the
position of advising the pope on weighty ecclesial matters. Actually, most popes prefer to keep their own counsel. Mooney’s actual importance—and this was no small thing—lay in participating in the election of popes, and, as a Cardinal, automatically being a confidante for whoever occupied the throne of Peter.

Among the fringe benefits of being a Cardinal was the power to hear confessions and absolve sins anywhere in the world validly and licitly without the need for permission from the local bishop. However, Church wags have it that it is so long since any Cardinal has heard a confession that, more than likely, he has forgotten the words of absolution.

Another fringe benefit of the Cardinalate is the power to establish the Stations of the Cross with a simple sign of the cross. But there’s not much call for that nowadays.

Whatever, with this background of one man providing ready-made migraines for another, it is perhaps appropriate that each of the two men had a room named after him at Sacred Heart Seminary.

Even for those of long acquaintance with the seminary, it was a challenge to know where these rooms were located. Granted, they were huge, and separated by only a few feet from each other. The difficulty lay in knowing which was the front and which the rear of the building.

In the beginning there was no doubt. The front of the building, defined by its majestic Gothic tower, faced Chicago Boulevard between Lawton and Linwood Avenues. At the peak of the semicircular drive was the front door.

And then came the riot of 1967.

During the riot, the white stone statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on the seminary grounds was painted black by some of the seminary’s neighbors, almost all of whom were African-Americans. After the riot, some young white men, not neighbors, painted the statue white. Which almost triggered an aftershock riot. After that, the seminary’s rector and some students, all white, repainted the statue black—which it remains to this day.

Over the years, more and more security measures were introduced to the seminary. Eventually, the traditional front of the building was entirely fenced in. After that, one gained entry to the building through a door in what had been the back of the structure. Now, all the parking spaces, reserved or not, were at the rear of the building, along with the security booth and the guard.

In this manner, the back of Sacred Heart Seminary became its front, or main entrance.

And, oddly, those two huge rooms situated in what was now the front of the building were known as the “back parlors.” Undoubtedly because they had been known as the back parlors long before they were renamed the Gallagher and Mooney parlors.

In the ’60s and earlier, when students crowded the hallways, study halls, private rooms, refectory, dormitories, chapel, and recreation facilities, one of the back parlors was reserved for high school students, the other for collegians. And each looked the part.

The high school parlor (Gallagher) had a Ping-Pong table and a lot of tacky uncomfortable furniture. The college parlor (Mooney) had ashtrays and tacky upholstered furniture.

More recently, the Gallagher and Mooney parlors were structured so that they could be converted with ease. Lecture hall, meeting room with something short of infinite space for folding chairs, dining room, luncheon room, hospitality suite—just about anything along these lines was possible.

This morning, the Mooney room was being set up for a news conference. The subject of the gathering was, essentially, Dr. Moses Green and his “miracle.”

A number of factions in this matter were not at ease with their positions. There was the Green family, and the family doctor, and the medical examiner’s office, and the mortuary, and the Detroit Police Department.

As yet, nothing litigious had occurred. Was it that each and all of the parties were being defensive while things straightened themselves out? Was it that no one really wanted to sue? Was it that they all wanted to sue but the time was not propitious? Doubtless everyone would soon know.

For the moment, there would be a news conference.

The family would be represented by its attorney, Avery Cone. The family physician did not think the presence of his attorney would be needed—yet. City bureaus had their attorneys at hand.

A platform was being set up with microphones and chairs. Uncomfortable metal chairs were being unfolded. Newspeople were gathering.

The Archdiocese of Detroit, in a cooperative gesture, had made its seminary host for this event.

Early arrivals were Lieutenant Tully and Father Koesler. Actually—totally out of the ordinary—Koesler had invited Tully to the conference. Hitherto, the shoe had almost always been on the other foot. Tully, aware this conference was scheduled, had been undecided about attending. The phone call from Koesler decided the issue.

Koesler was returning to his seat next to Tully with two coffees. “Thanks,” Tully said as he accepted the Styrofoam cup. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate this, but isn’t it a little much for a news conference?”

Koesler smiled. “The seminary doesn’t host many news conferences—at least not of this size and importance. They’re being hospitable providing coffee and Danish.”

“Nice.” Tully sipped carefully; the coffee was quite hot. “How’s your crowd holding up?”

“Very well, I’m sorry to say. Thanks to the newest ‘miracle,’ today’s crowd is even bigger than yesterday’s. And we aren’t taking up a collection!”

Tully smiled. He was getting to know Koesler; from the priest’s tone of voice Tully knew that he was kidding.

“Today,” Koesler said hopefully, “should get the ball out of my court.” He used the tennis metaphor, though aware that he himself had never played the game seriously.

“How’s that?”

“The Cardinal appointed a committee of priests to examine—well, originally, the Green event. Now I guess they’ll have the second miraculous claim to investigate. Anyway, I am now able to refer all questions and requests for statements to the committee. And that gets me off the hook I’ve been on for the past day or so.”

Tully nodded. “So why’d you call me? I was thinking of coming, but your call cinched it.”

“Maybe it was ESP. I know you’re working on the case and I thought you might get something from the conference. But, more than that, I invited the pastor of the parish that Theresa Waleski lives in. He’s a very private person. I think the media are learning that they’re not going to get anything out of him.”

“Will he talk to us?”

“He will to me. And he’ll talk to you because you’re with me. We aren’t real tight, but we are friends in a casual way. He should be here soon. Besides,” he added jokingly, “I told him I’d get him in here for the conference.”

“Get him in here? I flashed a badge. How did you get in?”

“I flashed a roman collar.”

“And this other priest won’t have one?”

“He most certainly will. The guards he has to get past are security people hired by the seminary. They’ll let anyone in priestly garb in. But”—he grinned—” Father Weber doesn’t know that.”