VC03 - Mortal Grace (29 page)

“You’re absolutely right.
Bad
is not the word.” Cardozo clicked the tape off. “How can an intelligent woman like Bonnie Ruskay be taken in by him?”

Ellie eyed Cardozo speculatively. A crystal of silence seemed to form in the air and then snap.

“Speaking of the reverend, I’ve been running down her ex-cleaning lady’s social security records. The last current address they show for Olga Quigley is St. Andrew’s rectory.”

“Then she’s working off the books.”

Ellie picked up Pablo’s cassette. She examined the label. It was covered in felt-tipped handwriting and one of the corners hadn’t been completely glued down. She poked a fingernail at a ripple in the paper.

“Why do so many people swear by Father Joe?” Cardozo wondered. “What’s his magic?”

“I guess cynical cops like you and me just can’t tune in on his kind of charisma.” There was something stuck behind the label. She carefully worked it loose and looked at it.

“Vince.” She handed him a pawn ticket.

“A lot of people come through that door.” In one thick grimy hand, the proprietor of Equity Loans held a pawn ticket; in the other, the photo of Pablo Cespedes. “This is not exactly a face to remember.”

“What did he pawn?” Cardozo said.

“What do any of them hock? Junk.” Beneath a sweat-stained undershirt, the proprietor shrugged a beefy shoulder toward the wall behind him.

Cardozo had never seen so many musical instruments hanging in one narrow, dimly lit storefront: trumpets, violins, concertinas, accordions, tambourines, guitars, saxophones in every size from midget to monster.

The proprietor turned and unhooked a guitar that had enough metal and enamel inlays to fill a dinosaur’s mouth. He laid it on the counter. The strings sighed.

Cardozo examined the ticket tied to the neck of the instrument. “This isn’t what he pawned. The numbers aren’t even close.”

“Somebody must have switched the tickets. It happens. I turn my back, some kid gets smart.”

The proprietor didn’t strike Cardozo as the type who’d turn his back on a blind man, much less the robbers, muggers, pickpockets, and crack addicts who made up the clientele of this and every other pawnshop on Ninth Avenue.

“We’d like to see the correct article,” Ellie said.

“You’re seeing it.”

“How about that chalice in the window?” Cardozo said.

“
Chalice
? What do you think this is, King Arthur’s attic?”

“The bronze chalice with semiprecious stones,” Cardozo said. “Top shelf, left.”

“It’s a cup with cut glass.”

“Garnets and carnelians,” Ellie said.

A buzzer sounded. The proprietor peeked through the velvet curtain that backed the window display. He pressed a button behind the counter and the street door clicked open.

Bonnie Ruskay, blond and slender and lost-looking, stepped blinking into the shop. She saw Cardozo and smiled. “I wasn’t sure this was the right place. You said
Exchange
on the phone, and the window says
Equity
.”

Cardozo turned. “Ellie, you remember Reverend Bonnie Ruskay?”

Ellie nodded pleasantly. “Of course.”

“Ms. Ruskay,” Cardozo said, “did you happen to recognize anything in that window out there?”

“The collection plate and the chalice.”

“When you bring the chalice,” Ellie told the proprietor, “bring the pewter plate with the copper border—second shelf left.”

Light flickered off the sweat on the proprietor’s face. “The cup and the wok.” His tone was angry, exhausted, but not yet resigned. He brought the chalice and the plate from the window.

Bonnie turned the chalice over. A mark had been scratched onto the base:
St. A.

She nodded. “This is ours.”

“Recognize anything else in the shop?” Cardozo said.

She examined the glass display case beneath the counter. It was crammed with timepieces, blenders, binoculars, like a cutaway view of a Dumpster. She pointed to the bottom shelf. “Could I see the base of these candlesticks?”

Twenty minutes later, fourteen items of church paraphernalia sat on the counter, all marked with the same little scratched
St. A.
“I’d like to take this chalice with me,” Bonnie said.

The proprietor made objecting noises.

“This is stolen property,” Cardozo said.

“You say it’s stolen.” The proprietor pushed a long, lone wisp of graying hair away from his forehead. “This lady walks in off the street and says it’s stolen. You show me cop shields, she shows me a driver’s license, but the one thing I haven’t seen is proof—just show me the proof and you can walk out with the whole store.”

“How much would it cost to redeem the chalice?” Bonnie said.

“Hold on,” Cardozo said. “You’re not going to pay for something that belongs to you.”

The proprietor said nothing, did nothing, simply listened and watched, smiling a rueful old smile with rueful old eyes.

“This chalice was a gift to Father Joe from the Bishop of Lambeth.” Bonnie opened her purse. “It means a great deal to him.”

“A hundred dollars,” the proprietor said.

Bonnie handed him the money.

“Now, wait a minute,” Cardozo said.

Ellie shook her head as though she was staring at an old dog that just wouldn’t let go of its favorite bone. She motioned him not to argue. “Tax included, of course.”

“You want me to cheat the city?” The proprietor sighed. “Okay, I’ll cheat the city.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

B
ONNIE STOOD ON THE
corner of Forty-ninth Street and Ninth Avenue, shading her eyes against the sun, looking for a cab.

Not promising.

Traffic moved past like freight on a stalled train: a bumper-to-bumper wall of Jersey license plates, trucks, vans, police cars, ambulances. Sirens howled. Horns exploded in raucous
up-yours
fanfares.

She didn’t see a single cab, free or otherwise, so she decided to try her luck on Eighth Avenue.

As she hurried east she was struck by the pedestrian population, how different they looked in this part of town from the people you’d see in the neighborhood of St. Andrew’s. There were no jackets here, no neckties either. The eyes were different here too—none of that polite looking-away you got on the Upper East Side. They sized you up, challenged you even, eyes of hunger and resentment and—disconcertingly—hate.

It occurred to her that she was the only white face on the block. She was ashamed of herself for thinking it; ashamed, too, of the impression she had that they were eyeing her.

Dear God
, she prayed,
don’t let me be a bigot.
She caught sight of herself reflected in a plate glass window.
They have every reason to stare
, she realized.
I’m carrying this crazy-looking chalice under my arm.
She wished she had asked the shopkeeper to put it in a bag for her.

She saw a cab free on Eighth, stopped in traffic. She hopped into it. “East Sixty-ninth and Madison Avenue, please.” She placed the chalice on the backseat next to her.

The driver began a left turn toward the Hudson.

Bonnie sat forward in the seat. “I’m sorry, but I want
East
Sixty-ninth—you’re going west.”

The driver turned around and she saw dark-skinned incomprehension. She glanced at the license on the dashboard. The name was Arab and she wondered if he spoke any English.

“East!” Horns were blaring and she had to shout. She pointed. “Will you please take me east!”

The cab rammed another car. Brakes yelped and tires squealed and there was a crunching sound as the cab rammed again. The impact threw her forward into the partition.

The cab had stopped moving and she heard the driver of the other car screaming at the Arab. A one-eyed man with a squeegee came hobbling through the stalled traffic and began spreading filthy water on the windshield. The Arab leapt out of the cab to scream at the squeegee man.

She pulled herself back onto the seat.
I’d do better walking
, she realized. She looked at the meter to see what she owed. Three dollars. She wondered if the meter was fast. What would be a fair tip if she got out now?

She unsnapped her purse and looked for a five.

The door beside her suddenly flew open and a young boy jumped into the cab.

“I’m sorry,” Bonnie said. “This cab is taken.”

He sat smirking at her. His eyes were a flat gunmetal blue—the steel eyes of a robot. The sour smell of his sweat hit her like a slap. His tongue moistened his lip. “Nice cup.”

She moved the chalice to the other side of her body.
This isn’t happening
, she told herself.
This is New York. This is America. This is the First World. People don’t jump into someone else’s cab.

The boy reached into his sock and pulled out a straight-edge razor, then flipped it open. “Don’t make any noise and you won’t get hurt. Give me the cup.” He seized her little finger and held it against the razor.

He had the smooth-skinned faced of a seventeen-year-old. He wore a tiny steel crucifix in his left ear and his hair was a pure corn-silk blond dangling in a ponytail from under a New York Mets baseball cap.

A child
, she thought.
Why is he doing this?

“If you want to keep your finger, bitch, hand the cup over.”

He began closing the razor on her pinkie. An electric white pain shot through her. She pushed the chalice at him. In a single bound he was out of the cab and running.

“Long blond hair,” Bonnie said, “pulled back in a ponytail.”

Her words felt fast and shrill and jerky, and she realized she was still keyed up.
Relax
, she told herself.
You’re safe now. No one’s holding a knife on you.

“He was lightly built, but sinewy…compact…tanned. Like a surfer who had just climbed off a wave.”

Lieutenant Cardozo was taking notes. “A pretty dirty wave.”

They were sitting in her office. The window was closed and the low hum of the air conditioner made the walls of the room seem closer together.

“Did anyone else see this kid?”

“The cab driver.”

“Did you get the driver’s name or license number?”

Tiredness swept over her. She tried to hold it at bay, but little dots hovered in front of her eyes. “No, I was too confused.”

Lieutenant Cardozo drummed his fingers on the edge of the armchair. He stopped. “Have you seen this kid around before?”

“Around where before?”

“Anywhere. Around the rectory.”

“Why would he come around the rectory?”

“Father Montgomery has that woodworking shop downstairs for underprivileged kids.”

“He wasn’t one of Father Joe’s.”

“You’re sure.”

There was something openly exploratory in the way Cardozo was gazing at her.

“Of course I’m sure.” But she wasn’t sure.
Why do I feel I have to be definite with this man?
“I’ve never seen him before.”

“He may have seen
you
before. He seemed to know you had that chalice.”

“How could he not have known? I was carrying it unwrapped in the street.”

“Pays to advertise, right?”

She held her annoyance in check. He was only doing his job, lightening the mood with a joke, trying to be friendly and easy to talk to. She nodded. “You’re right. I was stupid.”

“You weren’t breaking any law. He was the lawbreaker. And he sounds experienced. I don’t think he just happened to see you and decided to jump you. He could have been staking out this church. Which means he’s following you.”

“I doubt that very much. I told you I’ve never seen him before today.”

“You wouldn’t see him till he wanted you to. These kids are experts. The last thing you need is some crack-wasted juvenile thinking he holds a first mortgage on your life.”

“You seem to think that only semihuman filth on two legs could commit petty larceny.”

“All kinds of people commit all kinds of crimes. The question is, why did this one commit this robbery and this assault?”

“It wasn’t assault.”

He flicked a glance in her direction. “You said he drew blood.”

She looked at her finger. The cut was barely a dark line, like a piece of thread she might have tied there to remind herself of something. “A drop.”

“That’s one of the definitions of assault.”

“He was a child.”

“Half of them are nowadays. It could be he’s staked out the pawnshop. He could even be doing business with them.”

“What kind of business?”

“Thirteen valuable articles left this church and wound up in that pawnshop. He could be moving property from here to there. And it wasn’t done in one haul, or you would have noticed.”

“What are you saying?”

“It was done in small hauls. Someone was walking in and out of here.”

“I still don’t understand.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time Father Montgomery invited a criminal in here.”

She shook her head in instant denial. “He’s never invited a criminal here.”

“Tommy Lanner. Actor-slash-thief. Stole a VCR.”

“But that was years ago. And Lanner was smooth. He conned Father Joe. The boy that robbed me wouldn’t be capable of a con.”

“Whoever took that property felt free to come and go. And Father Montgomery wasn’t stopping them at the door.”

“There are other ways than being invited for thieves to get in. I believe it’s customary for some of them to break in.”

“Nobody broke into Father Montgomery’s study. It was faked.” Cardozo was watching her with his deep-set, dark brown eyes. “The window was knocked out from the inside. And it was broken
after
Cespedes screamed.”

“That’s not possible.”

“A witness heard it.”

Impatience crackled like static electricity along her skin. “And does this witness have a name?”

He didn’t answer. There was weariness in the dark grooves of his forehead.

“Tell me, Lieutenant—do you believe that anonymous note too?”

He rose in pieces—first the square head, the square shoulders lifting from the chair, then the long legs heaving up the rest of him. “Ms. Ruskay, young people involved with St. Andrew’s have died.”