VC03 - Mortal Grace (7 page)

He stared a moment at each of the three photos and put on his reading glasses. “She’s a transvestite hooker.”

“Recognize her?” Cardozo said.

“Not personally, but I recognize the type—and the street. She’s working the corner of Hudson and Fourteenth, down in the meat market.”

“What the hell is a society minister doing with transvestite hookers?”

“That collar doesn’t make him a saint.” From nowhere Greg flashed a leer that lit up the cubicle. “What the hell does anyone do with transvestite hookers? You get your rocks off—and your pocket picked.”

“Okay, maybe Father Joe plays around with gender-bender hookers. But how could his assistant be so careless and just hand us the photos?”

“Maybe she wasn’t careless,” Ellie said. “Maybe there’s nothing to hide. The church does run an outreach to hookers, after all.”

There was a knock at the door. “Anybody in charge of this disturbance?”

Nico Forbes stood there, floppy hair, floppy smile, holding his revised drawing.

“Let me see.” Cardozo took the drawing to the window.

Nico had given the girl high-shadowed cheekbones, a slightly asymmetric nose with a hint of an upturn, a gem-quality sadness in the eyes. He had caught the paradox, the mix of gauntness and baby fat.

Looking at that face made Cardozo feel endlessly sad. “You did a good job, Nico. We’ll canvas the runaway zones with this.”

“What about giving it to the papers and media?” Ellie said.

“We’ll give it to the press department.”

Ellie frowned, perplexed.

“Slight change of procedure,” Cardozo said. “Orders from the D.A.”

EIGHT

C
ARDOZO PUSHED THE DOORBELL
of Saint Andrew’s rectory. Reverend Bonnie Ruskay answered.

“I’m sorry to trouble you,” he said. “Could I have a word with Father Montgomery?”

“He’s not here. Today’s his day in jail.”

“Is he serving some kind of sentence?”

“No—he visits the prisoners. Is it anything I can help you with?”

“If you have a moment.”

“I have a moment.”

He followed her into the waiting room. “We developed those negatives.” He handed her a packet of photos. “They came from a roll of twenty-four. There were two exposures missing.”

She dropped into an armchair. “Long day,” she said with a sigh. “Have a seat. Please.”

He sat in the chair facing her. “Do you know anything about those missing photos?”

She opened the packet and studied the prints. “I’d assume they didn’t come out and the lab didn’t bother sending them back with the others.” She separated one photo from the others. “What a great shot.” She held up the picture of the two grinning blond children. “It would make a wonderful Christmas picture for the parish newsletter. I’d love to keep it—could I?”

Cardozo shrugged. “No problem as far as I’m concerned.”

“Could you give me the negative?” She hesitated. “It’s easier for the printer.”

“I’ll have to mail you the negative. It’s back in my office.”

“I’d appreciate it.” She looked through the remaining photos.

“There seem to be three pictures of a prostitute in that group.”

He couldn’t tell if the look she gave him was shy or puzzled or both. A moment went by. Through the window behind her, he could see twilight arriving in the courtyard.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Was that a question?”

“Just an observation.”

“You mean these three.” She was staring at the shots of the hooker with a boa. “Do you expect me to be surprised?”

“Are you surprised?”

“No. Are you?”

Cardozo met her chrome-cool gaze. He studied this neat, quiet-looking young woman with her medium-length blond hair and her pale skin as softly textured as an evening glove.

“I’m not surprised,” he said, “but I’m curious. Did Father Montgomery take those pictures?”

“It was his camera. I’d assume he took them.”

“Why would he take them?”

“Because he’s interested.”

“In prostitutes?”

She looked at him with deeply weary eyes. “This city is like a drain—it sucks people in and if they’re not careful it grinds them up. Father Joe isn’t interested in running a polite little church that serves gospel with watercress sandwiches. He wants to do more than confront prostitution and AIDS through poetry and dance. So he offers the full resources of the church and the parish to those who most need them. He’s made that commitment.”

Cardozo nodded. “I think I understand.”

“Do you? Because an awful lot of people feel he’s just another padre with delusions of social relevance. But his bishop and his congregation back him. As do I.”

Cardozo wondered if he was being tested. “The prostitute Father Montgomery photographed appears to be a transvestite.”

Her eyes went first to him, then back to the photos. Gray-green eyes. Quiet and unreacting. “Saint Andrew’s is broadening its prostitute outreach program to include transvestite prostitutes. They’re just as much at risk.”

“Have you ever seen the person in that photograph?”

“I don’t think so, but I can’t be sure. They change their appearance as often as they change their name. More often, in fact.”

“I’d like to hear about the church’s prostitute outreach.”

“Why not take a copy of our newsletter?” She went into Father Montgomery’s office and came back with copies of the last four issues.

Cardozo examined them. He saw that the newsletter came out every other month. The photos of prostitutes on and off the job were all carefully captioned
PHOTO BY FR. JOSEPH MONTGOMERY
, with a little c in a circle signifying copyright.

“We give counseling and legal aid. There’s a lot of police harassment—I’m sure you know that.” Her gaze rested on him. “We also have a medical team that does blood tests and runs V.D. screens and distributes condoms.”

He opened a second newsletter. “Where does the team do all that?”

“In the field—down by the meat market, the Lincoln Tunnel, the chief hooking grounds.”

“And who serves on your medical team?”

“Volunteer doctors from the parish.”

He came to a photo of two hookers standing on a garbage-strewn sidewalk chatting with the driver of a van. The van had a rising, smiling sun painted on the side. “Do the doctors use a van?”

“Mostly they drive their own cars, but I shouldn’t be surprised if they drove a van now and then.”

“This van?” He handed her the newsletter.

“Very possibly. It’s ours. The sun is our outreach logo. It’s meant to be beaming in both senses—shining and smiling.”

“Where do you keep the van?”

“In the garage.”

“Could I see it?”

She seemed startled but, after a moment, willing. She rose and led him through the rectory dining room and kitchen and down a short, narrow flight of back stairs. Under a blanketing smell of Lysol, a faint sourness hovered in the dark—not exactly a cat odor, but something close.

She opened a door and the scent became fainter. There were two cars parked in the garage: a small green Mazda two-door sedan and a blue Toyota van.

Cardozo examined the van. The blue looked factory-fresh. There was nothing painted or stenciled on either door or side panel. “Your van is new.”

“Practically brand-new. We’ve had it three months. They don’t last long, not with the beating we give them.”

“The van in the newsletter had a rising sun painted on it.”

“That was the van before this. We had to get rid of it.”

“Why?”

“The brakes malfunctioned. It shot through a red light—Father Joe was lucky to survive the crash.”

“And what happened to the van?”

“We sold it for scrap.”

Cardozo’s eye roamed the walls. Gardening tools had been neatly hung—rakes, brooms, a hose. The cement floor sloped down to a small covered drain at its center.

“Did anyone drive that old van besides Father Montgomery?”

“Dr. St. Lawrence—he heads the medical outreach; some of the young people involved in our musicals; I drove it once or twice myself when my own car was laid up.”

She nodded toward the Mazda. He noticed that a hubcap was missing.

“I’m afraid it’s not in very good shape. But I don’t need it for much.” She was staring at a crack in the windshield as though it hadn’t been there yesterday. “I live in an apartment across the street and Father Joe lets me park here.”

“Did you ever drive that van in Central Park?”

She smiled. “I’ve never driven anything in Central Park.”

“Do you know of anyone driving it in the park?”

“Not offhand.”

He caught another whiff of the smell that wasn’t quite cat. It seemed to be coming from indoors. “Where does the stairway go?”

She glanced back toward the rectory. “Those stairs? Up to Father Montgomery’s apartment.”

“And what’s downstairs?”

“Father Joe converted the cellar into a work space.”

“Could I look?”

She glanced at her wristwatch. “I suppose we have time for the quick tour.”

She flicked a light switch at the top of the stairs. He followed her down creaking wooden steps. A hot-water heater was sighing somewhere. The cat smell was stronger.

“This is the woodworking shop.” She pressed a switch beside the door. Fluorescent light sputtered.

The first thing he saw was the power saw with rip teeth mounted on a steel brace. And then the standing power drill. And behind them the eight-foot wooden workbench turreted with vises and clamps. Electric tools had been left on the bench—a circular saw, a saber saw, a hand drill, a sander, cords intercoiled like sleeping snakes.

“What happens here?” Cardozo said.

“Father Joe teaches crafts and carpentry to underprivileged kids. Once a year they build sets for his shows.”

“Don’t let the fire department see this place. You’re breaking three dozen regulations.” A wave of cat odor came at him again. “What’s that smell?”

“Ammonia.”

“Why ammonia?”

“For cleaning tools.”

And the tools were undeniably clean: handsaws and jigsaws and hacksaws had been racked in neat, gleaming rows on the walls, and beneath them claw hammers, ball peen hammers, mallets, hatchets, screwdrivers. Even the tools heaped in the well at the end of the bench sparkled: pliers and wrenches, planes and chisels, rasps and files.

“Busy man,” Cardozo said. “And multitalented.”

Bonnie Ruskay nodded. “Very.”

Snowdrifts of sawdust covered the floor. Cardozo’s gaze traveled to five jumbo-sized Styrobaskets stacked beside the lumber bin. “And those?”

“They’re for picnics.”

“Don’t tell me Father Montgomery cooks too.”

“Every chance he gets. He believes in feeding the multitudes.”

NINE

I
’M SCARED.” THE PALE-FACED
, redheaded girl pulled at her left pigtail. “What if F-F-Frank f-f-finds out?”

“Who’s Frank?” Bonnie said.

The girl had to force her lips apart. “My p-p-pimp.”

Bonnie was careful to control her face, to show no reaction. It still shocked her that fourteen-year-old children were prostituting themselves. “How would he find out? You know I’m not going to tell him.”

The girl’s bright, swollen eyes took a long, considering moment to accept the truth of this.

“Dr. St. Lawrence certainly isn’t going to tell him. Doctors aren’t allowed to tell. And you’re not going to tell him.”

“I don’t know.” The child’s voice was suddenly remote. Her fingers bunched the thin cotton cloth of her dress. “I may have to.”

Bonnie forgot herself. Her fist dropped to the desk top with the thump of a judge’s gavel. “Amy, he gave you this disease. It’s curable—but not if you keep going back to him.”

The girl began crying softly, miserably. “I don’t know what to do.”

“You know exactly what to do. You’re going to walk out this door to Park Avenue and get into a cab. You have the doctor’s card.”

The girl looked down at the card in her hand.

Bonnie took a five-dollar bill from her purse. “This is for the fare. Come on now. Dr. St. Lawrence is expecting you.”

The girl sat there, helpless in the leather easy chair, clutching the card and the five-dollar bill, staring at them as if she were facing the end of her life. A cry ripped itself from her throat. “If I don’t have Frank, who do I have?”

“You have me, Amy.” Bonnie rose and pulled the office door open. “Let’s go.”

She walked with the girl to the rectory door. The girl darted a kiss onto Bonnie’s cheek. “Thank you.”

Bonnie smiled. “You’re more than welcome. And phone me.”

She returned to her office. She felt drained.
So many children
, she thought. Tens of thousands of runaways flocked to New York every year—seeking excitement, freedom, fame, success—finding instead abandoned buildings, poverty, drugs, prostitution, disease, and early death. A girl like Amy was only one hundredth of one percent of the problem.

Bonnie fought off a sense of hopelessness. She tried to concentrate on nothing except silence and space.

On the desk, the hands of the little gold Tiffany clock pointed to six-fifteen. End of the workday. No telephone nudged with its well-mannered beep, no parishioner or runaway sat needing her ear, her shoulder, her advice. The moment felt strangely hollow and unreal.

She glanced at her appointment book. Nothing more scheduled for today, no further face-to-face.

“Good night, Bonnie,” a woman’s voice called from the hallway.

“Good night, Virginia.”

She heard the footsteps of the parish secretary going down the hallway, the soft thud of the front door closing. And now she was alone in the rectory.

Her eye inventoried the desk top. Work still needing to be done had sprouted like weeds—letters to be answered, checks to be signed, stacked memos of phone calls to be returned, and names of sick parishioners to be visited.

She began with the checks and worked her way through the phone calls. She was frowning at a contractor’s estimate for repairs to the slate roof when the doorbell dingdonged.

The hands of the clock formed a pie wedge at five to seven.
Who in the world?
she wondered.