William H. Hallahan - (20 page)

He began, on his lunch hours, to walk down from his office to the
Port Authority Bus Terminal. Buses from all over the country came
there and there was always a crowd of people streaming out of the
terminal and into the streets. Many of them were young; a number were
runaways.

Brendan learned to spot them and intercept them. He found himself
in a modern morality play, dicing with the devil for the souls of
children just blocks away from the lights of Broadway and
Forty-second Street. He would talk to them and when he was successful
he would bring them back to the office to call home.

One day the head of the. office spoke to him. "You're not
going to make it here, Davitt. You give away your food money. You
give away your clothing. After hours you go shopping for homes for
these kids. And one of these days you'll pour out your lifeblood.
Wake up. Most of these kids don't deserve it. Grow some calluses. And
stop hanging around the bus terminal or you'll have to find another
job."

He did stop. And he tried to grow calluses. But now he wondered if
one day he might not have intercepted the girl in the morgue. Had she
come through the bus terminal?

Up Eighth Avenue, Anne drove the motor home toward his office. As
they approached the bus terminal, Brendan said, "Let me out at
the corner."

As he got out, Anne said, "I'll pick you up at your office at
five."

He frowned.

"Five," she said. "Tonight. Dinner, Brendan,
remember? At your Aunt Maeve's."

"Oh, right. Five o'clock." He hurried into the terminal.
 
 

Well-dressed business executives and shoppers were queued up for
buses to the expensive suburbs in Jersey. Poor people, blacks and
whites from the ghettos lugging shopping bags, shambling derelicts,
Puerto Rican farm laborers, police in pairs, bus drivers, porters,
all swirled around him. What arrested his attention was a small dark
man with oiled hair who stood by the stairway to the subway, looking
at faces of young women, searching for that certain furtive look, the
glitter of excitement, the squint of fear--the runaway girl.

Quick as a ferret, when he found a target he would move, with his
practiced speech tumbling from his lips, business card in hand.

"Pardon me, miss, have you ever done any acting?" Hope
lit his face.

She was possibly fourteen, a worn backpack swinging from her left
shoulder, blue jeans with a split right knee and an imitation
deerskin jacket with dangling sleeve fringe. She had acne at both
temples and a rather plain face framed by lovely chestnut hair.

She stopped and stared gap-mouthed at the man.

"I mean, miss, are you planning a career in the theater? Or
perhaps modeling?"

"Well--" She seemed not to be able to believe her own
extraordinary good luck. "Modeling. That's what I want to do."

"My card, miss." He probably had used dozens of
different ones over the years--Guido DiStephano, Director, or Roberto
Lorenzo, Talent Scout, and his company name always had the ring of
familiarity: Twentieth Century-Fox Talent School. Acting and
Modeling. Pay As You Earn in Your Career.

"Excuse me, miss," he then said. "Would you put the
shoulder bag down? That's it. Now just stroll around me. That's it.
Head up. Yes. A bit higher."

She stared at him hopefully, suppressing a smirk and a giggle.

"Yes. Oh, definite possibilities. I must say, miss, you are
indeed fortunate that we've met like this. I was just on my way to
Cape Cod for a photography session with some of the models from our
school We're doing spring wardrobes for some of the fashionable shops
on Fifth Avenue. It's funny how you caught my eye. Something in the
way you hold your head, I suppose, and that ingénue's expression on
your face. Unforgettable. Do you have a moment? We might be able to
work something out for you right now." Deftly he brushed back
some of the strands of her hair and she began to talk. . .about
modeling and the money she'd saved for the bus ticket, and as she
talked, he wheeled her about and strolled with her toward the stairs
to the street.

Brendan watched with the familiar dismay and impotence. He could
call a policeman. Guido DeStephano Lorenzo Olivier de la France could
be hustled out of the building and dismissed on the street, but he'd
be back in twenty minutes. Or if he was booked, a replacement would
appear within the half hour, to lean against the same wall, idly
smoking and waiting for the buses to arrive, then watching for that
certain age and that certain expression on the face that branded the
runaway girl.

Brendan walked up to them as they strolled.

"My parents don't understand me," the child was saying.

Guido Carlo Dino's nodding sympathetic face abruptly changed
expression when he saw Brendan. "Goddamn it," he said, and
turned abruptly and bounded up a staircase marked Emergency Exit
Only.

"Do you know who that was?" Brendan asked the girl.

She shook her head.

"He trains girls for prostitution."

The girl in protest looked down at the card in her hand. Brendan
took it and tore it in half. "Do you have a place to stay
tonight?"

"I--" She became evasive. "Yes. I do."

"No, you don't. There's a snowstorm coming. You could freeze
out there. Look, go up these stairs. You'll be on Eighth Avenue. Walk
six blocks to Forty-eighth, turn left and you'll see a big church,
San Sepolcro. There's a door with a small sign that says 'Mary
Refuge.' Okay? And underneath it says 'No questions asked,' Okay?
Ring the bell and you'll get something to eat and a clean bed for the
night. Okay?"

She nodded doubtfully.

"They're nuns," Brendan said. "Very nice people.
You go there and don't talk to anybody on the way. Not anybody."

She seemed hesitant.

"Come on. I'll show you where it is." When she hung
back, he said, "Would you rather sleep in the park? It's full of
muggers and worse. Look. It can't hurt to look at it. I won't say
another word. How's that?"

She nodded mutely and strolled along beside him, up the main
stairs to the main concourse of the terminal and through the swinging
doors to the street.

It was chilly and damp. The streets were filled with foot traffic
and automobiles. Manhattan was a blaze of lights even by day. As they
crossed Forty-second Street, her eyes stared hungrily at the flashing
lights of the X-rated movie houses and at the crowds of young people
packed onto the sidewalks. She walked beside him to Forty-eighth. She
was small, perhaps under five feet, and may have weighed eighty
pounds and her eyes saw everything, the Hispanic food stores, the
restaurants and coffee shops, the apartments over the stores with
torn shades, the old cobblestones showing through the broken tar road
surface. Baghdad.

They turned left and walked into the middle of the block. There
was the old stone church with its high spiked wrought-iron fence and
the glassed sign listing the hours of the Mass. Next to it was a
doorway with a light and a sign Mary Refuge. No Questions Asked.

"That's it," Brendan said to her. "Push the
button."

This was not what she'd planned on. Her expression said so.

"Do you have a better choice?" he asked her.

She swallowed and pushed the button. After a moment's wait, the
door opened. An older woman in a blue service smock smiled at her and
led her inside. "Would you like something to eat?" she
asked the girl as she shut the door.

For the first time, Brendan began to feet overwhelmed. And as he
walked away, it began to snow.
 
 

It was after noon when Father Joseph approached the Brooklyn
Bridge. Nearby, a construction crew was erecting an office building
near City Hall. Five workers warmed themselves around a fire in a
steel barrel. Father Joseph saw the leaping hanks of flame and strode
toward the warmth. Without a word the five men made room for the monk
and watched him put out his arms to the fire. There were some white
spots on the back of both his hands.

"Ain't you got no gloves, Father?" one of the men asked.

"I'll be all right," Father Joseph replied.

"Not with hands like that You got frostbite."

"I don't have much farther to go."

"Where you going, Father?"

"Brooklyn Heights."

"You're walking? That's quite a hike, Father. Whyn't you take
the subway?" The man reached into his pocket for coins.

"I prefer to walk."

"Oh."

The men all stared at his frostbitten hands.

"Listen, Father. Don't go away for a minute. Okay? You'll
stay here? I want to get something." The man ran over to his
car, holding one hand on his yellow hard hat. He came running back.
"See? These are an old pair of gloves I've had in the trunk.
They're leather, see? And they have this fleece lining. There's a
couple of holes in the fingertips, that's why I can't wear them for
working no more. But you take them, Father. They'll make all the
difference."

Father Joseph nodded. "That's very kind of you."

The man felt the monk's cloak. "That ought to do the job. All
wool. You should have a windbreaker over it, though."

"The wind is very sharp," the monk said.

"Whyn't you put newspaper under it, across your chest? Here.
Get them papers." And the three men quickly opened the monk's
heavy wool cloak and fitted thick layers of newspapers across his
chest and back, then refitted the cloak and cinched the leather belt
around his waist.

"There you are, Father. Windproof. Get your hands and feet
real warm and you'll reach Brooklyn in a breeze."
 
 

It was snowing heavily now in Pittsburgh, Washington, Baltimore,
Wilmington and Philadelphia. Also in Altoona, Easton, and Harrisburg.
Soon the entire length of the Pennsylvania Turnpike would be closed.
The snow was rolling directly toward northern New Jersey and New York
City. And riding on the edge of it, over Philadelphia, one hundred
miles from New York, was the black hawk.
 
 

Father Joseph walked up the ramp to the Brooklyn Bridge with grave
misgivings. The wind over the water would be much stronger, he knew,
and he could easily freeze in it. The whole bridge seemed forbidding
and hostile. The wind fingered the skirts of his gown as though eager
to begin the attack. He could hear the wind's voice soughing in the
steel cables over his head. Only the strongest premonition that
Brendan Davitt was in danger made the monk go on.

The newspaper padding worked wonders. It stopped the penetration
of the cold completely and he felt the glow of warmth under it. And
in the old leather work gloves with the fleece lining, his hands
began to recover their circulation. Indeed, as he walked, body heat
flowed down into them and they were no longer numb. He promised
himself to remember those workingmen in his prayers always.

But it was his legs and feet that were most exposed and they
quickly became numb. Before he was halfway across the bridge, he'd
lost most of the sensation in his feet; he couldn't feel them
striking the paving as he walked.

Most of all he feared collapse. He'd known monks in his order who
had frozen to death and be knew he was daring a similar fate. He told
himself he was a very old man but if he froze the true victim would
be Brendan Davitt. For if he failed to warn Brendan, the young man
would soon be found by Satan and destroyed.

His premonition made him hasten his pace over the bridge. And the
fast pace helped him generate warmth. But he had no reserves of
energy, he was still very sick from the flu, and now in spite of his
heavy wool hood his head began to pound with the pain of cold. He
felt disoriented.

Yet he was determined he would not break his vows; and he was
equally determined he would not freeze. He would survive and find
Brendan Davitt this day.

When he reached the crest of the bridge high above the East River,
the wind was roaring and he felt the bridge moving slightly under its
onslaught. He could see all over New York City, down to the tip of
Manhattan, far out over Brooklyn, far upriver to the other bridges.
And once when he glanced back, he was astonished by the black clouds
that were filling the sky, racing after him. Heavy snow was coming.
He hastened his step even more.

It was so absurd: The cars went whizzing by with people relaxed
and warm, chatting idly while he struggled to keep his life in his
old bones.

Sand struck his face. Windblown and cutting. White sand. With no
warning, wind-driven snow enveloped him. The whole world was whited
out, gone was Manhattan Island, gone was Brooklyn and the other
bridges and the water below.

He bowed his head and turned it away from the wind. It was
difficult to see the footing ahead of him. He hesitated for fear he
might stumble over the railing and fall.

He resorted to his customary defense; he prayed while he walked,
groping. He concentrated on each word and its meaning. Every few
steps he had to raise his head and look for his footing, and each
time the granular snow slashed at his face. He sang hymns, at first
softly, then defiantly in a loud voice. There was no feeling below
his knees. He realized he was in serious trouble when he couldn't
remember the words to the hymn and found himself singing the same
phrase over and over.

Then he walked into a stone abutment. He staggered and nearly
fell, and he stepped around it and stared with disbelief. He'd made
it. He was at the foot of the bridge in Brooklyn, still alive, still
moving. Only a few miles to go. He thanked God for deliverance from
the bridge. But he felt terribly weak. Above all, he wanted to lie
down and go to sleep. It would be so easy; even for just a few
moments to lie there out of the wind and rest. He knew if he did he
would never rise again.

He was shivering from a fever. In spite of his victory over the
bridge, he feared that fate was closing in: There were too many
streets ahead of him. He was much weaker. His steps began to falter.