Applaud the Hollow Ghost (6 page)

“But if you won't speak out, why are you telling me all this?”

“I must protect my grandchild. But I do not wish to be responsible, before God, that something terrible happens to an innocent one. So, as I must protect Trish, you must protect this Lambert.”

“But that means he has to beat the charge. You know that. If he goes to jail, they'll kill him in there, or worse.”

“I understand. But even to win the case will not be enough. Steven is nearly insane with anger at this Lambert. I have learned that my brother Gustavo will prevent him from acting until—”

“Gustavo? Your brother? You mean—”

“Gustavo Apprezziano. He brings me shame, but he is my brother. He will hold Steven back until the court case is over. But then…”

“Then what?”

“Then, if this Lambert is not convicted, Steven Connolly will kill him—or worse, as you say.”

“Jesus Christ, I—”

“Quiet!”

“Sorry, it's a holy—”

“No. Listen.” She paused. “The rosary is almost over. I must go now or my friends will see me.”

“Wait. There's something else I need to know.” But she was gone.

A moment later, the praying from the front of the church had stopped. I could hear people moving down the center aisle, pushing through the doors. Footsteps were even coming down the side aisle. As soon as I was sure they were all gone, I'd—

The rustle of clothing—soft, but unmistakably coming through the grate beside my ear. Then harsh, labored breathing.

My own breath froze in my chest.

“Benedite mi, Padre.”
The voice of another woman, probably older than Rosa.

“Please, I…”

“Padre, parli Italiano?”

“Uh …
Si, si,
” I lied, hoping to keep her where she was.

“Ah, buono. Ho peccato, Padre.”

I stood up, still not daring to breathe.

“Sono passati due mesi dalla mia ultima confes—”

I slipped silently through the curtain and out of Our Lady of Ravenna.

Driving away, I passed four women in black, headed home from Mass. Women walking carefully, avoiding the slippery spots, gesturing, shaking their heads. One of them may have been Rosa. There was no way to tell.

Too bad, because there was a question remaining, something I needed to know. Who had told Rosa who I was, and that I was helping Lammy? If I was guessing right, it was the woman who'd called during the night and set up my meeting with Rosa, a woman whose voice had a hard veneer of bitterness and cynicism that couldn't cover up its underlying soft southern drawl.

And, while I was at it, I'd guess that the woman—whoever she was—had a fondness for black leather boots and crossword puzzles.

CHAPTER
8

I
DROVE AWAY FROM
the neighborhood, learning yet again why I hate being out on the streets at that time of the morning. For one thing, whether you're headed into or out of the city, rush hour is there, both ways. Worse than that, though, I usually end up comparing myself with all those other drivers—people who have real jobs. Chastising myself, consoling myself, finally questioning my choices … again.

Who do you think you are, I ask, with no paycheck, no health benefits, no retirement plan?

True, I answer, but also no mortgage payments, no tuition bills, no—

Uh-huh, sure. And no family life, either. And no routine to keep you sane.

So I headed for Western Avenue, recalling the times I've had regular employment. There's a lot to be said for not having to think, every day, about what time to get up, when to leave home, where to go. At Western, I slowed when the light turned yellow, then gunned into a left turn just after it went red. Horns blared. The sun was barely up and people seemed mad as hell already, as though they couldn't wait to get to their real jobs and complain about the traffic.

One block north on Western, I threw a hard right and fishtailed on a patch of ice onto a residential street. It hadn't been plowed, but it was one-way and previous cars had dug ruts in the snow, which was now frozen firm. I pounded hard on the accelerator. The Cavalier's rear tires wanted to slither side to side, but couldn't because of the ruts, so they finally grabbed hold and sent me forward. One more block and another hard right. A few more blocks, a few more turns, another questionable lurch through an intersection, and pretty soon I was on Ashland Avenue, headed north again.

Yes, there's something comfortable about routine. But there's consolation, too, in knowing you can still shake off a car that's tailing you, without making it obvious you even know it's there. On the other hand, maybe those two goons in the dark blue Ford that wasn't behind me any more just weren't that good. Or maybe they weren't trying all that hard by the time I'd spotted them, which was a couple of blocks from the church. After all, I hadn't noticed any blue Ford when I left the coach house an hour and a half earlier.

And certainly the coach house must have been where they started to follow me. Because no one could have known I'd be at Our Lady of Ravenna for seven o'clock Mass. Could they?

*   *   *

I
DON'T KNOW WHERE
Dr. Sato lives, but at eight-thirty in the morning he was there at his dojo, smoking a cigarette in his glass-walled office in the corner, on the second floor over the cleaners on Central Street in Evanston. A few of his other students were there, too. After I bowed and stepped onto the mat that nearly covered the entire floor of the huge, bare room, I waited for Dr. Sato to stab out his cigarette and walk barefoot across the mat to me.

“Good morning,
sensei,
” I said.

“Good morning, Malachy.” Another one who never got the last syllable wrong.

After a ritual exchange of greetings, I told him about my bruised ribs, courtesy of Goldilocks and his brass knuckles.

I could swear Dr. Sato stifled a grin then, but maybe he was just trying to look sympathetic. He always smiled a lot, anyway. “Ah, well then,” he said, “let me watch you stretch out.”

I did the best I could, but it hurt like hell to move.

In a moment he said, “You are fine. No problem.”

“Thank you,
sensei.
” No problem that he could feel.

“So,” he said, “prepare yourself. Ten minutes for the mind. Ten minutes for the body. Then we will begin, and I and the others will take it easy with you.”

The hour and a half session was the usual whirlwind of throws, rolling falls, kicks, and punches, with Dr. Sato demonstrating good technique on me when one of us didn't get things right. If anyone took it easy on anyone, it went undetected by me. When the time was up, he went back to his office and lit another cigarette, while we students swept the mat and then placed the old-fashioned straw brooms carefully in their stand.

Dr. Sato approached. If he was as tired as I was—and he sure should have been, since he had more than twenty years on me—he didn't look it. “And the pain, Malachy?” he asked.

“Still there,” I said. “Worse than before.”

“Good.”

“Pain is good?”

“Everything is good.”

Since this was turning into one of the longer verbal exchanges of our relationship, I decided to go ahead and ask him. “
Sensei,
why do you keep smoking those cigarettes?”

“You do not approve?”

“Well, it's just that…”

“My wife does not approve, either.” His eyes turned sad. “Ah, well, I enjoy them, don't I.” It wasn't a question, and he sounded sad, too. But then he smiled, and held out a small white paper bag. “Here. Japanese tea. Try this.”

“Will it help ease the pain?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But it is good, anyway.”

I trotted down the stairs from the dojo, stunned. Not at his gift of the tea, which was loose in the bag and smelled awful. But amazed that Dr. Sato might feel sad. And he had a wife, too. Imagine that. Just like some ordinary human being. He probably slept, ate food. Maybe he even had children. Wouldn't that be something? Little Sato kids, throwing each other around the living room.

When I got to the Cavalier, there were no blue Fords in sight, and no black Cadillacs. I drove home and called Barney Green and asked him to get me a quick reading on a few license plates. Barney can do things like that.

Meanwhile, I fried up some lean bacon I'd brought home with me and ate it with two English muffins spread with the Lady's homemade strawberry jam, along with some of the Japanese tea. The tea actually tasted better than it smelled.

Barney called back. The Ford van at Melba's was registered to Steve Connolly; the Cadillac to someone in River Forest who sounded very much like he might be related to Gus Apprezziano. But there was no information available on the Ford sedan that was following me.

“No information?” I said. “What does that mean?”

“Maybe it's a computer screwup,” he said.

“And maybe it's not.”

“Right. Anyway, gotta go.” Barney's always on the run. He makes a lot of money.

As soon as I hung up, the phone rang. I let the machine answer.

“Hey,” the voice said, “it's Casey. Pick up the damn phone if you're there, will you?”

Casey's real name is Father Casimir Casielewiecz, or Caseliewicz or something. The only time I asked him he claimed even he'd given up trying to spell it right. He was still the pastor of Saint Ludella's, the church where I'd watched Kevin Cunningham say those two Masses awhile ago. Casey's claim that he couldn't spell his own name wasn't true, of course, but it was the sort of thing he liked to say.

I picked up. “Casey, how are ya?”

“Goin' nuts, as usual. But the parish is great. Had confirmation last week. Seventeen eighth-graders and five adults. Great day. Had a guy playing trumpet in the choir loft. And the Cardinal himself was here. Surprised the hell outta me.” Casey couldn't help himself. He loved to talk about Saint Ludella's, whether anyone was interested or not. “Then we got the church's seventy-fifth anniversary coming up in March. My idea was a pot-luck supper, but the people wanna make a big deal about it. Between you and me, it's not gonna be worth it. No point in a big anniversary party unless you can rake in some big bucks. Shoot, if we invite three thousand former parishioners we'll be lucky if fifty show up. The rest are either dead or afraid to come back into this neighbor—”

“Casey?”

“What? Oh, talking too much. But what the hell, that's 'cause I'm havin' a great time.” He paused. “So, we still on for the game Saturday?”

“I'll do my best. I'm working on something, but Jason's playing, so I don't want to miss this one.”

“Working on something? You mean you actually got a paying client?”

“Well … a client, anyway.”

“Damn, you're as bad as I am. Anyway, if you can't make it, could you leave my ticket at the gate? I'm supposed to be on vacation and—” He stopped, and somehow I knew an idea had just flown into his mind. “Say, maybe I could give you a hand,” he said, “with whatever you're doing.”

“Uh-uh. I don't think so. Last time I dragged you along you were lucky to survive.”

“You didn't drag me, and what happened wasn't your fault. If I hadn't been so overweight I coulda run faster. Hell, I lost fifty pounds in the hospital, anyway, which I'd have never done on a diet. Besides,” his voice took on a more serious tone, “I, uh, got a kind of a problem of my own.”

“Problem?”

“Yeah. Like I said, instead of the other bishop that was scheduled, the damn Cardinal himself showed up for our confirmation last week. ‘A pastoral visit,' he called it. Nice guy, y'know, but he's kinda mad that I haven't taken any time off. Claims that was the deal when they let me come back here after I got hurt and all. Says I oughta go to Florida or some damn place. Jesus, Florida. Anyway, he said if I don't get out of here for two weeks he's gonna move me to another parish. Some place ‘less stressful,' he said. I told him forget that stress crap and just let me be happy, right here on the job, for chrissake.”

That's the way Casey would have said it, too, to a cardinal or anybody. He never sounded like my idea of how a priest should talk—however that was.

“Just go stay with one of your sisters for a couple weeks, Casey.”

“Are you kidding? They'll drive me nuts. I mean, they're nice, but they always make a big fuss over me. Besides, they're too … pious, or something.”

We argued a while. He wasn't kidding. He really needed something to do. And, in fact, I thought of something that would get him away from Saint Ludella's for awhile. And there wouldn't be any danger. Not that he cared. His parish included some of the scariest public housing projects in the Western Hemisphere, and he wandered around them night or day. The only time he ever got shot at was sixty miles out in the country, when he was safely with me.

We arranged to meet at two o'clock, at a restaurant a few blocks from Lammy's apartment. Casey said he had to take the el because his car wasn't running right. The car was a brown Dodge Aries, about four years old, and it would have worked just fine if he'd ever remember to change the oil or get an occasional tune-up.

Meanwhile, I showered and shaved and washed the dishes, then took the garbage down the back steps and left the bag by the door, but inside, because pickup wasn't until Friday. There was still plenty of time, so I went back upstairs and took apart both my phones. I backtracked the wiring all the way down to the box in the garage, even looked at the lines outside.

The fact that I found nothing wasn't entirely satisfying. Someone could have been bugging the place by satellite, for all I knew. But the hell with them. I took a mug of Dr. Sato's tea to the battered old Steinway upright in the room beyond my bedroom and banged away for almost an hour. If there were any listeners, they got a real good dose of the turnaround from “Angel Eyes,” the same eight bars about a hundred times.