Bless the Child (60 page)

She hoped with all her heart that Ellie wouldn’t pay for her friendship with her life.

H
arry Fisk glanced right, left, and behind, as he spoke. Even when not doing that, it was easy to see the hair-trigger alertness with which he scanned the road ahead of him. He had chosen the place, far from the city, but he’d been in this game long enough to know that no place was safe, if you were a marked man. For today, he didn’t think he fell into that category, but the habit of caution is not one you practice part-time.

Devlin walked beside him, hands plunged in his pockets. Harry hadn’t called for a 6:00 A.M. meet in the woods, if there weren’t dangerous topics to be discussed.

“Here’s how it lays out,” Fisk said, without the usual pleasantries. “Both your guys are protected by every intelligence service on the planet. They do big favors for all the big boys, and they’re so fucking high up Washington’s ass, you’d need a proctoscope to find them.”

“So, you’re telling me nobody’ll care that they’re eating kids for dinner, never mind the rest of the shit that’s going down with these people?”

“I’m saying nobody’ll care if they make kids into hors d’oeuvres for a White House lawn party, provided they’re discreet about it, and nobody knows it’s happening. And, provided Vannier and Sayles keep doing what they’re doing for everybody’s black ops. Hell, everybody’s got some dark secret, is the way the rationalization goes—so what’s a little Black Magic among friends?”

Devlin stopped walking. “I fucking well do not believe that
anybody
has that kind of underground power in this country, Harry.”

“Grow up, Malachy!” Fisk said relentlessly. “Kennedy didn’t kill himself, you know. And nobody’s paid for that one, last time I looked.”

Devlin took a deep breath and tried to handle his own anger. “What about the drug traffic? What about getting the DEA to raid the Sabbat?”

“And what’ll they find? A bunch of naked rich guys smoking joints and snorting blow. Very embarrassing. For ten minutes, until the fix goes in, and a lot of important people make phone calls, and suddenly the story doesn’t hit the papers ‘in the interest of national security’ and the police chief in the jurisdiction is told that ‘other matters should be considered far more pressing on his attention.’ And maybe anybody who makes waves is told he’ll be considered a traitor to his country, if he tells what he knows. Like all those doctors at Dallas Memorial Hospital who were so fucking intimidated by the Feds they’re all still scared shitless thirty years later.” Harry kicked a rock out of the way.

“Whose money do you think is keeping the banks in business, these days, Malachy? It’s
drug money
that’s keeping the banks afloat—yank it and half the banks in America go down the tubes. Do you honestly think we couldn’t keep drugs out of this country, if we really wanted to? Get a
grip!
Every Friday, suitcases of money go to senators and judges and police chiefs all over this great land of ours, just to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Devlin needed to vent his fury, somewhere. “So what the fuck are you telling me, Harry? That we should lie down and play dead because you can’t fight City Hall? And maybe we should stop chasing the bad guys because there’s more of them than there are of us? Where exactly does that leave guys like you and me, Harry? With our thumbs up our asses?”

“With our fingers in the dike, Malachy, that’s where. We hold back the tide where we can. Seal up the little cracks, so we can sleep nights, thinking we’ve done a good deed in a dirty world. And that’s okay by me. If I fucking well get myself killed because I try to do the undoable, then all those little cracks I could have stuck my finger in, finally bring the dam down. You know the drill as well as I do, Malachy. You do what you can do, when you can do it—and you don’t go off halfcocked on a crusade that’ll put your nuts in a vise, because then you’re no good to anybody.

“You cannot bring these people down, Devlin,” Harry said evenly, “not in this lifetime. Their name is Legion, kid, just like it says in the Bible. So you gotta do what you can do, to keep the scorecard a little more even, and you gotta try to stay alive to fight another day.”

“You know, Harry, that’s such a self-serving crock of shit. Because where does it end?”

“That’s just the way the rat race works, Malachy.”

“Yeah. Well that’s just fine if you want to be a rat, Harry, but it’s not good enough if you give a damn.

“You know, I keep thinking, I had this ethics professor in college who used to say, ‘I have this simple rule: Would Superman do it? Because everything he stands for makes the world a better place.’ He wasn’t so far off the mark, Harry.”

Harry Fisk snorted sardonic laughter. “You are one crazy son of a bitch, Devlin, you know that? If you think you can play Superman, you better have a phone booth handy to duck into, because in the real world heros get shot first.”

Devlin stopped walking and turned to face his friend. “There’s this play called.
All My Sons,
Harry,” he said, deadly serious. “And in it, this father’s been doing a lot of bad things, and his kid is losing respect for him, so the father says to his boy, ‘Son, I’m no worse than anyone else.’ And the kid looks up at him and says, ‘I know Dad. But I thought you were better.’ I remember you before you were a cynic, Harry. And, I’m asking you one last time . . . are you telling me there is not one fucking thing you can do for me on this one?”

Harry Fisk stood staring at Devlin for a long while before he spoke again. “There’s a guy named Rafi Abraham,” he said, finally, his voice charged with some emotion that hadn’t been there before. “I’m pretty sure he’s heading the Mossad team that’s looking into this. He owes me, and he’s a pretty good guy by the peculiar standards of my trade. I’ll try to make sure his boys don’t take you out, in the course of doing their job.” He looked past Devlin to scan the road again.

“The Egyptian team is headed by a Colonel Hamid. He’s a mean son of a bitch, and he doesn’t like me any better than I like him, but he’s not as smart as Abraham, so I’d put my money on Rafi to keep Hamid neutralized.” He paused, then added, “That’s all I got right now, but I’ll keep my ear to the ground. Just like Jimmy Olson. Okay?”

“I owe you, Harry,” Devlin said, without smiling.

“Damned straight, you do. And you can’t do me any favors dead, so watch your idealistic Irish ass, will you, kid?”

The two men parted, and each drove back to the city by separate routes.

M
aria Aparecida knocked diffidently on the door to the library, where Maggie was trying to meditate.

“Dona Maggie,” she said, “the priest. He says he must see you.”

Maggie looked up, startled; she had not seen or spoken to Peter since the night, a week ago . . .

“The cow has gone to the swamp,” Maria said sonorously, “but a good man is still a good man.”

The cow has gone to the swamp. The Brazilian proverb for “it’s all over now.” Maggie smiled wryly. Maria always knew everything that happened in the house, even when she wasn’t there, by some housekeeper osmosis.

“Please ask him to come in, Maria,” she said, wondering how on earth to breach the embarrassment they each felt over their last encounter. She heard the familiar footfall on the stairs, and she wished fleetingly that she were in any room but this one.

Peter stood in the doorway, as if unwilling to cross the threshold. His face was careworn, dark circles framed his eyes, and his shoulders seemed heavily laden.

“I didn’t have the courage to call you, Peter,” she said, meeting his eyes. “Because I didn’t know what to say.”

“Maggie dear,” he began . . . She could feel the love and the terrible tension in his voice. “Please say nothing until you’ve heard me out. I have so very much to say to you, and no idea if I shall have the courage to say half of it.” He took a profound breath and entered the room. She saw him glance at his favorite chair, and make a conscious decision not to sit in it. He would stand, it seemed.

“I can only pray, Maggie, that at the end of it, you will understand what I
mean
to tell you—if my words are hopelessly inadequate, you must listen with your heart.”

She nodded and waited.

“When we met, Maggie, I was already in crisis—a crisis I never had the courage to explain to you . . . or perhaps, I just didn’t know how. Now, I realize I must try to make you understand . . . or you will never know what’s in my heart.” He took another deep, pained breath and continued.

“The basic model for any priest is Christ, Maggie . . . that is the impossible benchmark he strives for. And he sees the institution of the Church as the larger expression of Christ’s presence on earth. It’s the Church that validates him throughout his ministry . . . the Church that provides the body of knowledge he draws upon, and the body of grace he taps into, for sustenance.

“We were taught that the Church is the
Mother,
Maggie, the eternal female nurturer, who succors or chastises, as needed . . .but of whose love he can always be assured.”

Peter was moving now, not so much pacing, as moving restlessly from place to place, the momentum of memory carrying him. “When the crisis came for me, and my conscience led me into strange byways . . . I had big questions about just how nurturing that mother really was. ‘Even when they’re wrong, they’re right,’ you’re taught in seminary . . . the Church may be wrong one season and right the next, so you’d better be there for the next season, for that is the ultimate act of faith. But I had been set adrift by my own hand, and could no longer make that act of faith.

“Am I following Christ by following my conscience, or am I merely being proud and inflexible in defying my superiors? Was I surrendering, or defying, in writing
The Long Road from Calvary?
Was I on that famous road to Hell that’s paved with good intentions? Or was I battling my way, against the disillusioning odds, to Heaven? I was going insane. And I was all alone.” He paused significantly, visibly shaken. “It was in that fearsome aloneness that I floundered, when first you came to me, Maggie.”

“Surely you’re not telling me, Peter, that I was a momentary port in an ecclesiastical storm,” she said icily. “That’s demeaning and cruel.”

Shock registered, and he stopped short in his pacing. “Dear God, no!” he blurted. “What I’m saying is that you were sent from Heaven, Maggie. Don’t you see—I’ve thought all along that I was saving you, but it was you who was saving
me!

“Your faith is absolutely pure. It does not spring from theology, or dialectics or two thousand years of Roman spiritual power. It springs from love of God! The essential female, Maggie! . . . the ultimate in every religion is the essential strength of the female. Every priest knows that, but we forget! You live in faith so unselfconsciously, Maggie . . . that’s what you showed me! For all my intellectual convolutions—my chess game of Good and Evil, my Hamlet-like soul search that had entangled me in wheels within wheels was useless. I was dying because I was trapped in a paradox. But you were not trapped!

“Oh, Maggie, my Maggie, don’t you see? In essence, you said to me, ‘Damnit, stop talking and do
something!
Let go of the paradox and save this child. This is not a debate, it’s a life and death struggle to save Cody. Get moving! That alone is the ultimate act of faith.’ You shocked me into understanding.

“You are not simple, Maggie, but your faith is. ‘If I can live with my own conscience,’ you said to me, in a thousand different ways, ‘and do the best I can for everyone around me, I’m on God’s side. I try to be a decent person, and to do good in the world, in small or large things. I try not to harm anyone, and to always love God. That’s the best I can do, and I take full responsibility for doing it. But I cannot get lost in this bog of theology. I cannot let the Church do the thinking for me, because that’s not what God wants of me. I don’t care if this is intellectual pride, or that I am flying in the face of this two-thousand-year-old body of thinkers. I know right from wrong, and it’s
right
to save this child, even if I die to do it.’ That’s what you said, in words and in deeds.” He looked into her eyes, and she could see his soul so clearly in the gray depths of them.

“You made me come to terms with life on
life’s terms,
Maggie. Not
my
terms. And suddenly, I remembered . . . that Christ reveals
humanity,
not just divinity—and He bonds the two without compromising either. That’s one of the great mysteries of faith . . . and that’s what I saw in you.

“You have been the guardian of my
process,
not just Cody’s. You were the compassionate witness and the catalyst.

“Kairos!
Maggie. A moment in time when meaning comes at you from the
future.
When you must decide if you are up to accepting the risk of the unknown . . . of accepting the challenge of that which was
never
part of your agenda.

“Without you, Maggie, I could not have said
yes
to this Kairos. I could not have said Let it be
now,
for me, Lord.

“In Christ’s life there were women who moved the divine plan along when the men were screwed up, or in despair, or trying to cover their own asses . . . I don’t know why it’s so hard for us to remember that women have capabilities far different, and often far greater, than our own.”

Maggie looked at him, suddenly understanding so many things. “You’re in love with the God who called you, Peter,” she said softly. “If I’ve helped you find your way back to Him, I’m gladder than you could possibly know.”

“How could I not love you, Maggie?” Peter said so plaintively, it brought tears to her eyes. “You gave me back my priesthood . . . and myself.”

She saw him struggle with his emotions. He lowered his head, and with a fathomless sigh, he said, “And in return, I asked of you, what you weren’t prepared to give.” She started to protest, but he silenced her with a gesture full of pain.

“I know now, Maggie, that you are not
in love
with me . . . not in
this
lifetime. Nor I with you. I also know that we do
love
each other, in very substantial ways. We are part of each other’s spiritual unfoldment, that seems clear. And there are inexplicable threads from the past that seem to entangle us, confuse us . . .

“But this one thing bears no confusion. I’m your
friend,
Maggie. And you are mine. So, I ask you to let me help you, now. I am called to this battle, as surely as you and Cody are—and I need to fight it at your side.”

Peter took a pained breath and then said, with great solemnity, “As for our ‘other lifetime,’ Maggie . . . who knows how God chooses to let us wend our way home? I only know I hope with all my heart, that
somewhere
in time we have been free to love each other.”

He had come to a stop in front of Maggie’s chair. She let her eyes search his.
Who are you to me?
They sought to know.
What lessons have there been that only you could teach me? To God you must be prepared to give everything and expect nothing.
Someone had said that . . . someone who knew.

She was seeing in a strangely detached perspective now . . . as if her world had focused in on Cody, and tomorrow night—and everything else had faded at the edges, like an old photograph. She thought it meant she was going to die.

“I believe we’re caught up in a mystery far larger than ourselves,” she answered him, taking care to find the right words. “Perhaps it’s foolish arrogance on our part to imagine we could ever have comprehended what was expected of us, or why.

“You’re my dear friend, Peter, and it seems you always have been. Whatever the battle that’s in store for us, I’d be very grateful to have you share it with me.”

She saw only goodness and generosity of spirit, in his eyes, and she was glad she had loved him, for however short or long a time, and for whatever reasons far beyond her understanding. What was left now, was to make things right between them.

“I have a favor to ask of you,” she said, her voice low and calm.

“Anything in my power,” he replied.

She smiled and reached out to touch his hand, love in the gesture. “Will you hear my confession, Father?” she asked softly.

Shocked by the request, Peter stood immobile for a long, irresolute moment, then he bent his knee beside her chair. He thought, as he listened to the unburdening of her heart on the eve of possible death, that it was a very uncertain question as to who should be granting absolution to whom.

Peter
opened the book to Paul’s Epistle on the Ephesians, Chapter 6, verses 12-13. Some of the words had been collecting unbidden in his consciousness, ever since leaving Maggie’s house, and he need to remember the rest.

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against Principalities, against Powers, against the Rulers of Darkness in this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

It had come to that now, he knew; the moment to take a stand. This was the best way, the only way.

Ellie’s words were somewhere in his head. “If a sacrifice has been promised to a deity,” she reminded him, “a sacrifice must be made. That it is Universal law, far older than Christianity.”

Father Peter took the consecrated Host and sealed it in the case he carried when giving the Last Rites. If there was one substance on the face of the earth that had power against even the most potent Evil, it was the Blessed Sacrament. “With it you could walk unafraid into Hell, itself,” his favorite theology professor had said in his student days. Peter smiled at the thought of the man . . . what would he think if he knew his words would soon be put to the acid test?

He had fasted since leaving Maggie, and was feeling a little light-headed—or perhaps it was the long hours he’d spent on his knees, that had made him unsteady. Or, the magnitude of what he intended to do.