Mortal Sin (21 page)

“My sister generally take an hour in the bathroom every morning, making herself look hot for the guys at school.”

He glanced up at the kid. “You don’t say. An hour?”

“Funny thing is, she don’t look no different when she come out than she looked when she went in.”

Clancy held back a smile. “I trust you’re intelligent enough to have kept that observation to yourself.”

“After the first time she whacked me with a hairbrush, I figured it out. Damn, that thing hurt! So how we gonna kill time while we wait?”

Clancy stood and dusted off his hands. “I guess when all else fails, we pull weeds.”

Jamal groaned. “How did I know you was gonna say that?”

Stepping through the door of Puritan Book and Video was like landing in Oz.

There was a line of customers at the checkout, so she and Clancy wandered the
aisles, perusing row after row of videotapes and DVDs that catered to every
possible taste and perversion. The store carried everything from old classics
Behind the Green Door, Deep Throat, and Caligula
—to new classics—the infamous Pam and Tommy Lee tape. From specialized fetish films (who knew feet could be such a turn-on?) to cheap and cheesy amateur productions with laughably tacky titles. Beside a closed door that led to the viewing booths she’d seen advertised outside, a row of skin mags lined the wall. Straight, gay, lesbian, swinger. Something for everyone. Overhead, artfully arranged just below the ceiling, a shelf of preposterously large male appendages circled the room, some of them as thick as her forearm. “Whoever designed those things, sugar,” she said, “was either dropping acid or suffering from delusions of grandeur.”

Behind her, thankfully, Clancy remained silent.

Novelty items lined the shelves. Vibrators in every shape and size and color, from cool silver to tangerine. Penis rings—whatever the hell those were. Fake breasts and rubber vaginas. Blow-up sex dolls of both genders. Flavored condoms and anal toys whose usage she didn’t even want to think about. And for the truly adventurous, leather and chains, whips and restraints.

Sarah had certainly never considered herself a prude. She’d been sexually active at sixteen, had been married three times, and she’d taken the occasional lover during the arid stretches between husbands. Hell, for a while she’d even danced on stage wearing pasties and a G-string. But apparently she possessed an innocence of which she’d been totally unaware. Or perhaps it was more ignorance than innocence. And if this place was an accurate representation of all she’d been missing, ignorance truly was bliss.

She was acutely aware of Clancy following a step behind her, acutely aware of his nearness. Acutely aware of the clerical collar he wore, and of the scent—bay mm and altar candles—that seemed to follow him everywhere. He touched her arm, and she jumped a mile. Looking cool and unruffled, he tilted his head in the direction of the checkout counter. Praying that her face didn’t look as heated as it felt, she nodded agreement.

The guy behind the counter was somewhere in his twenties. He wore his hair short, shaved on the sides and blue on the top, but his biggest claim to fame had to be the silver chain that connected the ring in his nostril with the one in his eyebrow. He eyed Clancy’s clerical attire and gave her a quick once-over. “Looking for something special, folks?”

“Actually,” Clancy said, “we’re looking for information.”

Wariness entered those youthful brown eyes. “What kind of information?”

“You had a customer in here this morning. About six feet tall, blue eyes, blond hair. Youngish, nice-looking. He may be calling himself Roger Seward. Sound familiar?”

The young man opened his mouth, then closed it abruptly as an older man with a shaved head and the build of a sumo wrestler approached from somewhere behind the counter. “Do we look like fucking Directory Assistance?” he snarled.

“He could be a big spender,” Clancy continued. “Drives a flashy red BMW.”

“Scott,” the sumo wrestler said. “There’s a guy down back needs some help.”

The kid didn’t waste time making himself scarce. The sumo wrestler leaned over the counter. “We don’t know nothing,” he said. “That clear enough for you?”

“I know he was in here this morning,” Clancy said. “I have a witness who saw him leave.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re like a fucking pitbull. Do you have any idea how many people I get through here each day? I don’t have time to keep track of customers, and even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. So take a hike, bud. I got customers waiting.”

Sarah pulled a poster from her pocket and unfolded it. “This is my niece,” she said. “Her name is Kit. Take a good look.” And she shoved the poster in his face.

He swiped it aside, crumpled it in his hand. “I’ve already seen it. Be hard to miss, the way you people have it plastered all over the city.”

She shoved her hair behind her ear and took a deep breath. It was either that, or reach out and grab him by the throat. “We have good reason to believe this man knows where Kit is,” she said. “We have to talk to him.”

“Lady, I’m sorry about your niece. But I don’t know nothing. If you don’t get out of here, I’m calling the cops.”

“Do you have any kids?” she said. “Or don’t they let mutants like you reproduce?”

“Sarah.” Clancy’s fingers closed over her forearm and he tugged her gently toward the door. “It’s obvious we’re getting nowhere. Let’s just go.”

She glared at him, glared at the blue-haired kid, who had returned to witness the debacle, but she allowed Clancy to haul her out the door. Outside, on the sidewalk, she took a deep breath before deflating like one of those blow-up dolls she’d seen inside the store.

“Damn,” she said. “Damn it all to hell.”

“You okay?”

“I will be. I was so sure, damn it. So sure we were on to something.”

“Don’t give up on it just yet. Give it a little time. We’ve planted a seed, now let’s see if it grows. How about a cup of coffee?”

She sighed. “I suppose it couldn’t hurt.”

She waited outside the Chinatown McDonald’s while he bought two cups of coffee. “Thanks,” she said, taking the steaming cup he offered her. “Maybe this’ll help to restore my good humor.”

They began walking toward the Common, where he’d left his car in the underground parking garage, “it’s a difficult situation,” he said. “You have a right to get angry once in a while.”

The caffeine was already working its magic, easing its calming effects into her bloodstream. “I made a scene, didn’t I?”

“Let’s just say they won’t soon forget you.”

“My true colors finally showing through. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I found it highly entertaining.”

“You would. You’re a unique man, Father Donovan.”

He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “I’m not sure whether to thank you or apologize.”

“It was meant as a compliment.”

“In that case, thank you.”

They walked for a time in silence before hanging a left onto Boylston at the China Trade Center. ‘ “Mind if I ask you a stupid question?” she said.

“Shoot.”

She gripped her coffee cup, took a sip. Swallowed and said, “What the hell is a penis ring?”

He nearly choked to death on his coffee. He coughed and sputtered, finally got his breathing back under control. Wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “It, ah… ” He cleared his throat several times. “It’s designed to increase a man’s staying power. The blood flows in, the ring traps it so it can’t flow back out at its normal rate, which helps him to maintain—”

Heat rushed her face. “Never mind, sugar. I get the picture.” She took another sip of coffee and eyed him over the rim of her cup. “You’re a priest. How is it you know this stuff?”

He tipped his head back and drained his coffee cup. She watched with great interest as his Adam’s apple moved up and down when he swallowed. Avoiding her eyes, he said, “You hear things.”

And he tossed the empty cup into a nearby trash can.

It started raining shortly after he dropped Sarah off in Revere. Despite the blessings of Daylight Saving Time, dusk still came early on these rainy spring afternoons. Water hissed beneath his tires, and the taillights of the cars ahead of him reflected in blurred and bloody pools on the pavement. Clancy stopped for a red light, pulled out his cell phone and called Father Michael Santangelo.

“Twenty minutes of your time,” he told his friend. “That’s all I need.”

“I always have time for you,” Michael said. “Stay for dinner. I’ll grill us a steak.”

He and Michael Santangelo had attended seminary together, had both wound up working for the Archdiocese of Boston. While Clancy had been assigned to his home parish in Southie, Michael had landed a plum assignment at a parish in the affluent suburb of Chestnut Hill. They got together once or twice a month for dinner and conversation, took in the occasional movie or ball game together. And since the day of their ordination, each had performed for the other the vital function of confessor.

Saint Vincent’s was an ultramodern structure, built during the late seventies by an architect whose vision had included a hexagonal roof, white pine paneling, and stained glass windows in bizarre geometric shapes. Clancy had never been quite sure what to make of the place. He knew God was supposed to live in the heart, not in the building, but he still had a hard time looking at Saint Vincent’s as a house of worship.

On the other hand, he was green with envy over the ease with which Michael was able to acquire the necessities of life. Never had a priest from Saint Vincent’s had to sweat and scrape to buy choir robes or altar candles. When the controversial hexagonal roof had sprung a leak last winter, Michael had simply called a local roofing contractor and had it fixed. If the same thing had happened at Saint Bart’s, repairs would probably have included a five-gallon bucket, a drop cloth, and fifty-two consecutive weekly meetings of the fund-raising committee to try and figure out where the repair money was coming from.

He parked in the empty lot and entered through the double front doors, crafted of teak, each one carved with a giant cross. He wiped his feet in the entry and continued on into the sanctuary, where he dipped his fingers into the holy water font and crossed himself before walking silently to the front of the church. At the altar, he paused to genuflect, then moved forward to light a single candle and bow his head in prayer.

When he turned back around, Michael stood waiting for him at the rear of the sanctuary. Feet braced slightly apart, hands crossed in front of his steadily expanding midsection, Father Michael Santangelo wore a benevolent expression. Without speaking, he flourished a plump hand in the direction of the confessional, and Clancy crossed the sanctuary and stepped through the door.

This, too, was as different from the traditional stuffy box as the architecture of St. Vincent’s differed from that of his own stone Gothic cathedral. When Clancy heard confession, he sat in a dark cubicle, separated from the penitent by a sliding screen. Here, priest and penitent faced each other while perched on hard plastic chairs in a bland, whitewashed room about eight feet square. It hadn’t been designed for comfort. Then again, neither had the sacrament of reconciliation. If the act of confessing his sins didn’t make a man squirm just a bit, he obviously wasn’t doing it right.