The Emerald Lie (15 page)

He did the
only exist to serve
gig, half slit eyes and sad smile, or it could simply have been the gin. He said,

“Any small comfort we can provide.”

I drained my glass, asked,

“Where is the Church on evil these days? Still proclaiming that God’s ways are too mysterious to fathom?”

He made a show of checking his watch, a nice Tissot—not much poverty there—then,

“I see all of human weakness, foibles, cruelty, greed played out on a smaller stage every day.”

Deep.

I pushed, disbelief leaking over my words,

“In the hospital?”

He nearly smiled, said,

“
Judge Judy.
”

I kind of liked him a bit better for that. He checked his watch again. I said,

“Hey, don’t let me keep you from anything.”

He sighed, sounding a lot like my dead mother who had, dare I say,

…
the mother of sighs.

She had that fake world-weary sucker nailed. He said,

“I have confessions and need to prepare.”

I gave him my concrete stare, said,

“I was under the impression it was now the
sacrament of reconciliation
, but maybe you’re not into that whole reconciliation shite?”

He took a rosary out of his pocket, a fine object, heavy silver cross, blue beads that caught the light. He said,

“This was blessed in Guadalupe.”

I sneered. Blame the fast Jay, said,

“Ah, the Madonna of the cartels.”

He shook his head, muttered,

“You really are the most trying man.”

Then he handed me the beads, I didn’t do the dance of …

Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly
,

I put them around my neck figuring I could use all the help I could get, Mexican or otherwise. I asked,

“I look like Bono?”

“You mean spiritual?”

“No, asshole.”

Park Wilson was yet again being interviewed by the Guards. They knew they had no concrete evidence but no harm in trying. The rattle-the-cage method. The only one rattled was Park’s aunt, Sarah. She had immediately called the lawyer, who quite crossly snapped,

“Say nothing, keep saying nothing.”

Then, practicing his own advice, hung up.

Sarah, getting right in Sergeant Ridge’s face, implored,

“Can you please stop this harassment?”

Ridge gave a vaguely tolerant smile.

“Inquiries must be followed.”

Sarah, throwing up her hands, turned to Park, who was sitting peacefully in an armchair, demanded,

“Park, say something!”

He looked at Ridge, said,

“Beware of
heard
and sounds like
bird

… And
dead;
it’s said like
bed
, not
bead.
”

Ridge, dressed in full sergeant’s regalia and with two brutes of Garda, had decided she was going to get a result. She got right in Park’s face. He seemed to be actually looking at a point beyond her head. She pushed,

“Do you get the effect you’re having on your poor aunt?”

His head snapped back and he near spat,

“
Effect?
”

… long withering pause.

“Affect?”

“
Affect
is a verb,
effect
is a noun, and you would do well to remember that, woman.”

Ridge was near speechless, tried,

“What?”

Park gave her a blissful smile, said,

“A cat has claws at the end of its paws.

… A comma’s a pause at the end of a clause.”

Ridge threw up her hands in exasperation, said,

“You are required to report to the Guards station every Thursday morning. Failure to do so will entail immediate revocation of your bail.”

He continued to smile at her, muttering now about dropped subjunctives. She gave the aunt a hard look and signaled to the Guards they were done.

For now.

Outside she let loose a string of obscenities. The Guard nearest her observed,

“The guy is a raving lunatic.”

She agreed that might be so but he was a particularly sly one. The other Guard asked,

“So how are we going to catch him?”

Ridge told the truth.

“I have no fucking idea.”

The Guard thought that was choice language for a lady but kept that thought to himself.

Back to my hometown.

And back I came, not in glory or richness. The first person I ran into went,

“I thought you were dead!”

Uh-huh.

I went to my apartment and opened all the windows, like a sign proclaiming,

“Come all ye burglars and thieves.”

I was deeply conscious of the pup not being there. His treats and toys lay on the floor like abandoned prayer, joyless and futile. Opened the wardrobe to find

Brand-new Donegal tweed jacket with a note:

… If you ever come home

… Emily the deserted.

Tried on the jacket and it fitted like found money. Had patches on the elbows, giving me that worn John Cheever vibe, as if I were some underpaid elderly professor of lit at a hole-in-the-wall second-grade college. The kind of place where grammar still mattered.

And thinking of grammar …

My current client, the aunt of the alleged Grammarian, would be anxious to see what the hell I had done with her money. I don’t think a sabbatical had been her intention.

My first call was to the small house Maeve lived in. She was one of the nuns on the order’s
outreach program.

Meaning, she lived outside the convent grounds to maintain a link to the people. The program had chosen well. Maeve was a real person, subject to fits of anger, joy, annoyance, and not afraid to show you. Most nuns kept all that good shit bottled up and hidden. As soon as I knocked on her door, I could hear the pup go wild. Short-term memory is ascribed to dogs. My pup hadn’t got the memo. The door opened and he was all over me.

Broke my heart anew.

Maeve said,

“I wondered if he would remember you and there’s the answer.”

Maeve gave the whole nun story some credibility. If love is, as they say,

“the
selfless consideration for the welfare of another person”

Then she was love in a habit. Of course to blend in she wore civilian clothes mostly but she retained the air of someone who viewed the world from beneath a cowl. I was curious and asked,

“Did you always, you know, want to be, like, a nun?”

Hating myself for adding the qualifier
like.
The riff of the newly Americanized Irish youth. She massaged the pup’s ear as she considered her answer, then,

“I wanted to be a dancer.”

WTF?

I said,

“Seriously?”

She laughed.

“No, I won lots of medals for Irish dancing but this was in the days before Michael Flatley and there was no career in that world. I went into the convent because I was scared of life.”

Fuck, how many people are going to fess up to that? I asked,

“And now, are you fearless?”

She gave a lovely laugh, the kind that makes you briefly glad to be part of the human race. She said,

“I just learned what to be afraid of and, more importantly, how to avoid it.”

I didn’t believe most of that but I liked her so I let it slide.

I asked,

“Could I bring you for dinner?”

Good heavens, she blushed. I’m not sure where on a bucket list a blushing nun would merit but it is a rush. She said,

“Oh, Lord, I’ve never been invited anywhere unless you count the Irish stew competition in Loughrea.”

In the pup’s minimalist vocabulary there are some key words and dinner is right up there. He shook himself and bounced off a wall. In canine, that is delight, I think. She was all bothered, said,

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say yes.”

She did.

We went to the Park Hotel, it has a rep for genteel. I figured an egg and fast bacon caff wasn’t really the speed for a nun. We had left the pup with ample treats but he still whined. Dogs only know from,

“You’re present or you’re not.”

Bit like a tax audit.

Maeve ordered whiting with lemon garnish and lots of, her word,

“Chips.”

I identified with the childlike delight in having real chips all for your own self. Coaxed her into a glass of white wine and I stayed relatively good if you count a bottle of Bud as that. I ordered steak, burned to a damn cinder, for my own good self. As we had left her home, she had hefted a large bag, more like a satchel, and I asked,

“Your rosary?”

I come from the generation where nuns wore chain-like beads around their waists. Less for devotion than whacking. Now she reached in there and produced a blue volume, said,

“I want to give you this, you being a man of books and …”

She hesitated,

“Um … an inclination for drink.”

Just about the politest form of being called a rummy. It was
The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.
The whole mood just upped and fucked right off.

I limped out with,

“Oh.”

Deep, huh?

She said,

“My sister died from alcoholism and I found this among her things.”

The devil was in me to sneer,

“Didn’t do her a whole load of good, right?”

But managed to blow that off, went,

“You don’t exactly see me falling down, Sister.”

And okay, so maybe a tiny wee hint of hard leaked over my tone. She reached over, touched my hand, and that hurt me, in ways I can’t even begin to articulate. She said,

“I have seen you fall, Jack.”

Ah, fuck it, why’d she have to add my name?

The food came like a belated Seventh Cavalry and I said,

“Looks good.”

I think I meant the food. She unfolded her napkin in that facile, fluent way that nuns have, all biz and industry. She said, very quietly,

“There is a line in that book that says …”

Pause.

“…
unless the alcoholic finds a spiritual solution
.”

I shook my head, picked up my fork, and moved my food around the plate, like the very last line in a very bad poem. She got it, tried,

“I have offended you, Jack.”

Ah, sweet Jesus.

I said,

“No offense, Sister, but you don’t really know me well enough to do that.”

Of all the things that might have come down the pike after that exchange, the very last thing I would have called

Was

… tears.

A tiny tear sneaked out of her left eye and slowly trailed down her unlined cheek and hit the plate with the softest ping. My heart tore at its shredded remnants.

There must be a special circle of hell for those who make one of the very few decent nuns weep. I offered my napkin and pleaded,

“Please don’t.”

She dabbed daintily at the cheek and whispered,

“I have always been too soft. Reverend Mother said I was a pathetic excuse for one of God’s soldiers.”

It burst out of me.

“The bad bitch.”

And she laughed.

Oh, thank Christ. The waitress came over, asking,

“Is everything all right?”

I said,

“Two shots of Jameson.”

Maeve stared at the Jay when it came, said,

“I must confess …”

Like the opening of the song

“Finished.”

“I’ve never tasted whiskey.”

Oh, come on.

I raised my glass, clinked hers, said,

“Slainte amach.”

The shot hit her like a very bad novena, fast and nasty. She gulped, then,

“I could develop a taste for that.”

Man, I knew what she meant, that fierce kick in the gut and head of quality hooch. Why we chase the bitch for so long. I said,

“Could I share my current case with you?”

She laughed, now quite frisky, asked,

“You have a case of this magic drink?”

Jesus.

What had I unleashed?

I said,

“No, I mean I wish but I mean the situation I am supposed to be working on now.”

Mean …
twice in one sentence, the Grammarian would kill me.

Bingo!

The solution to how to solve the case.

Sweet fucking disbelief.

Who knew?

Maybe it was hanging with the clergy, nun better, so to speak. Bring the war to him. Crash and burn language in his presence and see how he ran?

Maeve eyed my glass and burped, then,

“I have a very fat pink pig.”

Hello?

Did nuns see pigs where we mere mortals saw pink elephants?