Thin Air (14 page)

"I'm Spenser," I said. "Are you looking for me?"

"Yes, you remember me? Father Ahearn from Proctor?"

"Of course, the hat and the coat fooled me. I thought you were out of uniform."

I unlocked the office door and we went in. The priest put his hat on the edge of my desk and sat uneasily on the front edge of one of my client chairs. Hawk always said that the presence of four client chairs in my office was the embodiment of foolish optimism.

"Want some coffee, Father?"

The priest hesitated as if I'd asked him too hard a question. Then he nodded.

"Decaf if you have it," the priest said.

"You're in luck, Father. I'm a decaf man myself."

Susan had given me a Mr. Coffee machine for the office to help me in my long-standing quest for decaffeination. I put some ground decaf in the basket, added the water, and turned it on. Then I went around my desk and opened the window a little so that fresh, or at least different, air could drift in from the Back Bay. Then I sat down at my desk.

"What can I do for you, Father?"

"You are still looking for the Anglo woman in Proctor?"

"Lisa St. Claire," I said.

The priest frowned slightly as if I'd given the wrong answer.

"Do you still think she is with Luis Deleon?"

"I think she might be, Father."

The priest was silent. The coffeemaker stopped gurgling and I got up and poured us two cups of coffee.

"Got sugar and condensed milk," I said.

"Just black, thank you."

I handed him a mug, added sugar and canned milk to mine, and took it back to my desk. I had a sip, it wasn't bad. Once you got over thinking it was going to be coffee and started thinking of it as a hot drink for mornings, it wasn't so disappointing. Some donuts would have helped. On the other hand, I couldn't think of anything some donuts wouldn't help. The priest blew on the surface of his coffee for a moment, then took a sip.

"I have been asked to publish the banns of marriage," he said, "on behalf of Luis Deleon and Angela Richard."

Bingo!

"Do you know Angela Richard?" I said.

"No. But I am scheduled to marry them."

"You've not met her?"

"No."

"Who asked you?"

"Luis Deleon came himself."

"Alone?"

"No, there were some other men with him."

"But without the bride-to-be," I said.

"Yes."

"Isn't that unusual?"

"Yes."

"Don't you usually want to see both of them and counsel them on the high seriousness of holy matrimony?"

"That is customary."

"Did he show you a marriage license?"

"No."

"Can you marry him legally without one?"

"No.

"So does he have one? Why didn't the bride-to-be come along? Why aren't they doing their prenuptial counseling?"

"I don't know," the priest said. "You do not question Luis Deleon about things."

"You don't," I said. "I might."

The priest shrugged.

"It is your work," he said.

It might have been his too, but I let it slide. He seemed to know his failings already. And the knowledge had not made him happy.

"When did Deleon come to see you?"

"Ten days ago."

"Took you a while to get here," I said.

"Yes. I was afraid."

"And now you're not?"

"No. I am still afraid. But, I… I felt I had to come here and tell you."

"Where will the ceremony take place?"

"At Luis Deleon's home."

"In San Juan Hill?"

"Yes."

"When the time comes, could you bring another priest with you?"

"Another priest?"

"Yeah."

"There is no need for another priest."

"I was thinking about me in a priest suit," I said.

The priest stared at me as if I were the anti-Christ. "You think Angela Richard might be the other woman?"

"Could be," I said. No sense burdening the priest with more information than he can use.

"Holy Mother," he said.

"Could it be done?"

"A second priest? You in disguise? I… I don't know. I think… I think I would be… too… afraid."

"Sure," I said. "Is there. anything else you can tell me?

"No. It is all I know."

I nodded. We drank our coffee in silence.

"Does this information help you?" the priest said finally.

"All information helps," I said. "Once we figure out how it fits with other information."

"Maybe it means that the woman you seek is not there?"

"Maybe," I said. "Or maybe it is the woman I seek."

"She is already married."

"Yeah."

"Then how could I marry them?"

"Maybe they plan to lie," I said.

"Why would they do that?" the priest said.

"Maybe she has no choice," I said.

We drank our coffee again. The priest was thinking.

"I do not know what is right here. I was very afraid to come to you, afraid Luis Deleon would find out. But I came because I thought it was the right thing, and it would clear my conscience. Now I find that it opens up a multitude of things that are not right. What if Luis Deleon asks me to perform an illicit marriage? I hope it is not the same woman."

I made no comment.

"I hope that is the case," the priest said. "Is it selfish of me to wish that? It would mean that you have no idea where the missing woman is, and you have been wasting your time. It might mean that she is dead somewhere. Can I wish such a thing?"

"You're a man, Father. You probably can't always control what you wish."

"But I must try," the priest said. "I am not just a man. I am a man of God."

I looked at him sitting rigidly on the edge of my client chair, holding his half-empty cup of bad decaf, struggling with his soul. It must have been a struggle that occupied him daily.

"It took courage to come here and tell me this stuff, Father."

"Thank you," he said.

He stood and took his coffee cup to my sink and rinsed it out and put it on the little table beside the Mr. Coffee.

"You'll let me know, Father, anything develops?"

"Yes."

"I'll check in with you in a while," I said.

"Of course."

"If it matters," I said, "you seem a pretty good man to me."

The priest smiled softly. He picked his hat up off my desk and put it square on his head. Nothing rakish. "Thank you," he said. "I will talk with my confessor."

He went out of the office and closed the door very quietly behind him. I stood up and rinsed out my coffee cup and put it on the table beside his. Then I walked over and looked out my window and thought about what the priest had told me. As I stood, he came out the side door of my building, walked to the corner, and started up Boylston Street. He had his hands thrust deep into his raincoat pockets. His collar was turned up despite the sunshine, and his head was down. He wasn't finding a lot of joy in this world. For his sake I hoped he might be right about the next one.

"Angela is the same as Lisa?" Chollo said. "Right?"

"And she's not there voluntarily," I said. "You ever hear of a couple getting married and only the guy goes to visit the priest?"

"You think he used her other name so when the banns were announced, nobody will know?"

"Maybe."

"So why announce the banns?" Chollo said.

"Propriety," I said.

"And you think he's holding her?"

"Yeah."

"And he's forcing her to marry him, even though she's married already to another guy?"

"Yeah."

"And he's going to the priest and publishing the fucking banns?"

I stared at the moldering tenements and took a slow breath.

"Yeah," I said. "That's what I think."

"That's fucking crazy, man."

I nodded, still looking at the blank gray clapboard buildings across the street.

"Yeah," I said. "It is."

We were quiet for a while, listening to the wind, looking at the tenements.

"And you are sure it's your friend's wife in there?"

"Yeah."

"Enough fucking broads in the world," Chollo said. "Free for the taking. Don't make much sense to go stealing one from some guy. Especially, the guy's a cop."

"Makes sense if you're crazy," I said.

"And you figure he's crazy and he's got the cop's wife."

"It's an explanation," I said.

"Be nice we knew what the setup in there was," Chollo said. "Case we decide to go in and get her."

"Yeah."

A dog trotted by, head down, ears back, busy, on his way somewhere. He was a street dog, so mongrelized after generations of street breeding that he barely looked like a dog. He looked more like something wild, some kind of Ur-dog-the original pattern, maybe, that had existed before the cave men started to pat them.

"I think I'll go in, take another look around."

"You going to tell them you're the tooth fairy making a delivery?" I said.

"I will tell them I work for Vincent del Rio, who is an important man in Los Angeles."

The way he said Los Angeles reminded me that, despite the unaccented English, Chollo was Mexican.

"Yeah?"

"I will say that Mr. del Rio is seeking an East Coast associate for some of his enterprises. And that he has sent me here to assess Luis Deleon's setup. I will explain this is why I have been sitting outside here," Chollo grinned at me, "with my driver."

"Not bad," I said. "They don't know me, why don't I go in with you?"

Chollo shook his head.

"No gringos," Chollo said. "On the first visit. Except to drive the car, and maybe shoot a little. Nobody will talk to me if I come in with a gringo."

"Gee," I said. "That sounds kind of racially insensitive to me."

Chollo grinned. "Si, senor," he said.

"What if they insist on a phone call to del Rio?"

"I have already spoken to Mr. del Rio," Chollo said. "He is prepared to support my story."

"So, you're not making this up as you go along," I said.

"No. I do that only when I have to."

"Which is often," I said.

Chollo nodded. "Which is often."

He opened the door on his side, and put one foot out.

"Don't get cute in there," I said. "I don't want the woman to get hurt."

"I shall be as sly as a Yucatan tree toad," Chollo said.

"Are they really sly?" I said.

"I don't know, I just made it up," Chollo said.

He got out of the car and turned up the collar of his jacket as he walked across the street, squinting against the grit that the wind was tossing. He went up the steps of the tenement and talked to the guard. The guard listened and talked and listened and talked. Then he turned and went in. Chollo waited in the doorway, shielded from the wind. In a little while the door opened and the guard came back out. With him was the slim guy with braids. The three of them talked for several minutes. Then Chollo and the guy with braids went back inside and the guard remained.

The slim young woman in the pink sweatshirt came into her room with one of the men she'd seen guarding her door. The woman was carrying a small plastic shopping bag. She pointed toward the chair.

"You want me to sit in the chair?" she said.

The woman pointed toward the chair again. There was a quality of triumph in her bearing.

"Why? Why do you want me to sit in the chair?" Lisa said.

The woman shrugged and said something to the man in Spanish. Each of them took hold of an arm and they forced her backwards and sat her on the chair. While the man held Lisa in the chair, the woman took some clothesline from the plastic bag and tied Lisa's hands to the chair behind her and squatted and tied her ankles to the chair legs. In each case she yanked at the ropes and tied them too tight.

"Why, you bastards! Why are you tying me up?" Lisa said. "Don't, please, don't tie me up. Please! I don't want to be tied. Please, you're hurting me!"

The woman said something in Spanish to her and laughed. She took some gray duct tape from her bag and forced it against Lisa's mouth angrily and taped it shut, wrapping the tape an extra vengeful turn around Lisa's head. She stood back in front of Lisa and looked at her tied to the chair and laughed and put her hand on her own crotch and said something angrily to Lisa in Spanish. The man stepped to her side and said something. She gestured him away. He spoke to her again more forcefully, and she shrugged and took a portable radio out of her plastic bag and put it on the table near Lisa, turned it on, and turned the volume up. It was a Spanish language station. Salsa music filled the room. The woman folded the plastic bag and put it on the table beside the radio. She stopped again in front of Lisa and stared at her, as if she savored Lisa's helplessness. Then she put her hand under Lisa's chin and raised Lisa's face and spat in it. The man spoke to her sharply and the woman laughed and she and the man left the room. Lisa could hear the door lock behind them. She felt the claustrophobic panic begin to seep through her. The woman's spittle trickled down her cheek. She struggled frantically for a moment. There was no give in the rope: Calm, she thought. Calm. I got through it before. Why did they do it? I can't get out anyway. The door's locked and there's a guard. Why tie me up? Why gag me? No one can hear me. Is he someplace? Taking pictures? What the hell is the radio for? To drown out noise? How can I make noise? You couldn't hear me five feet away with my mouth taped… There's someone in the building. She felt a sudden stab of excitement. That's it, there's someone here. She started again to struggle with the ropes. But she was helpless. The woman had tied her feet to the legs of the chair in such a way that her feet were off the floor. She had no leverage. The knots were hard. She couldn't get free. She couldn't make noise. Calm, she thought. Calm. Calm. When they're gone he'll cut you loose. He'll come back. Why was that woman so cruel? Luis will come back and untie me. He'll protect me. She sat perfectly still and focused on her breath going in and out. And in a while she was calm. She was uncomfortable. The ropes were too tight. But she was not in actual pain. How quickly we learn to settle for less, she thought. Getting control of herself was her first triumph since he'd taken her. Maybe not the last one, she thought. She relaxed herself into the ropes and the chair, making her body go slack, letting her head drop. Breathing quietly. She realized that Luis was beginning to seem her protector, that she looked forward to his return. She remembered her iron pipe hidden under her mattress. She thought about it. It was like a treasure to savor. I won't always be tied up, she thought, as she sat helpless and relaxed. I won't always be tied up.