“You fuckhead!” Joey Sinclair’s voice growled. “Hey, Lucky! I’m taikin to you! 1 got your message, Debra! What the hell kinda shit is—” He grabbed John’s arm roughly and twisted him around.
“Hello, Uncle Joey,” John said calmly, and saw the man stare at his collar.
Joey Sinclair was flanked by his sons, two slabs of tough beef. But suddenly Sinclair himself was shrinking, as if he were melting into his suit, and his face took on the color of spoiled cheese. He took a backward step, slamming so hard into one of his sons he almost toppled the boy.
“You’re a…priest,” Sinclair whispered, strangling. “When did you become a priest?”
“I’ve always been a priest.”
“Always? Always?” He had shriveled, and John thought the man was going to become a gnarled little dwarf right there in front of his eyes. “Always?” He seemed to have that word caught in his throat. “Like…always?”
“Like always,” John told him.
“You mean… I called a priest a fu…” He stopped, diminished, and his eyes bulged with inner pressure.
“Miss Stoner is going home,” John said, and put his hand firmly on Joey Sinclair’s shoulder. “Is that all right with you?”
“Oh, yeah! It’s fine! You got the ticket yet? I’ll buy the ticket! First class!”
“Economy is good enough,” Debbie said.
Sinclair choked a little more, and then his gaze—softer now, and still frightened—fixed on Debbie. “You’re…you’ve always been a good kid. A hard worker. Star quality!”
“Stars burn out,” Debbie told him in a quiet and reasoned voice. “I think I want to just be a person now.”
“Oh, yeah! Just be a person! That’s fine enough!” His scared gaze skittered to John. Then back to Debbie, and it lingered. “Listen… Debbie. You…be the best person. You hear me?”
“I hear you, Uncle Joey.”
“Yeah, and you tell anybody gives you trouble that you’ve got high connections! Understand?”
She smiled, and nodded.
Then Sinclair regarded John again, still astonished, still cheese-faced. “Always?”
“Always. I’m at the Cathedral of St. Francis, on Vallejo. You come by sometime, we’ll have lunch. I’ve got high connections.”
“Yeah. Sure, Father! Sure! High connections!” He grinned and dug an elbow into Chuck’s ribs with a force that made the boy wince. “High connections! He’s a funny man!”
“Good-bye, Uncle Joey,” Debbie told him, and she took his hand and squeezed it.
“‘Bye, kid. Father… I guess I’ll be seein’ you.”
“Sooner or later.”
“Yeah! Yeah, right!” He grinned again, and then he had to grasp hold of his sons’ shoulders and be supported as they left the gate.
“Now boarding United’s flight 1714 to Dallas, Memphis, and New Orleans,” the loudspeaker announced.
They walked closer to the door that led to the aircraft. Debbie had the ticket gripped hard in her hand. Passengers with carry-on luggage were passing back and forth, the airport full of noise.
“I guess it’s time,” John said, and he stared at the floor.
She took a deep breath. “Father…she wants to say good-bye.”
He looked up. “What?”
“Debra Rocks wants to say good-bye,” she repeated, and he saw it happen.
The fire came out of her; it leapt from her and engulfed him. Her eyes blazed with passion, and suddenly she was reaching for him and her arms went around his neck. Her lips, soft and burning, fastened on his, and he smelled cinnamon-scented bubblebath and thought he was going to swoon.
Her mouth opened, and her tongue pushed between his lips and entered his, sliding smoothly over wet, yielding flesh.
She locked her hands around his neck, her fingers going into his hair—and then she lifted one leg and put it around his hip. Then the other leg, and they were clamped together and kissing like the true meeting of souls.
“United’s flight 1714, now board—” The loudspeaker’s voice halted.
The airport went silent but for the noise of carry-on bags hitting the floor.
Her tongue swirled, teasing and ferocious, inside his mouth. They clung together, John oblivious of everyone and everything but this moment, a carving in time. Her tongue tickled the roof of his mouth, brushed past his tongue. Then began to ease out, and she sucked on his lower lip before she let it go.
Then she was unlocking her legs from around his hips, in the silence of the airport, and as her feet touched the floor she was Debbie Stoner again, a young girl with a plane to catch.
“That was Debra saying good-bye,” she told him, damp-eyed. “I don’t think she’ll be around much anymore. Now this is just me.” She hugged him, and put her head against his shoulder. Her raven hair floated against his face, and for the rest of his life he would remember its silk. “Thank you, Father,” she whispered. “Thank you…for loving me.”
His eyes filled up, and he had to let her go. She took a few paces and stopped, and when she looked back her face was streaked with tears. “Soul mates?” she asked.
“Believe it,” he answered.
“Pray for me,” she said, and she went out that door leading home.
A middle-aged woman with rouged cheeks and a pinched mouth sauntered up to him and looked at him with livid disgust. “And you call yourself a priest!”
He said, “Yes, ma’am. 1 do.”
He stayed until the plane took off. Sunlight flared silver on its wings. New Orleans wasn’t so far away, he thought. The telephone wires went there and back, and so did the mail. Not so far. Well, we’ll see…
In his apartment, he began working on a new jigsaw puzzle, of a green Southern landscape. It wasn’t too hard to imagine her in it.
Maybe someday he would get a letter, he thought. And in that letter she would say Debbie Stoner was doing just fine, and she’d met someone nice, someone who would love and respect her and wonder where Debbie Stoner had been all his life.
On that day, he thought his heart might break a little bit. Because he loved her.
But it would be a happy day.
Darryl came to the door. “John? Somebody wants to see you in the sanctuary.” He glanced, still a bit uneasily, at the crab in its sandbox over in the corner.
“Thanks.” He got up from his puzzle and hurried out.
She was waiting with Monsignor McDowell. She was a pretty blond girl, maybe nineteen or twenty, and behind her makeup her eyes were still fresh enough to be scared.
“Are you… Father Lucky?” she asked.
“You can call me that,” he said, casting a quick glance at the monsignor.
“My…name is Kathy Crenshaw.” She shivered, and John saw needle marks on her arms. “Debbie Stoner told me about you.” She reached out, a trembling hand, and her face collapsed. “Can you…help me?”
“We’ll see,” he answered, and he took her hand. They sat together, in a pew, while Father Lucky listened, and the rough diamond in his pierced ear threw a spark of light.
Monsignor McDowell stood nearby for a moment, and then he walked to the doors and opened them.
Permissions
“Yellowjacket Summer,” originally published in The Twilight Zone magazine, Tappan King, editor; October 1986. Copyright © Robert McCammon 1986.
“Makeup,” originally published in Modern Masters of Horror, edited by Frank Coffey; Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1981. Copyright © Robert McCammon 1981.
“Doom City,” originally published in Greystone Bay II, edited by Charles L. Grant; Tor, 1987. Copyright © Robert McCammon 1987.
“Nightcrawlers,” originally published in Masques, J. N. Williamson, editor; John McClay and Associates, 1984. Copyright © Robert McCammon 1984.
“I Scream Man!” originally published in The Horror Show magazine, Dave Silva, editor; 1984. Copyright © Robert McCammon 1984.
“He’ll Come Knocking at Your Door,” originally published in Ha
lloween Horrors, edited by Alan Ryan; Doubleday, 1986. Copyright © Robert McCammon 1986.
“Night Calls the Green Falcon,” originally published in Silver Scream, edited by David J. Schow; Dark Harvest, 1988. Copyright © Robert McCammon 1988.
“The Red House,” originally published in Greystone Bay, edited by Charles L. Grant; Tor, 1985. Copyright © Robert McCammon 1985.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 1984 by Robert R. McCammon
cover design by Thomas Ng
978-1-4532-3222-4
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