Unholy Order

by William Heffernan

  Devlin shook his head and laughed. “The order has that kind of money?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “And the chutzpah to bribe the pope?”

  Martin grimaced. “Let us just say they found a way to touch upon the pragmatism for which our current pope is famous.”

  Again, Devlin shook his head and laughed. “Given all that, what chance do I have of cracking their shell?”

  Martin raised a finger. “Only one chance, my friend.”

  “Which is?”

  “An obscure Franciscan brother who works with street kids in Hell’s Kitchen. It seems he too has concerns about Opus Christi, especially its treatment of easily influenced kids. Presently he’s working with several who would like to escape the order but are afraid to try. I’m also told he’s working with a numerarier who has begun to doubt the holiness of The Holy Order.”

  “Can you put me in touch?”

  “I can do better,” Martin said. “I’ll call Brother Michael and arrange a meeting. It will have to be in the evening. Most of his work is done at night.”

  “Please set it up,” Devlin said. “I’ll be there any time he can see me.”

  Chapter Five

  He moved down the sidewalk with a smile creasing his round, cherubic face. Father Peter Falco believed the smile should remain a constant part of his demeanor. As someone who was “one with Christ,” he felt it an obligation imposed on him by his priesthood. There was nothing more dispiriting to those seeking God’s grace than a gloomy priest.

  Today the smile was difficult. Every part of his body ached. He knew it was the medication. The doctor had warned him that the treatment might prove more debilitating than the illness … at least for a time. It was all part of God’s punishment—at least that was what the bigots said. He shook his head. There was nothing to be done about either the illness or the bigots, except to endure both.

  An old woman stopped in front of him, ending the thought. Without preamble she began telling him about her grandson. He was becoming a hoodlum, hanging out with other hoodlums, refusing to get out of bed on Sunday to attend mass, she said. The priest nodded and told her to bring the boy to see him. He would talk to him, try to get him involved in the CYO.

  He continued down the street, a slight waddle to his short, round body. A greengrocer, sweeping his sidewalk, stopped him and began putting together a small bag of fruit. The priest took it gratefully, although the thought of eating anything at all nauseated him. Even the weight of the small bag made his arm feel leaden. He was like a man in his late sixties, he thought, rather than his true age of thirty-seven.

  Another man watched from across the street, his eyes never leaving the fat little figure. He wasn’t certain it was the right one, the priest who was second on his list, but he would find out. If it was, he would be even easier than the first.

  He crossed the street to the greengrocer’s, as the priest moved away, and began filling a small bag with oranges. The greengrocer approached, nodding approval at his choice.

  “Clementines,” he said. “As sweet as a good woman.”

  The small swarthy man smiled at him with crooked teeth. “Nothing is as sweet as a woman,” he said.

  “You’re right.” The greengrocer pointed at the oranges. “But this is close.”

  The man inclined his head down the sidewalk in the direction the priest had gone. “Did you give some to the priest?” he asked. “I saw you giving him fruit.”

  “Father Pete? Yeah, sure. I always give him the best. The best for the neighborhood’s best priest, that’s what I say.”

  “He’s that good, huh?” The man smiled again, his narrow, pinched features so feral the smile seemed more like a grimace. “I just moved into the neighborhood,” he said. “Haven’t had a chance to check out the church yet.”

  The greengrocer nodded. “You go see him. He’ll set you up. Father Peter Falco. You’ll like him. Every day he’s out visiting the seniors and the sick people. Always got time for anybody who needs him. You don’t find many priests who do that no more. Most of them sit around on their fat asses all day.” He looked at the stranger more closely. “You Spanish?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Why?” There was an edge in the man’s voice.

  The greengrocer ignored it. “It’s just that you’ll like the church, then. Lotta Spanish people belong now. Used to be all Italians, a few Irish. Now there’s just as many Spanish as everybody else, just like the rest of Brooklyn. Pretty soon we’ll probably have a mass in Spanish, just like we used to have one in Italian in the old days.”

  There was a hint of disapproval in the greengrocer’s voice, only a hint, but it made the swarthy man bristle. He wanted to reach out and grab him; make him say what he really meant. But that couldn’t be. The greengrocer was an old man, late fifties, maybe older. Still, he had a set of arms and shoulders on him from years of lifting crates of fruits and vegetables. Messing with him would raise the level of risk, and that was something he had been told to avoid.

  The man paid for his fruit and started back toward the subway that would return him to Manhattan. He had a meeting with the person who had given him this job, and he had to report that he had located the second priest.

  When he reached the subway entrance, he threw the bag of Clementines into the gutter. Fuck the old man and his fruit, he told himself. Maybe when the job was finished he’d come back and pay him a little visit.

  Devlin studied the DD-Fives that had just been faxed to him by Rourke and Costa, the two Greenwich Village detectives who had caught the murder of Father Patrick Donovan. The report indicated that their investigation into the priest’s background had turned up no specific lover to date. There had also been no involvement with any of the children who attended his church. Donovan, however, was known to frequent one of the area’s gay bathhouses. The report stated that the two detectives were now attempting to determine “what persons, if any, the priest may have had sexual liaisons with at that location.”

  Devlin handed the report to Sharon Levy and waited while she read it.

  Levy snickered. “Nice phraseology,” she said. “What persons he may have had sexual liaisons with. I love it.”

  “It is sensitive,” Devlin said.

  “Oh, yeah. I can just hear them discussing it in the squad room.” She dropped the report on Devlin’s desk. “Anyway, fat chance they’ll get somebody to admit to a bathhouse tryst. Not with the priest getting offed.”

  “It’s still our best shot,” Devlin said.

  “You think AIDS was the motive—that he infected someone and this was payback?”

  “It’s the only motive we have … so far. Everything else about this priest has come up clean.”

  “You should let me handle it then,” Levy said. “At least I talk their language.”

  Devlin shook his head. “I need you to stay with Opus Christi. You’ve got a better chance of getting through to the young women there. Which brings us to some overtime you’ll have to work. I’ve got a meeting tonight with a Franciscan brother who might be able to help, and I’ll need you there.”

  Sharon raised her eyebrows, and Devlin explained what his friend at Fordham had arranged.

  “That’s beautiful,” she said. “It’s exactly what we need—one of their numerarier in our pocket. It’s the only way we’ll find out what’s really going on in that place. So who’s gonna handle the dead priest?”

  “I want Ollie on that.” Devlin smiled at the groan that came from Levy. “I’ll be working it too. But I want Ollie to work with the Greenwich Village detectives. He’s good on the street, and who knows, maybe somebody will fall in love with him and tell him everything they know.”

  Sharon let out a snort. “That’s fat chance number two,” she said.

  “You don’t think Ollie’s lovable?”

  She rolled her eyes and ignored the question. “What time do we meet this Franciscan brother?”

  “Ten, tonight.” Devlin handed her a slip of paper. “T
hat’s the address. I’ll meet you outside at ten, sharp.”

  “This time it must look like an accident.” The man stopped and raised a finger. “Or perhaps a suicide. Yes, suicide would be an excellent choice. Then that filth could not be buried in consecrated ground.”

  The swarthy man, whose name was Emilio, shook his head. “Makes it harder,” he said. “And more dangerous.”

  The man stared at him. He was tall and fit, despite the gray that ran through his finely barbered hair, and the blue pinstriped suit he wore looked handmade, an easy two grand, Emilio decided. He did not know the man’s name. He had been told it wasn’t necessary. They were seated on a bench just inside Central Park a short distance from Grand Army Plaza. It was where they always met. The man would call and give a time, and he would be there to receive his instructions.

  “How is it harder and more dangerous?” the man asked.

  Emilio shrugged as if the answer were obvious. “It takes time to fake a suicide. And more time makes it more dangerous.” He raised his hands and let them fall back to his lap. “It’s also hard to fool the cops.”

  “Why?” There was a demanding edge to the man’s voice.

  “It’s best if the person’s unconscious when you set it up. If they’re not, they usually fight, and that always leaves marks that can give it away. Then there’s the question of how—for a priest, I mean. I don’t see him shooting himself. Like, where would he get a gun? That’s the first thing the cops would want to know.”

  “A drug overdose. Sleeping pills, perhaps,” the man said, and immediately shook his head. “No, the church would insist it was accidental, and I don’t want that. I want him disgraced, just as he’s disgraced his priesthood.”

  “See?” Emilio shrugged again. “It’s hard. He falls in front of a bus or a subway, the church is gonna say it’s an accident. Unless there’s witnesses. And that ain’t good for me. He slashes his wrists, I’ve got to get him someplace quiet: his own bathroom or a hotel, maybe. Same thing with taking a dive out a window. So, how do I get him there?” Emilio shook his head. “It’s best I just do him, just like the other one.”

  The man stroked his chin and thought. “No,” he said at length. “There is a way.” He explained what he wanted.

  Emilio grimaced. “That’s hard too. I still gotta get him someplace.”

  The man stared at him. “Try.” His voice was emphatic. “He runs the CYO—the Catholic Youth Organization—at his parish.” He shook his head in disgust. “Imagine, a homosexual in charge of those children. Teaching them the way to lead a good Catholic life.”

  “Hey, I understand how you feel. But that don’t make it easier.”

  The man’s eyes hardened. “Listen. I am providing excellent service to your people. They are getting exactly what they want. I expect no less in return. If you need me to telephone your boss to confinn that, I shall.”

  Emilio thought about that phone call and what it might mean to him. He raised a hand and showed his crooked teeth in a smile. “Hey, I’ll try. I just want you to understand if it don’t fool the cops.”

  The man took out a crisp handkerchief and patted his forehead against the heat. He gave Emilio a patient smile. “The police aren’t as clever as you think they are,” he said.

  Brother Michael took Devlin by surprise. He was younger than Devlin had expected, no more than thirty. He was also bigger, six-foot-four and built like a middle linebacker. And he was black.

  “Let me start by telling you my bottom line,” Brother Michael began. “I want to help two young women I’m working with, help them find the courage to escape from these people. I also want to help the young man—their numerarier—help him see that he can escape too. Anything you want them to do that interferes with that, I will oppose. Vigorously.”

  Brother Michael was seated behind a battered wooden desk cluttered with paper. He dwarfed both the desk and his closet-sized office, located at the rear of the Hell’s Kitchen Way Station on Eighth Avenue. It was a one-man counseling center, run for the past ten years on donations and augmented by youthful volunteers. He worked with the runaways, prostitutes, and drug addicts who inhabited the area. Outside, the great mix of New York wandered by, seldom noticing the small storefront office. There were commuters headed to the nearby Port Authority bus terminal for a ride home to the suburbs, mostly sports fans who had just left Madison Square Garden. There were bums seeking out doorways in which to spend the night, and the occasional street kid moving aimlessly, in search of something, often not certain what it was. Inside, Brother Michael’s office was utilitarian. Aside from a crucifix on the wall behind his desk, there was little sign of religious affiliation. Brother Michael himself was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, rather than the brown robes of the Franciscan order. Only his head gave him away. It remained shaved with the Franciscan’s trademark tonsure.

  “We’ll work with you to make sure that’s not a problem,” Devlin said. “Even pass any requests through you, if you want.” He gave the brother a small shrug. “It’s not good police procedure, but we’re the ones with our hands out. And, frankly, we’ve hit a stone wall with these people.”

  He watched a small smile come to the brother’s face. It softened the man, made him seem boyish, his brute size less intimidating. Devlin thought about Ollie Pitts, equally brutish but minus the softening smile. Who would walk out if the two met in a dark alley? Right now, he’d lay odds on Ollie.

  “That’s a generous offer that I accept,” Brother Michael said. “When I’m sure I can trust your intentions, I’ll get out of your way.” He brought his large hands together. “So where do we start?”

  Devlin leaned forward. “First, tell me about this numerarier. I’ve been told that members of Opus Christi are never allowed contact with people outside the order. Did he come to you? And, if so, how and why?”

  Brother Michael hesitated, as if thinking over what he could reveal and what should be held back. “Several years ago—six, to be exact—I was working with this man’s sister. She was fifteen at the time. A runaway.” He shook his head. “Just like so many others.” He leaned back in his chair, ignoring its creak of protest. “She was ‘all grown up,’ ‘knew all the answers’”—he used his fingers to place quotation marks around each phrase. “Except she decided to prove it by running away from her family in New Jersey and coming here. Within weeks the vermin who prey on these kids had her all wrapped up. She was well on her way to drug dependence and was peddling herself on the streets for some child-molesting pimp.” He raised his large arms as if taking in the room. “And this was a kid from a good Catholic family, someone who had attended Catholic schools all her life and had never once missed Sunday mass.”

  “An old story,” Sharon said.

  Brother Michael seemed to flinch at the words before he surrendered to them. “Yes, it is. But this time it had one of our few happy endings.” He let out a long breath. “I can’t count the number of parents I’ve taken to the medical examiner’s office to identify the bodies of their children.” Brother Michael leaned back again. “But not this time. And all because of her brother.”

  “The numerarier,” Sharon said.

  “Yes, but he wasn’t a member of the order then, although I’ve since learned that he was in the process of being recruited at the time. It seems I helped save one while the other was falling into something almost as bad.” He shook his head. “I never even asked what was going on in his life. And I should have, you see. I know better. I know if a home is troubled, it usually doesn’t stop with just one kid.”

  “So that’s how he came to you this time? Because he knew you from the past.”

  Brother Michael gave Sharon an absent nod, as if still dwelling on his perceived failure. “When he came to the city looking for his sister, some neighborhood people sent him to me. Together we found her, got her away from her pimp and into drug rehab.”

  “That’s a neat trick—getting her away from her pimp, I mean,” Sharon said. “They usu
ally don’t give up that easily.”

  “Oh, this one didn’t give up easily. He threatened the young man. And it was a threat he was ready to make good on. But the kid was a rock. He wasn’t about to let his sister stay in that sewer.”

  “And the pimp backed off?” There was surprise in Sharon’s voice.

  A smile flickered briefly on Brother Michael’s lips. “Let’s say I helped a little. I made that little street rat an offer he decided to accept.”

  Devlin nodded. The odds on Ollie in the dark alley had just gone down.

  “When can we meet him?” Devlin asked.

  Brother Michael glanced at the Timex that barely made it around his wrist. “He’s working on a recruitment tonight—a new victim for the order. He said he’d stop by on his way back to their headquarters. It should be any time now.”

  The numerarier arrived twenty minutes later. Again, Devlin was surprised. The young man was small and slight, with owlish glasses that made him look like a kid who had grown up in a library. Brother Michael had said he was twenty-five, but he looked no more than eighteen. Devlin doubted a razor passed across the young man’s cheeks more than once a week.

  He introduced himself as Peter, no last name, in keeping with Opus Christi practice. He was nervous, his fingers dancing in his lap as he took the third visitor’s chair in Brother Michael’s office.

  “I want you to know that this goes against everything I’ve been taught to believe,” he said. He looked down at his hands and clenched his fists to stop the dancing fingers. “It goes against the life I’ve lived for the past five years,” he added, as he looked up again.