Unholy Order

by William Heffernan

  “I have failed you,” Charles whispered. “I have failed to serve your church, to save it from the stain of disgrace others would place upon it. Tell me what I must do. Tell me how to serve you.”

  Charles slumped forward, his cheek coming to rest on his small narrow bed. The scourge fell away from his hand, and his eyes opened. The votive candle flickered on the nightstand, making his mother’s photograph dance erratically. Her face seemed to twist and turn, her cheeks quiver, almost as though she were laughing at him.

  “Bitch,” he hissed. His hand swung out, sending the photo crashing to the floor.

  He looked at his mother’s image, shards of glass now scattered around it, surprised by what he had done. Honor thy father and thy mother. The words of the commandment came at him like a curse. He looked at the photograph again, and his lips curled into a sneer of unadulterated hatred.

  Then calm descended, smoothing every line in his face. He raised his head and clasped his hands before him, elbows on the bed, the clasped hands pressed against his forehead. Again, Charles prayed for guidance.

  When he emerged from his monklike cell, Charles was calm. He was dressed in his clerical garb now, a long black cassock hanging to his ankles. He walked to the windows that looked out over Central Park, Below, far to his left, the lights that festooned the trees surrounding the Tavern on the Green restaurant seemed like fireflies on a calm summer night. But the night was not calm. Rain had begun to fall; as Charles watched, heavy winds began to whip the trees below, set their boughs swaying violently, almost as if they were engaged in some great lamentation.

  A black leather satchel sat at Charles’s feet. Normally it held the accoutrements of his priesthood, used when he was called upon to offer up God’s sacraments. Now it held the things he would need this night.

  He glanced down at it, unwilling for now to pick it up and begin the journey God had set before him. He needed strength to build within him. He needed purification of his mind and body before he set out. Briefly, he thought of telephoning Ginger, asking her to come to his home, asking her to help lead him to the purification he sought, to purge his mind and body of the temptations that had plagued him throughout his life.

  There was no time. Midnight mass would begin in one hour, and that had been ordained as the starting point of this new, perhaps final journey he would take. Charles closed his eyes in prayer as the wind suddenly changed and sent a torrent of rain crashing against his window.

  God would sustain him in all; he knew that, accepted its truth in every sinew of his being. His mature years had been dedicated to the work of Christ—Opus Christi—and now God had chosen a new direction for him to follow. He had learned not to question those decisions. God had granted him knowledge of his will, and he had followed that will in complete obedience. He would do so now.

  Charles bent and retrieved his satchel, its heft comforting him. The satchel held the only clothing he would take with him and the implements of the work ahead. Now there would just be his priesthood. The world of banking would be but a memory. It was another of the mysteries of God’s will. Just as Peter had abandoned his fishing nets to follow Christ, so Charles too would leave his past behind him.

  Charles turned away from the window, pausing to take in the room, the comforts God had given him. He would miss them. But God would provide other comforts. He possessed an almost Presbyterian view of life, one of predestined glory for those chosen by God. There would be trials, of course, tribulations God would set before him to test his worthiness. The task ahead of him was one such trial. He was certain he would prove worthy and seize the glory that lay ahead—the reflection of God’s own glory in the humblest of ways it could be known by man.

  Charles closed his eyes, shutting out his life as he had known it. He started for the door, eyes open now, staring straight ahead. Only the work of Christ mattered now. The words Opus Christi played across his mind like a mantra driving him forward. A small smile came to his lips and his eyes were filled with a serenity he had seldom felt.

  Rasheed watched Charles step off the elevator, noting the black leather satchel he carried. He was wearing a trenchcoat, and beneath the hem he could see what looked like a black dress. No, it was that thing priests wore—a cassock. Yes, that was what it was called.

  He gave Charles his “Yes, massa” smile, but the man didn’t even seem to know he was there.

  “Do you want a taxi, sir?” he asked.

  Charles nodded once but said nothing.

  “Can I take your bag, sir?”

  Again Charles ignored him, holding tightly to the bag. Rasheed picked up an umbrella that stood by the door and stepped outside under the long awning that stretched to the curb. On the sidewalk he glanced toward the unmarked car that held Devlin’s men. He nodded once toward them. He would raise them by radio once the man had left, but wanted to alert them now so they would be ready. A plume of exhaust suddenly rose from the rear of their car, and he knew they had seen his signal. He opened the umbrella and stepped from the curb to wave at passing taxis. One pulled up immediately—a miracle, he thought, a cab on a rainy New York night.

  Rasheed watched as Charles entered the rear of the cab, still silent as a stone, eyes fixed straight ahead.

  “Can I tell the driver where you want to go?” he asked.

  Charles remained silent, then reached out and closed the door. Rasheed continued to lean forward, trying to hear the instructions to the driver, even to read Charles’s lips through the closed window. A passing truck and the fast-fogging window made it impossible.

  As the cab pulled away, Rasheed looked to the unmarked car that held Stan Samuels and Boom Boom Rivera and gave an exaggerated nod. Then he pulled a mobile radio from the back of his doorman’s coat. “Your boy is off and running. I don’t know where,” he snapped. He watched the unmarked car pull out and fall in behind the cab. He keyed the radio again. “Good hunting,” he said. “I’ll let the inspector know you’re on him.”

  Rasheed watched the two cars move away, satisfying his professional need to know that the tail car was properly positioned. Then he turned and headed back into the building. He would have a quick look at the man’s apartment. Then he would call Devlin.

  “You think he’s running?” Boom Boom asked, as he steered the unmarked car west to Columbus Avenue.

  “He’s got that black bag,” Samuels said. “We gotta figure it’s a possibility.”

  “You think we should check with the boss, see if he wants us to pull him over?”

  “Not yet,” Samuels said. “Let’s see if he’s headed for the airport or one of the tunnels to Jersey. If he does we’ll call it in. The boss said to let him run, see where he goes.”

  They swung around Columbus Circle and headed east on Fifty-ninth Street. Hansom cabs lined the north side of the street, tops up, the drivers hunched inside, waiting for the rain to subside so they could resume their quest for tourists.

  Boom Boom inclined his head toward the waiting horse-drawn buggies. “Can you imagine shelling out forty bucks for a ride behind some stinking horse?” he asked.

  “It’s romantic,” Samuels said. “Women love it.”

  “You been on one of those rides?” Boom Boom asked.

  “Sure,” Samuels said.

  “No shit.”

  “I got laid once in the back of one of those rigs,” Samuels said.

  Boom Boom looked at him longer than he should, incredulous. It wasn’t that someone had gotten laid in the back of a hansom cab. It was that Samuels claimed to have done so. “Stan the man,” he said. “I didn’t think you did that stuff.”

  “Shut up and drive,” Samuels said.

  At Fifth Avenue the cab sped through a yellow light. Boom Boom was two cars back, and he floored it, determined to make the light himself. A city bus pulled into the intersection, then came to a halt, blocking all eastbound traffic. Boom Boom pounded on the steering wheel, then leaned on his horn. The driver of the bus ignored him.

  �
�Motherfucker! What’s wrong with this asshole!” Boom Boom shouted.

  Samuels reached down and picked up the red bubble light on the floor, placed it on the dashboard, and turned it on. Boom Boom hit the siren in short bursts, and the bus driver finally looked down. He gave them a sneer and slowly pulled his bus ahead, giving them just enough room to pull around him.

  Ahead, farther down Fifty-seventh Street, the road was clear all the way to Madison Avenue. Beyond that intersection they could see three cabs approaching Park.

  “It’s gotta be one of them,” Samuels said. “Floor it.”

  Samuels turned off the bubble light, and Boom Boom killed the siren. Ahead, two of the cabs continued across Park Avenue. The third, the middle one, turned south on Park.

  Boom Boom pounded the wheel again. “Which one?” he shouted. “Which fucking one?”

  Devlin answered his cell phone and heard Rasheed’s rumbling baritone.

  “The dude is off, bag in hand,” he said.

  “Does it look like he’s running?” Devlin asked.

  “Hard to tell,” Rasheed came back. “It’s a small bag. But with a guy like that, big bucks and all, it’s hard to tell. He could buy himself new duds wherever he lands. Banker like him probably has money stashed outside the country.”

  “You check the apartment?” Devlin asked.

  “Yeah. Only activity seemed to be in this small room. Strange fucking place. Very bare. One small bed, a table, a crucifix on the wall, a statue of a saint, the Virgin, I think. Like one of them monk’s cells you see in the movies sometimes. Oh, and there was a picture on the floor, photograph of an old lady. All smashed to shit like our boy threw it or somethin’.”

  “You do a search?”

  “Best I could. Didn’t find nothin’ we could nail him on. No drugs. No weapons. No kiddie porn. Zilch. He got a computer here and plenty of empty disks. You want me to copy his hard drive, I can. Just make sure the tail lets me know, he heads back this way.”

  “No,” Devlin said. “Forget the computer. We don’t have a warrant, and Boom Boom’s already had a look from an outside location.”

  “He have a warrant?” Rasheed asked.

  “I can’t hear you,” Devlin said. “My cell phone’s breaking up.”

  Rasheed laughed. “I’ll wait for him, then. Downstairs in the lobby. I’ll call you if he drags his lily-white ass back here.”

  Devlin disconnected the cell phone and looked at Sharon and Ollie. “Charles is moving. He’s got a small bag with him.”

  “Running, you think?” Sharon asked.

  Devlin shrugged. His cell phone interrupted any other answer.

  He listened, then snapped out an order. “Keep looking, then get your asses down here if you draw a blank.” He disconnected the phone again. “Shit,” he said.

  “Don’t tell me they lost him,” Sharon said. “Who was driving?”

  “Boom Boom,” Devlin said.

  “Stupid little bastard was probably playing with his dick,” Ollie said.

  “It was Stan on the phone. He said it wasn’t Boom Boom’s fault.”

  “So what do we do now?” Sharon asked.

  Devlin looked down at his shoes, the black leather spotted from the rain. “We keep our fingers crossed and we wait,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The mass was beautiful and soothing, and Charles awaited the miracle that always brought tears to his eyes: the transubstantiation, the changing of the bread and wine into the actual body and blood of Christ. Only one thing would spoil its beauty.

  Charles watched Father James Janis move about the altar, preparing to defile the host with his vile filthy hands. Charles’s stomach churned with the thought, and his limbs trembled with a barely withheld rage. He moved his leg, feeling the satchel with his foot. The knife inside was a religious artifact, a jewel-encrusted dagger once owned by Saint Thomas More and taken from him before his martyrdom at the hands of Henry VIII. Charles had purchased it at auction, never knowing how God would one day seek its use. Yet he had sharpened the blade to a razor’s edge, undoubtedly lessening its value. He had not known why at the time, but perhaps he did now. Perhaps that, too, had been the will of God, preparing the blade for its holy use.

  Charles continued to follow the mass, continued to watch Father Janis as he prepared the host for consecration. When the host was at last elevated, he lowered his eyes, but not out of reverence this time. He lowered his eyes to keep the sight from view, to keep himself from seeing the sacrilege that was taking place before him. He feared that if he watched he would rise up and strike the man dead before the mass was ended.

  Charles kept his eyes lowered throughout communion. Normally he would take every opportunity to accept the body of the Lord into his own. But not from the hands of this man—this so-called priest—who made a mockery of the church and of everything for which it had stood for two thousand years.

  When the final blessing was given, Charles sat back and watched the priest leave the altar. He waited until the parishioners had made their way to the exits. Then he stood and slipped off his trenchcoat, revealing his cassock. Now he would be just another priest, moving through the church, and if anyone should return they would pay no mind when he entered the sacristy.

  Charles reached down and picked up his leather satchel, opened it, and withdrew the bejeweled dagger. He offered a silent prayer to Saint Thomas More, asking that this weapon he himself had never used would now perform a task for the greater glory of God.

  He slipped the dagger into the sleeve of his cassock, stepped from the pew, and froze in mid-stride. The priest had just returned to the altar, still in the vestments he had worn at mass. His head was lowered, hands raised before his face, pressed together in an attitude of prayer, the tips of his fingers touching his forehead. Charles watched as he knelt, facing the altar, his back to the rows of pews. Then he started forward.

  Charles Meyerson had never killed another human being with his own hands. He had been raised in a capsule of wealth, in an atmosphere protected from violence. Even the meaner streets of the city had remained foreign to him, places he had never felt the need to visit. He had never served in the military, had never received any training, formal or otherwise, in the so-called killing arts. He had destroyed lives as a banker, and on at least one occasion his victim had committed suicide. But it was something that had occurred at a great distance, and Charles had neither grieved nor taken pleasure in that death. If he thought of it at all, he considered it inconsequential.

  Now, as he moved slowly down the center aisle of the church, he studied the kneeling priest, suddenly uncertain of exactly where and how he should stab him. He understood human anatomy, knew where the vital organs of the body were located, but the best method of reaching them with a single killing blow suddenly seemed beyond him.

  Charles closed his eyes momentarily and whispered a quick silent prayer, seeking God’s intervention. Guide my hand, he thought. Guide my hand to do thy will.

  Charles slipped the dagger from the sleeve of his cassock and felt his hand tremble as he seized its jeweled handle. He uttered another silent prayer to Saint Thomas More, then clasped the handle in both hands and raised it high above his head.

  He was only two long strides from the priest when a sharp, clear voice called to him—a woman’s voice.

  “Don’t do it, Charles. One more step, and I’ll send you straight to hell.”

  Charles’s eyes snapped to the sound and found Sharon Levy standing to his left, pistol held in both hands, eyes staring along the barrel.

  “And if she misses, Charlie boy, I won’t.”

  Charles turned to the second voice. Ollie Pitts stood to his right in a wide combat-shooter’s stance, a pistol steady in his hands. It was leveled at Charles’s chest.

  The kneeling priest stood and turned, drawing Charles’s attention. Paul Devlin stood before him, dressed in the same vestments Father Janis had worn during mass. He held a pistol down along his r
ight leg. His left hand was extended toward Charles.

  “It’s over, Charles,” Devlin said. “Give me the knife. No one else has to die.”

  Confusion spread across Charles’s face, as he tried to understand how Father Janis could suddenly turn into a police officer. Then he understood what had happened, and his features twisted with rage.

  “Nooooo!” he screamed. He leaned forward as if preparing to launch himself at Devlin.

  Devlin’s hand came up and joined the other, the barrel of the weapon only five feet from the center of Charles’s chest. “Please don’t make me kill you,” Devlin said.

  Charles faltered; his eyes blinked. “They have to die,” he said, his voice suddenly soft, melodious, distant. “It’s the will of our Lord.”

  Devlin shook his head. “Can’t happen, Charles. Not today. All the priests on your list have been taken out of the city. The archdiocese moved every one of them at my request. They’re in a place where no one can reach them, surrounded by police. No matter which priest you went after tonight, you wouldn’t have found anything but cops—all waiting for you. It’s over.” Devlin kept his pistol leveled on Charles but released the two-handed grip and extended his left hand again. “Give me the knife,” he said again.

  Charles ignored him. His eyes darted to Sharon, then to Ollie, as both moved in on either side, their weapons still held out before them. He turned back to Devlin.

  “They must die,” Charles said. “It is the only way the church can be saved.”

  “Why must they die, Charles? Why will it save the church if they do?” Devlin momentarily wondered if this conversation would be considered an interrogation by the courts, if he should Mirandize the man now. It was the kind of hesitation the court’s recent decisions had produced; the kind that got cops killed. He pushed the idea away. He was simply “talking him down,” trying to get him to surrender his weapon so they wouldn’t be forced to kill him. That was how he would testify, and so would Sharon and Ollie.