The 7th Canon

by Robert Dugoni

  He sat and adjusted his desk lamp, flipping through the series of articles Ruth-Bell had copied. The process of opening the shelter had been long and arduous for Father Martin. The politicians and police started out firmly opposed to the idea of using abandoned buildings to shelter teenage runaways and prostitutes—or the homeless, for that matter, which were becoming a major problem. In an election year, none of the candidates for mayor or city supervisor wanted to take a position on such a controversial subject. But Father Martin had been dogged in his efforts to open his shelter. He ignored his critics and lobbied the city’s politically powerful special-interest groups, including San Francisco’s large and active gay community, which was tired of being wrongly associated with the street prostitutes. The issue gave them a forum to educate the public about the clientele filtering into the Gulch and parking in the dark alleys, the seemingly heterosexual men from every walk of life preying on young boys. The sex trade was a lot like the drug trade; everyone wanted to raze the low-income housing where the drugs were sold but ignored the BMWs and Mercedes driving down the streets with $100 bills hanging out the windows.

  Father Martin had also done a number on the San Francisco Police Department, disseminating information on the amount of resources spent each year trying to police the problem. He pitched the shelter as an alternative investment that would allow the police to concentrate their efforts on violent crime. After he made those numbers public, mayoral candidate Alice Herman, a long shot with nothing to lose and everything to gain, pledged her support for Father Martin’s project. When she did, the rest of the politicians could no longer ignore the issue, including Gil Ramsey, who begrudgingly jumped on the bandwagon. One article included a picture of Ramsey touring the shelter.

  Maybe Ruth-Bell was right. Maybe Ramsey was trying to jump from a burning ship before it sank. But something about that just didn’t sit right with Donley. As only a skilled politician could, Ramsey had straddled the fence, arguing his support for the shelter did not conflict with his rigid “tough on crime” posture. He said if the shelter could prevent solicitation, he favored it. If it could not, then it was the district attorney’s job to prosecute, and the legal system’s job to punish.

  There had to be something more.

  The article in the afternoon edition jumped to an interior page, where the paper had run an article on the victim. Though the police continued to withhold much information until the next of kin had been notified, the reporter had found a source who knew Andrew Bennet. Bennet went by the street nickname Alphabet, presumably because of his initials, AB. The source said Bennet had been living on the Tenderloin streets after running away from a single-parent home in a lower-middle-class neighborhood outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin, at age thirteen. He’d taken a bus to Hollywood with dreams of becoming an actor, developed a drug problem that included heroin, and soon thereafter developed a police problem. The reporter recovered records from the West Hollywood and San Francisco police departments indicating Bennet had been picked up multiple times on charges of possession, petty theft, and solicitation.

  Donley set the paper down and dialed a number committed to memory. The officer at the duty desk put him on hold. When he returned, Donley asked to speak to Mike Harris.

  “Harris is already out. I can reach him in the car if it’s an emergency, or you can leave a message.”

  “No, that’s all right.”

  Donley started to hang up, then reconsidered. “Wait. You still there?”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Tell him Donley called.”

  “Any last name?”

  “Peter Donley. Tell him Peter Donley called,” he said and hung up.

  Two drunks on the sidewalk outside Donley’s window yelled something unintelligible at each other. A bottle shattered. Next, they’d probably urinate on the wall. Donley opened his desk drawer and set Lou’s revolver on the desk. He kept it close when he worked late. He noticed Max Seager’s business card, picked it up, and thought again about calling to make an appointment. Now was not the time. He set it aside and read a treatise Ruth-Bell had opened to criminal arraignments. He’d grasped the procedural aspects, which were not complicated, but he would go through the treatise and his notes again for the nuances. Lou had taught him the courtroom was a stage, with lawyers and judges the actors. It didn’t just matter what you said; it mattered how you looked saying it. He suspected Ramsey and St. Claire would attempt to make him look inexperienced in front of Milton Trimble, and Trimble had a reputation of devouring young, unprepared lawyers.

  Ruth-Bell had also been accurate in her assessment of the arraignment. The key was to not enter a plea but to waive time to allow the defense attorney the chance to review the evidence and prepare a defense. That would eventually be either Lou, who right now needed as much time as Donley could get him, or if Lou didn’t make it back, someone with more experience, like Larry Carr.

  The strain of the prior two days made Donley’s head heavy. He contemplated the empty coffeemaker, but remembered Ruth-Bell’s admonition that caffeine would make him edgy and decided against it. Instead, he lowered his head. He’d take a five-minute nap to rejuvenate. Then he would go over his notes again.

  September 1978

  Donley flicked the tubular-shaped fuse and watched it tumble over the stair edge, clattering down the staircase and rolling across the hardwood floor to a darkened corner near the front door. Beads of perspiration trickled down his face and ringed the collar of his white T-shirt—an Indian summer had brought soaring temperatures and the kind of dry, windless days San Franciscans quietly called earthquake weather.

  He sat halfway up the staircase, waiting, listening to the clock in the living room tick off the seconds. His eyes had long since adjusted to the dark, and he peered between the bannister slats at the golden football trophies his mother kept prominently displayed on the entry table for the recruiters. Part of the facade. His high school football coaches told the recruiters that determination and hard work had made Peter Donley one of the best high school football players in the country.

  They were wrong.

  Football didn’t drive Donley to lift weights to near exhaustion. It was rage. The anger built inside him like compressed air, which Donley vented in the weight room, at practice, and during games. It was the only thing that kept him from exploding.

  Just above the trophies, black-and-white photographs hung on the wall. In one, a young man in a tuxedo looked as if he were about to fall face-first but for an arm draped around his bride’s shoulders. Donley didn’t recognize the man or the woman in that picture. In the ensuing eighteen years, his father’s lean and angular face had become pale and fleshy, and his six-pack stomach now hung well over his belt. The James Dean curl in the picture no longer sat atop his head like a rooster’s crown but drooped like a beaten dog’s tail.

  Donley’s mother had once been beautiful, lustrous dark hair, blue-green eyes, and soft features. At thirty-six, her hair had streaked prematurely gray, and her smile was missing two teeth. Her figure had grown thin and frail.

  The familiar sound of the Impala’s engine drew Donley’s attention back to the front door. It still caused a Pavlovian chill to trickle down his spine. As a child, that chill caused him to slide beneath his bed. But he was no longer a child. And he was no longer scared.

  The car’s headlights pierced the shuttered windows, casting slatted shadows on the wall.

  The clock chimed twice.

  The man was nothing if not predictable.

  The car jerked to a stop at the curb, the engine sputtering and finally dying with a last gasp from the carburetor. The driver’s side door creaked open—a dent had creased the panel—then slammed shut with the same forced snap.

  Donley stood.

  The familiar sound of heavy boots trudged up the concrete walk in an uneven shuffle. God, how he hated that sound. He’d prayed nightly not to hear that sound, prayed it would be the night his father did not come home, lef
t for good. But each night, the boots returned.

  Keys rattled in the lock.

  Donley stepped down one stair and parted his legs shoulder-width, balanced.

  The deadbolt flicked upright.

  The hairs on the back of Donley’s neck twitched—an angel’s breath, his mother called it. Donley pressed down on the balls of his feet and felt his jeans tighten around the muscles of his thighs as the front door swung open.

  He was home.

  The bang startled Donley from sleep. He sat up quickly, saw a dark figure hovering over him, stood, spun, and drew his arms across his body. In the same motion, he’d shifted his weight to his back leg, his front leg coiled and ready to strike. The figure never moved. It remained a headless image on the wall. He looked to the window, to where Ruth-Bell had hung his suit above the radiator, now backlit by the street lamp leaking through the blinds.

  Just a shadow.

  He released a held breath and ran a hand through his hair. His sweatshirt was damp to the touch. The radiator banged again, then went back to its usual ticking and hissing. What time was it?

  He picked up his watch from his desk. Midnight. Damn. He’d fallen asleep for nearly an hour.

  A chill brought goose bumps along his arms. He felt the room shrinking, as it had when he’d visited Father Martin’s cell. The same feeling of claustrophobia enveloped him, suffocating. He couldn’t catch his breath. His skin prickled, and his joints ached. He felt light-headed, dizzy. He needed to get out. He needed to get home. He stuffed books and papers into his briefcase, shoved his wallet and keys into his gym bag, and hurried from his office into the reception area, feeling as though he were being chased. He exited the building peering over his shoulder, certain someone or something was about to step up behind him. Even when he slid inside his car, the feeling of being pursued persisted, enough that he repeatedly checked the rearview mirror on the drive home.

  Not until he’d merged onto the freeway did his body begin to relax, and his thoughts shifted from his father to Kim. He imagined her sitting at the kitchen table sipping a mug of tepid tea, a medical book open, Bo asleep at her feet. They’d spoken on the phone at eight, when Donley called to say good night to Benny. He’d told her not to wait up, that he would be late preparing for the priest’s arraignment. She said she needed to study, but he knew that was only an excuse. Kim didn’t like going to bed knowing he remained at the office. She worried about his safety. She’d be really worried now. Donley wished he’d called her before leaving the office.

  When he reached home, Donley did not raise the electric garage door for fear the vibration would wake Benny. He parked in the sloped driveway and walked along the side of the house, where he’d fenced in a dog run, to reach the door at the side of the house. Entering the garage, he heard Bo’s paws clicking on the hardwood overhead as he made his way to his spot at the top of the back stairs, ready to greet his master. Donley couldn’t go upstairs, not yet. He still felt the rush of anxiety pulsing through his body.

  He heard the door at the top of the stairs open.

  “Peter?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “You coming up?”

  “Need a few minutes.”

  He pressed “Play” on the boom box. Bruce Springsteen shouted out “Born in the USA,” the part about a dog being beat too much, spending half its life just covering up. The heavy bass beat of the E Street Band played as Peter’s hands and feet pounded the canvas heavy bag and rattled the metal chain that suspended it from an overhead joist.

  Barefoot and bare chested, he attacked the bag from all angles, feinting and rising, left fist after right, combination kicks. He was fast but felt off-balance and imprecise, nothing like Kim had taught him. Without protection, his feet and knuckles soon became a raspberry red and began to ache, but he kept at it, feeling the release. His breathing became strained, and his arms and legs felt leaden. Springsteen gave way to Bono and the Irish band U2. Bono sang about streets with no names. The guitars pulsed; the drums pounded. Bono shouted about wanting to run and hide and tear down walls.

  Peter ducked and dipped, weaving from side to side, continuing the onslaught, rising to land another punch or kick. The heavy bag spun until his arms and legs weakened to the point that his punches slowed and lost force, becoming long, looping swings. His chest heaved, and he exhaled raspy gasps of air until finally, unable to continue, he draped his hands around the bag, clutching it for support. Beads of sweat trailed down his neck and chest.

  Kim turned off the cassette player. “Peter?”

  Until then, he hadn’t heard her come down the stairs. Didn’t know she was there. He let go of the bag and stumbled backward against the unfinished concrete wall.

  “Peter, what’s wrong? What’s the matter?”

  “He’s back.”

  He never referred to his father by name. He didn’t have to. Kim knew the history of abuse, and she knew his father had died in an accident in their home. She didn’t know the circumstances. He’d never told her. He’d never told anyone, except Mike Harris.

  Kim cupped his face in her hands and gently turned it, forcing him to look her in the eyes. “Your father can’t hurt you anymore, Peter. He’s gone.”

  “No,” he said. “He’s not gone, just buried.”

  Chapter 10

  December 24, 1987

  Dimmed lights cast a pallid glow down the sterile hall. Nurses sitting behind counters adorned with Christmas lights reviewed charts, starting their morning shifts. One ate cereal from a plastic bowl. Christmas Eve, but not here. Here, it was just another morning, a place that did not know weekends or stop for holidays. Donley walked down the sparkling linoleum, past gurneys, linen bags, and carts with teetering stacks of empty dinner trays. He stepped into Lou’s private room in the cardiac-care ward. Most of the tubing that had pierced Lou’s body in the intensive-care unit had been removed, along with the tube down his throat. The room had much less the feel of impending death.

  The same doctor who had confronted Donley in the intensive-care ward walked through the door and startled at the sight of him. “This is getting to be a bad habit,” she said. At 5:00 a.m., visiting hours didn’t begin for another three hours.

  “I just needed a few minutes. I won’t disturb him.”

  They moved to the doorway.

  “They took the tube out of his throat,” he said.

  “He’s breathing on his own. He’s made remarkable progress,” the doctor said, but cautioned that she could not quantify the damage or determine whether any of Lou’s paralysis would be permanent until he was strong enough to undergo a series of tests, probably within a few days. They had, however, established that the stroke had not impaired Lou’s vocal chords.

  “When we removed the tube from his throat, he said, ‘Goddamn thing was choking me to death.’”

  Donley laughed. “That sounds like Lou.”

  In a very short time, Lou had charmed them all. “He’s becoming a favorite here among the nurses. I get the impression your uncle is excitable?”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  “I think he pretty much willed himself through this one. Then again, it’s likely he caused it by his diet and the work hours his wife says he keeps.”

  Donley nodded. “It comes with the job.”

  The doctor lowered the clipboard, looking at Lou. “Probably not anymore, I’m afraid.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’ll have to consider retirement.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  She fixed her gaze on Donley. “Even if he could go back to work, I wouldn’t recommend it,” she said, looking grim. “This might have been a blessing. If he changes his eating habits and lifestyle, your uncle could live a long time.”

  The reality of the doctor’s statement that Lou needed to retire hit Donley like a slap across the face. “Don’t tell him,” he said. “He loves his work. He really does.”

  “He’ll have to learn
to love something else.” The doctor started from the room. “Just a few minutes.”

  Donley returned to Lou’s bedside and put a hand on his uncle’s shoulder. Lou opened his eyes. “You’re awake?” Donley said. Half of Lou’s face smiled. The other half twitched, the muscles struggling. “How do you feel?”

  “I hurt like hell from all the needles they’ve been sticking in me.” Lou sounded as if he had just returned from the dentist’s office and the Novocain had not yet worn off.

  Donley leaned forward to make it easier for Lou to see him.

  “Don’t you start hovering over me like your aunt; this isn’t a goddamn funeral. I’m not dead yet.”

  Donley smiled. “I doubt there would be this many people at your funeral. I’m just hanging around for my inheritance.”

  “You’ll be bitterly disappointed.” He grimaced.

  Donley looked up at the pulsing monitors, though he had no idea what any meant. “Are you all right?”

  “Relax. I just have a pain in my side from lying here so damn long. How are things at the office?” Like most lawyers, Lou needed to know what was happening at work.

  “Everything is fine. Ruth-Bell took charge like Alexander Haig.”

  “Took charge? She’s run that office since the day I hired her, or hadn’t you noticed?” He turned his head on the pillow. “You look worse than I feel.”

  “I’m fine. Just a little tired.”

  “The priest?”

  “You know about that?”

  “You ought to know me better. I’ve read the newspaper every morning for the past fifty years. I wasn’t about to let a little heart attack keep me from my morning routine. I had your aunt read it to me.”

  “You should have skipped the article.”

  “I saw the photograph. When you see a priest in the paper, it’s usually a bad sign. They don’t write about the good things.”