Relic of Time

by Ralph McInerny

  “Of course not.”

  John Paul II, in Centesimus Annus, had eloquently restated the Church’s position on unbridled capitalism, but his words had been twisted into a defense of the reigning political economy. Well, the pope had seemed to waffle a bit on government solutions. George preferred Dorothy Day’s and Mother Teresa’s positions. Do what you can for the poor and beaten. Don’t try to shuffle it off on others, on sweeping solutions that worsened the problem. One day at a time. A bowl of soup. When I was hungry, you fed me. His father had begrudgingly put up the money for the house in Palo Alto. George had taken only half of what he offered.

  If his father was unable to see the point of the Catholic Worker movement, Miguel Arroyo was in his way worse.

  When George had shown Miguel around during his first visit to Palo Alto, Arroyo’s reaction was like that of Clare Ibanez later.

  “I can send some people to help clean up this place,” he said when they were settled in George’s office.

  “It always gets dirty again.”

  “This is all fine and good, George. But the problem is bigger than this sort of thing can handle.”

  Miguel had been ecstatic when he had led through the streets of Los Angeles an army of illegal immigrants demanding . . . Demanding what? Their rights. And rights were what others owed oneself. That, too, was a shifting of the burden. They should begin by helping one another.

  Of course, Miguel had a problem analogous to his own. Latinos whose presence in the country went back generations, legal immigrants, many of whom were as hostile to the influx of illegal immigrants as any Anglo.

  “German and Russian Jews,” Lowry murmured. It wasn’t just the pipe in his mouth that made his words obscure. Lowry ran the kitchen. He was in his sixties, a repentant communist, returned to the faith of his fathers so long as it took the form of the Catholic Worker house in Palo Alto. He explained.

  The Jews who had come to America early and had prospered and assimilated were put off by the hordes that poured through Ellis Island from Eastern Europe. These were low class and politically radical. Zionists. The established Jews wanted nothing to do with them, save perhaps as cheap labor in the Garment District. Zionism? Were they supposed to consider themselves as displaced desert dwellers from the Middle East? Give me a break. They were Americans! Zionism did not conquer American Jews until after World War II. Not that many chose to relocate to Israel.

  The Los Angeles demonstration had been theater, a one-time event, a media event, however Miguel crowed about its success. Now he was advocating an armed uprising; he wanted California to secede from the Union, unite with the Baja, and eventually . . . Eventually all those states with their Spanish names, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Montana, would, like California, be recovered.

  “Under the Spanish crown?”

  Miguel of course had dismissed the suggestion. Did he even have a clear notion of what he wanted?

  George drove down to Los Angeles to find that Miguel was not there.

  There were huge posters of Che and Fidel and Chavez in the outer office.

  “When do you expect him back?”

  A shrug. “He’s up north.”

  “Napa?”

  Another shrug.

  Miguel had met Clare on a later visit to Palo Alto and George had watched with mixed emotions as Miguel, with his dancing eyes and pearly teeth under the dramatic mustache, had played the Latin lover to an indifferent Clare. When he learned that she was the daughter of Don Ibanez his smile froze. Clare’s father was the spokesmen for those Latinos with generations of prosperity behind them. They disdained such agitators as Miguel.

  “A great man,” he said.

  “Thank you.” But he went on in rapid Spanish. Clare pretended that she did not understand. “No habla?”

  Clare’s only answer was a smile.

  “Why didn’t you speak to him?” George asked her later.

  “He talks like a commercial on a Spanish radio station.”

  Immediately, she was sorry for what she had said, a snobbish condescension doubtless learned from her father.

  VII

  “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?”

  Traeger rented a car in Chicago. Flying was too quick and he wanted the thought-inducing monotony of a long drive. Besides, he had to figure out where he was headed. In St. Louis, he phoned Dortmund and learned that Ignatius Hannan had hired Crosby.

  “What for? He’s offering a reward.”

  “Covering his bets?”

  “Does Crosby know I’m on this?”

  “Who would tell him?”

  Well, who would tell Dortmund that Crosby had been hired by Hannan? That fragile old man, sunning himself on his retirement patio, oxygen feeding into his nostrils through plastic tubing, seemed to be as much in touch as director emeritus as he had been during his active years. Traeger reminded himself that it was Dortmund who had recommended him to his current successor. How many directors had there been since Dortmund? A series of pygmies.

  He felt at once annoyed and reassured at the thought of Crosby on the same mission as he was. Cooperation of the public and private sectors? But he remembered, too, Dortmund’s parting admonition. Watch your back. How many were after the same objective? He also remembered that the Company claimed to have a mole in the Rough Riders. The more he thought of it, the more he wished he were on his own.

  Obviously, Theo Grady had not returned to Rough Rider headquarters in Santa Barbara. If he had, his arrest would have become public by the time Traeger arrived in Chicago. Hence the rental car and his south-southwest itinerary. The Rough Rider camps along the border had been struck, leaving the mess to the Minutemen, who were apparently defending the border effectively. It was what they had wanted to do for a long time. So where should he go?

  California, here I come? But why? He would not be the only one to wonder if the call to arms from Justicia y Paz had been a reaction to the theft of the sacred picture or part of a coordinated effort. Traeger had requested, and received, what the Company had on Miguel Arroyo, an e-mail now snug in the computer he had been issued. He had read it in a truck stop just after crossing the Mississippi. An alliance between Arroyo and Grady was improbable enough to be possible. One the fiery exponent of the history of the Southwest and California, the whipper-upper of frenzy among illegal immigrants, now claiming the territory for its original settlers in a delayed victory for the conquistadores; the other the chauvinist Grady, who seemed to have forgotten that his family was only a couple generations out of County Mayo. One thing they had in common was pride in a supposed purity of blood. Arroyo claimed descent from sixteenth-century Spaniards who had settled in California, arriving from Mexico City shortly after 1529. That was the year of the Virgin’s apparition to Juan Diego, as Arroyo boasted. Grady, on the other hand, was proud of being, as he put it, pure Irish, which probably meant a mixture of Celt and Dane and French and who knew what else. When Traeger thought of it, the great globe itself seemed always to have been the theater of constant migration, emigration, and immigration, making the idea of pure blood dubious. But why would Grady ally himself with someone whose aims seemed diametrically opposed to his own: open versus closed borders? He might have recognized in Arroyo what he could not recognize in himself—an impractical romantic.

  There was only one passenger in the car that had been on his tail since St. Louis, a dark blue Pontiac with tinted windows, although of course the windshield was clear. Traeger had slowed to make sure that there was only one man besides the driver. The Pontiac slowed, too, ignoring the chance to pass. Traeger sped up. Watch your back, Dortmund had said. Approaching an oasis that arched over the freeway, he turned in at the last moment, not flicking on his turning signal. The Pontiac did the same.

  Inside were fast-food places, restrooms, large windows through which travelers could look down on the road that had carried them here from the west and east. Backpack slung over one shoulder, Traeger went to the men’s room at the far end and, looking for fe
et beneath the closed stall doors, felt like that senator in the Minneapolis airport. He stepped into a stall next to the one where dropped trousers all but hid the shoes of a man seeking comfort. There was a set of car keys on the floor next to the dropped trousers. Traeger listened for the sound of flushing, then snatched the keys and got out of his stall.

  Out the north door then, he hurried toward the parking lot, punching the door opener on the ignition key he held. Lights began to blink and he headed for them. All he had taken with him was the backpack that held the two computers. He pulled open the door of the car, threw in his backpack, and a minute later was headed down the ramp and barreling eastward. There was no sign of anyone following him now.

  The next oasis was forty miles away but that wasn’t his destination. By the time he got back to his rental car, the driver of the Pontiac should have given up, realizing that he had been flummoxed. Normally, doubling back over miles he had already covered would have been an annoyance. But not now. In any case, the miles flew by as Traeger tried not to think how clever he had been. Nearly an hour passed before he had found an exit leading to a bridge over the freeway and was driving westward again to the oasis where he had left his car. He went slowly through the parking lot, looking for the Pontiac and not finding it. He parked, left the keys on the seat, and walked back to his rental. Once behind the wheel, he relaxed and lit a cigarette.

  There was a metallic tap on the window beside him and he looked up into the smiling face of Will Crosby. Traeger rolled down the window.

  “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” Crosby asked.

  “Where’s the Pontiac?” Traeger asked when he had gotten out of the car and shook hands with Crosby.

  “What Pontiac?”

  “What are you driving?”

  “A Toyota.”

  “I think we’ve got company.”

  Before they went inside, they checked out the parking lot again, making sure the Pontiac with the tinted windows was not there. Crosby insisted that he had not noticed the Pontiac.

  “I was too busy keeping an eye on you.”

  They ordered coffee and sat in silence, consulting their own thoughts. Traeger said, “So you talked with Dortmund.”

  “Everybody talks to Dortmund.”

  There was no point in brooding over the Pontiac. Neither of them had an explanation that wasn’t wild guessing. But Traeger was certain that his employers had put a monitor on him. All the precautions of the Amtrak ride and the rental car now seemed foolish. Apparently alerted by Dortmund, Crosby had seen him while he was cooling his heels waiting for the train’s departure for Chicago. He had flown from Boston to Dulles and, having hit on the Amtrak idea, too, was on the train with Traeger.

  “I thought we might talk in the club car.”

  “I had a roomette.”

  “So I learned. I wish I had thought of that. Where are we headed?”

  “First, we get off this freeway.”

  Crosby nodded. “And then?”

  “How long since you’ve been in El Paso?”

  “That question occurs to me every time I’m there.”

  “What was your idea?”

  “Following you.”

  “And before you accidentally saw me in the Amtrak station?”

  “I was still pondering possibilities. We’ll do better pooling resources.”

  Outside, Traeger told Crosby that he would follow him. Crosby shook his head.

  “No, I’ll follow you. You have seniority.”

  “How much is Hannan paying you?”

  “I’ll split it with you.”

  “That’s fair enough.”

  Crosby was driving a Toyota. Well, he was too young to remember Pearl Harbor. First chance he got, Traeger turned off the freeway and headed south on a good state road. The problem he now faced was how to get rid of Crosby.

  The solution proved to be the human bladder: Crosby’s. Traeger pulled off at Crosby’s signal and accompanied him inside the oasis. They exchanged ignition keys as a precaution. As soon as Crosby was comfortable in a stall, Traeger left, transferred his things, let the air out of two tires of the car he was leaving for Crosby, and was on his way.

  VIII

  “I need your advice.”

  “You won’t remember me,” the caller said to Clare. “My name is Miguel Arroyo and we met—”

  “Of course I remember you.”

  “George Worth introduced us. Are you on leave or what?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I thought you were his assistant. George’s.”

  “No.”

  “Just a volunteer?”

  “Why are you calling?”

  There was no accusation in Miguel’s voice, but, reminded of what she now considered her desertion of George, Clare felt riddled with guilt. She had tried to tell herself that it was only her attraction to George, but of course that was not all of it. How was it possible to agree so completely with the principles that drove George’s life and then, in effect, reject them? There was no way she could have lived the life he lived, in those conditions, with those people. How shallow that made her feel.

  “Could we get together?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Not ten miles away.”

  “How did you know I was here?”

  “I didn’t. I called your cell phone number.”

  “Where did you get that?”

  A pause. “George.”

  “So how would you know where I answered my cell phone?”

  He laughed, and she remembered his face, his eyes, his teeth. He seemed summed up by his accidents. No, that wasn’t fair. In his way, Miguel was as much a zealot as George. She couldn’t believe that George would give him her number. She had seen his reaction to Miguel’s performance when the founder of Justicia y Paz came on to her at the house. She told Miguel so.

  “I couldn’t lie to you.”

  “Good.”

  “Lowry gave me your number.”

  Lowry! How had he gotten hold of it? Clare was certain she had never given it to the cook at the Catholic Worker house in Palo Alto. She could hardly accuse Arroyo of lying. But he had already admitted to lying once. Someone, obviously Lowry, must have told him that she was no longer working with George.

  “Why should we get together?”

  “I need your advice.”

  Who can resist such a claim? His statement put her on a pedestal of authority, someone who could give sage advice, someone he needed. And so she agreed to meet him in Pinata.

  “I could come there.”

  “I’ll meet you.”

  Imagine inviting Miguel Arroyo into her father’s home. Don Ibanez looked with utter contempt on Justicia y Paz, considering it a mere instrument of Miguel Arroyo’s ambition. What hurt the most was that Don Ibanez had known Miguel’s grandfather.

  “A saint, Clare,” her father had whispered, “and I mean that. When he was in a room it was charged with his presence. He made a holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament every day. His charities were enormous. He swore the beneficiaries to silence, but, like those cured by Christ who were enjoined to keep their cure silent, they had to make it known.”

  Whenever Miguel and Justicia y Paz came up, her father lifted his eyes to heaven and wondered what the saintly grandfather would think of such nonsense.

  Miguel was waiting for her on the walk in front of a Mexican restaurant, surrounded by a half dozen admirers. They stepped back when Clare came up, recognizing her as her father’s daughter. On their faces she could see the wonderment that Clare Ibanez was meeting with Miguel Arroyo. Miguel took her arm and led her down the walk.

  “How can I meet with your father?”

  She stopped and stared at him and got the thousand-watt smile in answer.

  “No, not to ask for your hand.”

  How could she not laugh? Had George ever made her laugh? Had she ever seen George laugh? The smile was turned off.

  “It’s about Our Lady of Guad
alupe. Let’s go over there.”

  There was a park of sorts between the divided lanes of the street; palm trees curved from the ground, and the bench looked about to be overtaken by the lush growth around it. It was on that bench that she heard an astounding story.

  She mustn’t ask how he knew, he said, after telling her that what he was about to say was utterly confidential.

  “I know who stole the sacred image from the shrine in Mexico City.” Having said that, he fell silent, letting the words work their effect on her.

  “You must tell the police.”

  He shook his head. “Then those who have it would destroy it.”

  “Why?!”

  “Anyone who would steal such a thing would not hesitate to destroy it. I have to tell this to your father. He will know what to do.”

  “He would tell you to tell the police.”

  “I don’t think so.” He paused. “But, if he does, that is what I will do.”

  Much of what he told her was lies, she knew, and they were ineffectual lies. Well, not entirely. She drove him home in her car, leaving his van in Pinata. She drove in silence, with Miguel beside her, his elbow out the open window. When she went through the gate, which opened at her signal, he took in his elbow and raised the window, as if to get a better look at the place. He hopped out and his eyes widened under raised brows as he looked beyond the house where the replica of the basilica was visible.

  “My God,” he said in a low voice. “I want to see it.”

  They crossed the lawn and then the simulated plaza and into the circular church. Miguel stopped, his eyes drawn to the picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe above the altar. Then he drifted forward as if mesmerized. He showed no surprise to find that her father had not installed a moving walkway beneath the picture, like the one in Mexico City. But everything else was just like Mexico City.

  He whispered, “What is the scale?”

  “Everything here is one-seventh the size of its original.”

  “And the picture?”

  “Oh no, that’s the exact size of the miraculous one.”