Relic of Time

by Ralph McInerny

  “So we brought the package. There was another ready for delivery to the shrine in Mexico City. Somehow it was the copy I put into the U-Haul and took to Mexico City. You should have been there when it was opened.”

  “I’ve seen pictures. Traeger, believe me, you’ve been news.”

  “I’m being hunted.”

  “What have you got to fear? The beard was a good idea, by the way.”

  “How did you make the switch?”

  “I could sit here all day and deny I did that and you wouldn’t believe me.”

  “So quit pretending you didn’t do it.”

  Arroyo dropped into thought. He hummed and looked away. He turned to Traeger, his expression altered. “Maybe I do know what happened that night.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “No, no. This is a guess. But a good guess.”

  Traeger waited. He had been conned once by this guy and he didn’t plan to have it repeated.

  “Phelps,” Arroyo said. “Jason Phelps. That has to be it.”

  “Arroyo, if that’s the best you can do . . .”

  “But it has to have been Phelps. Look, I told him everything that was about to happen. How could anything go wrong at that point?”

  “You said you hadn’t known.”

  “Don Ibanez had called me. That’s why I was up in the valley.”

  “How can I tell when you’re not lying? When you’re not talking?”

  Arroyo winced. “I suppose if I’d been through what you have I’d suspect everyone else, too. You realize everyone thinks you still have the sacred image. Or know where it is.”

  “Why else would I take a copy to Mexico City and risk my life?”

  “It doesn’t makes sense. Just as your thinking I did what you said doesn’t make sense.”

  He sat forward, excited now. He had thought something was funny when he had been talking to Phelps before Traeger showed up.

  “He knew all about it, Traeger. He stood there in the dark chuckling over what a surprise was coming.”

  “He said that?”

  “As God is my judge.”

  Traeger might have been willing to consider this stupid suggestion, but that addendum saved him.

  “Look, Traeger. My saying it will never convince you. Why don’t we go up there and confront Phelps? You can get the truth out of him.”

  “I can’t seem to get it out of you.”

  “Traeger, please. I will put myself in your hands. Let’s go up there and if I’m deceiving you, you just go ahead and do what you people do to deceivers.”

  The thought of getting Arroyo out of the headquarters of Justicia y Paz had its appeal. Here he was surrounded by minions.

  Arroyo stood. “I’ll go tell them to get my car ready.”

  “Use the phone.”

  “Right.” He picked up the phone and gabbled in Spanish too swift for Traeger to follow. He hung up. “It will be here in minutes. Do we have a deal?”

  “Is that a john?”

  “Be my guest.”

  “Lock your door.”

  “Of course.” Arroyo went to the door and locked it.

  In the john, before he did his business, Traeger looked out the little window. That was when he saw the cruisers pulling in. The son of a bitch.

  He raised the window, got his legs out first, and then levered himself up and out, dropping to the ground. He beat it around to the front of the building where cruisers were disgorging an ugly crew, all of them with weapons at the ready. Traeger strolled to his car, hopped in, and moved slowly out of the lot. Not quite twice, but close. The son of a bitch.

  IX

  “I was only teasing.”

  Catherine sensed that Laura wanted to be alone with Clare, so she went off and left them. But her mind was seething with the thought that Neal Admirari had all but rushed from her side to the comforts of the confessional. Her own memories of confession were not unpleasant, until she had reached the age when she had embarrassing things to whisper through the grille, her heart in her throat, expecting the worst. It never came, but that did not make those moments of anticipation less painful. To have to say such things to a man, however anonymous and invisible he was, stirred up in her the first intimations of feminism. She had married in the Church but by then that was for her merely a matter of form. She had been raised Catholic, she was marrying a Catholic, so of course they were married by a priest. When her marriage went sour, it seemed yet another argument against her already wobbly faith. Had she even gone to confession prior to her wedding?

  Getting a divorce had seemed the decisive severing of all links to her childhood. In what she would not have called her promiscuous days, her many affairs had seemed so many declarations of independence—and independence from many more things than her one-time religious beliefs. Catholicism was only one of a whole host of outmoded opinions and practices that had to be put down by the kind of liberated woman she had become.

  But even pleasure palls and she became, if not chaste, a far more discriminating partner. However infrequent, those liaisons did not remove her fierce aversion to entangling alliances. Whence then her desire to see Lloyd Kaiser again? How sweet the memory of their walks beside Minnehaha Creek, how innocent yet thrilling those evenings when they sat on a bench overlooking Lake Hiawatha. Whenever she thought of them, her head tipped to the left and she lifted her lips to a remembered Lloyd. She felt that she had given him something far more important than her virginity. She had offered him herself, body and soul, as she would then have put it.

  He had taken neither—they were both too inexperienced, too frightened—but the offer had been made, and that was the essential thing. And so, disappointed with what she had become, she had initiated contact with him. They had corresponded, usually by email, they had talked endlessly on the phone, and then they decided to see each other in person, face to face, always a risky thing after so many years. The same photograph had appeared on the jackets of his books for some years. Doubtless he no longer looked like that. When he asked for her photograph, it took her days to find one to send. In the end, she sent a snapshot. For better or worse, that was how she now looked. But she had been pleased with the looks she had.

  And then Chicago, the Whitehall, those glorious orgiastic days and nights. My God, how insatiable they were. That had become her great regret. It had been wrong to make herself so readily and so frequently available to him, but she had been more eager than he. That had been a mistake. What he thought of her, when the pleasures were over, was hinted at in their good-bye. And ever since learning how he had died, it seemed inescapable that she had become an object of remorse for him.

  And now Neal Admirari! Neal, the professional Catholic, as she thought of him. It was thus that he earned his bread, or cheese: he was a church mouse, and not as poor as. He was obviously doing very well. Oh, she blamed herself. He could be forgiven if he thought her the aggressor. But she was so ashamed of her conduct with Jason, that going to bed with a younger man seemed . . . She stopped. Almost equivalent to absolution?

  “Catherine?”

  She turned and there was Neal.

  “All shriven?”

  He tossed up his hands and rolled his eyes. “How did you know?”

  “Because you’re all aglow.”

  “You’re thinking of my watch.”

  In bed, in the dark, he had pressed the stem of his watch, lighting up its face. He was pleased as punch at her reaction. “And it’s a Timex.”

  Now he became serious. “If you want to go, Frater Leone is still in the basilica.”

  He was serious! “Did you go into detail?”

  “My dear, the airiest abstractions suffice. Confessors are seldom prurient.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “Don’t put it off, sweetie. This very night thy soul will be required of thee.”

  “Just my soul?”

  He brought his hands piously together and closed his eyes. They snapped open.

  “W
hat’s been going on around here?”

  “Apart from importunate penitents?”

  “That’s good. Alliteration is the soul of language. Not to say its body. No, I mean, who’s here?”

  “Ignatius Hannan, for one. Do you know him?”

  “He’s here? That must have been one of his planes that flew Traeger to Mexico City. Has Traeger shown up?”

  “You should ask Clare. There are two others with Hannan.”

  “Have you seen that mob down by the gates?”

  “Neal, I have no idea what is going on. And frankly, I don’t give a damn.”

  “Come, come, Scarlett. You can’t mean that.”

  “Jason Phelps threw me out of the house in the middle of the night.”

  He looked solemn. “He told me.”

  “The bastard. I wanted to hit him with something heavy, railing at me like an Old Testament prophet, his face distorted. But I went meekly to my room, packed a few things, and left.”

  “And came here?”

  “Thank God for Clare.”

  “Indeed, indeed.”

  “I still have half a mind to go over and do violence to that old goat.”

  “Use the other half. It’s water over the dam.”

  “Move on?”

  “It’s the only way.”

  “Is that what you intend to do?”

  He studied her. “Catherine, you know I’m a married man.”

  “Oh, stop it. I was only teasing.”

  “You are good at that.”

  “I’ll tell your confessor.”

  They had walked outside, in the direction of the basilica, but Catherine made sure they gave it a wide berth. Despite her banter, she was more impressed than angry that Neal had knelt and confessed their sins. And been forgiven. She had believed that once. Whose sins you shall forgive, they are forgiven. Imagine just going in there, finding that priest, and telling him everything, all the sins of her past life. In airiest generalities, as Neal suggested, but acknowledging them to God. To God. All the feelings she had had in Indianapolis at Lloyd’s wake and funeral, seeing Judith and the others, all of them good as gold, came rushing back. And she had thought Jason Phelps could cure her of the desire to again be the innocent girl of long ago.

  They had reached the point where the path came from Jason Phelps’s place and suddenly there was Miguel Arroyo.

  “Where is Don Ibanez?” he asked without preamble.

  “In the house.”

  “I have to see him.” But before he rushed off, he asked, “Is Traeger here?”

  Neal said, “I should think that this is the least likely place he would be.”

  Arroyo rushed off. They sat on the lawn and shared a cigarette. “My wife is coming out.”

  “From what?”

  “She will arrive in the morning.”

  “So we have time.”

  “Stop that.”

  She put her hand on his arm. “Can’t a girl joke?”

  “Fool around?”

  “Now you stop it. I’m glad your wife’s coming. You shouldn’t be allowed to run around alone.”

  “As long as I can run around.”

  “You are awful. And fresh from the confessional.” Catherine turned toward the path. “I have to go over and retrieve my other things.” She paused. As if asking him to come along.

  “Be careful.”

  “He’s more in danger from me than I am from him.”

  X

  “De nada.”

  Traeger pulled out of the Justicia y Paz parking lot, having wended his way among the police cruisers, whose doors hung open, their rooftop gumballs flashing. When he reached the street he hesitated. Right or left? Traffic was crawling past, drivers gawking at all the activity, so right seemed the best bet, but then a gap in traffic revealed the unpaved parking area across the street, next to the barrackslike homeless shelter. Traeger eased his car through the gap, got across, and, once in the unpaved lot, did a U-turn and parked. He had a good view of the main building and all the frantic activity.

  Cops rushed in and out of the building; others, having gone through it, came running around its sides. They scanned the horizon. Miguel Arroyo appeared on the front steps, shouting, imploring. Traeger could sense the reaction of the cops to all this civilian instruction. The cops did not get into their cruisers, but they began to shut their doors. The gumballs continued to spin, even in daylight emitting piercing little beams. And then the helicopter arrived.

  At first Traeger thought it was a television station’s aircraft. Its logo was similarly garish, lots of red and yellow and green, its aft rotor silver. The legend became legible beneath the churning blades. “Republic of California.” At least it wasn’t any of his old comrades in the Company, unless some had changed their allegiance. The helicopter seemed to be searching for an open space but the parking lot was out. It rose above the building, turned, dipped, and then settled gently on the roof.

  Traeger saw the window from which he had exited. From time to time, a head appeared, looking left and right, and then was replaced by another. Riflemen appeared up top, looking over the ledge surrounding the roof. Minutes went by, ten, fifteen, more, and it was dawning on them that the man they had come for was not there. Arroyo was now at the side of the building, pointing at the still open washroom window, and then trying to decide which way the fugitive had gone. He spun around. Toward the street? All those cruisers seemed to rule that out. Toward the back? Traeger half expected him to drop to his knees and sniff, trying to pick up a scent. Ah, he had it. He pointed decisively toward the open area to the right of the building. As if to confirm his guess, he marched toward it and a half dozen cops followed reluctantly. It was some consolation to see that Arroyo was running out of credit with the cops. The little group stood there for some minutes, studying the ground like Indian scouts, looking indecisively around, then drifted back toward the building, followed by the badgering Arroyo.

  Another hour went by before the search was called off. At the outset, all those who worked in the building had been es-corted to the parking lot. The receptionist was at the center of a little group, arms waving, head tossing, her mouth going a mile a minute. She held her audience for a time, but then they drifted away. She went to a cop and took his arm and apparently began the recital again. Traeger could have given the guy a medal for his indifference to the receptionist’s excited jabber. Were they beginning to think that the whole thing was a false alarm?

  The final act was Arroyo’s. He stood on the steps of his building, haranguing the cops who were getting into their cars, nodding at him, ignoring him. The gumballs were turned off, one by one. The riflemen had disappeared from the rooftop. Arroyo did everything but get down on his knees and beg. What was he asking them to do? He kept pointing to the north. The blades of the helicopter, until now turning lazily, revved up and it began to lift. It came out over the front of the building, and Arroyo’s clothes began to ripple in the down-draft. Now he was shouting at the helicopter. But then it went up, up, and away. The cruisers left one by one. Traffic sped up. Arroyo slapped his hands down on the sides of his legs, turned, and went inside.

  Traeger had long since turned off the engine of his car. It was not clear to him what he would do next. The afternoon wore on and then employees began to leave, coming out in twos and threes, separating, getting into their cars and driving away. Soon there were only a few cars left. Then one. To the right of the entrance. Traeger would have given anything for a pair of binoculars. Was that the director’s parking spot? Was that car Arroyo’s?

  However ignominious his exit from Justicia y Paz, the whole crazy business made it clear that his hunch that Miguel Arroyo was behind whatever had gone wrong with the great plan to return the sacred painting to Mexico City seemed justified. How had he done it? Until Traeger knew how he had been made a fool of, he could not rest. The car radio, when he turned it on, was full of Spanish chatter about the rogue ex-CIA agent who had been terrorizing Old Town and th
e headquarters of Justicia y Paz. They were expecting a statement from Miguel Arroyo shortly. It never came.

  Traeger was already a fugitive. He had seen the stories, watched TV in Phoenix and Flagstaff. He had hoodwinked the venerable Don Ibanez; he had betrayed Ignatius Hannan, the legendary founder of Empedocles; he had mocked the simple faith of the Mexican people by trying to palm off on them a copy of the sacred image rather than the original he was to have brought. When asked if it was certain that Traeger had left the valley with the original, Don Ibanez had nodded slowly.

  “Hey, I’m just a pilot,” Smiley had said. “Talk to the boss.”

  But Hannan wasn’t talking to the media. What could he say? Laura Burke Whipple said simply, “We were betrayed.”

  Up until now, although sought, his whereabouts were unknown. Now, as the result of the excitement at Justicia y Paz, it would be known where he had last been. If Arroyo was believed. The cops might doubt, but employees in the building, particularly the receptionist, could vouch for his claim that Traeger had been there.

  Eventually the sun went down on his wrath, but did not extinguish it. Sure of his quarry, having him under surveillance, Traeger was willing to bide his time. The next move was up to Arroyo. Meanwhile he considered the cock-and-bull story Arroyo had fed him earlier. Trying to involve Jason Phelps in his story seemed an indication of how imaginative it was. But where in hell was the original?

  For days, ever since the travesty in the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Traeger had been putting that question to himself. The switch had to have been made at the outset. Again and again, he recalled carrying the foam case from Jason Phelps, with that idiot Arroyo scampering around, helping with his burden. Could it have happened even before he reached the little basilica with the package containing a copy? For the matter of that, Traeger had never seen what was in the package he carried from Jason Phelps’s. He remembered as vividly as could be laying it over the backs of the pews in the basilica. The other package was on the floor behind the altar. Already taped. Don Ibanez knelt before the altar, beside Frater Leone.