He sighed with relief when he saw it where he’d left it. She was a rusting old junker but at that moment she looked like a stretch limo. Gently, he laid Danny on the back seat and arranged the blankets loosely over him.
“We’re on our way, kid,” he whispered through the folds of fabric.
Then he heard a slurred voice behind him.
“That him? ’S he the one?”
Bill whirled and saw the two ragmen from this afternoon, one big, the other shorter and slight. How had they got into the lot?
“No, that’s not him,” said the smaller of the two. “Hush up about that.”
The big one stepped closer to Bill and peered into his face. His beard stank of wine and old food.
“You the one?” Another moment of too-close scrutiny, then, “No. He’s not the one.”
He turned and lurched away.
The little one scampered after him for a few steps.
“Walter! Walter, wait!” Then he hurried back to Bill. “Don’t do it!” he said in a harsh whisper. “No matter what you’ve been told, don’t do it!”
“I’m sorry,” Bill said, shaken by the man’s intensity. “I’m in a hurry.”
The little man grabbed his arm.
“I know you! You’re that Jesuit. Remember me? Martin Spano? We met long ago … at the Hanley mansion.”
Bill jolted as if he’d touched a live wire.
“God, yes! What—?”
“Not much time. I’ve got to catch up to Walter. I’m helping him search for someone. Walter was a medic once. He sometimes can cure people but he can’t cure that kid. He can’t cure anybody when he’s drunk and he’s drunk almost all the time these days. But remember what I said. Don’t do it. An Evil power is at work here. It’s using you! I was used once—I know how it is. Stop now, before it’s too late!”
And then he was off, running after his fellow derelict.
Thoroughly shaken, Bill got in the front seat and sat for a moment. Martin Spano—hadn’t he been one of those crazy people who’d called themselves the Chosen when they’d invaded the Hanley mansion back in 1968? Spano had been crazy then and was obviously crazier now. But what had he meant—?
Never mind. He couldn’t allow himself to be distracted now. He shook off the confusion and drove out of the lot, forcing a smile and waving as he passed the guard in the booth. He drove north, toward the Bayside section of Queens, toward a place he’d spent much of the early evening preparing for Danny.
3
Renny slammed the phone down and threw off the covers.
“Damn!”
“What’s the matter?” Joanne asked from the other side of the bed.
They’d spent New Year’s Eve at home, catching up on their lovemaking.
“The kid’s gone!”
“The one in the hospital?”
“Yeah.” He pulled on slacks and a sweater. “Danny Gordon. The nurse went in to wish Father Bill a happy New Year and found the room empty.”
“The priest? You don’t think—”
“They were both in the room before twelve, they were both gone after. What else can I think?” He gave her a quick kiss in the dark. “Gotta go. Sorry, babe.”
“It’s okay. I understand.”
Did she? Renny sure hoped so.
The priest! he thought as he raced toward Downstate. Could he have been the one who cut up on that kid?
Nah! Not possible. No way.
And yet …
Renny thought again about how everyone he’d interviewed at St. F.’s had mentioned good old Father Bill’s attachment to little Danny, like father and son. How Danny would always sit on his lap. What if that attachment hadn’t been entirely on the straight and narrow? You heard tons of stories about fag priests, about priests molesting kids. What if the thought of giving the kid up for adoption had scared him? What if he’d been afraid Danny would talk to his new parents about things he’d had to let Father Bill do to him?
Renny increased his speed. He squeezed the steering wheel as he felt his insides tense up.
What if Danny had told the Loms something on Christmas Eve? And what if in their shock and disbelief, in a misguided attempt to give this wonderful and gracious man an opportunity to defend himself, they’d called Father Bill first instead of the police? And what if he cracked when they told him? What if he said he’d come right over and talk this thing out? What if he went completely berserk in the Lom house?
“Jesus!” he said aloud in his car.
It didn’t explain everything. Nobody—nobody—was ever going to give Renny a satisfactory explanation of what had happened to Herb Lom, so he stuffed that incident into a mental limbo. But the bogus Sara—what was her angle? Was she a red herring? Or was she somehow in league with the priest in some plot to get Danny away from St. Francis to a place where the wonderful Father Bill could have freer and more discreet access to the kid?
And suddenly all the pieces started falling into place.
The priest had spent every waking hour by the kid’s side, even slept in a chair in the boy’s room. Renny had been taken by this show of such deep devotion. But what if it hadn’t been anything like devotion? What if the priest had just wanted to be there when Danny started coming out of it? What if he’d wanted to be the first to know if Danny was going to talk again?
And more: The priest had been fighting the endless round of tests and procedures all the docs wanted to perform on the kid. Renny had assumed it was for the kid’s sake … until now. What if he was really afraid they’d find a way to bring him out of it, or at least get him to the point where he could name his attacker? And now, with the legal machinery moving toward making Danny a ward of the court, the priest was facing certain shutout from having any say in Danny’s care. That might have been the last straw. He must have gone into a panic tonight and took off with the kid.
Maybe to finish him off.
Shit!
Renny swerved into the entrance of one of Downstate’s parking lots and jumped out of his car. A couple of winos were there. They fairly leaped on him.
“He took the boy!” the shorter one said.
“Who?”
“The Jesuit! He took the boy!”
“You saw him?”
Before the little guy could answer, the bigger wino pushed forward.
“Are you the one?” he said, staring into Renny’s eyes.
Renny turned away. He’d heard enough. He flashed his badge at the guy in the guard booth and grabbed the phone. It took a while but he got a line to the desk at his precinct.
“I want an APB on a Father William Ryan. He’s a Jesuit priest but he probably won’t be dressed like one. He’s wanted for kidnapping and for attempted murder. He’ll have a sick seven-year-old kid with him. Get his picture out of the file now and get it to all the papers and all the local news shows. Do the usual bridges and tunnels thing. Have anybody and everybody looking out for a middle-age guy traveling with a sick kid. Do it now. Not ten minutes from now—now!”
Renny stepped out of the booth and slammed his fist against the hood of his car.
How could he have been such a jerk? The cardinal rule in this sort of crime was to put the first heat on the people closest to the victim. The esteemed Father Ryan had been the closest but Renny had allowed himself to be lulled by the Roman collar, by the fact that he’d come out of St. Francis himself. He’d let that bastard priest sucker him in and squeeze him for all he was worth.
I’m so fucking stupid!
Well, no more. Ryan wasn’t getting out of this city tonight. It was New Year’s Eve and the shift was spread a little thin, plus the usual bunch of cops were tied up doing crowd control at Times Square, but Ryan wasn’t getting away. Not if Renny had a damn thing to say about it. The priest had made him look like a jerk, but that wasn’t what really mattered, what really burned him. It was how he’d started thinking of the priest as a friend, someone he wanted to hang out with. And Renny didn’t offer his friendship easily.
He was hurt, dammit!
Something cold and wet landed on his cheek. He looked around. Snow. He smiled. The weatherman had predicted a snowstorm tonight. That was good. It would slow traffic, make it easier to spot a guy and a sick kid trying to leave the city.
We’re gonna meet again real soon, Father fucking Ryan. And when we do you’ll wish you’d never been born.
4
St. Ann’s Cemetery was small and old and crowded, some of the headstones dating back to the eighteenth century. Bill had chosen St. Ann’s because it was out of the way and it was consecrated ground.
… bury me … in holy ground …
Now as he drove the deserted street running along the cemetery’s north wall he wondered if it mattered.
Consecrated ground. What does that mean?
A week ago he’d have had no trouble answering the question. Now the whole concept struck him as senseless.
But then, nothing made sense anymore. His whole world had been turned upside down and ripped inside out during the past week. He could smell the rot in the very foundations of his faith, could feel them crumbling beneath him.
Where are you, Lord? There’s evil afoot here, pure distilled evil that can’t be explained away by happenstance or coincidence or natural causes. This isn’t fair, Lord. Give me a hand, will You?
Only one other time in his life had he come across anything even remotely resembling what had happened to Danny. That derelict … Spano … had reminded him. Back in 1968, in a Victorian mansion on the Long Island Sound … he’d seen Emma Stevens die not ten feet in front of him with an ax in her brain. He’d watched her lie in front of him, as lifeless as the rug that soaked up her blood. And then he’d seen her rise and walk and kill two people before slumping into death once again.
He’d explained that away by telling himself that if doctors had had a chance to examine Emma while she was lying on the rug with the ax protruding from her skull, they would have found that she only appeared dead, and that whatever spark of life was left in her had flared long enough to allow her to finish what she’d started just before she was killed.
But an entire medical center staff had had a week with Danny. They all said he should be dead, but somehow he wouldn’t die.
Just like Emma Stevens. Except that Emma had hung on for only a few minutes. Danny had been going for a week and showed no signs of weakening. He might possibly go on forever.
… it won’t stop … till you bury me …
Bill wondered if there could be a link between what had happened to Emma and what was happening to Danny. Spano the wino seemed to have hinted at that.
He shook himself. No. How could there be? He was grasping at straws here.
He pulled to a stop in the deep shadows under a dead street lamp. Dead because he’d killed it. He’d bought a CO2 pellet gun yesterday, come out here last night, and shot out the bulb. Took him a whole cartridge before he finally scored a bull’s eye.
And earlier tonight, shortly after dark, he’d returned to this spot with a pick and a shovel.
Bill leaned forward and rested his head against the steering wheel. Tired. So tired. When was the last time he’d had two consecutive hours of sleep? Maybe if he just closed his eyes for a little while here he could—
No! He jerked his head up. He couldn’t hide from this. It had to be done and he was the only one to do it, the only one to realize that this was the only thing anyone could do for Danny. No other options. This was it.
He’d heard it from Danny’s own lips.
With that thought to bolster him, Bill put the wagon in gear and drove up the curb and across the sidewalk until the passenger side of the wagon was hugging the eight-foot wall under an oak that leaned over from the far side. He got out, opened the rear door, and lifted Danny out of the back seat. With the boy’s writhing form swaddled in his arms, he stepped up on the bumper, then the hood, then up to the roof. From there it was a short hop to the top of the wall. He swiveled around on his buttocks until his legs were dangling over the inside edge, then dropped to the ground on the other side.
Okay. He was inside. Dark here in the shadow of the wall where the glow from the streetlights didn’t reach, but he knew where he was going. Just a few paces to the left, against the wall. That was where he had spent a couple of hours tonight after darkfall …
… hours … with a pick and shovel …
Oh, God he didn’t want to do this, would have given anything to pass this cup. But no one waited in the wings to take it from him.
Bill paused an instant at the edge of the oblong hole in the ground, then jumped in. When he straightened, the frozen grass on groundlevel was even with his lower ribs. He would have liked the hole deeper, six feet at least, but he’d exhausted himself here earlier digging this far, and had no time left now. This would have to do.
He knelt and stretched Danny’s form out on the floor of the hole. He couldn’t see the boy’s face in the darkness, so he released his writhing body, and pulled back the folds of blanket. He administered the final sacrament, called Extreme Unction when he was in the seminary, now called the Anointing of the Sick. During the past week he had administered it on a daily basis to Danny, and each time it had lost an increment of its meaning. It had devolved to little more than a collection of empty words and gestures now.
Empty … like everything else in his life. All the rules he had lived by, all the beliefs on which he had based his life were falling away. The God he’d placed his trust in had not lifted a finger against the force that gripped Danny.
But he went through the motions. And when he was done, he placed a hand on each side of Danny’s head, cupping his wasted cheeks.
“Danny?” he whispered. “Danny, will this work for you? I know you told me once that it would, but please tell me again. I’m going against everything I’ve ever believed in to do this for you. I need to hear it again.”
Danny said nothing. He remained lost in agony, giving no sign that he had even heard him.
Bill pressed his forehead against Danny’s.
“I hope you can hear me, hope you can understand me. I’m doing this for you, Danny, because it’s the only way to end it for you. All the pain, all the torture will be over in a few minutes. I don’t know how much of you is left in there, Danny, but I know some of you still remains. I see it in your eyes sometimes. I don’t want you to … to die without knowing that I’m doing this to release you from whatever monstrous evil is torturing you. I’m doing it to stop the pain, and to prevent those doctors from making you into some sort of sideshow freak. You know if there was any other way, I’d find it. You know that, don’t you?” He leaned over and kissed Danny’s forehead. “I love you, kid. You know that too, don’t you?”
For an instant, for the interval that falls between a pair of heartbeats, Danny’s pain-writhe paused, his breathy screams stilled, and Bill felt the boy’s head nod. Once.
“Danny!” he shouted. “Danny, can you hear me? Do you know what I’m saying?”
But Danny’s athetoid movements and hissing cries began again. Bill could no longer hold back the sobs. They burst from him and he clutched Danny close for a moment, then he pushed the sobs back down and laid the boy flat again. He covered Danny’s face with the blanket—he couldn’t throw dirt on his face—then pulled himself out of the hole.
He looked around. No one about. He had to work quickly now. Get to it and get it over with before he lost his nerve. He lifted the shovel from where he had left it beside the hole. He shoved it deep into the pile of loose dirt he had pulled from the ground only hours ago. But as he lifted it free, he paused, knees weak, arms trembling.
I can’t do this!
He looked up at the starless, cloud-shrouded night sky.
Please, God. If You’re there, if you care, if You have any intention of taking a hand in reversing the evil that’s being done to this boy, do it now. Under different circumstances I’d consider this an utterly childish request. But You
know what I’ve seen; You know what this child has suffered, is still suffering. We’ve witnessed the presence of naked evil here, Lord. I don’t think I’m out of line in asking You to step in and take over now. Give me a sign, Lord.
It began to snow.
“Snow?” Bill said aloud. “Snow?”
What was that supposed to tell him? A snowstorm in July would be a sign. In January it meant nothing.
Except that the ground he had disturbed tonight would go undetected for a long time. Maybe forever.
He threw the shovelful of earth into the hole where it landed atop Danny’s writhing blanket.
There, Lord. I’ve started it. I’ve played Abraham. I’ve raised the knife over the closest thing to a son I’ll ever have. It’s time for you to stop me and say I’ve passed the test.
He threw in another shovelful, then another.
Come on, Lord. Stop me! Tell me I’ve done enough. I’m begging you!
He began shoveling the loose dirt into the hole as fast as he could, tumbling in clumps of frozen earth, kicking little avalanches with his feet, working like mad, whimpering, screaming deep in his throat like some crazed animal, blanking his mind to what he was doing, knowing it was the best and only thing for this little boy he loved, throwing off the clutching, restraining bonds of a lifetime of conditioning, two millennia of beliefs, keeping his eyes averted from the hole even though there was nothing to see within its black, hungry maw.
And then the hole was full.
“Are you satisfied?” Bill shouted at the flake-filled sky. “Can I dig him up now?”
He had dirt left over, so he had to force himself to step onto the fill, to stomp it with his feet, to pack it down over Danny, and then throw some more on top. And still more loose dirt remained, so he mounded some of it and scattered the rest.
And then he was done. He stood there sweating and steaming in the cold as the tiny flakes swirled around him with heartless beauty. He fought a mad urge to start digging again. He threw the shovel over the wall so he couldn’t change his mind.
Reprisal Page 23
