David Morrell - Fraternity of the Stone

by Fraternity of the Stone(lit)

  "You were - how old? - ten, you said?" Arlene looked astonished. "And you made that choice? You stuck to it?"

  "There's nothing surprising about it." Drew swallowed bitterly. "You see, I loved my parents. To this day, I still miss them. I used to visit their graves. A lot." His voice cracked. "Ten years old, I thought I could get revenge on my own. I didn't know how. But later, in my teens, I learned that others felt as I did. I went to work for... "

  "Scalpel." She breathed the word.

  The phone rang harshly, interrupting them.

  10

  Drew swung in surprise toward the bedside table. He glanced sharply at Arlene. Her eyes wide, she seemed as startled as he was. He stared again toward the table, where the phone rang a second time.

  "Wrong number?" Arlene clearly didn't believe it.

  Drew didn't even bother shaking his head. The phone rang a third time.

  "The clerk in the office?" Arlene asked. "Something he forgot to tell us?"

  "Like what?"

  She couldn't think of anything. The phone rang again.

  "Maybe we're talking too loud. Maybe we woke up somebody next to us," Drew said. "There's one way to know for sure." He leaned from the bed to pick up the phone. Despite his tension, he kept his voice calm. "Hello."

  "Yes. Not to alarm you" - the voice on the other end was male, husky, heavily accented - "but I have no choice except to call you."

  Regardless of that reassurance, Drew did feel alarmed, nagged by the terrible suspicion that he'd heard the voice before, though he couldn't identify it. Arlene left the chair, putting her head next to Drew's, listening as he held the phone slightly away from his ear.

  The voice kept talking. "It's unfortunate, but even with the best equipment, I'm not able to hear everything you say in your room. The shower, in particular, presented a problem. And you're coming to the part that interests me."

  Drew shivered from a cold spot between his shoulderblades as he remembered, with frightening vividness, where he'd heard the voice before. It belonged to the priest who'd suddenly appeared from the confessional when Drew had been attacked in the chapel at the retreat house in the Berkshire Hills. The priest with the gleaming red ring, the.45, and the Slavic accent. The priest who'd shot the two priest-assailants and chased Drew down the tunnel.

  "I realize you need time to adjust to my intrustion," the voice said. "I've no doubt surprised you. But please, don't hesitate much longer. Time, as the saying goes, is short."

  Drew gripped his Mauser. "Where are you?"

  "In the unit next to yours. Note how freely I tell you. I put myself in your hands."

  Drew scowled toward the opposite wall. "How did you find us?"

  "Everything in due course. I want permission to enter your room. I'd prefer not to leave the building, however. A locked door separates our units. If you'll unbolt your side, I'll do the same on mine, and then at last we can meet."

  Drew raised his eyebrows in question toward Arlene. She nodded, pointing at herself and then at the bed. Her next gesture told Drew to go to the wall beside the adjoining door.

  Drew spoke to the phone. "If you show a weapon... "

  "Please," the voice said, "I understand the rules. I took a risk by phoning you. Respect my candor. Unbolt the door."

  Arlene nodded firmly again.

  "All right," Drew said.

  He set the phone on its cradle. Arlene got onto the bed, propping her back against its pillows. He aimed his Mauser and stepped toward the connecting door.

  Hard enough to make an obvious sound, he twisted the bolt on the lock, then stepped toward the wall where he'd be out of sight when the door came open. But as an extra precaution, he shifted toward the corner, in case a bullet burst through the wall.

  The lock on the other side was twisted. The door creaked, opening into the room.

  On the bed, Arlene - in full view of the open door -separated the folds of the blanket she'd been clutching around her, revealing sleek, inviting breasts, their nipples hardening from the sudden comparative cold, her pubic hair...

  Drew took advantage of the distraction. An instant was all he needed. He yanked the door completely open so it banged against the wall. Thrusting his Mauser hard against the man's kidney, he quickly, expertly, frisked him.

  The priest groaned from the pistol's sharp jab. "No need, I left my weapon in my room." Having stooped in pain, he now straightened. "I told you, I understand the rules. I'm not a threat to you."

  Drew finished his search, even thrusting a hand at the crotch of the priest's black trousers, probing the area around the man's testicles.

  "And please," the man told Arlene, "kindly wrap the blanket around you again. I'm a priest. But I'm not immune to temptations of the flesh."

  Arlene closed the blanket.

  "Thank you." The man wore a black suitcoat, a black bib, a white collar. He was husky, of medium height,. compact, muscular, with gray hairs in his thick dark mustache and hints of silver in his dense black hair. His face was square, craggy, strong-boned, ruggedly European. He seemed in his early fifties, but a deep brooding portion of his eyes, much blacker than his clothes, mustache, and hair, outlined by fierce strong wrinkles, suggested that his experiences had made him infinitely older.

  Drew stepped cautiously back. "How did you find us?"

  "At the retreat house, you were given clean clothes. A change of shoes." The priest waited for Drew to make his own conclusions.

  Drew winced in disgust for not having suspected. "A homing device?"

  "In the heel of one shoe. After you fled the seminary, I followed its signal. I found where you left the bishop's car - shockingly devastated, I might add." The priest allowed himself to chuckle. Drew started to talk, but the priest raised a hand. "Let me finish. I discovered that you'd switched the ruined Cadillac for a motorcycle. Resourceful of you. I followed you to Concord and Lexington. You made phone calls. From there, I followed you to Greenwich Village in New York and watched your efforts to contact this young lady. You gave me concern when you changed from the shoes with the homing device to those climbing boots at Satan's Horn. But I attached a homing device to your motorcycle. And" - glancing toward Arlene - "to your car."

  For the first time since the priest had entered the room, she spoke. "And in the meantime?" She frowned. "You killed the men who'd been..."

  "Following you? It was unavoidable, I'm afraid. I couldn't let them do the same to both of you. There were prior obligations. You see how open I'm being with you?"

  "You pushed the man disguised as a wino off the cliff?" she asked.

  The priest nodded slightly.

  "And slit the other man's throat with a garotte?"

  "It was necessary. Otherwise, you wouldn't be alive for us to have this talk."

  "A priest who kills?" Drew looked at him in horror.

  "I might ask the same of you, though you're not in fact a priest but only a brother. Even so, you're not unacquainted with killing. Or am I wrong?"

  They stared at each other.

  Arlene broke the silence. "What he says makes sense. With a homing device, he could have stayed far enough back that you didn't see his car when you waited at the side of the road."

  "Quite true," the priest said. "I kept a distance. But finally we're together."

  Drew shook his head again. "Why?"

  "Isn't it obvious? The attack on the monastery."

  "The bishop claims it didn't happen."

  "He was told to pretend so. After we'd removed the evidence."

  "We?"

  "In good time."

  "The bishop also claimed that Hal had not been killed at the retreat house. That I wasn't attacked."

  "More instructions he followed. I stayed briefly at the retreat house to arrange the cleanup. The seminarians know only that a guest had a nervous breakdown. Nothing's been compromised."

  Drew slammed his fist against the wall. "And I can't wait any longer! I want answers!"

  "Of course. But, pl
ease, there's no need for dramatic gestures. I'm your guardian."

  Drew froze. "My what?"

  "The moment you came with Father Hafer to report to the bishop, I was sent for. I've never been far. Twice -at the chapel and at the Horn - I saved your life."

  Drew's scalp prickled. "Saved my life? Why? And why didn't you let me know at the start what you were doing?"

  "I didn't tell you at the retreat house because I didn't want to show myself. I wanted to see what would happen if you seemed alone, except for Hal. As I suspected, your apparent vulnerability invited an attack."

  "You used me as bait?" Drew shook with indignation.

  "It seemed an expedient way to draw out your enemies."

  "You should have warned me!"

  "I disagree. Even a professional such as yourself - "

  "A former professional."

  "That's the point. I wasn't sure how well you'd adapt to being back in the world. Extremely well, it turned out. But at the time, I wondered if six years of being a hermit would have blunted your skills. Suppose I'd told you I wanted to use you as bait to invite an attack? What if you were no longer capable of behaving naturally under stress? If you'd so much as glanced in my direction, you'd have warned your assailants of a possible trap. The two men who burst into the chapel weren't priests, by the way. They dressed to appear so and avoid attracting attention at the seminary. I want to emphasize, they didn't belong to the Church."

  "Who were they?"

  "We haven't been able to learn. They carried no identification, of course. We took photographs and made impressions of their fingerprints. Our contacts are trying to put names to them now, but I suspect we'll merely discover that they were mercenaries, that there's no way to link them to whoever hired them. After the attack at the retreat house, I tried to explain who I was and why I was there, but you ran. This is the first safe opportunity I've had. I should introduce myself." He held out his hand. "I'm Father Stanislaw."

  Drew studied the hand, uneasy. "Stanislaw?"

  "The name is Polish. I was born there, and it amused me to take the name of the patron saint of the country of my ancestors."

  Reluctantly, Drew gripped the hand.

  The priest's clasp was firm. Drew reached for the priest's other hand. His left. The one with the ring on the middle finger.

  Father Stanislaw did not resist.

  The ring had a thick gold band and setting. Its stone was large, distinctive, gleaming, red - a ruby with a symbol emblazoned upon it. A sword intersecting with a Maltese cross.

  "I don't think I've ever seen this symbol. What order does it represent?"

  "Order?" Father Stanislaw shook his head. "Not quite an order, though we've been in existence much longer than most orders. From the time of the Crusades, to be sure. But we call ourselves a fraternity."

  Drew waited.

  "The fraternity of the stone. We'll get to that in time," Father Stanislaw said. "But first, we have some catching up to do. If you'll allow me... "

  The priest went into his room, came back with a briefcase, removed a folder, and handed it to Drew.

  Puzzled, opening it, Drew discovered a dossier about himself- details about his youth. "Wait a minute." He looked up. "Where'd you learn all this?"

  "It isn't important. What is," Father Stanislaw said, "is that you learn to trust me. I'm showing you the dossier to prove that I already know a great deal about you. As a consequence, I'm hoping that you'll tell me things I don't know. Think of this as confession. A confidence. A basis for understanding. Perhaps it will save your life. And more important, your soul."

  Arlene leaned forward. Holding the blanket around her with one hand, she impatiently took the folder from Drew, set it down on her lap, and flipped through its contents. "What is this?"

  "What happened to me after my parents were killed." Drew's voice was thick.

  "But what does this have to do with Jake? My brother's in trouble. For all I know, he might even be dead!"

  "To do with Jake?" Drew repeated. "Everything. Unless you know all of it, you can't understand."

  11

  "Here we are, Drew." His uncle stopped the red Mercury in front of a lawn that sloped up to a ranch house, as he called it. "We had it built last fall. There aren't many like it yet in Boston. The latest design. I hope you'll be happy here. You're home."

  Drew stared at the building, feeling foreign and strange. Long and low, the house was made of bricks. It had a chimney; a crowded flower garden; a few short trees. It certainly didn't look anything like a ranch, and he couldn't help comparing it to the traditional Japanese house made of wood, with a high sloping roof, where he'd lived in Tokyo for half his life. Bricks? he asked himself. What would happen here in an earthquake?

  And why was the garden so crowded?

  "Home," his uncle had said, but it made Drew angry. No. This wasn't his home. His home was back in Japan. Where he'd lived with his parents.

  A woman and boy came out of the house. Drew's aunt and cousin. Drew hadn't seen them since his parents had taken him from America when he was five,, and he didn't remember them. But this much was clear. The two of them - and his uncle when he made the introductions - were awkward, uneasy. His aunt kept wringing her hands. His cousin kept scowling. And his uncle kept saying that everything was going to work out, you bet, yes, all of them would get along just fine.

  "You'll be happy here."

  Drew wondered, though. He had the terrible sense that he'd never be happy again.

  The next day, he went to his parents' second funeral

  12

  He spent the summer alone watching television or, if someone came into the den, reading comic books behind the closed door of what everybody still called the "guest room." Whenever his aunt told his uncle that it wasn't natural for a boy to stay indoors in summer, his uncle said, "Give him time to get adjusted. Remember, he's been through a lot. What's the matter with Billy? Tell Billy to play with him."

  "Billy says he's tried."

  In truth, Billy hadn't, and Drew knew the reason -jealousy about the new kid in the house.

  His aunt said, "Billy thinks he's strange. The way he never talks, and... "

  "Wouldn't you seem strange?"

  "You're at work all day. You don't know what he's like. He sneaks around. I'll be doing the ironing, and I won't even hear him. Suddenly he's right there beside me, staring. He's just like - "

  "What? Go on and say it."

  "I'm sure I don't know. A ghost. He makes me nervous."

  "This is hard on all of us. But we'll have to get used to it. After all, he's my brother's son."

  "And Billy's your own son, and I don't see why we have to pay more attention to - "

  "So where's the kid supposed to go, huh? Tell me that. He didn't ask for somebody to blow up his

  parents. What the hell do you want me to do?" "Stop shouting. The neighbors'll hear you." "And so can the kid when you talk about him, but that doesn't seem to bother you!"

  "I won't let you speak to me like that. I - " "Never mind. I don't feel like eating supper, okay?

  Put something in the fridge for me. I'm taking a walk." Drew, having listened out of sight in the hall, went back to the guest room, where he closed the door and read another comic book. Batman now.

  13

  September was worse. The first day Drew came back from the local grade school, he had bubble gum stuck in his hair.

  "How on earth did you manage that?" his aunt asked.

  Drew didn't answer.

  She tried to pull the gum out, tugging his hair till tears leaked from his eyes. Finally she cut the gum out with scissors, leaving a bald spot on the crown of his head that resembled a buck private's new haircut or a tonsure on a monk.

  The next day, Drew returned from school with black indentations all down his left arm.

  "My word, what have you been doing to yourself?"

  Pursing her lips, his aunt examined the indentations, went for the tweezers, and pulled th
e point of a pencil out of his skin. "How in heaven's name did that happen?"