“It’ll be dark pretty soon anyway,” Melvin said.
“You willing to stay over and give it a try tomorrow?”
Donnally watched Melvin gaze at an airplane taking off, heading north.
“You can’t keep running,” Donnally said.
“It’s less running than hiding,” Melvin said. “I didn’t realize until after we talked in Vancouver that prayer is a phenomenal form of repression, and I’ve spent the last decade praying like my sanity depended on it, which it did. I didn’t understand until now why so many priests become alcoholics. It’s prayer in a bottle.”
Melvin paused in thought for a moment, and then returned his eyes to the road ahead.
“It was weird watching Father Phil and Sherwyn drink together. They sometimes acted like giddy children who’d broken into their parents’ liquor cabinet.”
“They were both alcoholics?” Donnally asked, turning toward the freeway on-ramp.
“As far as I could tell, but only Father Phil looked the part. His face had that windburned look and his eyes were always watery. Sherwyn was different. It didn’t show. I think that alcohol was part of their seduction routine and they knew their parts, drunk or sober.” Melvin emitted a disgusted laugh. “You should’ve seen those teenage boys standing around at the beginning of the parties with their glasses of Chardonnay, acting all sophisticated. And the men waiting for them to get drunk. Not leering. That would be too crude. Just waiting. Sweating with anticipation.
“There was one guy there. I think he owned the house. He kept a kind of regal distance from everything, like he was a producer taking in his Tony Award-winning play. Enjoying the perfection of it all. He was older than the other men, maybe mid-sixties. I never saw him doing it with anybody. Some of the boys believed he was impotent, but I wasn’t so sure.”
Melvin paused for a moment as he stared ahead.
“Some of those old guys seemed to get off just watching the show.”
Chapter 49
W hen Donnally pulled into the driveway of Janie’s unlit house at 8 P.M., he imagined the look on her face when she arrived home to find that he’d brought in another stray. But at least this one wouldn’t be handcuffed in the basement.
Brother Melvin retrieved his small duffel bag from behind the seat, then followed Donnally up the front stairs and onto the landing, half shadowed by a streetlight.
As Donnally reached his key toward the lock, a Hispanic man dressed in black stepped out of the darkness. He pointed a semiautomatic at Donnally’s face, then at Melvin’s.
They raised their hands.
The man jerked his head toward the driveway.
Melvin drew back. “You can’t make us-”
“Shut up,” the man whispered. His accent was heavy, but his words were distinct.
“Take it easy,” Donnally said to Melvin, then to the man. “What do you want?”
“We’re going to take a ride.”
Donnally flicked his keys toward the hedge on the side of the house. They jingled in flight, then rattled leaves as they dropped though the branches.
“Not in my truck,” Donnally said.
The man shrugged. “We can walk.”
Brother Melvin pointed down with his raised hand, “My wallet is in my back pocket. Take it. We won’t call the police.”
“This isn’t a robbery,” Donnally said.
“Then what the…?”
“Sherwyn.”
Donnally knew he was right, but it didn’t make sense that Sherwyn would have the kind of connections that could put a contract killer on his doorstep.
In one motion Brother Melvin lowered himself to his knees and pressed his hands together in prayer.
Donnally tensed, fearing that the histrionic gesture would get them killed right then.
“Get up, chingaso,” the man ordered, and then bashed Melvin in the side of the head with the gun barrel.
Melvin wobbled, but kept his balance. “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come.” Melvin’s voice became louder. “Thy will be done-”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“On earth as it is in heaven-”
“Fucking priests.”
The gun butt crashed down on Melvin’s head. He slumped toward Donnally, who stepped back and reached for the railing behind him, then jumped over. He hit the ground a fraction of a second sooner than he expected and slammed forward onto his hands.
A gunshot shattered the neighbor’s window a foot above his head. He pulled his gun, waited for the shadowed figure to lean over the railing above him, then emptied it into his chest.
Chapter 50
B lood-soaked Brother Melvin was lying in the back of an ambulance when Lieutenant Ramon Navarro arrived. Neighbors crowded the sidewalk across the street. The crime scene techs had bagged the dead man’s hands and had completed their gunshot residue swabs on Donnally and Melvin.
“You move anything?” Navarro asked Donnally, who was standing by the fireplace in the living room.
Janie had arrived home and was sitting on the couch, twisting a Kleenex in her hands.
“I rolled the dead guy off Brother Melvin, that’s all.”
Navarro glanced toward the front of the house.
“They’re telling me that the guy didn’t have any ID,” Navarro said. “You find a driver’s license?”
“I didn’t look. Just flopped him over, then called 911.”
“I don’t know, man,” Navarro said. “He didn’t look like a robber to me. Pressed slacks. Slick haircut. New shoes. Helluva nice gun.”
Donnally shrugged. “Times are weird.”
A n hour after the police had cleared the scene and Brother Melvin had been transported to SF General for stitches and observation, Donnally walked down to the basement. He reached into a box under the stairs, pulled out a paper bag, and dumped the contents onto the workbench.
“What’s that?”
Donnally spun around, startled by the sound of Janie’s voice. He turned toward her as she walked over.
“I thought you were asleep,” Donnally said.
He tried to block her view, but she elbowed by him. Her eyes locked on the Mexican police badge.
Her voice rose. “He was a cop?”
She started to reach for it, but then pulled her hand back.
“Gregorio Cruz from Quintana Roo,” Donnally said, turning toward her. “Cancun.”
“What do you think you’re doing? Why didn’t you give this to-”
“You want your name in the news as part of an international incident? You want the FBI knocking on your door? You want diplomatic shadowboxing to block me from finding out what’s going on?”
Janie didn’t have an answer.
“I don’t know how he did it,” Donnally said, “but Sherwyn is behind this.”
She pointed at the badge. “How do you know he wasn’t sent to get even for the Mexican pot grower who got hurt?”
“Because they don’t know who I am and I wouldn’t be worth the trouble. Cartels view guys like him as expendable.”
Donnally turned back toward the bench. “Somewhere in here is the connection to Sherwyn.”
He separated out the items: wallet, cell phone, passport, scraps of paper, and a Budget car rental key.
Janie pointed at the phone. “Maybe Sherwyn’s number is in there.”
Donnally smiled. “That only happens on television.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t know what you’re smiling about. I’ve haven’t seen a dead person since I did my residency, and there was one lying on my porch tonight.”
He reached around her shoulders. “Sorry. I didn’t think Sherwyn had it in him to try something like this.”
“It pisses me off.”
He pulled his arm away. “I said I’m sorry. What else can I-”
“Not you. Sherwyn. When I think of the lives he’s destroyed. And what he’s willing to do now to protect himself.”
Janie shuddered and looked up at Donnally. “Are you sure he won’t try again?”
“I’m sure he will. I think it might be better if you stayed at a hotel for a couple of days.”