“Shaking one’s fist in church is not quite the thing, Brother Flavian,” Brother Oliver told him mildly.
“We have to do something,” Brother Flavian insisted.
Brother Clemence got wearily to his feet, like Clarence Darrow in Tennessee. “If you’ll excuse me, Brother Oliver,” he said. “Brother Flavian, we are doing something, as Brother Oliver already outlined. Would you like me to repeat it, with another point-by-point summary?”
Brother Flavian waved that away with agitated — but unclenched — hands. “We have to do more. Why don’t we picket them? Contact the media, get out there on the sidewalk with signs, bring our message to the public. They wouldn’t dare make a move against us! Monks in a monastery?”
“I’m afraid they would,” Brother Oliver said. “Mr. Snopes told me he didn’t care about public opinion because he wasn’t running for office, and I’m afraid I believe him.”
Brother Peregrine jumped up. “Couldn’t we raise the money somehow, buy the place ourselves? Couldn’t we, oh, I don’t know, maybe put on a show?”
“There’s too much money involved,” Brother Oliver said, and turned to Brother Dexter for confirmation.
Brother Dexter didn’t stand, but he did half-turn in his pew to nod back at all of us and say, “Land value in this neighborhood is in the range of twenty thousand dollars a frontage foot. Just our own parcel would cost over two million dollars.”
That was a sobering number, and there was a brief unhappy silence, ended by Brother Leo, who demanded, “How did this happen anyway? If the lease ran out, why didn’t we know about it ahead of time?”
“I must take the blame,” Brother Oliver said, and spread his hands helplessly.
“No,” said Brother Hilarius. Rising, he spoke directly across the way to Brother Leo, saying, “A ninety-nine-year lease doesn’t call attention to itself like a three-minute egg.”
Brother Leo was not appeased. “Somebody should have known about it,” he said. “Where is this lease anyway? Who has it?”
“I should have it,” Brother Oliver admitted, “but it’s disappeared. I’ve searched high and low.”
“If any of you knows where it is,” Brother Clemence added, “I wish you’d tell us. I’ve been wanting to take a look at the wording.”
Brother Silas, betraying his background, said, “Maybe it was stolen.”
Brother Clemence frowned at him. “What for?”
“So you can’t take a look at the wording.”
Brother Valerian said, impatiently, “Now, Brothers, there’s no reason to get paranoid. From the sound of things, we have trouble enough as it is.”
Brother Thaddeus, whose years of Traveling with the Merchant Marine had perhaps inured him to the thought of abrupt transitions more than the rest of us, said, “Brother Oliver, what happens if we don’t save the place? Where do we go from here?”
Brother Quillon turned about to shake his head at Brother Thaddeus and say, disapprovingly, “That’s very defeatist, Brother. We should be positive in our thinking.”
“We have to consider the weather ahead,” Brother Thaddeus told him gruffly, “no matter what it is.”
Brother Oliver said, “That’s true. And Dimp has committed itself to finding a suitable replacement structure for us, and to assisting us in making the move. They first suggested a college campus upstate, and this morning, a messenger brought photographs and a proposal for a building in Pennsylvania which actually was at one time a monastery.”
Brother Flavian, angry and suspicious, said, “Where in Pennsylvania?”
“A small town called Higpen.”
Brother Silas said, “Higpen? You mean Lancaster Abbey?”
Brother Oliver said, “You know the place?”
“I was there for a while. It’s no good, believe me. After this place, it’s trash.”
Brother Quillon called, “Tell us about it, Brother.”
“Sure.” Brother Silas got to his feet and half-turned so we could all see him. He was somewhat shorter than average, a fact which had apparently been useful in his burglary-cum-pickpocket career, and his face was composed of small sharp features bunched together. He had the appearance I had always visualized for racetrack touts.
“This Lancaster Abbey,” Brother Silas told us, “was a part of the Dismal Order. You know, dedicated to St. Dismas, the Good Thief, the one hanging on the right of Christ.”
We all bowed our heads at the Name.
“I joined up with them,” Brother Silas went on, “when I first went straight. They sounded like my kind of people, they mostly used to be in the rackets themselves. But it turned out all they did, these guys, was sit around and tell each other what masterminds they used to be, tell each other the capers they pulled and how they got out of this thing and how they knocked off the other thing and all that. I began to think, these guys, they didn’t so much reform as retire, you know? So I split and I came here.”
Brother Oliver cleared his throat, “I believe our primary interest right now, Brother Silas,” he suggested, “is in the building.”
“Right, Brother.” He shook his head, telling us, “You don’t want it. See, these guys, they’d spent most of their adult lives doing time, you know what I mean? When they thought of home, they thought of something with cell doors and an exercise yard. So what they built themselves out there in Pennsy was like a baby Sing Sing. Gray walls, metal doors, brown dirt courtyard. You wouldn’t like it at all.”
“Thank you very much, Brother,” said Brother Oliver. The information seemed to have daunted him, but he turned bravely to the rest of us and said, “Of course, Dimp has promised to keep looking until they find something we can approve.”
Brother Quillon, his voice rather shrill, cried out, “But how can we approve anything, Brother? After this. Our home.”
“We all feel that way,” Brother Oliver assured him.
Brother Clemence said, “Excuse me. Let me just raise this question of the lease one more time. Has no one seen it, or have any idea where it might be?”
There was silence as we all looked at one another, everybody waiting for somebody else to speak.
Brother Clemence spread his hands. “Well, that’s it, then,” he said.
Then little Brother Zebulon piped up, saying, “Whyn’t you look at the copy?”
That got him more attention than he’d received in forty-five years. Brother Clemence actually stepped out into the aisle and took a pace in Brother Zebulon’s direction, saying, “Copy? What copy?”
“Brother Urban’s copy, of course,” said Brother Zebulon. “What other copy is there?”
“Brother Urban’s copy?” Brother Clemence looked around at us, his helpless expression saying as clearly as words that there was no Brother Urban among us.
Then Brother Hilarius spoke up. “A former Abbot,” he said. “The one before Wesley, I think.”
“That’s right!” cried Brother Valerian. “Now I remember! He did illuminated manuscripts. There’s a framed one of his hanging in the kitchen, near the sink, an illuminated version of I Corinthians V, 7: Every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that.”
Brother Clemence looked groggy. “Illuminated manuscripts?”
“He did illuminated manuscripts on everything,” Brother Zebulon crowed, suddenly breaking into laughter. “You should have seen his illuminated version of the front page of the Daily News the day Lucky Lindy landed in Paris!”
Brother Clemence shook his head. “Do you mean,” he asked, “this Brother Urban did an illuminated manuscript version of our lease?”