And why the secrecy?
"Gee, that's too bad." Matt was sounding his ingenuous, bland phone self again. He went into the well practiced song-and-dance about Father Hernandez's 'This Is Your Life" tribute. He was even beginning to believe it himself.
And," he finished with glib flair, ''Father Bucek was Father Rafe's assistant at his first pastorate. It would be so great to have Father Bucek here for the tribute. The parish would pay the transportation . . . unless it's somewhere prohibitive, like Hawaii." Matt laughed engagingly at the improbability of that notion.
''Not quite that far," Father Cartwright conceded . . . gave away ... a dry smile apparent in his voice. ''But--"
Matt frowned. This was very odd. Had the church grown paranoid with all the current charges against priests? The whereabouts of transferred clergy had not always been a state secret.
"Tell you what, young man--" Matt could almost see Father Cartwright's lips pursing in doubt. "I can contact him, and give him your address and phone number, if he wishes to call you."
"Why the rigmarole?" Matt asked bluntly.
An awkward silence. "Sorry. It's just that it might be difficult, and not appropriate for the
'This Is Your Life' program you're putting together. Father ... Frank is no longer with us."
"But where is he assigned now? Surely you can tell me that."
"That's just it. He's left the priesthood."
Now the silence on the line was thunderous: the rush of blood pounding in Matt's ears sounded like a faulty connection.
Matt stumbled automatically through a rote recital of his address and phone number. He wasn't sure he got the still-unfamiliar numerals right, and he didn't care.
The drone of a broken connection was Muzak to his throbbing ears. He hung up with a slam that mattered to no one but himself. A bang, not a whimper.
Not there? How dare he? Now that Matt had mastered himself and was ready to confront the past, a big chunk of it had mysteriously vanished. Father Furtive, all right. The other guys had been righter than they knew. Sneaking off like a truant. Beyond reach, like the Pope in Rome or something. Father Oh-so-high-and-mighty now Father Nothing. Left. He left. Too. Why?
Matt felt his hands itching to seize the phone, hurl it across the room at the wall, at the chintzy crates that served as bookshelves.
Instead he looked inward at the flushed face of his rage.
He saw his own face, only an infantile version of it, round and unshapen, yet empurpled by some toddler tantrum.
Of course. Matt released the breath that had made his chest into a prison and his ribs into iron bars containing the explosion. He rubbed his chin, to assure himself his adult face was in proper place.
What he felt was infantile rage for his natural father's mysterious defection, transferred to Father . . . ex-Father Bucek. Frank, now. Just Frank.
Mattes hands slapped his thighs. He should be pleased. If his spiritual director, his personal role model from seminary, had also left the priesthood, it validated Mattes action. Father Bucek had seemed decades older than he, but young people always divided folks into Us and the Ancients Over Thirty, one undifferentiated decaying clot. Thinking about it, Frank Bucek was probably only in his late forties. Young enough to make a career change.
Would he call? Did it matter? Yes, in terms of testimony about Father Hernandez, who had not yet left the priesthood, and probably never would. In terms of Mattes own peace of mind...?
He shook his head at the phone, as if it were a sentient thing that could hold an opinion.
He didn't know. His falsehood about the tribute certainly hadn't given Bucek a pressing reason to call.
"It's not important,'' he softly told the phone. "I don't need to know his story."
He smiled to recall Temple's recent lecture on the abuse of the "need to know" principle.
"And I doubt that Father Furtive needs to know mine."
Chapter 20
Dis-guys
Some may find it odd that I am not home at the Circle Ritz ingratiating myself with Miss Temple Barr during her hour of need, but I was never cut out for the nursing profession.
My talents are best put to use removing vermin from the mean and dirty streets, rather than from the sterile environs of a sickroom.
Not that Miss Temple is sick in the classic sense, but I am sure that a bum hind-paw is no fun fast, especially since it will make wearing her trademark high heels difficult for a time.
So I do not scamper home to the Circle Ritz to throw my two cents and tongue-licks into the feeding frenzy of concern flurrying around the invalid. Miss Temple Barr is a lady whose care for others wins her an avalanche of tending when she is in need herself. Surely she will prefer the tender attentions of Mr. Matt Devine far more than my sand paper brand of succor.
No, I can better spend my time tracking down the heinous handymen who sent my little doll tumbling down a hill of concrete stairs like Jill on a roller-coaster ride with a pall of sand Instead of water.
Fortunately, I know just who to look for: one Vito, surname unknown. (Now there is a luckless sire with a pressing reason to get lost.)
Unfortunately, I have not spied Vito or his ilk around the Crystal Phoenix of late, though this trick with the loosened stair-rail brackets has his no-doubt-well-documented fingerprints all over it.
So I hunker down in the Crystal Phoenix basement, with which I am well acquainted. Some of my most cherished moments occurred in the dressing rooms here: my tender rendezvous with the Divine Yvette; my quite literal nailing of the Stripper Killer; the TLC I received from the Phoenix showgirls when I was only a down-and-out street dude without a reputation as a world-class shamus.
My long-stemmed gals from the good old days remain in full feather, I discover as the clock ticks toward the evening hours and showtime nears.
"It is Louie!" they chorus when I make my rounds of the dressing rooms.
"Ooh," says Miss Darcy McGill Austen, lifting me atop a makeup-cluttered dressing table.
"You have gained weight!"
I do not make a practice of sweeping people off their feet and commenting publicly about their supposed avoirdupois.
"Then it is lucky that we have no treats on hand," Miss Midge Mancini responds quite carelessly. She flourishes instead the wire brush for polishing my topcoat to black satin. I produce a half-hearted purr as I undergo this massage, being most annoyed that the eats are absent.
Soon my flock of attendants scatter. Their hour upon the stage draws near. The busy, bustling underbelly of the Crystal Phoenix is suddenly silent and empty.
This is the way I like it. I jump off the red velvet pillow Miss Darcy McGill keeps for my visits and land soft as a powder- puff on the hard concrete. If evil is afoot down here, now is when it will stir.
Yet all remains still, except for a few feathered costumes trembling like aspen leaves in the air-conditioning vents' icy exhalation.
I prowl the hallway, seeing and hearing nothing. ... Finally, I detect a familiar sound. Not the drip, drip, drip of a forgotten faucet, but the patter of high-heeled feet. Miss Temple Barr cannot be abroad! Perhaps a showgirl has left behind an essential item of dress, such as a g-string.
I duck into a dressing room doorway, then peek.
Sure enough, one of these long, tall tootsies is hotfooting it down the hall on silver size-eleven high heels, none too quietly ... or gracefully. In fact, when one ankle twists she pauses to emit a few choice words, most of which would not be chosen by anyone who wanted to avoid an R-rating on a movie script. I am sorry to say that these dancing dolls sometimes grow a tad hardened from their gypsy lifestyle. My subject grabs the metal upright bar of a hallway costume rack, continuing her colorful cussing and yanking at the rhinestoned heel strap of her offending shoe. This gives me a chance to examine her full undraped glory.