Matt breathed a sigh of interior relief. Trust Temple and her aunt. Kit Carlson had come up with an agent not willing to leap at whatever bait was thrown into the primordial media ooze.
"Not even the respected talk shows?"
Fortunato lifted an iron-gray eyebrow. "Even the most respected talk show is media hardball. Every guest is subject to any challenge. What you think, what you are, is on display. Is a target. You say you don't want to exploit this girl Daisy. You also feel a certain obligation to explain her to the larger world."
"I do think that as a society we're too eager to pin the word 'unnatural' on girls--children, really--who've been victimized by our relentlessly sexually exploitive society. What happened on the radio explains so much. What was this abused child who was bearing a child to think, or do? What did we expect of her? More than the parents who failed her, the society that has spent centuries labeling unwed mothers as pariahs?"
"Powerful words and sentiments. Sound bites to go. You'd be a hit on any talk show on this message tape. You might actually get a message of compassion and enlightenment through. But you'd also be a target."
"I? How?"
Fortunato clapped his hands together. "Your background. A former priest. Given the tragic situation of incest and abuse and unwanted birth, how can you, former Father, uphold your Church's teaching against all forms of birth control, even by a woman being raped, by a person with a sexually transmittable fatal disease like AIDS, that a well-made condom could prevent?
If that girl had gotten a decent sex education in school, at least she might have told a counselor about what was going on at home. At most she might have protected herself against pregnancy with the pill. Well?"
"Don't you think I've wrestled with these issues, both while in the priesthood and out?"
"Yes, but are you prepared to come down on one side or the other? In public. On the airwaves. You want to defend this poor girl. Admirable! But you will end up having to defend yourself."
"That doesn't seem fair. I'm the messenger, not the message."
"No angels allowed on major network television shows, Mr. Devine, unless they're fictional.
We are all out own gods, as accountable for our feet of clay as for our wings of steel."
"It's all so confusing. l glimpse this golden opportunity to do something meaningful, yet it seems compromised before I even reach toward it."
"Like a certain apple?"
"Then there's the snake of personal gain or aggrandizement slithering through this garden.
You must be Catholic, to sling these metaphors around."
"Devout."
"Then . . . you have no personal doubts on these issues."
"Of course I do. But they don't affect my job. I worry about them on my personal time. If you were, say, a pro--choice crusader,
I could represent you."
"I . . . can't imagine--"
"Don't imagine, except when you're dealing with your radio flock. Imagination is the road to empathy, and useful in certain callings. In mine, a more pragmatic bent is called for."
"I don't see how you can separate your personal ethics and your professional."
"But these aren't ethics l separate. These are opinions. Philosophies even. Dogma even. But always, in someone else's view, opinion. As long as there is someone else to have an opposite view, I remain human- Which I like very much."
"So do I. If I . . . we, agree to do business together, what happens?"
"First, I investigate your deal with the radio station."
"They . . . gave me a break. Really enhanced my income. l owe them--"
"No. They owe you. They are the employer. You are the employee. They chose well. You benefit."
"l wouldn't want to--"
"Ask what you're worth in the suddenly bear market? No. But I will want to. That's my job.
To be your better half. To be your utterly immodest accountant. Don't you deserve to be paid what you're worth ?"
"But what I'm 'Worth' seems to depend on arbitrary external elements."
"Congratulations. You'll never develop a swelled head with that attitude." Fortunate smiled.
"But you will develop a swelled bank account, if l have anything to say about it. Any objections?"
"Well . . . no. I suppose."
"Good man. l get twenty percent."
"Twenty percent!"
"For a man of your modesty, that is a pittance."
"Okay. But only if you give five percent of it to good works. Of your choice."
Fortunato leaned so far back in the tufted leather chair that it threatened to catapult him through the pristine glass down onto the Las Vegas Strip, and laughed. "Done. You may be a tougher egg than you look. All the better."
************
Surprisingly, Midnight Louie was waiting outside Matt's apartment door, in that age-old position of Adoration of the Door-knob, as if merely staring at it would cause the knob to turn and open the door.
Matt and Louie entered a quiet apartment, but the new answering machine's little red light was blinking furiously on the sofa table. He was tempted to just pop out the tape and forward the clay's messages to Tony Fortunato--let someone else, anyone, handle the hail of unwanted calls--but he might have the occasional personal call, so he rewound the tape and sat back on the red sofa to listen to the barrage.
After a long, connoisseur's sniff at Matt's pant leg, Louie leaped up to join him on the sofa.
Five or six names and organizations that meant nothing to him unreeled in a blizzard of fast talk.
Then a familiar voice came on: "This is Molina. Give me a call when you can." She recited her office number with almost musical clarity and hung up. Next, the hurried, hard-sell patter of a televangelist's program booker was certain that Matt would be pleased to appear on The Lord's Corner to discuss effectively casting out demons long-distance, via voice. They hoped to start an Exorcist's Hotline, inspired by Matt's success with remote exorcism.
"Remote exorcism," Matt muttered as the messages ended on that weird and venal note.
"How about remote extraction of gullible people's money?" His watch showed a little after three P.M., so he dialed Molina, curious.
"Good." She interrupted him as he started to identify himself.
"What do you know about ex-nuns in the area?"
"Nothing."
"You ever hear any of them being harassed? Or ex-priests?"
"Only by the local constabulary."
"No joking. I haven't got time."
"Are you . . . was one of the murder victims a former nun?"
"Order of Our Lady of the Cross. Familiar to you?"
"No, but a lot of orders work in specific regions of the country.
There's an ex-priests' group that meets in Henderson. I could ask there; the members are from all over."
"Don't make it obvious that this is a criminal case."
"Of course not. Which victim was it? The Strawberry Lady?"
"Right. How'd you guess?"
"The secondhand clothes. Most nuns can't bring themselves to shop anywhere else; after a lifetime of habits, when they switched to civvies, they switched to resale store 'uniforms.' Exreligious have that problem. Can't spend the money on themselves."
"From the looks of your place lately, you seem to be getting over it."
"I've had expert help." He couldn't keep the grin out of his voice.
"Our Lady of the Tireless Consumption," Molina commented, her voice turning briskly back to business. "I'm interested in any cases of stalking ex-religious: nuns, priests, monks, altar boys."
" 'She left.' It would fit. But what about the other woman?"
"Hardly a nun. In fact, diametrically opposed in lifestyle."
"That one still could have left the usual man. Maybe she was being counseled to leave an abusive man by a member of the clergy. Maybe the murders are closely connected."