“Not yet.”
“Before I go on, I’d like to make one thing clear: I can pay you, I have money. Nobody around here knows about it because we all renounce our worldly possessions when we come to the Tower. Our money, our very clothes on our backs, everything goes into the common fund.”
“But you kept something of your own in case of emergency?”
“Nothing of the kind,” she said sharply. “My son in Chicago sends me a twenty-dollar bill every Christmas with the understanding that I hold on to it for myself and not give it to the Master. My son doesn’t approve of all this.” She gestured vaguely around the room. “He doesn’t understand the satisfactions of a life of service to the Lord and His True Believers. He thinks I went a little crazy when my husband died, and maybe I did. But I’ve found my real place in the world now, I will never leave. How can I? I am needed. Brother Tongue with his pleurisy attacks, the Master’s weak stomach, Mother Pureza’s heart—she is the Master’s wife and very old.”
Sister Blessing got up and stood in front of the stove, rubbing her hands together as if she’d felt the sudden chill of death in the air.
“I’m getting old myself,” she said. “Some of the days are hard to face. My soul is at peace but my body rebels. It longs for some softness, some warmth, some sweetness. Mornings when I get out of bed my spirit feels a touch of heaven, but my feet—oh, the coldness of them, and the aches in my legs. Once in a Sears catalogue I saw a picture of a pair of slippers. I often think of them, though I shouldn’t. They were pink and furry and soft and warm, they were the most beautiful slippers I ever did see, but of course an indulgence of the flesh.”
“A very small one, surely?”
“They’re the ones you have to watch out for. They grow, grow like weeds. You get warm slippers and pretty soon you’re wanting other things.”
“Such as?”
“A hot bath in a real bathtub, with two towels. There, you see?” she said, turning to Quinn. “It’s happening already. Two towels I asked for, when one would be plenty. It proves my point about human nature—nothing is ever enough. If I had a hot bath, I would want another, and then one a week or even one every day. And if everyone at the Tower did the same we’d all be lolling around in hot baths while the cattle starved and the garden went to weeds. No, Mr. Quinn, if you offered me a hot bath right this minute I’d have to refuse it.”
Quinn wanted to point out that he wasn’t in the habit of offering hot baths to strange women but he was afraid of hurting the Sister’s feelings. She was as earnest and intense about the subject as if she were arguing with the devil himself.
After a time she said, “Have you heard of a place called Chicote? It’s a small city in the Central Valley, a hundred miles or so from here.”
“I know where it is, Sister.”
“I would like you to go there and find a man named Patrick O’Gorman.”
“An old friend of yours? A relative?”
She didn’t seem to hear the question. “I have a hundred and twenty dollars.”
“That’s a lot of fuzzy pink slippers, Sister.”
Again she made no response. “It may be quite a simple job, I don’t know.”
“Suppose I find O’Gorman, what then? Do I give him a message? Wish him a happy Fourth of July?”
“You do nothing at all, except come back here and tell me about it, me and only me.”
“What if he’s no longer living in Chicote?”
“Find out where he went. But please don’t try to contact him, no purpose would be served and mischief could be done. Will you accept the job?”
“I’m in no position to pick and choose at the moment, Sister. I must remind you, though, that you’re taking quite a risk sending me away from here with a hundred and twenty dollars. I might not come back.”
“You might not,” she said calmly. “In which case I will have learned another lesson. But then again you might come back, so I have nothing to lose but money I can’t spend anyway and can’t give to the Master because of my promise to my son.”
“You have a trick of making everything seem very reasonable on first examination.”
“And on second?”
“I wonder why you’re interested in O’Gorman.”
“Wonder a little. It won’t do you any harm. I will tell you only that what I’ve asked you to do is highly important to me,”
“All right. Where’s the money?”
“In a good safe place,” Sister Blessing said blandly, “until tomorrow morning.”
“Meaning you don’t trust me? Or you don’t trust the Brothers and Sisters?”
“Meaning I’m no fool, Mr. Quinn. You’ll get the money when you’re sitting in that truck beside Brother Crown of Thorns at dawn tomorrow.”
“Dawn?”
“Early to bed and early to rise puts color in the cheeks and sparkle in the eyes.”
“That isn’t how I heard it.”
“The Master has made certain changes in the proverbs to make them suitable for our children to learn.”
“I’m curious about the Master,” Quinn said. “I’d like to meet him.”
“He’s indisposed tonight. Perhaps when you come to visit us again—”
“You seem pretty sure I’ll be coming back, Sister. Maybe you don’t know about gamblers.”
“I knew about gamblers,” Sister Blessing said, “long before you saw your first ace of spades.”
Two
Quinn was awakened, while it was still dark, by someone shaking him vigorously by the shoulder. He opened his eyes.
A short fat man, carrying a lantern, was peering down at him through thick-lensed spectacles. “My goodness gracious, I was beginning to think you were dead. You must get up now, immediately.”
“Why? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing’s the matter. It’s time to arise and greet the new day. I am Brother of the Steady Heart. Sister Blessing told me to give you a shave and some breakfast before the others get up.”
“What time is it?”
“We have no clocks at the Tower. I’ll be waiting for you in the washroom.”
Quinn soon found out how some of the Brothers had acquired the scars on their chins and scalps. The razor was dull, the light from the lantern feeble, and Brother of the Steady Heart near-sighted.
“My, you are a jumpy one,” Brother Heart said with amiable interest. “I guess you suffer from bad nerves, eh?”
“At times.”
“While I’m at it I could give your hair a bit of a trim.”
“No thanks. The shave’s plenty. I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“Sister Blessing said I was to make you look as much like a gentleman as possible. She’s taken quite a fancy to you, seems to me. It kind of rouses my curiosity.”
“It kind of rouses mine, too, Brother.”
Brother Heart looked as though he wanted to pursue the subject but didn’t dare pry into Sister Blessing’s affairs or state of mind. “Well, I’ll go now and make breakfast. I have the fire lit, won’t take a minute to boil some eggs for the two of us.”
“Why will there just be two of us?”
Brother Heart’s pudgy face turned pink. “It will be more peaceful without Sister Contrition around, she’s the regular cook. Oh, but that woman’s a devil in the morning. Sour, there’s nothing worse than a woman gone sour.”
By the time Quinn finished dressing and went over to the dining room, Brother of the Steady Heart had breakfast waiting on the table, boiled eggs and bread and jam. He continued the conversation as if it hadn’t been interrupted: “In my day, the ladies didn’t own such sharp tongues. They were quiet-spoken and fragile, and had small, delicate feet. Have you noticed what big feet the women have around here?”
“Not particularly.”