“Alas, they have. Very large, flat feet.”
For all his barber-shop chattiness, Brother Heart seemed nervous. He barely touched his food and he kept glancing over his shoulder as if he expected someone to sneak up on him.
Quinn said, “Why the big hurry to get rid of me before the others are up?”
“Well, now. Well, I wouldn’t exactly put it that way.”
“I would.”
“It has nothing to do with you personally, Mr. Quinn. It’s just, well, you might call it a precautionary measure.”
“I might, if I knew what you were talking about.”
Brother Heart hesitated for a moment, biting his underlip as though it itched to talk. “I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. It concerns Sister Contrition’s oldest child, Karma. Last time the truck was going to the city the girl hid in the back, under some burlap sacks. Brother Crown of Thorns drove halfway to San Felice before he discovered her. The burlap made her sneeze. Karma went to school for a while, it filled her head with bad ideas. She wants to leave here and find work in the city.”
“And that’s not possible?”
“Oh no, no. The child would be lost in the city. Here at least she is poor among poor.”
The sun was beginning to rise and a faint rosy glow filled the skylight. From the invisible Tower came the sound of the gong, and almost immediately Sister Blessing hurried in the door. “The truck is ready, Mr. Quinn. You mustn’t keep Brother Crown of Thorns waiting. Here, let me have your coat and I’ll give it a good brushing.”
Quinn had already brushed it but he gave it to her anyway. She took it outside and made a few swipes at it with her hand.
“Come along, Mr. Quinn. Brother Crown has a long day ahead of him.”
He put his coat back on and followed her down the path to the dirt road. She said nothing about either the money or O’Gorman. Quinn had an uneasy feeling that she’d forgotten what happened the previous night and that she was a little crazier than he’d thought at first.
An old Chevrolet truck, lights on and engine chugging, was parked in the middle of the road. Behind the wheel, wearing a straw hat over his shaved head, sat a man younger than the Brothers Quinn had met so far. Quinn guessed his age to be about forty. Brother Crown of Thorns acknowledged Sister Blessing’s introduction with a brief smile that revealed a front tooth missing.
“At San Felice, Brother Crown will let you off wherever you wish, Mr. Quinn.”
“Thanks,” Quinn said, getting into the truck. “But about O’Gor—”
Sister Blessing looked blank. “Have a good trip. And drive carefully, Brother Crown. And don’t forget, if there are temptations in the city, turn your back. If people stare, lower your eyes. If they make remarks, be deaf.”
“Amen, Sister.”
“As for you, Mr. Quinn, the most I can ask is that you behave with discretion.”
“Sister, listen—about the money—”
“Au revoir, Mr. Quinn.”
The truck started rolling down the road. Quinn turned to look back at Sister Blessing but she had already disappeared among the trees.
He thought, Maybe the whole thing never happened and I’m crazier than the bunch of them put together. Which is quite a bit crazy.
He said, shouting over the noise of the engine, “A fine woman, Sister Blessing.”
“What’s that? Can’t hear you.”
“Sister Blessing is a fine woman but she’s getting old. Maybe she forgets things now and then?”
“I wish she would.”
“Perhaps just little things, occasionally?”
“Not her,” Brother Crown of Thorns said, shaking his head in reluctant admiration. “Memory like an elephant. Turn down your window, will you? God’s air is fresh.”
It was also cold, but Quinn turned the window down and his collar up and put his hands in his pockets. His fingers touched the cool smoothness of money.
He looked back in the direction of the Tower and said silently, “Au revoir, Sister. I think.”
Because of the twisting roads and the age and temperament of the truck’s engine, it took more than two hours to reach San Felice, a narrow strip of land wedged between the mountains and the sea. It was an old, rich, and very conservative city which held itself aloof from the rest of Southern California. Its streets were filled with spry elderly ladies and tanned elderly men and athletic young people who looked as if they’d been born on tennis courts and beaches and golf courses. Seeing the city again Quinn realized that Doris, with her platinum hair and heavy make-up, would feel conspicuous in it, and feeling that way she would make it a point to look even more conspicuous and end up beaten. No, Doris would never fit in. She was a night person and San Felice was a city of day people. For them dawn was the beginning of a day, not the tail-end of a night, and Sister Blessing and Brother Crown, for all their strange attire, would look more at home among them than Doris. Or me, Quinn thought, and he felt his plans and resolutions dissolving inside himself. I don’t belong here. I’m too old for tennis and skin-diving, and too young for checkers and canasta.
His fingers curled around the money in his pocket. A hundred and twenty dollars plus the three hundred Tom Jurgensen owed him made four hundred and twenty. If he went back to Reno and played carefully, if his luck was good—
“Where do you want to get off at?” Brother Crown said. “I’m going to Sears myself.”
“Sears will be fine.”
“You got a friend in town?”
“I had one. Maybe I’ve still got him.”
Brother Crown pulled into the parking lot behind Sears and braked the truck to a noisy stop. “Here you are, safe and sound, like I promised Sister Blessing. You and the Sister ever meet before?”
“No.”
“She don’t always make such a how-de-do over strangers.”
“Maybe I remind her of somebody.”
“You don’t remind me of nobody.” Brother Crown climbed down from the truck and started shuffling across the parking lot toward the back door of Sears.
“Thanks for the ride, Brother,” Quinn called out after him.
“Amen.”
It was nine o’clock, eighteen hours since Sister Blessing had welcomed him to the Tower as a stranger and treated him like a friend. He touched the money in his pocket again. He could feel its strings pulling at him and he wished he hadn’t taken it. He thought of running after Brother Crown and giving it to him to return to Sister Blessing. Then he remembered that the possession of private money was not allowed at the Tower and handing it over now to Brother Crown would get Sister Blessing into trouble, perhaps of a very serious kind.
He turned and began walking quickly toward State Street.
Tom Jurgensen sold boats and marine insurance down at the foot of the breakwater. He had a tiny office whose windows were plastered with For Sale signs and pictures of yawls and sloops and ketches and cutters and schooners, most of them under sail.
When Quinn entered, Jurgensen was smoking a cigar and talking into the telephone which perched affectionately on his shoulder the way Brother Tongue’s little bird had perched on his. “Sails by Rattsey, so what. The thing’s a tub. I’m not bidding.”
He put the phone down and leaned over the desk to shake Quinn’s hand. “Well, Joe Quinn himself in person. How’s the old boy?”
“Older. Also broke.”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t say that, Joe. Business has been lousy. This isn’t a rich man’s town any more. The penny-pinching middle class has moved in and they don’t care about teakwood or mahogany, all they want—” Jurgensen broke off with a sigh. “You’re absolutely flat?”
“Except for a little money that belongs to someone else.”