John immediately grasped the situation. He freed himself from the people he had been talking with and came towards them.
Father McKean made as if to get away. ‘Mrs Bones…’
In return, she gave him a look in which there was a little too much fluttering of the eyelashes. ‘You can call me Sandhal, if you prefer.’
Just then, John reached them and released him from his ordeal.
‘Mrs Bones, this is John Kortighan, who works with me. He’s the principal architect of the smooth running…’
As he introduced him, Father McKean turned his head to look at him. John was standing with his back to the water, and the priest’s eyes were drawn past him, past the crowded balcony, all the way to the cycle track that ran alongside the little lake on the left.
Standing there with his hands in the pockets of his jeans was a man in a green military jacket. Father McKean felt as though the breath had been knocked out of him. A wave of heat rose to his face. He somehow managed to finish the introduction.
‘… of our little community.’
John held out his hand, diplomatic as always. ‘Pleased to meet you, Mrs Bones. I know you’re one of the principal architects of this event.’
The woman’s little laugh came to him as if in a trance. ‘As I was saying to Father McKean, I’ve always been ready to do something for my fellow human beings.’
The words seemed to come from a great distance, as if muffled by space and fog. He couldn’t take his eyes off that man standing alone, looking in his direction, while bicycles passed close by him. He told himself jackets like that were very common and that an event like this was bound to attract the attention of outsiders. It was perfectly normal for a person to stop and look to see what was going on.
It was a reasonable attempt to reassure himself, but he knew that wasn’t the case. He knew this was no ordinary person but the man who had whispered those sacrilegious words to him inside the confessional along with his murderous intentions.
Iam God …
The faces and the noise and the people around him had vanished. Only that disquieting figure drew his attention, his thoughts, his eyes. His longing for mercy. Somehow he was certain that the man had seen him and that, of all the people there, he, Father McKean, was the one he was staring at.
‘Excuse me a moment.’
He didn’t even hear what John and Mrs Bones said in reply.
He had moved away from them and was making his way through the crowd, straight to the other end of the balcony. Losing and finding again the sombre eyes of that stranger who had taken up residence inside him like a harbinger of doom. He wanted to reach him and try to talk to him, try to make him see reason, even though he knew it was a desperate enterprise. On his side, the man continued to watch him as he walked, waiting, as if he had come to the Boathouse Café with the same intention.
Father McKean suddenly found two black men barring his way.
One was just a little shorter than him and was wearing a hooded down jacket that was much too big for him and much too heavy for the season, a black cap with the peak at the side, jeans, and a pair of heavy sneakers. On his chest, a glittering gold chain.
The man who loomed behind him was huge. It didn’t seem possible that a man that size could actually move. He was dressed all in black, and his head was covered in a kind of bandana that looked like one of those hairnets men used to wear at night to straighten their hair.
The thinner of the two men put his hand on Father McKean’s chest and stopped him. ‘Where are you going, priest man?’
Annoyed by this hitch, Father McKean instinctively turned to look to his right. The man in the green jacket was still there, observing the scene without expression. Reluctantly, he turned his attention back to the person in front of him.
‘What do you want, Jonas? I didn’t think you’d been invited.’
‘Iron7 doesn’t need an invitation if these assholes can get in. Right, Dude?’
The big man merely nodded impassively.
‘Well,’ Father McKean said, ‘now that you’ve demonstrated how strong you are, I think you can leave.’
Jonas Manson smiled, revealing a small diamond encrusted in one of his incisors. ‘Hey, hold on a minute, priest. What’s the hurry? I’m the brother of one of the artists. Can’t I admire his work like everyone else?’
He looked around and, beyond Father McKean, glimpsed Jubilee still standing next to his paintings and commenting on them to other people.
‘There he is. There’s my boy.’
The man who called himself Iron7 pushed Father McKean aside and headed towards his brother, followed by the impressive hulk of Dude. People instinctively stepped aside for them. Father McKean walked behind them, trying to keep the situation under control.
Jonas reached the paintings and, without even greeting his brother, assumed a dramatic studio pose in front of them. On seeing him coming, Jubilee had fallen silent, taken a step backwards and started shaking.
‘Hey, great stuff. Really great stuff. What do you think, Dude?’
Again the fat man, without speaking, confirmed his chief’s words with a movement of his head. John, who had grasped the tricky nature of the situation, approached, trying to put his body between Jonas and his brother.
‘You can’t stay here.’
‘Oh yes? Who says so? You, runt?’ The rapper turned to the giant and smiled. ‘Dude, get this asshole out of the way.’
The man reached out his huge hand, grabbed John by his shirt collar, pulled him towards him as if he were weightless and then pushed him back again so that he hit the balustrade. Father McKean intervened to stop John trying to react. If a fight broke out, others might get involved.
‘Let it be, John. I’ll deal with this.’
Jonas let out a vulgar laugh. ‘Oh, great. You’ll deal with this.’
In the meantime a void had formed around them. All the people who had been standing nearby, while not quite sure exactly what was happening, had decided that it was better to move away from these two gaudy characters with their rude behaviour and unappetizing faces.
‘You and I have to talk business, priest.’
‘We don’t have any business with each other, Jonas.’
‘Get off your high horse. I know things aren’t going too well in that place of yours. I’d like to give you a hand. I thought twenty grand might come in useful.’
Father McKean wondered how this delinquent had found out about Joy’s financial difficulties. Certainly not from his brother, who was terrified of him and avoided him like the plague. It was clear that right now, given how empty the community’s coffers were, twenty thousand dollars would be like manna from heaven. But they couldn’t take it from a man like that, with the kind of things he was involved in.