I shook my head helplessly. One more problem I couldn’t handle. Lotty arrived as we were leaving. At the sight of Phyllis, her heavy black brows went up. “So! Vic is roping you into her masquerade as well?”
“Lotty! You and I need to talk,” I said sharply.
She gave me a measuring look. “Yes. I think that would be a good thing… Are these thugs with Stefan your idea or his?”
“Call me when you’ve climbed off your cross!” I snapped and walked away.
Phyllis was too polite to ask about the incident. We didn’t speak much, but had a pleasant meal at a little restaurant on Irving Park Road before heading back to Chestnut Street.
Cigarette smoke had permeated the bedclothes in the guest room. The smell, combined with my nervous tension, made sleep difficult. At three, I got up to read, and found Phyllis sitting in the living room with a biography of Margaret Fuller. W6 talked companionably for several hours. After that I slept until Phyllis stopped in to say good-bye before going to her eight-thirty class. She invited me to come back at night. Despite the stale air, I accepted gratefully.
I thought I might be safer with a rental car than my own, which was by now well known to any hoodlum in Chicago trying to find me. On my way over to the police station I stopped at a rental agency and got a Toyota whose steering must have been used by the U.S. weightlifting team while they trained for the Olympics. They told me they didn’t have anything else that size and to take it or leave it. Snarling, I took it-I didn’t have time to shop for cars.
Lieutenant Mallory wasn’t in when I got to Roosevelt Road. I gave my statement to Detective Finchley. Not having Bobby’s history with me, he accepted what I had to say and returned the Smith & Wesson. Freeman Carter, who accompanied me, told me we’d have a formal hearing in the morning, but that my character was once more unblemished-not even a moving violation in the last three years.
It was afternoon when I reached my ancient tailor on Montrose. He had finished the robe for me; it fit perfectly, right hem length, right sleeve length. I thanked him profusely, but he responded with more harsh words on young ladies who couldn’t plan ahead-he’d had to work all day Sunday for me.
I had to make a stop at the Bellerophon to pick up the rest of my disguise. Mrs. Climzak came out breathlessly from behind the counter with my shoes. She’d never have taken them if she’d known she’d have to be responsible for them for two days. If I was going to turn out to be the thoughtless type of tenant, she didn’t know if they could keep me. And certainly not if I entertained men in the middle of the night.
I was turning to go upstairs, but this seemed like a specific, not a generic accusation. “What men in the middle of the night?”
“Oh, don’t try to act so innocent, Miss Warshawski. The neighbors heard him and called the night clerk. He got the police and your friend left. Don’t pretend you don’t remember that.”
I left her midsentence and galloped up the stairs to the fourth floor. I hadn’t had time to make a mess of my shabby little room. Someone else had done it for me. Fortunately, there wasn’t too much to toss around-no books, except a Gideon Bible. No food. Just my clothes, the Murphy bed mattress, and the pots and pans in the kitchen. I held my breath while I inspected the Venetian glasses. Whoever had been here wasn’t totally vindictive: They stood unharmed on the little card table.
“Oh, damn!” I shouted. “Leave me alone!” I shuffled things together as best I could, but didn’t really have time to clean up. Didn’t feel like cleaning up, come to that. What I felt like was taking to my bed for a week. Except I didn’t have a bed anymore, not my own anyway.
I lugged the heavy mattressback onto the bed and lay on it. The cracks in the ceiling made a fine mesh. They resembled my own incoherent thoughts. I stared at them morosely for a quarter of an hour before forcing myself to abandon self-pity and start thinking. The likeliest reason someone was searching my room was to find the evidence I’d told Catherine Paciorek about yesterday. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to see me last night. She was getting someone to find me and find whatever document Agnes had left behind. Very well. That would make it easier to get her to talk when I saw her tonight.
I put Catherine and the ransacking to one side. Now that I was thinking again, I could cope. Changing into jeans and boots, I put the robe into a paper bag with the rest of my disguise, digging the component pieces out of the mess in the room.
My shoulder holster was wedged under the chest of drawers in the closet. It took close to half an hour to find. I looked nervously at my watch, not sure what my deadline was, but fearing that time was running very short indeed. I still had to stop for some bullets, but that delay was essential. I wasn’t going to the bathroom unarmed until this mess was straightened out.
XXII
A STORE IN Lincolnwood sold me three dozen bullets for twenty-five dollars. Despite what the gun haters may think, it isn’t cheap killing people. Not only is it not cheap, it’s timeconsuming. It was nearly three. I didn’t have time for lunch if I wanted to get to the priory on schedule. Stopping at a corner grocery I picked up an apple and ate it as I drove.
A bright winter sun reflected against the snow, breaking into diamonds of glinting, blinding color. My dark glasses, I suddenly remembered, had been in a dresser drawer in the old apartment. No doubt they were a lump of plastic now. I shielded my eyes as best I could with the visor and my left hand.
Once in Melrose Park, I toured the streets looking for a park. Pulling in from the roadway, I took off my pea jacket and pulled the white wool robe on over jeans and shirt. The black leather belt tightened the gown at the middle. The rosary I attached to the right side of the belt. It wasn’t exactly the real thing, but in dim light I ought to be able to pass for a Dominican friar.
By the time I got back to the priory and parked behind the main building it was almost four-thirty, time for evening prayers and mass. I waited until four-thirty-five, and went into the main hallway.
The ascetic youth sat hunched over a devotional work. He glanced up at me briefly. When I headed for the stairs instead of the chapel, he said, “You’re late for vespers, Brother,” but went back to his reading.
My heart was pounding as I reached the wide landing where the marble staircase turned back on itself up into the private upper reaches of the friary. The area was cloistered, not open to the public, male or female, and I couldn’t suppress a feeling of dread, as though I were committing some kind of sacrilege.
I’d been expecting a long, open ward like a nineteenth century hospital. Instead, I came on a quiet corridor with doors opening onto it, rather like a hotel. The doors were
shut, but not locked. Next to each, making my task infinitely easier, were little placards with the monks’ names printed in a neat scroll. Each man had a room to himself.
I squinted at each in turn until I came to one that had no name on it. Cautiously, I knocked, then opened the door. The room contained only a bare single bed and a crucifix. At the far end of the hall, I came to a second nameless room, which I opened in turn. This was O’Faolin’s temporary quarters.
Besides the bed and crucifix, the room held a small dresser and a little table with a drawer in the middle. O’Faolin’s Panamanian passport and his airline ticket were in the drawer. He was on a ten P.M. Alitalia flight on Wednesday. Forty-eight hours to-to what?
The dresser was filled with stacks of beautiful linen, hand-tailored shirts, and a fine collection of silk socks. The Vatican’s poverty didn’t force her employees to live in squalor.