“I killed a man tonight, Father.”
There was a long silence in the darkness of the confessional. In the shadows on the other side of the curtain the old priest sighed. On the air was the sweet scent of incense. It was nearly nine o’clock on a Saturday night. The church was empty except for a lone old lady who knelt beneath her bright ethnic headscarf far ahead at the communion rail.
The old priest sighed again. “It’s you, isn’t it, Father Ryan?”
“Yes, Father, it is.”
“This is the third time you’ve confessed to me in a year.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Yet you continue to kill people.”
“Only those who won’t help themselves or seek help from others. The man I killed tonight confessed to me once a month that he had molested children. I told him to stop, I told him where he could find psychiatric help. But he did nothing to help himself.” He paused. “We’ve taken the vow of silence, Father. I couldn’t turn him in. I stopped him the only way I could — before he hurt any other children.”
“And the two others you killed?”
“An arsonist who set several fires that killed people, and a rapist who mutilated his victims afterward.”
“And you could find no other way to stop them, Father Ryan?”
“No other way. Otherwise they would continue to kill people.”
In the vast shadows of the church, the old woman at the communion rail coughed. The sound reminded Ryan of a gunshot.
“Are you sorry for your sins, Father Ryan?”
“I want to be sorry, Father.”
“Then pray with me that you never again do such a thing.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Pray with me now, Father Ryan. Pray harder than you ever have in your life, Father Ryan.”
“Yes, Father. I will. I promise. Harder than I ever have in my life.”
Three weeks later, the man came back to Father Ryan. Late on a Saturday night. Father Ryan in his confessional. Only a few people left kneeling before the flickering green and yellow and blue votive candles.
Father Ryan recognized the voice immediately.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”
“Go on. Tell me your sins.”
A pause. “My daughter, Father. She’s ten and I—”
“Yes?”
“I force her to have sex with me.”
“I see.” Trying to control his anger, Father Ryan said, “You’ve been here before.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Confessing the same sin.”
“Yes, Father.”
“And I’ve told you about the psychology clinic over on Third Avenue by the railroad tracks.”
“Yes, Father.”
“How it’s free and confidential.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Have you gone there yet?”
“No, Father.”
“But in the meantime, you’ve molested your daughter again?”
“Yes, Father.”
Father Ryan said nothing. “Are you going to go to the clinic?”
“Yes, Father.”
“You absolutely promise me?”
“Yes, Father.”
Father Ryan heard the rest of the man’s sins and then gave him his penance.
When he left, the man sounded quite sorry about what he’d done.
Father Ryan had to hurry. Slip out the side door to the parking lot and catch a glimpse of the man and the car he was driving.
Father Ryan stood in the shadows of the church door watching a nice-looking man in a three-piece-suit get into a small sports car. Father Ryan, who had a good memory for figures, noted the man’s license number.
Sadly, turning back to the interior of his church, Father Ryan knew that he would soon enough be using the man’s license number as he set about investigating the man just as he’d first investigated McLennan and the two others.
Father Ryan, alone in the church now, went to the communion rail and prayed long into the night.
Ghosts
Some nights were kinder to thieves than others.
Tonight, for instance. The October Saturday was prisoner to chill rain and rolling fog. All kinds of things could hide in such darkness.
The convenience store was an oasis in the gloom, windows bright with neon letters blue and green and red advertising various beers and wine, parking lot filled with the battered cars of the working poor, cracked windshields and primer-gray spots covering up damaged fenders and doors and leaking exhaust systems that shook the vehicles in orgasmic spasms, black radios booming rap, white radios booming heavy metal.
Byrnes was of the night and the fog itself, the damp slimy fog encircling him like glistening nightmare snakes, his own dark eyes glistening, too, anger, fear, need, loneliness, and a strange dreamy feeling, as if he were detached from himself, just watching this dumb pathetic fuck named Byrnes do all this stuff:
The night smelled of coldness and traffic fumes and his own harsh cigarette breath. He was trembling.
He stood across the street from the store, black coat, black gloves, black jeans, black high-top running shoes, just the way he’d learned in prison up to Anamosa. Five-to-ten armed robbery. But because of his young age — and because of overcrowding — he’d served only four.
He’d been out six months. His young wife was gone, the baby she used to bring to the prison and claim was his, the baby gone, too. First month or so he’d been a Boy Scout. Did everything his parole officer told him. Showed up nice and regular at the job at a wholesale tire company where he put outsize rubber on truck fleets and big-ass farm equipment. Got himself a respectable little sleeping room. Stayed away from his old crowd. Even went to mass a few times.
Then Heather, this chick he met down to this Black Crows concert at the Five Seasons, she turned him on to meth and man, he hadn’t been straight a moment since. Now, he was lucky if he dragged himself into work two, three days a week. Once a month, his parole officer checked with his employer, see how Byrnes was doing. Pretty soon it would be his ass. The parole officer would demand a urine test and they’d find the meth in Byrnes and he’d be back in the joint for parole violation.
His only hope was to get enough money to lay by a few weeks’ supply of meth and then head for the yards down by Quaker Oats. In the joint there’d been a lot of talk about bein’ a hobo. The stories you heard in prison you had to cut in half — nobody loved to bullshit you as much as bored cons — but even cut in half the life of a ’bo sounded pretty cool. The idea of waking up in a gondola on a beautiful warm morning out in the west somewhere... and the life would be so healthy, he’d even be able to kick meth too. He’d be free again in all senses.
He had to stand there nearly forty-five minutes before the lull came. He’d hit eight stores in the past seven weeks and by now, he knew their patterns pretty good. Even the busiest convenience store had a lull. Even on a Saturday night. This store was having a lull now, parking lot empty, clerk working on a counter display.
Byrnes gripped the .45 in the pocket of his cheap black raincoat and walked across the rain-glistening street.
Clerk was a black woman in the orange polyester uniform jacket and silly hat Happy Campers made all their employees wear, the orange only emphasizing her already considerable size. She looked smart and friendly, smiling silently at him as he walked to the coolers in the back where the beer was kept. He was quickly checking to see if any customers were lurking unseen back there. None were.
He went right up front and pulled the gun and said, “Just make this easy for us, all right?”
She did something he wouldn’t have expected. She smiled. Couple gold teeth, she had, and she smiled with them. She smelled good, a heady, spicy perfume. “You look more scared than I do.”
“I just want the money, ma’am. Just please make it easy for both of us. All right?”