Six hours later, with Theobold up and about, I approached Aslan’s cell. ‘I’m gonna take a little walk, stretch my legs. You wanna use the toilet, now would be the time.’
Aslan didn’t so much as blink and I took off, walking down a flight of stairs to emerge on Edgemere Avenue. The air, pushed by an onshore breeze, smelled of the Atlantic, only a block away. Behind me, the Ocean Bay Apartments, 1395 low-income units shoehorned into twenty-four buildings, dominated the landscape. I stared at the development, at the prison-block architecture, featureless, forlorn. In fact, it reminded me of Rensselaer Village, except that apartments in Rensselaer Village rented for five times as much.
I stood outside the door for a few minutes, then found a patch of shade. There really wasn’t anywhere to go. Gang dominated, this piece of Far Rockaway was the land of the 99-cent store, of decaying bodegas that survived on sales of loose cigarettes, lottery tickets and five dollar bags of reefer, of liquor stores where several inches of bulletproof plastic separated the owner — and his merchandise — from the customers. Our own little haven, with its wire cage, was above a laundromat that had a good inch of standing water on its concrete floor.
But I hadn’t come outside to savor the atmosphere. I wanted to call Adele and outside was the only private place to do it. Adele knew what I was up to with Aslan, knew that I’d take a shot at him before the day was done, and I was more or less obliged to report. Still, I don’t recall the conversation we had in any detail. A good piece of my brain was still upstairs with Aslan, reviewing our conversation, formulating tactics. I was rearranging the cards in my deck, but no matter how hard I shuffled, they were the same cards I’d already played. I told that to Adele, and she didn’t argue the point. My primary goal, she reminded me, was to keep Aslan out of circulation for the weekend. Breaking him was always the longest of long shots.
As it turned out, Aslan didn’t talk, not even to complain. He ate what we fed him and he used the bathroom when it was offered. But he did not talk. Toward the end, I found myself admiring his discipline. We couldn’t hold him forever and he knew it. I glanced at my watch. Hansen Linde would arrive soon. Without doubt, he’d take a shot at Aslan, as I’d done. But the only deal on Hansen’s table was deportation, a deal Aslan would never accept.
That left it up to the priest.
I was dog tired by the time I got home at one o’clock, too tired to eat or shower. Too tired, thankfully, to weigh gain and loss, or to contemplate failure. Nine hours later, when John Coltrane’s soprano sax announced an incoming call, I was already half awake. I thought it might be Adele getting ahead of the curve, but it was Sister Kassia.
‘Father Stan’s coming back early, at two o’clock,’ she said. ‘He wants to see you.’
Nothing ventured, nothing gained. That’s what I’d told Aslan. I felt my heart jump in my chest.
‘Can I assume he’s not dragging me out to Maspeth just to brush me off again?’
‘Harry, Father Stan doesn’t have a mean bone in his body.’
I took this as an affirmative response, though I didn’t know exactly what she meant.
‘Our deal,’ the nun continued, ‘I assume it remains in effect.’
‘Sure, Sister, if the women are still around. But six days is a long time. They might be anywhere by now.’
‘And that doesn’t bother you?’
‘Yeah, it does, but I plan to console myself with Mynka’s killer and Aslan Khalid.’
When I entered Blessed Virgin, Father Manicki was in the confessional. A wheelchair sat just outside, flanked by a man and woman, both middle-aged. When I approached, the woman asked, ‘Are you here to confess?’
‘No, I have to see Father Manicki about something else.’
The man laughed. ‘That’s my mother in there. Every coupla months she decides she’s dyin’ and she has to confess before it’s too late.’
‘Swear to God,’ the woman said, ‘the woman’s eighty-eight years old and she ain’t been outta this wheelchair in ten years. What could she possibly be confessing?’
I had no idea and I headed off to a pew at the rear of the church. But I was too restless to sit still. Within minutes, I found myself tracing Blessed Virgin’s outer walls. This wasn’t the first time I’d been in a Catholic church. Like every other New Yorker, I’d toured St Patrick’s cathedral on Fifth Avenue. But you could have put Blessed Virgin in one of St Patrick’s chapels, and while the stained glass and the statuary at the cathedral were exquisitely crafted, the artwork at Blessed Virgin was as humble as the church itself. Nevertheless, I found myself drawn to a series of small paintings arranged at intervals on both sides of the church.
The paintings depicted events in the final hours of Jesus’ life, and each bore a title in script on a small plaque below the frame: The Judgement; Jesus Carries His Cross; Jesus Falls for the First Time; Veronica Wipes the Face of Jesus; Jesus Falls for the Second Time.
That was as far as I got, a view of Jesus lying with his face in the dirt, his left arm extended and limp, his legs trailing in the dust. Helpless was the word that came to mind. Helpless and hopeless. That he could ever get up seemed a clear impossibility. Behind me, I heard a woman praying. Her voice was no more than a murmur, but I could understand the first few words of the prayer she kept repeating: Hail Mary, full of grace.?.?.
Father Manicki came up beside me a moment later. His blue eyes were streaked with red, the lids swollen above and below. The lines at the corners of his mouth seemed deeper. I remembered Sister Kassia describing the vows Father Stan had taken. Opening up went against all his instincts. Yet, here he was.
‘Father,’ I said, ‘do you remember a prize fighter named Joe Frazier?’
The priest nodded once. ‘Smokin’ Joe Frazier. He fought Muhammad Ali three times. What about him?’
‘Well, I saw him interviewed on television once, at a Golden Gloves tournament, and I remember he was asked if he had any advice he’d like to offer younger fighters. “Fire back,” was what he told the kids. “No matter how bad you’re hurt, get up and fire back.”?’
‘Is this another confession?’
I gestured to the painting. ‘If I was God, nobody would crown me with thorns, or whip me, or force me to carry my own cross.’
‘Not even if you could offer mankind the hope of redemption by submitting?’
‘Not even then.’
‘Maybe that’s because you’re only a man.’
‘And maybe it’s because I’ve spent most of my adult life protecting society from the unredeemed.’
Father Manicki led me out of the church and down the sidewalk, retracing the route I’d taken with Sister Kassia a few days before. He walked with his hands behind his back, leaning forward as though into a wind. But there was no wind that day, only a layer of haze and humidity that seemed to grow thicker, step by step.
‘You’re much more subtle than I gave you credit for,’ he said, his eyes fixed on the horizon, his voice hinting of a resentment he wasn’t supposed to feel.
‘How so?’
‘When you suggested that Mynka came to me for counseling, I failed to register the comment. Perhaps because you followed it with a very ugly accusation.’
I smiled. In the Fornes case, Father Towle had evaded the seal of the confessional by claiming that counseling, not absolution, had been the purpose of his encounter with Fornes. My lawyerly argument was that counseling and forgiveness were also separate events in Mynka’s encounter with Father Manicki.
Because I’d chosen them carefully, I could still remember my exact words: I’m thinking that she was confused, that she sought counseling from the only counselor available. That would be you, Father.
‘I showed you a photo of Mynka,’ I said, ‘with her belly ripped open, but I never told you why she was gutted.’
‘Actually,’ the priest was good enough to point out, ‘you led me to believe that she was mutilated by a psycho.’