“I’ll buy you a drink, Jamaica.”
“Thanks for the offer, Nance, but I think I’ll take a rain check. I’m living in Soho now.” She handed him a card. “Stop by some time. I have to tell you a strange story I heard while I was down in Dominica on assignment.” A yellow cab finally pulled up. She got in. She looked at him for a moment. A few years before he would have asked her for sex. He shook her hand instead. Besides, who knew what was in store for him this night. Maybe Irene. The one that Leadbelly said he would get in his dreams. He started home, whistling.
18
“I was the first in my family to try smoking, the first to play hooky from school, the first to venture away from home, and the first to go to jail. On the other hand, I was the first child in the family to own a Cadillac, the first to have a formal wedding, the first to fly to Europe, the first to earn a half million dollars, and the last one to admit that I was wrong.”
The Pope was inside his Vatican apartment, reading Chuck Berry’s autobiography and shaking his head in disgust, when Cardinal Malidori walked in. He was black haired and wore a black goatee. The Pope shoved the autobiography into a desk drawer. His face was as that of a Cameroon antelope mask. Malidori had eyes like a sparrow. He bowed, and the Pope noted a touch of sarcasm in his voice when he said “Your Holiness.” These dagos still haven’t gotten used to a foreign Pope. They’d prefer one of their own. Have to be careful or they’ll bump me off the way they did Pius and John, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a hand in hitting John Paul. I’ll bet they hired that mad Turk. They just can’t stand a non-Italian in my place. Just like Mussolini said about the Italians. A nation of waiters, the Pope thought.
“Yes, what is it, Malidori?”
“Your suspicions were correct, Your Holiness.” Your Holiness. That’s a laugh. The Romans were the center of the world when his ancestors were crawling around central Asia on their hands and knees, eating goat’s cheese. What was the joke our friends, the Nazis, used to make about them? Why the Slavs. Nobody knows where they came from. Ha.
“We put all of the material into the Vatican computer. Contraceptives, bio-birth technology, birth control, homosexual priests, divorce, married priesthood, women priests, and all of these other demands. It sounds like Old Nick out to embarrass us again.”
“I knew it. Who else would it be,” the Pope said, rising from his breakfast. “Why in the old days women used to cling to his effigy in order to become pregnant, and he tolerated all manner of loose immoral behavior. He advocated a married priesthood back there in the Middle Ages, and his position toward the devil has always been weak. This Black Peter character, for example. One version has it that this creature was originally exorcised from somebody’s body, but instead of destroying this fiend, Nick hired him. So he’s the one who is raising such a fuss among the American church, and up to now we thought it was merely some of those Irish priests, Druids in priests’ clothing. But now he’s back. The rascal is as irrepressible as voodoo. In fact, what is the custom of leaving cakes and delicious things before chimneys for him but idolatry? The Calvinist Walich Sieuwerts knew. Filling shoes with all sorts of sweets. Nothing but sacrifice to an idol. Voodoo plain and simple.”
“There have been new developments. Black Peter is also back. And if Nick sees that he’ll surely want to engage the creature in a contest. Word has it that Nick is losing his touch.”
“But I thought Black Peter was an impostor.”
“Yes, there is an impostor. Remember we sent someone to investigate from the Office of the Holy See, and he turned up missing, but before he disappeared he informed us that Black Peter was an impostor.”
“But if Black Peter is an impostor, why doesn’t Nick contest him? Why would he waste his time?”
“Because the real Black Peter is back in action. He’s going about the United States performing intimate miracles. He arrived there to deal with the other Black Peter, but he usually becomes diverted from his true goals; he just can’t resist helping those in distress.”
“So Nick is probably going to show up on the scene too?”
“You know what a ham he is. How he likes to make appearances.”
“This couldn’t happen at a worse time. We’re in a great contest with the Antichrist, a great eternal adversary, and we’re losing the battle.”
“There’s also a little matter about cash, Your Excellency. Our debtors say they can’t wait any longer and they’re going to attach a lien to some of our property.”
“Can’t they understand, Malidori, that we’re locked in a struggle that goes on twenty-four hours per day, that he is using subterfuge to undermine our belief in absolutes, that relativism, deconstructionism, positivism, and other philosophies are winning over intellectuals of the West? They don’t realize that Satan is real! That Satan is behind deconstructionism, genetic engineering, liberation theology, and prochoice. The devil is behind this move to bring us down!”
“Yes, Your Holiness, I understand that, but the creditors are simple, crude men. They’re threatening to turn Saint Peter’s into a hotel. They want to turn Vatican City into a complex of motels, shopping malls, and upscale boutiques. Surely Satan can wait—”
The Pope’s blue eyes cut Malidori like a laser, and his hair seemed to be in flames. Malidori withered under the Pope’s presence. The Pope was feeling pretty good up to that moment. In fact, he’d felt good all day, whistling over his breakfast, even eliciting stares from the other cardinals. The night before, he dreamed that he’d returned to his apartment after a full day, and the Virgin was sitting on his bed. All she was wearing was a head covering, and she took that off too. After she removed it she shook her hair, and the hair fell across her back. He woke up and the sheets were bloody. He didn’t tell anybody. “I’m sorry, Your Excellency, I misspoke.”
The Pope went to the window and stared out over the plaza. Pigeons were walking about the fountain, and there were tourists looking up at his balcony, or taking pictures.
“Malidori.”
“Yes, Your Excellency?”
“How do you, well, the devil, how do you suppose he looks?”
Malidori paused. He stroked his goatee. “I imagine him to look like Billy Dee Williams, the American actor, an absolutely fascinating and devastating charmer.”
“Malidori, I want to be alone.” Malidori exited, bowing and crossing himself. If they knew about his dream, the Italians and the Spanish would read him out of the Church. It was along about three in the morning. He was restless. He was about to go to the chapel when the infernal one stood before him. He was built like a wrestler, and wore black leotards and black boots. He had the head of a goat. And what he did to him made him feel so delicious that he was wondering about his sanity. Again, the devil offered him the contract, but Malidori had enough self-control not to sign.
But he was getting weak. How long would he be able to hold out?
19
Fryer Moog awoke, or rather came to. He heard a quiet snare. He looked up and on the other side of the room, sitting at the drums, accompanying a short man wearing dark glasses and playing the trumpet like an angel, was the man who, in admiration, many musicians called Klook-a-Mop.