“What is he doing here?” I hissed, as I darted a quick glance from behind the stove.
“He lives here,” hissed back Stevie reasonably, and I saw his point.
From our hiding place we could see how Sam was staring at the love letters I’d smoothed out and laid side by side on the carpet.
“Dammit,” I groaned, for I’d completely forgotten the cardinal rule of espionage: never leave a trace behind.
“Too late now,” said Stevie, as he eyed every move of his master in tense concentration.
Father Sam Malone was a handsome fellow, as men go, or at least that’s what I keep hearing from my female associates. He’s tall, lean and muscular, with the kind of chiseled features and full head of hair most commonly found on the covers on display in the supermarket romance novel section. The fact that Brookridge is one of those small towns where the church still fills up nicely every Sunday morning attests to the man’s powers of attraction. That the force is strong in this one, is attested to by the fact that it’s mostly women occupying the pews and hanging on every word that rolls from this wonder man’s sensual lips—don’t blame me for this last adjective. Blame Dana, for she’s the one nauseating me with that description of the man’s chops. She also told me the padre’s got a nice singing voice, though that’s probably neither here nor there. He was now looking slightly disheveled, as if he’d just rolled out of bed, which he probably had.
Sam was now collecting the fruits of his penmanship with trembling hands and laid them carefully on his desk. He stood staring at them for a space, probably wondering what had induced him to destroy them in the first place, when it was so obvious fate wanted them preserved for posterity, then he heaved a deep sigh and uttered the single word both me and Stevie had come to dread:“Bluebell.”
“Oh, my God,” moaned Stevie.
“You can say that again,” I muttered.
Something of our verbal utterances must have reached the good father’s ears, for he turned to stare in our direction. Then Stevie, the mutt, couldn’t resist the temptation of a cuddle, and walked over to his master to stroke himself against the latter’s leg.
I groaned at the sight of an agent giving free rein to his baser impulses. And I was just making a mental note of this utterly unprofessional behavior on the part of my new partner, when the telephone rang. The sound seemed to startle Sam—a clear sign of a bad conscience—and it was with marked nervousness that he picked up the receiver. Then again, since the night was now well advanced, he was probably simply wondering who the hell was phoning him at this hour.
“Hello?” he said tentatively, as if expecting someone to jump from the earpiece and snap his head off. Then he visibly relaxed and took a seat at the desk. “Oh, it’s you. What do you want? Yeah? Well, you’re not going to get it.”
Very mysterious, all this, don’t you think? At least I thought so, and so did Stevie, for he threw questioning glances in my direction. I merely shrugged, indicating I, too, had no idea what was going on.
Meanwhile Sam had risen, and so had his temper.“Then tell him I’m in charge here and if he doesn’t like, he can lump it!” he said in the tones of one who’s had about all he can take and can’t take no more. “Now listen here, you… you… Hello? Hello? Hell and damnation!”
And on this last word, he slammed down the receiver. It doesn’t often happen that you see a man of God lose it like that, and the spectacle was a fascinating one, to be honest.
“Who does he think he is, calling me up in the middle of the night?”
The voice intruded upon my reverie and for a moment I wondered where it had come from. It sounded like Father Sam, only more subdued somehow, as if spoken in an undertone.
“I’m in charge and I don’t have to take this.”
Once again I had the impression Sam had spoken, only this time I’d been watching him carefully, and his lips hadn’t moved! I threw a quick glance over at Stevie, to see if he was experiencing the same phenomenon, but my Ragamuffin friend was licking his butt, lost to the world.
“Next time he phones I’ll tell him his suggestions stink. That’s right. Stink. Ha! That’ll teach him.”
A jagged lump that seemed to have inserted itself into my throat prevented me from crying out in terrified horror, and I swallowed it down with some effort. My eyes and ears hadn’t deceived me: I was hearing Sam, even though he wasn’t speaking!
18
Reading Minds
“Now where did I put that final draft?” Sam thought, as he started rifling through his desk drawers.
As clear as if he was enunciating the words, I could hear Sam’s every single thought! I sat staring at the man from my hiding place, slowly shaking my head. This wasn’t possible. This wasn’t… Then I remembered something Dana had said. Something about planting thoughts in people’s heads. Could it be? Nah, of course not. Or could it?
“Ah, here it is. Now where were we? Mh, yes. Jack Mackintosh is relaxing in his den, watching a game, when suddenly the doorbell rings. He goes to open the door and finds Zoe hovering on the mat. He quickly steps outside, trying to induce the girl to take a hike, when…”
My eyes were bubbling and my ears were ringing. This wasn’t really happening. And yet it was.
Sam had taken out a pencil and was jotting down notes in the margin.“Mrs Mackintosh isn’t home,” he was saying to himself. “So why doesn’t Jack invite Zoe in?” He sat back in his chair, and tapped the pencil thoughtfully on his papers. “Of course. He doesn’t want the neighbors to see.” He smiled and wrote another note as he stuck out his tongue and spelled the note in his head. “He doesn’t want the neighbors to know about the affair. Especially Mrs. Mueller. There. Not bad.” A wide smile creased his face as he admired his own cleverness. “I’m so smart!” he thought.
For a moment I’d had the distinct sensation I was going mad, but now I knew this was really happening; only humans could act this silly.
“Jesus, I’m clever!” the man was thinking.
“Jesus, he’s an idiot!” I was thinking.
“I’m a frickin’ genius!” Sam thought.
“He’s a frickin’ moron!” I thought.
“I’m hungry,” Stevie thought.
It was the first thought of Stevie’s that had penetrated my consciousness, and I only had two answers as to why that was: either Sam’s mental processes had dominated my cerebral cortex to the exclusion of all else, or Stevie simply didn’t think all that much. I leaned towards the latter, especially since Stevie’s next thought was, “I wonder what tastes better, left chicken breast or right chicken breast?”
I was drowning in a sea of imbecility and for a moment toyed with the idea of simply exiting the scene stage left, then fought down the inclination and decided to hang in there, lest I missed vital information pertaining to the case.
Father Sam seemed to have exhausted his creative faculties, for he threw what I now knew to be the screenplay for Murder in the Park on his desk, raked his fingers through his hair, and thought,“Better get some more sleep. Beddy-bye-bye, baby.”
He flicked off the light in the room and stumbled out, presumably back to bed. I shook my head, dazed and confused.
“Did you hear that?” I said, leaving my perch behind the stove to confer with my fellow espionage expert.
“Huh?” said Stevie intelligently. “What’s that?” he added for good measure.
“Didn’t you hear what Sam just thought?” I specified my question, though from Stevie’s vacuous expression I already had my answer.
“How would I know what Sam thought? I’m not a mind reader.”
Reluctant though I was to pursue a line of questioning fraught with embarrassment, I persisted.“Didn’t you hear…” For a moment I struggled with myself, then I was strong again. “… beddy-bye-bye?”