Enriched. And somehow joyous. He'd gone to his first confession the day before, nothing to confess at that age, he truly was without sin, an innocent... Well... I lied, Father, and I ate meat on Friday, and I talked back to my mother. Sins. A boy's sins. lorgiven, absolved with a handful of Hail Marys, a couple of Our Fathers, and an Act again, the lamb again, joyous in the presence, on the following day, the Sunday of his communion. ' A year or so later, two years, so remember now, he was confirmed in that church, wearing the same blue suit, which beginning to outgrow, red ann ribbon on his his Uncle Lou looking tall and handsome in suit that matched his own, neatly mustache, his father gave him a gold signet rin his new initial on it, L for Louis, in honor godfather, SLC for Stephen Louis Carella, am a man. Sunday after Sunday in that then in the smaller church in Riverhead, three from the house his parents were renting, his own bedroom, he was a man now, he no shared bedroom with his sister Angela.
called him Stevie anymore. He was Steve Sunday after Sunday.
Rainy Sundays in the new church, slithering down the windows, plain glass Riverhead, he missed the stained glass they'd Isola, the priest's sonorous voice floating out the heads of the worshippers, the scent of wafting from thuribles, a lightning flash, the thunder, the scent of something else now, or real, the perfume of young girls, its scent headier than the incense, he was beginning to mind wandered, he thought of panties when he ,uld have been thinking of God.
Years later, on the Saturday before Easter he st have been fifteen or sixteen, he could hardly tuber anymore he was infused with the same spiritual fervor he'd felt on that day of his first , and he'd got on his bicycle, a black and ite Schwinn with a battery-powered horn, and pedaled over to the church, and locked the bike the wrought-iron fence outside... His father used to tell stories about the days when didn't even have to lock your front door, but that when there were chariots in the streets...
i ... and he took off his hat... He used to wear this shabby blue baseball cap that seen better days, but it was the good luck hat worn when he pitched a no-hitter... and he went into the church and dipped his into the font of holy water and made the sign of cross, and then sat down and waited his turn to enter the confession box. And he knelt on the padded kneeling bar, and the little door slid open and he could vaguely see the priest's face behind the screen partition, and he crossed himself and said, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned, this is six months since rny last confession.”
There was a silence behind the screen.
Carella waited.
And then the priest said, "And you pick the busiest time of the year to come?”
Carella confessed his sins. He had done bad things that had kept him away from the for six months because he'd been afraid of those things to a priest, evil things like Irish girl named Marge Gannon, and mastur little.., well, a lot.., and saying Fuck you, dirty bastard. The priest told him what he had as penance, and Carella said, "Thank you, and left the confession box, and was starting the center aisle toward the altar, fully say the penance so that tomorrow he could communion and feel the same glow he'd first time, when all at once he stopped dead middle of the aisle, and he thought What mean, the busiest time of the year? Does busiest times of the year? I was feeling good came in here, I wanted to be near God! So hell do you mean he actually thought those what the hell, here in the church, standing middle of the aisle halfway to the altar hell do you mean, the busiest time of the year?
And he turned his back to the altar, and the aisle, and out of the church, and he lucky baseball cap down on his head, unchained his bike, and rode away from the without looking back at it. He had not been “
church again until his sister's wedding eleven ago.
He was in one today.
Looking for dope.
Father Michael had searched the church and undoubtedly he'd known its nooks crannies more completely than any outsider ld have. And Carella had searched it again with and Bobby Corrente and his friends had done ther more reckless search,, and no one had come with the hundred vials of crack. So maybe the wasn't here, after all, maybe all the versions of Rashomon were false. And even if the crack was here, what were we talking about? Five hundred .liars? That was the street value of the crack Nathan Hooper allegedly had stashed inside St.
Catherine's. A lousy five hundred dollars. Was that enough to kill someone for? In this city, yes. In this city five hundred pistachio nuts was enough to kill someone for. And if someone had come to this church to retrieve that dope... And had been intercepted by Father Michael...
Perhaps challenged by him...
Yes, it was possible. The lieutenant was right.
Where there was dope, there was often murder.
Sighing heavily, he started the search one more time.
From the top.
Playing his own Rashomon tune.
Imagining himself as Nathan Hooper entering this church on Easter Sunday with the pack in full cry behind him.
Through the massive center doors. Urn of holy Water on the left.
Stainless steel, sitting on a black wrought-iron stand. Little upright brass fastened to the top of its lid. Little brass spigot container below. He pressed the button on the A drop of water fell onto the fingers of his hand. He could remember back to a time when fonts of holy water in a church were filled to every day of the week. Now, they were empty on Sundays. The urn was simpler. It held... three gallons of water? You didn't have to around the church filling all those little basins time.
To the right of the entrance doors was containing religious reading matter. New: rifled National Catholic Register and Our Visitor and Catholic Twin Circles. Pamphlets titles like Serving God's People with a Be, Your Will and Students Pursue the Infinite Wi. of God and Proclamation: Aids for Lessons of the Church Year, this particular subtitled Lent. The rack was fashioned of wood troughlike partitions holding the printed had felt inside those troughs, searching newspapers, when he'd gone through the with Hawes. He did it again now. Nothing.
The offerings box stood alongside the rack; one was expected to make donations reading material. There were twenty-two of boxes scattered throughout the chur6h; he counted them on his earlier search. Each resembled nothing so much as a black iron a black iron tower growing out of it. The box as a foot square, with a heavy padlock fastened to front, where the box opened. The tower sprang the center of the box, rising to about Carella's buckle. It was a three-inch-square chute with a in the top of it. The slit was perhaps three inches and half an inch wide. Big enough to accept a wadded bill.
Or a vial of crack.
But wouldn't Father Michael have emptied all the boxes in the church since Easter Sunday? And even if Hooper had dropped a dozen vials here and there in offerings boxes around the church...
But this would have taken time.
He was being chased by an angry mob.
But, hold it. Rashomon, okay?
He comes running into the church, carrying his plastic bag with his precious hundred vials in it. The vials are identical to the ones perfume samples come in. In fact, most crack dealers get their vials from wholesale specialty houses. The sale of these tiny containers has skyrocketed since crack came into vogue. If you checked the books of these houses, you'd think half the population of this city had Suddenly gone into the perfume business. Little perfume tubes containing the crack crystals, most of them white, some of them with a yellowish tint, little clear crystals looking as if they've been chipped from a larger rock, it is sometimes called rock because of its appearance. White or yellow, when you smoke the shit, when you melt it and vapors, it produces an immediate high that the top of your head off. So he's carrying his vials of crack in a small plastic bag... They'd have fit in a small bag.