Abby admits to Carella now that there was something deliciously sinful about doing it wil priest, something that kept her coming... "You should pardon the expression..." she sai ... back to the church again and again, three, f times a week, morning, noon and night... "I lied about only having seen him a few times i ...
something that took her back there on Ea Sunday as well. Which, after all, is a time celebration, isn't it, Easter? The Resurrection, Christ, and all that? So why not celebrate? Wh she is there to do on this Holy Day of the S Telling of Rashomon, Easter Sunday, the fifteel day of April in the Year of Our Lord, Amen.
She is wearing for the occasion of the pries| twelfth despoiling - she has counted the number times they've done it since April Fool's Day - simple woolen suit appropriate to the chill of season, beneath which are a garter belt and silk pants she bought at Victoria's Secret, and seaml silk stockings and nothing else, the priest having tol her on more than one occasion that he low, watching her naked breasts spill free each time unbuttons her blouse, perhaps recalling his simil experience with the young but bountiful Felicia the rooftop. But all to her surprise, he tells Abby tlu he wants to end it, that their relationship is filli him with guilt and remorse, that he feels a. traitor his church, his God, and his sacred vows, and has even contemplated suicide... "A lot of men have told me that," she said... so please, Ab, we must end it, this is driving rne crazy, Ab... "He used to call me Ab, it was a pet name...”
please, have mercy on me, let me end it, please, my dearest... "He also called me his dearest...”
which Ab, his dearest, has no intention of doing. Ending it, that is.
She is enjoying this too much, this sinful expedition into the darkest heart of religiosity, this corruption of a priest, this sticking it to God, so to speak, in his own house, oh no, she is not about to end it now. Not now when her pleasure is so fulfilling, not now when she is at the peak of her ardor and he is at the peak of his delirium. So she tells him... "I told him if he ended it now, I'd let the whole world know about it.”
She smiled at Carella, mysteriously.
"Which is when he started...”
"Which is when he started yelling blackmail," Carella said.
"Oh?" Abby said.
"You were heard and you were seen," Carella said, lying only a little bit, in that Alexis hadn't seen her face.
"Well, yes, that's exactly what he started yelling.
Blackmail. This is blackmail, this is blackmail, how dare you.., how silly, really! I told him it was for his own good. Because, really, I was incredibly good for him.”
“What happened then?" Carella asked.
"Everything," Abby said. "A black kid running into the church, bleeding, and there pounding on the doors, and the doors caved in, bunch of white kids came running in after him, mister, I have to tell you, I was out the back door fast as my feet would carry me.”
"When did you see him again?”
"Who?”
"Father Michael.”
"Never. I figured if he wanted out, fuck him." looked up at Carella and smiled.
"Would you have wanted out?" she asked.
He ignored the question.
"Where were you on May twenty-fourth six-thirty and seven-thirty?" he asked.
"I wasn't out killing a priest, that's for sure.”
"Okay, now we know where you weren't," said. "Can you tell me where you were?”
"Not without getting personal," she said, smiled that same infuriating, mysterious smile.
"Miss. Finch..." he said.
"I was right here," she said. "All night long.
a man named Dwight Colby. Check it," she "he's in the phone book.”
"Thank you," he said. "I will.”
“He's black," she said.
The ugly one again.
"Qu tal?”
His first words. Signaling that they would speak only in Spanish, his language. She went along with it. Tomorrow it would be over and done with.
Forever.
In Spanish, she said, "Yo tengo el dinero.”
I have the money.
"Oh?" he said, surprised. "That was very fast.”
"I met with my contact last night. The deal is too complicated to explain, but...”
"No. Explain it.”
"Not on the telephone. You can understand that.
Let me say only that it turned out to be simpler than I thought it would.”
"Well, that's very nice, isn't it?”
Forced joviality in his voice.
Pero, eso est6 muy bien, no?
"Yes," she said. "Can you come here tomorrow afternoon?”
"I'm not sure we want to come there," he said.
"You live in a dangerous place. A person can get hurt in that place.”
Reminding her that there was still an additional debt she owed. For the cutting of the handsome one.
The two million would pay for the killing of Alberto Hidalgo... maybe.
But she knew the ugly one would not be content until the cutting was paid for as well.
Machismo was invented by Spanish-speaking people. So was venganza.
"Well, I'm sorry," she said, "but I'm not about to go out on the street carrying two million cash.”
Show them the green.
"You have the full amount, eh?”
"All of it.”
"In what denominations?”
"Hundreds.”
"How many hundreds?”
He almost trapped her. She surely would counted that much money, she surely would known how many hundred-dollar bills there were two million dollars. Her mind clicked like calculator. Drop two zeros, you come up with... "Twenty thousand," she said at once, and embroidered the lie.
"Two hundred banded hundred bills in each stack.”
“Good," he said.
"Can you be here at three tomorrow?”
Willis would be working the day watch a He'd leave here at a quarter past eight, and wouldn't be home till four-fifteen, four-thirty.
that time it would be finished.
"Three-thirty," he said.
"No, that's too...”
"Three-thirty," he repeated.
"All right," she said, sighing. "You'll have minutes to count the money and get out.”
"I hope there won't be any tricks this time," said.
The word trucos meant only that in S Tricks. It did not have the secondary or tertiary meanings it had in English, where a trick was either a prostitute's client or the service she performed for him. He was not making veiled reference to either her own or his uncle's former occupations. Too much the gentleman for that. No Shad Russell here, this man's mind wasn't in the gutter. He was simply warning her not to come up with any surprises.
"No guns," he said, "no knives, eh?”
Reminder of the debt again.
The cutting of the handsome one.
"No tricks," she said. "I just want this over and done with.”
"Yes, so do we.”
The something in his voice again. The promise.
Running deep and dark and icy cold beneath the surface of his words.