Anyway, that's the kind of thing I mean. Father Michael was a meaningful force in that hborhood. His congregation should have realized that.
Instead of getting so offended. By the errnons, I mean.”
"The money sermons," Carella said.
"The tithe sermons, yes," Krissie said.
"Some of his parishioners were offended by "Yes. By him calling the congregation.., well, , in effect.”
"I see.”
"From the pulpit.”
"I see.”
"One of the parishioners, I forget his distribu.ted a letter that said Jesus had driven money-changers from the temple and here they back again.., he was referring to Father you know. And the tithe sermons.”
"They must have been pretty strong Hawes said.
"Well, no stronger than the cult sermons. I those, too.”
“What cult sermons?" Carella asked.
"About the Church of the Bornless One.”
"What's the Church of the Bornless One?”
"You mean you don't.., come on, you're me. It's right in the precinct.
Only four blocks St. Catherine's.”
Hawes was wondering if Krissie Lund had thought of becoming a cop.
"I take it that the Church of the Bornless One some kind of cult," he said.
"Devil worship," Krissie said.
"And you're saying that Father Michael some sermons about...”
"About Satan being worshipped within a throw of St. Catherine's, yes.”
"Then that's what she was talking about," said, to Carella. "The housekeeper.”
Carella nodded.
He reached into his jacket, took out his and removed a photograph from the front-cover "Ever see this before?" he asked, and handed the picture to Krissie.
The picture had been taken last night, by a police photographer using a Polaroid with a flash. Her exposure had been a bit off, and so the red wasn't as true as the actual red of the paint the graffiti artist had used, nor was the green of the gate quite as bilious.
But it was a good picture nonetheless.
Krissie studied it carefully: "What's it supposed to be?" she asked.
"Ever go around to the Tenth Street side of the "Yes?”
"Past the garden gate?”
"Yes?”
"This is what's painted on that gate.”
"I'm sorry, I never noticed it," she said, and the photo, back. "Does it mean something?”
Carella was thinking it meant that Satan was worshipped within a stone's throw of St. Catherine's church, where a black kid had sou sanctuary from an angry white gang on Eas' Sunday, and where an offended parishioner circulated a letter about money-changers in temple. He was thinking that in the world of the Precinct, far uptown, any one of these things be considered a reasonable cause for murder.
"Excuse me, Miss. Lund," Hawes asked, "but i that Poison ?”
“No,” Krissie said, apparently knowing what he was talking about. "It's Opium.”
She had trained herself never to respond to name Mary Ann.
So when she heard the voice behind her speaking Spanish, using the name she'd the moment she'd come to this city, she kept right walking, paying no attention to it. She was not Ann. She was certainly not Marianna to speaking Spanish.
And then the voice said, "Ai, Mariucha," was the Spanish diminutive for Mary. She had called Mariucha in the Mexican prison. nickname had followed her to Buenos Aires. apparently here to this city as well. She walking. Her heart was pounding.
"Mariucha, despacio," the voice said, and men fell into step beside her, one on either side of her.
"Get away from me," she said at once, "or I'll yell for a cop.”
"Oh, dear," the handsome one said in Spanish.
"We don't want to hurt you," the ugly one said in Spanish.
Which meant he did want to hurt her, and would hurt her.
There was a switchblade knife in her handbag.
She was prepared to use it if she had to.
They were coming up Concord, walking away from the cluster of buildings that in a city this size passed for a campus. The school was familiarly known as The Thousand Window Bakery, a reference too historically remote for Marilyn to understand, but accurate enough in that the university complex seemed to be fashioned entirely glass. This was almost smack in the center of the that was Isola, equidistant from the rivers it north and south, only slightly closer to old Seawall downtown than to the Riverhead all the way uptown. The neighborhood was a good one. Plenty of shops and restaurants, theaters, apartment buildings with doormen there ahead on the corner a pair of 5 cops basking in the spring sunshine.
"Don't do anything foolish," the handsome one in Spanish.
She walked directly to the policemen.
"These men are bothering me," she said.
The cops looked at the two men.
The handsome one smiled.
The ugly one shrugged.
Neither of them said a word. They seemed recognize that if they opened their mouths in this and either Spanish or broken English came out, they'd be in serious trouble.
Marilyn kept waiting for the cops to something.
The cops kept looking at the two men.
They were both well-dressed. Dark suits. shirts. A red tie on one of them, a blue tie on other. Both wearing pearl grey fedoras. Very Very elegant-looking. Two legitimate enjoying a fine spring day.
"Guys," one of the cops said, "the lady wish to be bothered." He said this in the fraternal tone that men when they are suggesting to other men that nice piece of ass here and we could all handily our pleasure of her were we of a mind to, but out the goodness and generosity of our masculine let's not bother the lady if she does not wish to bothered, hmmhh? Marilyn almost expected him wink at the handsome one and nudge the ugly the ribs.
The handsome one shrugged, as if to say all men of the world who understand the va women.
The ugly one sighed heavily, as if to say We are all occasionally burdened by these beautiful, unpredictable creatures, especially at certain times of the month. Then he took the handsome one's arm, and led him away quickly and silently.
"Okay?" the cop asked Marilyn.
She said nothing.
The ugly one was looking back at her.
There was a chilling promise in his eyes.
All of the windows in the station house were open.
The barred windows on the ground-floor level, the grilled windows on the upper stories. It suddenly occurred to Carella that a police station looked like a prison. Even with the windows open, it looked like a prison. Grey, soot-covered granite blocks, a roof stained with a century's worth of shit, green globes flanking the entrance steps announcing in faded white numerals that here the Eight-Seven, take it or leave it. Carella had taking it for a good many years now.
The priest's papers were waiting on his desk.
Not eighteen hours after the discovery of Father s body, his various papers those strewn office floor, those still in his file cabinets or on desk had already been examined by the lab sent back uptown again by messenger. This was fast work. But the Commissioner himself happened to be black and who attended a Baptist church in the Diamondback section of city where he'd been born and raised . had morning made a television appearance on The Show, announcing by network to the nation at that this city could not, and would not tolerate wanton murder of a gentle man of God of persuasion. Not too many day-watch cops caught show because they were already out on the asking discreet questions in an attempt to aid abet the investigating cops of the Eight-Seven w simultaneously mollifying the irate Commissi himself. Up in the Eight-Seven, life went on as priest or not, this was just another murder, no pun intended, in a part of the city with weeds.
It was lunchtime in the squadroom The detectives sat around in shirt sleeves pistols. Sandwiches and coffee, pizza and were spread on the desks before them. Only waved to Carella as he came in. The others were busy listening to Parker.