“Forget it, Bill.”
“I’d like to, Joe, but I can’t. And Pot says to tell you Conklin wants to personally beg your forgiveness.”
“That won’t be necessary. He has my forgiveness, tell him. No, tell Potter to tell him.”
Joe got up to freshen his nightcap, and bet himself, when the phone rang (considering the hour), it would be LBJ, but lost. It was Mac, in his cups. “Joe, my hat’s off to you… if I can ever be of any service… my hat’s off to you, Joe.”
Joe managed, in a nice way, to terminate the call. “Mr McMaster,” he told Bill. “His hat’s off to me.”
“The holdup?”
“What else?”
Joe’s heroism had been commented on by others far and near. Mrs P., Steve, Big Mouth, Patton. Dave Brock, in a letter of thanks. The Licensed Vintner’s wife (after Sunday Mass): “We miss your custom, Father, but it’s all his fault for letting nice Mr Barnes go.” Nan Gurrier, whose Jim still had his inventory and house, but was now gainfully employed in Shipping at Great Badger, owing to the intercession of the editor of the NS, which stood ready to mount an all-out campaign against it should there again be talk of expanding the dump: “We see you and the whole wide world with new eyes these days, Father.” Earl, another family man soon to better himself by making a change, by moving to Great Badger, Home Furnishings, in a managerial capacity, having responded to an ad in the issue of the NS that featured the holdup story: “Wow, Father. Hey, when it came out in the interview that I knew you personally and did your rectory, I was in.” Smiley of Smiley’s Shell, whose brother, Ed, pastor in name only, had eloped in July and of whom Smiley had then said, “Ed wasn’t fit to wear the uniform he didn’t wear,” and now said (of the holdup), “Nice going, Father. It may interest you to know Ed’s back in uniform — got himself a desk job with the Seattle P.D.” Father Day: “Joe, what a gas! By the way, Dollar Bill and Van, they’re both doing poorly.” Joe’s folks, now living year-round in Florida, who’d advised him, in effect, to let the robbers have it next time, life being more important than moola. Likewise Sister Agatha, in a note (with holy card enclosed), from retirement in her order’s motherhouse and possibly living in the past: “God bless you, my boy.” Uncle Bobby, in a wire from Honolulu, currently his base of operations: POUND THAT BEER. From LBJ, though, before Joe hung up on him again: “They caught you red-handed, huh?”
“No word from Toohey,” Joe said to Bill. “Well, I’m not surprised.”
Bill stared at Joe. “You expected him to say something?”
Joe stared at Bill and gradually understood. “About the holdup — hell, no. About the Arch coming out.”
“Oh.”
“To bless the rectory — I told you that.”
“Oh, sure.”
“Look. I’m not surprised. I don’t see how Catfish could queer the deal, but I never made it better than even money he wouldn’t.”
At first, Joe had wondered how Toohey, when and if he called, would eat crow. Would he act as if he hadn’t said no earlier, or not disguise the fact that he had and be hard-assed about it, or would he get someone else at the Chancery — maybe one of the women — to do the job? At first, Joe thought he’d just wait and see. But with each passing day he thought it more likely he’d just wait and not see. Call the Arch, tell all, get Toohey? This was a recurring fancy, building up, gathering force when, suddenly, early one morning, Catfish was calling.
“Don’t know what the hell you’re up to now”—alluding to Joe’s heroism? — “but we’ll be out there tomorrow. Eleven A.M. That’s sharp. He’ll do the other first. Five minutes for that. No more. Then the blessing.”
“‘The other’? What ‘other’?” Joe was saying when Toohey hung up.
Later that morning when Bill arrived at his office — he’d had a tooth pulled — Joe went over to see him.
“Any pain?”
“No, not yet.”
“Good. I had a call from Toohey.”
“Oh?”
“Oh?” Had Bill been given a mind-altering medication? “The Arch’s coming out to bless the rectory. Remember?”
“Joe, I guess I figured since it hadn’t happened, it wouldn’t… like the end of the world.”
“Yeah? Well, it’s happening. Tomorrow. Eleven A.M.”
“Joe”—Bill still seemed to find it hard to believe—“you want me to be present?”
“If you don’t mind,” Joe said with, he thought, sarcasm, which didn’t seem to get through to Bill. Joe told him about the conversation, such as it was, with Toohey. “Any idea what he could mean by ‘the other’?” But Bill was no help.
So Joe retired to his office to do some thinking, which went on, off and on, all day. Just before closing time, he called the Chancery, hoping to get an explanation from someone else if Toohey wasn’t there, but determined, if Toohey was there, to get it from him, and if hung up on, to call, or maybe go and see, the Arch and tell all — I’m tired of covering for that horse’s ass, Your Excellency.
But Toohey was there, and when Joe, his tone intimidating, asked about “the other,” Toohey was surprisingly civil.
“Some group he’s supposed to have his picture taken with. Wait a minute. Here it is. ‘Mr Lane, Cones, Casing,’ it says here. ‘Cheerleaders.’ Cheerleaders?”
Joe was silent.
“That mean anything to you?”
Joe was silent.
“You don’t know anything about this?”
“I didn’t say that,” Joe replied, and hung up.
Joe’s first thought was to call the Arch right away and let him know what he’d be doing if he had his picture taken with the Cheerleaders: repudiating one of his best men (“You run a tight ship, Father”), who’d said no to the Cheerleaders for much the same reason that some aborigines, he’d read, refuse to be photographed, fearing loss or diminution of being.
Joe’s next thought was not to call the Arch right away, but to try to understand what was going on, and so he made a list:
a) Arch doesn’t know what he’s doing, that I turned down Cheerleaders.
b) Arch knows what he’s doing, that I turned down Cheerleaders, but thinks I was wrong to do so.
c) Arch, in either case, probably aware of my infamy (in eyes of Mall crowd) and hopes, by having his picture taken with me and mine with him and Cheerleaders, to improve my image (in eyes of entire community).
d) Arch, in any case, doing business as usual — P.R.
Joe decided to leave well (lousy) enough alone, not to call the Arch, and for the next few hours he tried to be himself, which, in the circumstances, was hard for him. In the evening, as usual, he visited dp’s, forcing himself to do this, as he’d have to force himself in the morning, if by then he found the strength or the weakness — which would it be? — to do “the other.” Could something like this, for all its absurdity, be of divine or diabolic origin, a trial of humility or a temptation to pride, meant to build him up or tear him down? Or was it just more of the same, just nothing—in that case perhaps diabolic?
At last! A saint for today! Blessed Joseph of Inglenook, help of victims of P.R., pray for us!
As it happened, except for forcing himself to visit dp’s, he gained nothing by it and returned to the rectory in a state of acute dehydration. He was on his second drink when Bill returned, came in from what he called “chores,” and after taking a phone call in his room, reported to the study with a beer.