"It's American, and most appropriate. On several levels; a band of former colonists fought a war with their new Democratic government for the right to manufacture and sell rye without paying a tax on it."
"You shame me with your knowledge of the history of the country where I was born."
"Every native son should be required to take a refresher course for citizenship. Straight up, or with water?" Kyril was standing in front of his water cooler, squat with a white ceramic crock, pulling two pointed paper cups from the dispenser on the wall.
"Mostly water, please."
Bending to the spigot, he filled the first cup to within a half-inch of the rim, twisted the cap off the bottle, breaking the seal, and topped it off. After handing the cup to Vasco he hesitated, then did the same for himself.
"I had a problem in the seminary," he said. "We all did, but a shared problem is a lark, especially when you're young. A rebellion, like they were having in the provinces, before the professionals took charge and started slaughtering priests and stabling their horses in the churches. Stealth was already in our training, because the state religion was Eastern Orthodox, and there were some, Bulgars especially, who'd as soon tar and feather a Catholic as a Turk. We went to extraordinary lengths to conceal our vice from the brothers. Suspending the mash in a cheesecloth sack through the hole in the outhouse took the adventure out of it for me. We made it from rotten potatoes, you see, so covering up the odor was a priority."
"It must've been awful."
"The first taste of sin often is. It takes a certain kind of reckless courage to try it again. I haven't had anything stronger than sacramental wine in more than twenty-five years. Best to start slow. Here's to mercy in victory."
It was a splendid toast, just right. They touched cups and drank. Vasco found the rye much more pleasant in diluted form. The water tasted of iron and limestone—the crock was past due for cleaning—and the combination of minerals and distilled spirits was sweet but not cloying, and warmed his insides in a way he wouldn't have thought he'd welcome, given the day's oppressive heat. But the study's location on the north side of the rectory in the shade of a palm grove provided some relief, even if much of it was illusory; the shades were drawn, plunging the room into artificial twilight and obliterating the vision of a sun burning white in the sky.
They sat on opposite sides of the desk. Kyril stirred his paper cup with a square-nailed finger and sucked on it. "I hope the boys in France take time from the fighting to raid the cellar of a chateau. I'd hate to think of them drinking the juice of fermented turnips."
"Wouldn't that be stealing?"
"They're killing, too, don't forget. To everything there comes a season, and the Lord has provided thieves with a patron saint all their own. Drink's as important in war as it is in worship. Did you know during the Civil War the Union Army issued a quart of whiskey a day to each soldier in the field?"
"It seems to me that would affect their performance in combat."
"Oh, those Southern boys on the other side could smell out a jug of corn liquor in a pasture covered with cow flop, so it all evened out. The natives up in Georgia dig Minié balls out of trees bordering old battlefields, sell them to tourists for souvenirs, and support themselves on the profit. For every human casualty there were a hundred trees riddled with lead. On both sides, from generals on down to buck privates, there wasn't one man in five drawing a sober breath on the day of a major battle. Think how many lives would be spared if the Axis and Allied powers requisitioned rye, Scotch, schnapps, and sake for all their troops. Human lives, that is. The Argonne woods and the Black Forest might never recover."
"If they did all their drinking together, maybe none of them would have to die."
"A pacifist view, and an unpopular one just now, but I think there's merit in it. Unfortunately, the Prince of Peace is in mothballs at present." Kyril wrapped both hands around his cup and lapsed into silence. Outside, a string of firecrackers went off like twigs snapping in a fireplace; apart from that the noise of celebration seemed to be subsiding. The news from Europe was not the beginning of the end, but another beginning, with many more young lives still to be sacrificed, and the hangover was setting in. Kyril himself had not appeared to be in a buoyant mood when Vasco had knocked. Vasco took another sip, which emboldened him. "You're troubled, Father. Are you thinking of those men at Normandy?"
"I think of little else. The bloodshed no doubt is biblical, the horror unimaginable. And I am not there to share in it."
Vasco said nothing. He shouldn't have asked the question. "I tried calling the War Department an hour ago, when I got tired of ringing that blasted bell. I couldn't get through, of course. The switchboards are jammed. Not that it matters. I'd have been told to be patient, just as they've been telling me for months. It may all be over by the time my orders come through. There's something absurd about a military chaplain in peacetime, blessing bones broken in drunken brawls and organizing drives for penicillin to cure the clap. A one-man glee club, cheering for men waiting to ship home and bored half to death."
"Surely there's more to it than that."
"Nothing a first-year seminarian couldn't handle. Brother Thomas would be overqualified."
"I'm sorry to say there is plenty of war left to go around."
"I'm sorry to say that I draw strength from the fact. It makes me sick to my stomach."
The silence that followed was mutually morose.
Kyril brightened suddenly, like a puppet jerking its own strings. "What of you, Father? How are things on Molokai?"
He realized after a moment Kyril was referring to Palm Island. He took a drink and made the kind of decision a man often regretted. "I seem to have misplaced my head leper."
The pastor's immediate response was enigmatic. He got up, carrying his cup—its cone shape prevented it from being set down—walked around behind Vasco, opened the door and looked out, then closed it and shot the bolt, a maneuver from a spy movie. Every portal in the church and rectory secured in this fashion, with heavy cypress shutters that could be bolted in place over the stained-glass windows from inside. Vasco knew nothing of the buildings' vintage, but such precautions seemed designed to protect the occupants from a siege by hostile Seminole Indians. Kyril lifted the bottle from the desk, refilled both cups, the ratio of water to whiskey shifting now, and resumed his seat.
"Nothing spoken of here leaves this room," he said. "An agreement between gentlemen, entirely secular. God has His hands full this day. That door is three inches thick. If Thomas tries to eavesdrop, all he'll get is an earful of splinters."
"Is he so curious?"
"I have no idea, but I don't trust a man who seldom speaks. He takes in more than he gives out. You've lost Capone?"
"Even the authorities have no idea where he is, and he was being watched closely."
"You notified the authorities?"
"They notified me." Vasco drank. The strength of the liquor began to fill his head like a balloon. He had to think around the void. "I'm on a mission, Father. I've been recruited by Washington to monitor the black market. Chicago is a major source, and Al Capone is Chicago." He thought it a plausible distortion of the truth, sustainable by anything he might let slip.
"By monitor you mean investigate."
"I have no experience in detective work. I'm a professional listener, the same as you."
"How is this Church business?"
"Bishop Donahue in Cicero wants a community center. He could spare me, and so he agreed to the trade."
"Not flattering."
"True, nonetheless." At bottom, in the cosmic scheme of things, Donahue would not remember him from his time at St. Francis, and if reminded of him now he would know him only as a bargaining chip.
"You're harsher on yourself than need be. You handle yourself well at Mass."
"Any choir boy could do what I've done, if the Church allowed it."
"Perhaps so, but I've seen bishops who couldn't. You must learn to accept com
pliments, Father. False humility is nothing more than pride in its most unbecoming form."
"Thank you." Bile rose at the words. He cut it with whiskey.
"What division of the government is responsible for this miraculous community center?"
"The FBI."
"You're a G-man?"
"Hardly that. An informant. A snitch, as they say in melodramatic fiction." He felt a bitter smile twitching at the corners of his lips.
This, too, was close enough to fact that he could tell it without fear of Kyril's pale eyes penetrating to the back of his head. It skirted the worst offenses to the Church; he was certain their "gentlemen's agreement" would collapse in the face of such a revelation, although the seal of the confessional might have survived it. But to confess everything would bring no absolution, because he could not promise to stop. At the same time the pressure was too great to go on as he had, with no one to confide in but the Director, who was all questions and no comfort.
Kyril fingered his cup. He hadn't raised it to his lips since he'd refilled it. "Are you a priest?"
Vasco almost dropped his. The man's perceptions were superhuman. It took all the energy he had not to assume he knew everything already and admit the truth. "Yes, of course. I would never have agreed to sit in confession if I weren't." No air stirred in the room. A silence so profound hurt his ears like a sudden rise in pressure. Finally Kyril drank, a long draught that caved in the sides of the cup. "Why you, Father? Why not me? I was here already, and I'd had personal contact with Mrs. Capone. Or Monsignor O'Meara at Blessed Sacrament, where she attends Mass several times a week. Miami could use a community center. What are your qualifications?"
"My father drove a beer truck for Capone in Chicago. That tie goes much farther back, and family connections are important to Italians. I was selected specifically on that basis."
"Yes, you mentioned the association. I'd forgotten. I'm glad we're having this talk. I was considering asking the diocese to reassign one of us. Your independence and your mysterious comings and goings had me convinced I was the one under scrutiny."
This surprised him nearly as much as being asked if he was a priest. "Why-ever you?"
"The pope is committed to neutrality. Publicly, of course, the Church in America supports the war, but the Vatican distrusts priests who it feels are too— demonstrative. I'm more vulnerable than some, because the case can be made that I'm neglecting my parish while waiting for my assignment to the Corps of Chaplains. Now that I've said that out loud, I think I've stumbled upon the reason I'm still waiting."
"I assure you you're safe from me." He had a sudden insight. "Have you thought of Brother Thomas?"
"He was my second choice. Do you think Capone suspected you and that's why he fled?"
"My fear is that more drastic measures may have been taken."
"Assassinated by his own people?"
"It has a great deal of precedent. Dementia is a symptom of his disease. I've seen him when he wasn't sure who he was talking to. In criminal circles that's seen as a threat."
"Wicked world." Kyril drained his cup and crumpled it in his fist. He sat holding it at ear level as if he'd forgotten all about it. "Why didn't you come to me earlier?"
"I'm disobeying instructions by telling you now, but the burden was too great. I'm unaccustomed to this work. My own father doesn't know what I'm doing. He thinks I'm out to save Capone's soul."
"Thank you for your trust."
"I'm sorry it took so long. You're a hard man to know. I had to be sure."
Kyril nodded and dropped the crushed cup into the wire wastebasket beside the desk. "Obviously, you're going to be busy. Would you prefer it if I released you from your responsibilities at Redemption?"
"That would draw attention. I have a hunch I'm being watched as well, by Capone's brother, Ralph. And I'd be grateful for the distraction of work. I've been told to be patient, same as you, and wait for word."
"It's worse than perdition, isn't it?"
"I haven't the real thing to compare it with. Can I get back to you?"
The pastor surprised him with a short Slavic bark of a laugh. "I'm happy to hear you're still on board. During today's service I'm announcing a special evening Mass to be held tomorrow night, to pray for our men in combat. I'd like you to lead the congregation in that prayer, and for you to make the selection." Panic coursed through him like electric shock. He'd never been front and center except when he'd read the Gospel at Easter, and Kyril had chosen the passages. Selecting the text was the next thing to composing a sermon from scratch. "Surely you should lead, Father."
"I think the parishioners would be more attentive to someone who is the same age as the men he's praying for. Old men talk while young men die. The conduct of war never changes, but that doesn't mean the Church has to follow the example." He pushed the bottle of rye Vasco's way. Vasco left it there.
"I intended it as a gift."
"Lead me not into temptation, Father. I told you I had a problem."
HE SELECTED PSALM 35; and in the selecting understood why Kyril had insisted that the prayer be pronounced by one of the fighting generation. All of the prayers were in first person. To edit scripture was blasphemous, but for a man clearly too old to serve in the front lines to ask for his own protection would be to defeat its purpose. The congregation was somber, and if anything larger than the turnout at Easter. Men and women, unable to find a seat, stood along the back wall, the line curving around to the sides. He recognized many faces—none of them belonging to the Capone family—and saw many new ones: spillovers, perhaps, from Blessed Sacrament, whose pastor had announced a similar Mass to take place at the same time. Kyril had seemed irritated when he learned of it, although he made no remark. Vasco had sensed tension on the subject of Monsignor O'Meara, based on Kyril's tone whenever he alluded to him.
The air was stifling. Vasco's vestments hung on him with a weight like chain-mail, but the hands grasping the edges of the pulpit felt stiff and cold. He was leaning against it to keep from falling. He'd taken the precaution of transcribing the text onto pages from the same notebook he used to record Al Capone's reminiscences, block-printing in large letters, but they swam before his eyes when he tried to focus. He rubbed them and was relieved when his vision cleared.
" 'Plead my c—' " His voice caught on a frog in his throat. He made a noise into his fist that sounded embarrassingly like the Chrysler engine on Paul Vasco's boat when he opened up the throttle, and started again. " 'Plead my cause, O Lord, with them that strive with me; fight against them that fight against me.
" 'Take hold of shield and buckler, and stand up for mine help.
" ' Draw out also the spear, and stop the way against them that persecute me: say unto my soul, I am thy salvation.
" 'Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul; let them be turned back and brought to confusion that devise my hurt.
" 'Let them be as chaff before the wind; and let the angel of the Lord persecute them.
" 'For without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul.
" 'Let destruction come upon him at unawares; and let his net that he hath hid catch himself; into that very destruction let him fall.
" 'And my soul shall be joyful in the Lord; it shall rejoice in his salvation.'
"Amen."
At the close of the service, Sergei Kyril placed the Gospel beneath his arm, and as he turned away from the pulpit he grasped Vasco's shoulder briefly and let go.
That evening, Brother Thomas tapped at Vasco's door as he lay studying the breviary, and when told to come in, handed him a Special Delivery letter addressed to him at Our Lady of Redemption.
It was a square blue envelope with a Wisconsin postmark, no return address, block-printed by an androgynous hand. After Thomas left, he opened it and slid out a train ticket and a note, written in turquoise ink in a script he was instantly certain belonged to Mae Capone:
Mercer,
Wis., any day next week. You'll be met.
Snorky's been asking for you.
Please don't let us down. We'll make it worth the church's time.
M.
P.S. We're "on the lam," so destroy this note and keep it to yourself.
He reread it. His hands were shaking so badly the first time he'd missed some of the words.
He put the ticket back in the envelope and the envelope in the inside pocket of his suit coat on its hanger. Then he tore the handwritten sheet into tiny pieces and mixed them in with the crumpled notebook pages containing Psalm 35 in the wastebasket.
Why Wisconsin, of all the places on earth?
TWENTY-TWO
CHICAGO THUNDERED UNDER A CANOPY OF SOOT. ITS MILES OF TUBBY BRICK warehouses and skyscrapers like stacked spools of thread wore many coats of it, and chimneys and smokestacks, independent cities themselves, poured fresh black funnel clouds directly into an overcast made entirely of burned coal and animal entrails. If anything, the weather was hotter and more oppressive than in Miami. Laundry hung as motionless as streaks of rust from lines everywhere and the commuter cars racing Vasco's train along the elevated shimmered in waves coming from the pavement seven stories below. Just looking out the window made him break out in a sweat in his air-cooled coach.
He was just a year older than Al Capone when he'd first come to the place, but although it had changed little visibly, he could not match that young man's frame of mind. True, that had been in flinty January, not soppy June, with the Hulk blasting off the surface of Lake Michigan directly from frozen Canada. (Really, how many places had a name for the wind? North Africa had its Sirocco, Southern California its Santa Ana; but they were seasonable and predictable. In Chicago you never knew when it would blow or for how long, or when it would stop while the city festered in filth.) Still, that journey had been charged with escape from the past and hope for the future, and Capone had made it in the company of his new bride and infant son. Vasco was alone, and while he wore the Roman collar there was no escape, and therefore nothing to hope for.
The Confessions of Al Capone Page 31