The Fraternity of the Stone

by David Morrell

  She was motionless. “You’re full of surprises.”

  He regarded her intensely. “So what do we do about this one?”

  “I scream. Then my boyfriend comes running.”

  “I hope not.”

  She studied his eyes.

  He didn’t want to hurt her. What would he do if she did start to scream?

  “All right, I won’t.”

  He exhaled.

  “Half the people I know pack guns, but they don’t mind their manners like you do. I’ll grant you this. You sure give a girl an interesting time for two hundred dollars.” Still holding the clothes, she wrinkled her nose. “But what’s this bundle in your vest pocket? It smells kind of off.”

  “I told you, you’d better not ask.”

  He took the vest and set it on top of the shelf. Then he drained the tub and washed the socks, underwear, jeans, and wool shirt in fresh water. He asked her for a plastic bag, and while she phoned to find out what was taking their food so long to be delivered, he put the bloated body of Stuart Little into the plastic bag and tied the end in an airtight knot. Next, he set the bag and the Mauser beneath a towel, along with the photographs he’d brought with him from the monastery, and finally washed the vest.

  Later, when she gave him a brown corduroy housecoat to wear, he waited until she wasn’t looking and transferred the mouse, the photographs, and the gun to its pockets. She noticed the bulges, but by now she’d learned.

  “I know,” she said. “Don’t ask.”

  8

  The knock made him nervous. Holding the gun in the pocket of the housecoat, he stood on the blind side of the door while she asked, “Who is it?”

  “Speedy’s Take-Out. Gina, it’s Al.”

  She nodded to Drew and opened the door just wide enough to pay with the money Drew had given her and take the food. She closed the door.

  “Gina? Is that your name?”

  “Sort of. My mother called me Regina. I had to shorten it. In my line of work, I didn’t need jokes about being a queen.”

  He grinned. “If you wouldn’t mind, Gina, could we lock the door?”

  “My boyfriend wants to be able to get in here fast if he has to.”

  “But we both know he won’t have to.”

  She studied him. “I’m not sure why I’m taking these chances with you.”

  But she did what he asked, and at once, he felt easier. Famished, he sat at the table and ate his sandwiches quickly. The bread was stale, the lettuce and tomatoes soggy, but after his recent diet of peanuts, chocolate bars, and freeze-dried fruit, he didn’t care. Even the lukewarm milk tasted delicious.

  The food hit him right away, the sugar making him tired. He hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours. His eyes felt raw from the effort of driving all day. He glanced at the bed. “I hate to do this, but I have to ask one more favor.”

  She dipped a French fry into ketchup. “I haven’t turned you down so far.”

  “I’d like to go to sleep now.”

  “So?” She chewed the French fry, licking a drop of ketchup off her lip. “Then go to sleep.”

  “But I want you with me.”

  “What?” Her eyes flashed. “I wish you’d make up your mind. First you make a big deal about giving me the night off, and now…”

  “Next to me in bed. That’s all. Nothing else.”

  “Just lie there?” She frowned. “Come on. You must want me to do something.”

  “Go to sleep. The same as me.”

  She looked baffled.

  He wasn’t sure how to explain that he wouldn’t be able to sleep if he didn’t know where she was and what she was doing. If he told her the truth—that he couldn’t trust her with his life while he slept—she might not cooperate. He fidgeted, pretending to be embarrassed. “It’s hard to … see … let me put it this way. I…”

  She tapped her long fingernails on the table.

  “…need someone to hold.”

  Her rigid face relaxed. “That’s got to be the saddest thing I’ve ever—” She took his hand.

  He walked with her to the pulled-out sofa and helped her to put a sheet across it and to cover two pillows that she took from a cupboard.

  “It’s cold tonight.” She shivered and spread two blankets out, but despite her remark about the cold, she started to take off her housecoat.

  “No,” he whispered.

  “Force of habit. Sorry.” She grinned and refastened the robe, then turned off the lights.

  He crawled beneath the blankets with her. In darkness, holding her, feeling her softness, he ignored the temptation of her breasts, her mound, her hips. He hadn’t been in bed with a woman since 1979, and the memory of Arlene aroused him again. In his former profession, he hadn’t been close to many women, unable to risk a commitment. Only Arlene had been important to him, a member of his former network, the one woman he’d permitted himself to love. His throat ached. Gina squirmed beside him, getting comfortable, and he distracted himself with the practical matter of making sure that the Mauser was under his leg where she couldn’t reach it without waking him.

  He snuggled against the mattress—the first he’d lain on since he entered the monastery—and tried to relax.

  “Sweet dreams,” she murmured against his ear.

  He hoped. And amazingly, it was so.

  Or rather he had no dreams. Terribly, he slept like the dead. A flicker of light woke him. He realized that Gina wasn’t next to him any longer. Startled, he sat up in the dark, on guard, realizing that the light came from the television set. The images made him think he was still asleep and having a nightmare. He saw wild-eyed young men, their faces as pasty as corpses, dressed as Nazi storm troopers, and—he had to be hallucinating—purple Mohawk hair with rings through their earlobes. Women wearing black leather motorcycle jackets aimed fire hoses at billboards depicting hydrogen bomb-blast mushrooms.

  A shadow stirred in front of the television.

  He groped for his Mauser. But stopped.

  The shadow was Gina. Turning, she took something out of her ear. The insane images persisted in silence.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think the television would wake you. I figured if I used this earphone…”

  He pointed toward the screen. “What is that?”

  “MTV. It stands for music television. These are punkers.”

  “What?”

  “Hey, I said I’m sorry. I know you wanted me to sleep, but you’ve got to understand, my hours aren’t the same as yours. I’m used to the night shift. Right now, I’m wide awake. Unless it’s eight o’clock in the morning, after I get a doughnut and coffee with some friends down at the…”

  “What time is it?”

  She squinted at her watch. “Almost five-thirty.”

  “That late?” In the monastery, he’d have been awake and ready for Mass by now. He pulled the blankets off and stepped from the bed. Even in Gina’s robe, he felt cold. After using the bathroom, he touched the clothes he’d washed where they hung on towel racks. They were still wet. “Have you got a hair dryer?”

  She laughed. “Now I know you weren’t in a monastery.”

  “For my clothes.”

  She laughed again. “You’d better hope it doesn’t make them shrink.”

  It didn’t, and at breakfast—“Fruit,” he said. “Give me any kind of fruit you’ve got”—he surprised himself by leaning over and kissing her on the cheek.

  She too was surprised. “What was that for?”

  “Just saying thanks.”

  “You mean half a thanks.”

  He didn’t resist when she returned his kiss. Not long, not sensual, but intimate. On his lips.

  In another life, he thought, his nostrils filling with her sweetness. Again he thought about Arlene. But that other life was denied to him.

  Because of my sins.

  9

  At half-past nine, he used a phone booth in a drug store two blocks west of Boston Common. Despite his tattered outdoo
r clothes, he was shaved and clean and didn’t seem to attract attention from the pharmacist typing a prescription at the counter next to the phone booth.

  “Good morning. Holy Eucharist Parish,” an old man’s brittle voice said, as dusty as the better sherry sometimes used for Mass wine.

  “Yes. Father Hafer, please.”

  “I’m terribly sorry, but Father Hafer won’t be available this morning.”

  Drew’s heart fell. At the airport last night and several times later at Gina’s, he’d called the rectory, but no one had answered, or rather a machine had answered, this same dusty brittle voice, prerecorded, explaining that the priests weren’t near the phone right now, requesting the caller to leave a name and message. In Drew’s case, that wasn’t likely. Not the message he was bringing.

  Dear God. Clutching the phone, he debated his options.

  “Hello?” the brittle voice asked uncertainly on the phone. “Are you still—?”

  Drew swallowed. “Yes, I’m here. Do you know…? Wait. You said he won’t be available this morning? Does that mean you expect him this afternoon?”

  “It’s difficult to be sure. Perhaps. But he might not want to be available after his treatment.”

  “Treatment?” Drew clutched the phone harder.

  “If it’s a priest you need, I can help you. Or any of the other priests here. Is this an emergency? You sound distressed.”

  “It’s personal. I have to talk to him. I don’t understand. What treatment?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t feel at liberty to discuss it. But since you know him, no doubt he’d be willing to explain it to you. Why don’t you leave your name and number?”

  “I’ll call back.”

  Drew hung up, opened the door, and stepped from the booth. The pharmacist glanced toward him. Trying to hide his distress, Drew looked at his watch, then walked past shelves and counters, exiting onto the noisy street.

  This afternoon? And maybe not even then?

  Someone had to be told. At Gina’s apartment, he’d seen yesterday’s Boston Globe. There’d been no mention of what had happened at the monastery. Unless the authorities were keeping the story a secret, the bodies had not yet been found. But it was hard to believe that such a story could be contained. As he proceeded along the crowded sidewalk, heading back toward Boston Common, his imagination conjured up the bloated corpses sprawled across the table or on the floor of their cells. Dead. All dead.

  Again, reluctantly, he thought about the police. Perhaps if he simply called them. But they wouldn’t believe him. They’d ask him to identify himself, to meet with them, and he wasn’t prepared to do that, not until he was guaranteed safety. In the meantime, if he managed to convince them that he wasn’t a crank, they’d alert the authorities in Vermont, where someone would check the monastery. When the bodies were found, it would soon be clear that one monk had escaped. The Boston police would make the connection with the man who’d called them. Who else could have known about the bodies, except a survivor or someone who’d killed them?

  Drew shook his head. At worst, the police would suspect he was implicated in the deaths. At best, even if they believed he was innocent, they’d send out an APB for him, in effect helping the hit team to narrow their own search. And he hadn’t even considered what would happen when the police looked into his background, first puzzled, then alarmed by the smokescreen of his past. It would be disastrous if their questions led them in that direction.

  No. The route he’d first selected remained the best, the safest. Father Hafer. His confessor. Bring me in. As soon as possible. And help me find out who my enemies are!

  Alien, he wandered the haphazard maze of Boston’s streets. He roamed through shopping centers, introduced to glaring noisy video arcades and the incredible technology that taught adolescents to develop the deadly reflexes of fighter pilots. At every game he examined, the purpose was to attack and destroy. The winner obliterated the enemy. And sometimes nuclear clouds announced survival or defeat.

  Adolescent males strode through the shopping centers in fashionable camouflage combat fatigues, while style-conscious older men wore imitation World War II bomber-pilot leather jackets.

  Madness. Dear God, he asked himself, what had happened in the six years that he’d been away?

  He fought to subdue his concern. Something was more important. Salvation. If the world was determined to destroy itself, very well. But what he needed was peace and seclusion. To die was inevitable. To do so during prayer made death acceptable.

  He phoned the rectory several times that afternoon, feeling more lost and impatient when he learned that Father Hafer had still not returned. Time became torturous. The newest edition of The Boston Globe still contained nothing about the monastery, though that in itself was not significant. Several explanations for the absence of the story were possible. But he couldn’t bear the thought that the corpses had not yet been discovered, a blasphemous secret. At almost half-past four, he went to another shopping center and found a row of phones next to a Lady Godiva lingerie store, its window filled with panties. A man wearing earrings walked past, then a woman with a heart tattooed on her hand. Drew shoved coins in the phone and hurriedly dialed the number he’d memorized.

  “Holy Eucharist Parish.”

  “Please, is Father Hafer in yet?”

  “Ah, it’s you again. I told him about your calls. Just a moment. I’ll see if he can be disturbed.”

  Drew slumped against the wall and waited. When at last he heard a rattle as the phone was picked up, he didn’t recognize the strained, out-of-breath voice. “Yes, hello. This is Father Hafer.”

  Drew frowned. He hadn’t spoken to Father Hafer in six years. How could he be sure? “I have to meet with you, Father. Now. Believe me, it’s urgent.”

  “What? Who is this?”

  Drew stared at the phone, suspicious. Suppose in their search the hit team had guessed the logical man to whom Drew would go for sanctuary? Suppose this voice, which sounded too hoarse and breathless to be Father Hafer’s, belonged to one of the men who was after him? No, Drew had no choice. He had to follow the safeguards of his former profession. He couldn’t afford to be careless.

  “I asked, who is this?” the raspy voice insisted.

  Drew’s thoughts became frantic. Despite his misgivings, he nonetheless hoped. He needed to believe. A recognition code, some information that only the two of them shared. “Six years ago, we met in your office. We had an argument. But then we went to the church across the street, and you heard my confession.”

  “I’ve heard a lot of … six years ago? There’s only one confession I can think of that anyone could be certain I’d remember.”

  “We had a discussion about a liqueur.”

  “Good God, it can’t be! You?”

  “No, listen. The liqueur. Do you remember its name?”

  “Of course.”

  Drew scowled. “It comes to mind so quickly?”

  “The Carthusians make it. I chose it deliberately. It’s named for the fatherhouse. Chartreuse.”

  Drew relaxed. Good. Or at least, it would have to do.

  Father Hafer kept talking. “What in heaven’s name is all this mystery about? Where on earth are you? Why are you calling me?” The priest was even more out of breath. “You’re obviously not at—”

  “No, there’s been an emergency. I had to leave. We’ve got to talk.”

  “Emergency? What kind?”

  “I can’t say on the phone. I have to meet with you. Now.”

  “Why are you being so evasive? Meet where? And what’s wrong with telling me over the phone?” The voice paused abruptly. “Surely you’re not suggesting…?”

  “It might be tapped.”

  “But that’s absurd.”

  “Absurd is what it is out here, Father. I’m telling you I don’t have time. An emergency. Please listen to me.”

  The phone was silent except for the priest’s strained breathing.

  “Father?”<
br />
  “Yes, all right. We’ll meet.”

  Drew glanced around the shopping center, keeping his voice low but urgent. “Get a pad and pencil. I’ll tell you the way to do this. You’ve got to help me, Father. You have to bring me in.”

  10

  A classic intercept operation. A version of the dead drop. Theoretically. But this time Drew had to make allowance for more than one variable.

  His primary fear, after all, was that the hit team had assumed where he’d need to go for help. By definition, not to the police, not with Drew’s background. And not with his predictable need to avoid being held in their custody.

  The logical alternative? The priest who’d sponsored him as a candidate for the Carthusians. After all, who else would be understanding? But by the same logic, the hit team would maintain surveillance on the priest. And when Father Hafer suddenly left the rectory during supper hour, an alert would be issued. He’d be followed.

  The extra factor? Suppose the police had become involved, either because the bodies had been discovered or because Father Hafer was sufficiently disturbed by Drew’s call to ask them for protection? It was possible that not only the hit team or the police but both would follow the priest. That complication changed an otherwise textbook operation from the equivalent of algebra into calculus. Regardless of how sophisticated the plan became, Drew had to begin with the basics.

  Several times during the day, he’d passed Boston Common, scouting it from every angle, calculating its advantages. A large park filled with trees and paths, gardens, ponds, and playground equipment, it was flanked by rows of adjoining buildings, commercial and residential, on every side. He’d chosen a likely vantage point and, by seven o’clock that night, had positioned himself on an apartment building’s roof. He crouched behind the cover of a chimney, concealing his silhouette, and peered down toward the Common. In mid-October, the sun had already set; the park was in darkness except for streetlights along the borders and lamps beside the paths.

  The advantage of this rooftop location was that Drew could study three of the four streets flanking the Common. The far side was cloaked by the black intersecting branches of leafless trees. But the far side didn’t matter; it was too remote for the hit team or the police to rush to this side without exposing themselves and giving Drew a chance to get away. And it was on this side that Drew intended to approach Father Hafer.