“I was trying to call my husband who is going to be here any minute to see if he knows where the banners are,” she tried to keep the nervousness out of her tone.
“I don’t think there are any banners Mrs. Cleary,” Gar said in a low rumbling voice like thunder coming in off the prairie, “That’s what I came round back to tell you.”
“No? Okay then, I’m taking off now. Grocery store,” she said. The car keys were up by the counter, if she could just make it to the counter. The big man’s eyes were shooting sparks into the dumpy back of the store. He looked like he could swallow her whole.
“Happy shopping,” Gar said and turned back around like nothing at all had happened.
Suzanne Cleary’s head was spinning as she roared the car out of the driveway and headed as if on automatic pilot to the A&P. She had flipped the closed sign on the front door, feeling a flood of relief as she saw in the rear view mirror Gar pedaling away. She should go to the police but what would she say? A Vietnam vet dropped off vestments from St. Patrick’s? No, the local cops were dopes. If only she had been able to speak to Agent Tooley… She pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store, her heart slowing down. There was a pay phone in the separated vestibule on the way outside, separated by a steel bar from the way inside. Maybe she’d use that. She pulled a cart from a stack by the door, she needed canned pineapple slices and could use some Lipton onion mix. Grocery shopping had a soporific effect on her, which today meant she might be calm enough to use the pay phone to try the agent again after she finished shopping. The aisles of the A&P were crowded and narrow with dark smeary linoleum tiles. There was a small dairy section decorated with crimped crepe paper swagged in red white and blue with the butcher and deli section in the back. There were bunches of celery, iceburg lettuce, cantaloupes, radishes, net bags of onions, Idaho potatoes, naval oranges, lemons, and limes in the fresh produce section where bright green signs were stuck into bins with the prices marked. Everything else was conveniently canned, boxed, or frozen except for the bread which came in plastic bags in big soft white loaves and the soft drinks in cans and bottles.
Suzanne was deep into the canned fruits and vegetables aisle when she noticed the top of the head over in the mixes, cereals, and bake aisle. The top of the head was Gar’s, he had followed her there, she realized, her heart pounding. She looked down into the steel grocery cart with its little black wheels, no weapon this, she thought. Then before she quite understood what she was doing she had swooped down and picked up a fourteen ounce can of Libby’s pumpkin pie filling. She hurled it toward the head and took off running down the aisle past the rubber backed conveyer belted counters with only one clerk present being it was midday Monday and out the door to the Ford LTD.
A squat can lobbed over the neighboring aisle and fell onto the floor, denting and rolling away. Gar flicked his eyes back to where it came from and nearly laughed. This was going to be fun, he thought, as he trotted down the aisle and back to the parking lot. He was already on Father’s Troy bicycle as Suzanne Cleary, wide-eyed, gunned past him and out onto West Macon Street.
Suzanne couldn’t believe it as she wove through the leafed-out streets of Decatur, the big man just kept coming. He was always behind her on that damn bicycle as she looked in the rear-view mirror, like a male version of the witch in the Wizard of Oz. She tried running a light near the South Shores Shopping Center but then stopped when the cars surged out into the intersection blaring horns and she was forced to reverse the LTD to get out of their way. Think, she said to herself. These streets are too easy, too much on a grid, where can I lose him? She turned towards Lake Shore Drive, along the lake, the roads were windier there. Crossing over East Lost Bridge and onto Lost Bridge Road a little further out of town she began to breathe easier. She must have lost him. When she was sure it was safe she would go home and force the issue with her husband. She wasn’t imagining things about Father Troy’s project. The intersection to Mount Zion Road was just ahead, the houses were thinning out now, it was turning into the two-lane blacktop that surrounded the town, spreading out into the county like asphalt veins. The tires thrummed along the roadway, the sun blazing down, corn stalks knee high on either side, a farm close to town, would probably be swallowed up by subdivisions soon, she thought feeling her tension ease just a bit. It looked like she had lost him.
The telephone poles meted out the distance as the town began to fade behind her, if she took Mount Zion road she’d be at the state park soon, Spitler Woods. The black- and-white speed limit was posted at 30 MPH and she was careful not to speed as they loved to ticket you when you came out of town. A big semi was coming the other direction. It looked like a cattle truck to her as she squinted against the sun.
Then it happened, the big man came flying out of the corn fields on the bicycle directly in front of Suzanne Cleary’s car. He was smiling as he catapulted himself off the bike and soared out over the handlebars and onto the hood of the LTD.
Gar wasn’t afraid as he heard Father Troy’s bicycle fall onto the soft shoulder of the road. He had cut across the fields on a gut instinct, figuring he could surprise the damn interfering bitch on the other side by taking the diagonal. It had been a little rough but the corn was laid in neat rows and while it whipped his legs he was able to keep going as long as he pedaled fast. He landed with a smack onto the car’s hood, his face smooshed up against the windshield, holding onto the hot metal, his fingers gripping the sides of the hood where it closed down over the engine.
Suzanne Cleary was screaming now, her thin face contorted, brown pony tail whipping from side to side as she accelerated and swerved into the other lane trying to lose the monster on top of her car. The semi laid on the horn and she didn’t care. She had to get rid of Gar, he was going to kill her any way so what did it matter? What the hell, she thought and pressed her right foot harder onto the gas, the semi now was swaying and swerving but she kept on going fifty miles an hour, down into the grassy ditch and right back up - smack into the telephone pole.
Gar held on as she sped the car up, he had expected that. The semi he kept an eye on, hopefully the driver knew what he was doing. He could always jump off and live but a head-on was dicey even for him. He heard the big tires of the truck squealing and smelled the scorching rubber as it turned to avoid the screaming woman in the LTD with him on the hood. She sped up and Gar saw the telephone pole looming in front of them. Rolling off the hood, he slammed into the ditch as the Cleary family car went down and then gunned up out of the ditch straight into the pole. It took less then a second then. He rolled up on his feet, leaned over the hood and, pushing in past the mess of blood and glass, in one long slurp he took what was left of Suzanne Cleary, and felt the exhilarating pull of the spirit that almost got away, but no, he had it, and the maw opened and it went screaming but helpless to resist through to the black.
The cattle truck driver had been almost dozing. The farmed prairie had that effect on so many that it was called No-Doz Flats, as every trucker popped the little white pills or better yet speed in an effort to combat the effect of driving among unending horizontal fields. Later, when he tried to explain to the cops, he had a hard time piecing together exactly what had happened, between the glare and the near sleeping state he had been in when the whole awful thing unfolded. There was a kid, a big kid who came through the fields on a bike, and he must not have been looking because he just headed right out into the roadway and the poor woman must have tried to stop but put on the gas instead, anyway she must have hit the big kid (maybe it was a man, but who would be riding a bike out here except a kid) hard because he wound up on the hood of her car and she swerved into the oncoming lane. He swerved then too, just missing her, the cattle mooing and trying to stampede in the cattle box as the whole truck nearly toppled, but she kept on going and who knows what happened to the kid, he must have been thrown from the hood of the woman’s car, but she slammed into the telephone pole. Wearing a seatbelt could have saved her he guessed, but she cam
e right through the windshield then, and the rest, well he didn’t have to tell the state patrol and the ambulance drivers the rest. It was there for everyone to see.
The trucker was taken in for minor injuries and someone had to radio for help to get the cattle truck off the road. There was a bike left on the shoulder but no sign of whoever was pedaling it. They searched the fields for a body, but whoever the kid or the man was he must have been mighty tough to walk away after something like that. As for Suzanne Cleary, she was pronounced dead on arrival at St. Mary’s Hospital.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Bishop Quincy Prefers
The ride over to Springfield that morning to their meeting with bishop’s chief of staff was stiff. They took old Highway 36 as the most direct route which meant they were on two-lane blacktop the whole way, so Father Weston had to concentrate because there were a fair number of people who drove back and forth between Decatur and Springfield and the little farming hamlets of Illiopolis, Niantic and Dawson, and passing on the two- lane highways was tricky especially if you got behind trucks. Father Weston wasn’t in the mood for conversation anyway, turning over in his mind the encounter he had had with Gar last night when coming home. He tried to phone Max first thing that morning before they shoved off but Max must have already been at the University, he didn’t answer his apartment phone. He realized now that he should have told Max more about Gar from the get go but he had held back because of Father Troy’s crush. He tried to call Marilyn as well, not sure what he would say to her, but her phone also rang and rang. He would have supper tonight at the Surrey, he decided, and speak to her then. At least she would be in a public place all day at the restaurant. How did Gar know her, the thought wouldn’t get out of his brain, what if he really was hunting her, here?
Father Troy sat in the passenger seat as several folk songs played one after the other in his head. They would be great to play at the Monsignor’s mass. He wondered if he dared bring up his musical ideas to the Bishop’s functionary. The Springfield Diocese wasn’t known for its liberal tendencies as it took orders from the Arch in Chicago who was a notorious Old Vatican type, but Bishop Quincy had put his faith in Father Troy by splitting the parish leadership. He should at least try, he decided. Gar was right. Father Weston was no better priest than he. Still he felt guilty for making fun of Father W last night with Gar. But the pleasure of seeing Gar laugh as he sensuously licked Mrs. Napoli’s spaghetti sauce from his upper lip while they were joking around over dinner made it, he had to admit, worth betraying his fellow priest just the tiniest bit.
The Bishop was busy with a couple of Catholic businessmen when they arrived at Diocese’s headquarters so they were asked to wait. Thirty minutes or so went by in silence with them leafing through old copies of the Catholic Digest before Father Mahoney, the chief of staff with the stiffest roman collar in all of America, showed them to the conference room. Father W declined for the both of them the half-offer of coffee and they sat down in the stiff high backed chairs across from Father Mahoney. The chief of staff then laid out in sonorous tones the protocol of a high funeral mass for the Monsignor as Father Troy realized the futility of bringing up any folk songs for the service. Bishop Quincy would preside and Father Weston and Troy would assist, six of their best altar boys would be required in full crimson skirts and white surplices. The color of the chasubles would be white to symbolize everlasting life. Did they both have white chasubles? They did. Lily arrangements were of course expected. The funeral procession would be led by the bishop to the cemetery. The faithful would be encouraged to process to the grave. No coarse throwing of dirt onto the coffin would be permitted. Sobbing women were to be kept in the back as it disturbed the bishop’s concentration when saying the final prayers. Then, drawing out a long checkbook in a spiral bound cover from a drawer in the shiny cherry wood conference table, Father Mahoney leaned across the table with a pinched smile on his face.
“How are your parish savings, Weston, Young Troy? I hope you’ve put aside some for a rainy day,” said Father Mahoney, “The diocese of course expects to handle a reasonable amount of funeral expenses for dear departed Monsignor Lowell, but it is our expectation in these modern times that each parish bear its own weight of such mortal occurrences.”
Father Troy looked at Father Weston, as he handled that sort of thing with the assistance of lay businessmen who made up the parish council. Every week the Knights of Columbus passed wicker baskets on long woven broom-like handles through the congregation. They had to have some savings.
Father Weston bit his lower lip; inside he was fuming. Reasonable expenses, what did that mean? How was he supposed to throw the parish supper for the wake following the burial? The church ladies were bringing salads and desserts, but he had already contacted Dante’s Italian restaurant for pans of lasagna and was planning on buying some Chianti to serve to the men in little jelly jars they stored in the church basement to toast the humble old man who had cared for them all. For crying out loud, Monsignor Lowell had baptized generations of St. Patrick’s babies, married countless couples, counseled, buried, visited the sick, and now they were squabbling over how much money should be spent on remembering him. “We have some,” he said. “Coffins are dear, Father Mahoney, as you know and funeral homes dearer. The parish deserves a visitation before we have the funeral mass.” Then he folded his hands in front of him on the conference table and stared the pompous chief of staff down, his dark eyes not blinking, daring the bastard to cheap out on Aloysius Lowell’s burial.
Father Mahoney shook his head. They were all the same, these parish priests, wanting to rule their roost until it came to being fiscally responsible. “Just so you understand the diocese isn’t a bank,” he said as he pulled his gold ink cartridge pen from his breast pocket and poised it over the checkbook waiting for their obsequence.
“We understand, Father Mahoney,” Father Weston forced the words out of his mouth as Father Troy nodded. It was humiliating but necessary. The other priest wrote the check swiftly. Three thousand dollars, it wasn’t enough but it would have to do. Father Weston took it and put it in his breast pocket.
At that moment, as if on cue, Bishop Quincy entered the room. He was a short man with a bullet-shaped bald head and he moved like a bull, with his shoulders coming into a space first. Father Mahoney was on his feet with a bow and murmured greeting. The bishop made a dismissive gesture as Father Weston and Father Troy got to their own feet and bowed to their superior.
“Well if it isn’t the two lads from St. Patrick’s,” Bishop Quincy said with a light tone, but he wasn’t smiling so the effect was slightly chilling. “I keep getting the oddest phone calls about your parish house these days from our friends the FBI over at the Federal building. This time from an Agent Tooley who wanted me to know that Agent House was going to insist on speaking to your ‘project’ again, Father Troy. I didn’t know that someone had spoken to him in the first place. It seems someone has called the tips line twice on the matter and they think it might be tied up with those drug murders. I don’t like it boys. Make it go away. Understood?”
Father Weston shot a look at Father Troy who looked like he might be sick. “Understood,” he said because Father Troy was having a hard time speaking.
“Mark? Anything you want to tell me?” asked Bishop Quincy, but the question was anything but fatherly.
“Nothing, Bishop. I understand,” Father Troy managed. “It’s all the prejudice,” he gasped.
“The what?” Father Mahoney said, looking slightly horrified.
“Vets, the Vietnam vets,” Father Troy said.
“We understand, we’ll make it go away,” Father Weston said, “Until the funeral then, I guess. A sad day for St. Patrick’s. I know how much the Monsignor admired you, Bishop Quincy. Spoke about it often. As I do,” he bowed.
“You are excused. Bishop Quincy prefers not to speak of this again,” Father Mahoney said and they stumbled out of the conference room with its oil portraits, thick v
elvet drapes, and stiff cherry wood furniture.
The traffic was light on the way back as everyone else was at work or school but the ride seemed interminable to Father Troy, sick to his stomach in the front seat. He had rolled the window down halfway but the air only smelled of pesticides and fertilizer and with the sun baking the interior of the Olds, it was torture. Gar, he thought over and over, Gar would have hated it too.
“Mark,” Father Weston said gently looking sideways at his fellow priest green around the gills leaning back against the passenger seat. “Are you alright? Are you going to be sick?”
Father Troy nodded, the bile coming up into his throat now. He swallowed hard as Father W pulled the car off the road. He managed to find the handle to the door open and half remembering the one and only time he had been drunk with his best friend and there had been the mistake with putting his hand on his friend’s upper thigh. He swung himself out and put his head between his knees. Thank God he wasn’t wearing a frock but trousers, he thought, as the moment he bent over, a stream of pinkish vomit poured out of his mouth as his stomach heaved.
Father W looked down the black asphalt highway marked with double yellow lines for as far as you could see as Mark Troy threw up his guts onto the gravel shoulder. He pulled a clean white handkerchief from his pants pocket and walked around to the younger priest sitting on the edge of the passenger seat with the pool of vomit in between his legs, with a only a few splashes on his sandals. “Here, use this,” Father W said without a trace of meanness or, worse yet, pity. Father Troy took the pressed and folded handkerchief with the initials FW embroidered in black on the corner, wiped his face, then the few humiliating splotches on his feet, crumpling it up into a ball and grimacing as if to say, “now what do I do with it?” Father W jerked his thumb to the field and Father Troy, feeling suddenly giddy, threw the disgusting ball into the field. They both got back in the car then.
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