Harlot's Moon

by Edward Gorman

  "Uh-huh."

  "Both she and this Father Ryan wrote letters to the Archbishop about Father Daly."

  "How the hell'd you find that out?"

  "Got an uncle who works for the Archbishop."

  "You know what the letters said?"

  "No, but I assume they didn't have the desired effect."

  "What desired effect?"

  "Well, presumably, the only reason they'd write to the Archbishop was to get rid of Daly, right?"

  "Right."

  "And this was nearly a year ago now."

  "Right."

  "So," he said, "if they were trying to get rid of Father Daly, they obviously didn't succeed."

  I wondered why neither Bernice nor Father Gray had told me about the letters they'd sent to the Archbishop.

  "One more thing."

  "All right," I said.

  "This Ellie Wilson? Last four months she's been quietly liquidating a lot of her stock and other holdings."

  "You're kidding."

  "Nope. Got a good friend at one of the stock brokerages downtown."

  "Does her husband know about this?"

  "No idea. But the way my friend explained it, the Wilson woman's keeping all of this very quiet."

  A quick scenario crossed my mind. Wife tired of bullying husband. Liquidates considerable holdings. Kills somebody and frames husband for it. After husband sentenced to prison, wife has plenty of money for travel and lavish lifestyle. Wife has freedom and money.

  But then what did the previous murders have to do with this?

  I didn't like flying blind.

  "You're doing great work, Gilhooley. I appreciate it."

  "You know, the more I think about it, the more you probably did like the Monkees."

  "Very funny," I said. "Ha ha."

  When I got home, Felice was asleep. I knew better than to wake her.

  PART FIVE

  POLICE DEPARTMENT

  Frank Earle Mason

  Age: 43

  Race: Caucasian

  Occupation: Paint-store owner

  Marital Status: M

  Military Service: Army, 1973-78,

  Honorable dis.

  Mason: This is about money and nothing else.

  She's got herself a lawyer, doesn't she? People see you have a little cash stashed away and they want part of it. And as for me "coercing her" . . . that's total bullshit. This little gal has been around, believe me. This virginal bit is bullshit. For one thing, you'll notice that she doesn't say we ever actually screwed because we didn't. Now, I'll admit that maybe in fun a couple of times I said, "Marie, you got a couple kids and no husband at home, it sure would be terrible you lose your job down here." So she gave me a few blow jobs, what's all this sexual harassment horseshit anyway?

  Frank Mason

  Tuesday the blue Ford is there again, parked up on the hill behind the trailer park.

  Sixteen-year-old Frank Mason stands at the bedroom window of his own trailer. Frank's a big kid, lots of shaggy yellow hair and a snotty grin for everybody he feels superior to — which means just about everybody he crosses path with — and now Frank's got his binoculars to his eyes and he's watching the guy hurrying down the path from the hill to the last row of trailers back near the creek.

  Guy obviously thinks he's being real cool and sneaky.

  Like nobody's aware of what he's doing.

  Well, big Frank is aware of what he's doing, and in fact Frank's got plans that aren't going to make the guy happy at all.

  "What the hell you doin', Frank?" his old man says from the hallway, echoes of the toilet flushing still filling Frank's ears.

  No living thing can approach the toilet now for a good twenty minutes. The stench is just something terrible, Camels and turds, the old man's specialty,

  "I'm lookin' through your binoculars."

  "You give me those right now."

  He puts his hand out, palm up. Like Frank is really going to hand over the binoculars.

  Yeah, right.

  "You know the trouble you got into watchin' Dottie with those damned things," the old man says.

  Dottie being this babe who lives two trailers away. At night, Frank used to spy on her, look right in her window when she was undressing, till one night one of the kids playing night-tag around the trailers saw Frank . . . and told Dottie. She came over all red-faced and pissed, screaming she was a decent woman, and screaming she was going to call the cops, and screaming that Frank was nothing but a bully, the way he treated everybody in the trailer park but he wasn't gonna treat her that way, no sir he wasn't.

  It was worth all the hassle, Dottie's tits being what they are, but the old man and the old lady really got on him about it, and in fact the old man hid the binoculars from him once and for all.

  But last week, Frank found where the old man had put them — up in the closet with all the porno playing cards he got back in his Navy days — and he's had the binoculars ever since.

  "You give me those."

  Frank grins. "How about you take 'em from me?"

  "You think I can't, you mouthy little prick?"

  Frank throws the binoculars on the bed and then puts up his dukes, in a parody of the way they did back when boxers went at each other bare-knuckled.

  He starts boxing around the old man, feinting left, feinting right, grinning, laughing, enjoying watching the old man come all undone, finally shooting a roundhouse right that makes the old man jerk scared out of the way.

  "C'mon. Just two rounds." Frank is laughing his ass off. "Just two rounds. C'mon, Dad, put 'em up."

  The old man is wheezing all of a sudden. Emphysema. That was the diagnosis six months ago. And it's getting worse all the time.

  The old man falls against the frame of the doorway, panting now.

  "Aw, shit," Frank says. "You aren't any fun anymore."

  He takes the old man's right arm and gets under it and helps carry the old man into the living room and lay him down on the couch. The old man is coughing now, too. The coughing drives Frank nuts. All day, all night. Coughing. The old lady spends as much time at her sister's as she can. Can't take the old man's coughing.

  "You stay there now, hear me?"

  "You don't be lookin' at Dottie anymore."

  "You leave Dottie to me," Frank grins, trying to give the old man the impression that he just may take another gander at Dottie's naked tits after all.

  The old man lapses into cursing again.

  Frank goes back to his window. And his binoculars.

  Later that same day, Frank takes a shower and splashes on some Old Spice and tip-toes past the old man. He's snoring.

  Frank goes outside and stands smoking a Lucky. Nice, warm summer day. Ninety-two degrees. Takes another deep drag, enjoying himself. The little kids playing in the sandy road between the rows of trailers watch him warily. To them, Frank is the scariest guy in the trailer park.

  Frank stamps out his cigarette then turns around and starts walking between the trailers, back to where the creek runs. The guy in the blue Ford left an hour ago.

  Frank reaches the door of the trailer and knocks. Jinny, that's the seven-year-old daughter, stands in the screen door, saying nothing, just watching Frank. A country-music singer cries out on the radio.

  "Whyn't you come out and play, Jinny?" Frank says. "There's a lot of kids in the road out there."

  "My mom don't want me to. Says I should stay inside when it's this hot." She's tugging on her pigtails idly.

  Then he hears her mother coming. "Who is it, Jinny?"

  "Frank says I should go outside and play, Mom."

  Then she's there. Technically, she's a little too old, Sandy Thompson, thirty-six her last birthday. Too old for somebody Frank's age anyway, but she has a wonderfully fleshy body, one he's seen several times in a two-piece bikini when she lies out by the creek sunning herself. While her hubby Sam puts in his eight hours down at the paint factory.

  Frank says, "Whyn't you let her go play?"
/>
  "It's too hot. And it's not your business anyway."

  Frank smiles. "Is it the business of the guy in the blue Ford?"

  She freezes. Just for a moment. She is wearing a pink polo shirt with a bra and a pair of Levi cut-offs. In addition to her sumptuous tits, she's got silken legs.

  Frank stares at her steadily. "You sure you won't change your mind and let her go play? Seems like you and me ought to have a little talk."

  Jinny looks up at her mom. "Can I, Mom? Frank says there's a lot of kids in the road."

  Sandy sighs. "All right. But not for very long."

  "Goody!” Jinny says, clapping her hands together. She bolts from the door.

  The door slams after her. Sandy just stands on the other side of it, staring at him.

  "You gonna tell Sam?"

  "Who is he? The guy in the Ford?"

  "My first husband. Jinny's father."

  Frank grins. "Now isn't that cozy."

  "He dumped me and I never got over him. Loved him ever since second grade, if you can picture that." She shakes her head. "Now he got dumped by the woman he left me for. He's real heartbroken. So I do what I can for him."

  "I bet you do."

  "But I feel shitty about it. Sam's a good man. He works hard. Don't miss a day of work even when he's sick as a dog. He knows I don't love him and he don't even care. He just says that someday I'll love him. And now I'm doin' this to him, sneakin' around like some whore, I mean."

  "You going to invite me in?"

  "You said your piece. You're going to tell Sam and there ain't much I can do about it." Tears glisten in her eyes.

  "Oh, there's something you can do about it, all right."

  Just now she's figured out why Frank is here. He never did plan to tell Sam.

  They're in her bedroom, lying on her bed. He can't take his eyes off her breasts beneath the polo shirt.

  "You do for me, I do for you, that's the way these things work."

  "You're just a kid."

  Smirks. "Well, I guess I'll just have to show you how much of a kid I am."

  She's been crying again and her nose is red. "But this'll just make it worse. Now I'll be cheatin' on Sam with two guys."

  "I guess you won't mind it then if I give Sam a call tonight. . ."

  Then he reaches out and touches her breast. Her first response is to close her eyes, as if she's enduring great humiliation.

  The eyes stay closed. "It'll only be this one time, that we do it, I mean?"

  "Just this one time," Frank says.

  "I only do it with my first husband cause I still love him."

  "What time you say Sam gets off?"

  She opens her eyes again. "I'm on the pill so that part's all right."

  And then he knows he's got her.

  "Just this one time, you promise?"

  "I promise."

  "And you won't tell Sam?"

  "I won't tell Sam."

  "Cause it'd just kill him. And he don't deserve that."

  All the time he's on top of her, she's crying. But that doesn't bother Frank.

  He plans on making this a long-term kinda thing. He'll see to it that she not only quits crying, she'll move that body of hers a lot more, too. Beautiful body like that and she just lays there like a corpse. Well, next time they get together, things are gonna be different.

  Very, very different.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Father Ryan said eight o'clock Mass. I knew this because I was there. I hadn't been to Confession in years so there was no Communion for me.

  I just knelt in a rear pew smelling the incense and looking at the Stations of the Cross and watching the sweet old women make their arthritic way to and from the Communion rail. God had been so vivid to me when I was a boy. I knew what He expected of me and I knew what I expected of myself. I still believe in some kind of god, some guiding cosmic force, but I couldn't tell you anything about he/she/it. I especially couldn't tell you why it is so imperative that the forlorn lost tribes of this planet must endure so much heartbreak.

  After Mass, I waited on the walk between the church and the rectory. The coos of pigeons echoed between the buildings. The air smelled good and clean and new. The sun was shining and I felt ridiculously young and strong, as only spring days can make me feel.

  Father Ryan came out of the side door of the church in his cassock.

  "Morning, Mr. Payne."

  "Morning, Father."

  "If you're looking for the Monsignor, he's downtown. One of his committee meetings."

  "Actually, it was you I wanted to see."

  He smiled. "Now that doesn't sound very good."

  "Just take a few minutes, is all."

  He checked his wrist-watch. "If you're serious about it being just a few minutes, why don't we swing over to the school cafeteria? I've got a religion class to teach in fifteen minutes, but that's time enough for a quick cup of coffee. How's that sound?"

  "Sounds great."

  As we headed back toward the alley, and the two-story red-brick school on the other side, he said, "That's all they talk about."

  He nodded to a group of grade-school girls who were jumping rope. They wore plaid school uniforms with white blouses and blue knee-high socks.

  "Why somebody would murder a priest, I mean," he said. "I taught six classes yesterday and that's all they talked about. And I didn't know what to tell them."

  The cafeteria had pretty much emptied out by the time we sat down with our coffee. This was a big, echoing gym that could be converted into a cafeteria quickly. Sunlight angled through the long, rectangular windows behind the bleachers.

  The smell of cafeteria food took me on another time-machine ride. I saw myself as a small kid with a big tray and an even bigger appetite waiting calmly in line while all around me other kids shoved, goosed and slapped each other. I hadn't been the perfect kid, far from it. I just had this huge appetite. Luckily, I burned off the calories quickly.

  "You know, this school almost closed down about ten years ago," Father Ryan said, looking around at the dozen or so empty tables and the bright buff blue walls. "Then private education came back into fashion, and now we're actually turning some students away. We're booked solid. And a lot of that's due to your friend, Monsignor Gray."

  "You seem to have a lot of respect for him."

  He nodded. "I do. I mean, priests are just human beings with a special calling. They have all the same foibles and shortcomings as any other human beings. I was at a parish for several years where all the man did was try to push his career ahead. The Monsignor isn't like that. He has a genuine concern for people — of all ages and all occupations. You run into a lot of priests who are snobs. They only want to know people like the Wilsons. You know, wealthy and involved in the parish. But the Monsignor ministers to everybody. He's a very impressive man."

  I looked at him carefully, keeping my voice as steady as possible. "He have any secrets?"

  He smiled. "We all have secrets. I have a few that would curl your toes."

  "Serious secrets, I mean."

  "The Monsignor? Not that I know of."

  A gray-haired woman in a pink waitress uniform came over and refilled our cups.

  After she'd gone, Father Ryan said, "I feel sorry for Monsignor Gray."

  "Oh? Why?"

  "He really deserves a much bigger parish than this one. More important, I mean. But this is a very political diocese and the Monsignor has never hidden his dislike of the Archbishop."

  "What's he got against the Archbishop?"

  "Too media-savvy," Father Ryan said. "The Archbishop is a bit of a showboat, I'm afraid. Plus, nobody would ever accuse him of being a particularly intelligent man."

  "Steve ever have any run-ins with him?"

  He smiled. "You don't have ‘run-ins.’ You have memos. The Archbishop is always sending memos."

  "He sent Steve one?"

  "One? One a month is more like it. The last one had to do with a newspaper article
about the Monsignor. The reporter asked Steve about forgiving penitents — was there a sin so bad he couldn't forgive it? And Steve said, "’As a priest, I have to grant absolution to all those who make a good Confession. But that doesn't mean I can forgive them as a man.’"

  I set down my coffee cup. "I'm having a little trouble of my own in the forgiveness department."

  "Oh?"

  "My stepfather."

  "Those can be very bad relationships, very destructive, stepparents and stepchildren."

  I told him the situation.

  "And he wants to stay with you?" he said.

  "He says he wants to make up for all the years we lived together, when he never took much interest in me. But what's really going on is he's lonely and scared. The way he blusters and brags all the time, he doesn't have any friends left from the old days. I think he was the kind of guy who probably hit on the wives of his friends."

  "Even when he was married to your mother?"

  "Sure."

  "He's a sinner and he's asking for forgiveness."

  "Yeah, I suppose he is."

  "How do you feel about that?"

  I shrugged. "I don't like him very much."

  "Well, then, I'd very gently suggest that you and he try to find a decent nursing home for him."

  "That isn't what Steve would do, is it?"

  "Probably not," he said. "Steve would probably let him stay."

  "But you're not Steve."

  "No, I guess I'm not. I function on the belief that God gives us only what we can handle. It may not seem like it all the time, but it's true. And it doesn't sound like you can handle Vic being there. You've got a lot of resentment toward him."

  "That simple?"

  "That simple."

  "But Steve wouldn't do it that way?"

  "The Monsignor," he said, "is a special man. Very Christ-like, as I said. And I don't mean pious or sanctimonious. He's an old farm boy and always will be. Sanctimony embarrasses him, as a matter of fact."

  A bell rang in the hall outside the gym.

  "That's for me," Father Ryan said. "My religion class."

  He walked me to the back door where we'd come in. "I don't think Bob Wilson killed Father Daly."