The Only Good Priest

by Mark Richard Zubro

  “You’re making jokes. These people are committed as only fanatics can be. But more.” He agreed with the police in believing the Lesbians for Freedom and Dignity were responsible for bombing churches where anti-abortion groups met. “Nothing’s happened in Chicago yet,” he said, “but my sources say they’re the ones responsible for three bombings in San Francisco and one in New York. Lucky for them no one’s been killed.”

  Somehow I found the whole scenario hard to believe.

  “What’s kept them in line here?” I asked.

  “Think,” Neil said. “What keeps most gay and lesbian organizations from maximum effectiveness?”

  “Internal bickering,” I said.

  “Got it in one,” Neil said.

  We told him about chasing Priscilla and following philandering Clarence.

  “Did you know Sebastian was HIV positive?” I asked. In the confusion of the fire the night before there hadn’t been time to mention it.

  Neil looked startled. “I don’t believe it.”

  I told him what we’d learned from the police.

  Neil shook his head. “I guess it’s true if they found it. He never mentioned having sex with anybody. I’ve known him for ten years, and he hasn’t had any operations where he might have gotten transfusions. Far as I know, he never had any.”

  “He got it some way. If he knew he had it, he never told anybody, as far as I can tell,” I said. “If he could keep that secret, he could obviously keep his mouth shut about how he got it.”

  After dinner we walked over to the Gay Tribune offices. I wanted to see if Monica Verlaine could give us any leads on the Lesbians for Freedom and Dignity. We found her hunched over a computer on the second floor of the office. Not a trace of yesterday’s mess remained. They’d covered over the holes in the wall with red poster board. A few staffers sat at the other consoles on both floors, each peering at his or her own screen.

  Monica suspected Priscilla was one of the organizers of the women’s group but claimed to know little about them.

  “Priscilla is widely disliked,” she said. “Often that keeps her from getting elected to an office, but she’d be at the center of it. She’s perfect for that kind of meeting: energetic, opinionated, unwilling to listen, and out of touch with reality.”

  “I can see why you’re not a member of a nut group, but why aren’t you more of a feminist activist?” Scott said.

  She gave a pleasant ripple of laughter. She pulled out a cigarette and holder, lit up, took a drag, whirled it in a deft circle around her left shoulder, blew a perfect smoke ring, then said, “I don’t have to be. I’m rich. Fuck this powerless movement shit. Take the Lesbian Radicals from Hell—I like Neil’s name for them. They have a manifesto of sorts calling for all kinds of absurd kidnappings, bombings, and assassinations. Even if they managed all of it on a large scale, there’s no revolution coming. A lot of innocent people could get hurt. They’ll fade away and the world will go on very much the same, as if they had never existed. Doing things my way has more positive effect for women than all the bullshit talking they do. By the way, you’re wrong to call them a nut group.”

  “Why’s that?” Scott asked.

  Monica explained that while she only knew a few of the women involved, she could understand why some of them would be radicalized. She told us about a few of them. One woman, named Stephanie, now grossly overweight and deliberately letting herself look ugly, had started out as one of the most competent emergency-room doctors in Washington, DC. She’d worked long hours without pay with the homeless. Late one night five of the men she’d helped the most had cornered her in a clinic office and raped her repeatedly. Only one of them was ever convicted, and he didn’t serve time.

  Another woman, named Sally, had grown up in the Catholic ghetto in Belfast. She joined a radical group after her parents had been murdered by a terrorist organization. For a while she tried making a life for herself, working with battered and abused children in the slums of Los Angeles. Her best friend, a man, turned her in to the authorities. “Some of them have good reason to be angry,” she said.

  I asked about Priscilla, specifically mentioning her actions of the night before and the attack on us with the truck.

  Monica didn’t know where Priscilla might have been going. She warned us about trying to catch her or interrupt one of the group’s meetings. “These people are fanatics,” she said. “Generally harmless, but when pushed, who knows? Even I got ugly stares the one time I walked into a meeting, and I was invited.” She shrugged. “They’ve all taken karate, or judo, or some type of self-defense class. Stephenie, the D.C. slum doctor, spent a couple years overseas, training as a terrorist.”

  “Could Priscilla or members of her group have killed Sebastian?”

  Monica puffed thoughtfully on her cigarette for a minute and then said, “No reason. Although a few members of the group do hate the Catholic Church in a generic I-hate-all-religions way.” She said the women saw western religions as part of the oppressive patriarchal society. I didn’t necessarily disagree with them about that.

  We asked her again about the mystery man Sebastian met on Sunday nights. She repeated that she knew nothing.

  We walked over to Roscoe’s, the bar, with Sebastian’s picture. The front room is partly wood-paneled, with a mirrored back wall. One of the charms of Roscoe’s is its large front picture window, where you can gaze at the passersby on Halsted Street.

  Only a few patrons filled odd corners of the bar on a Tuesday at 8 P.M. The muscular bartender stood maybe five foot six and must have weighed about 160 pounds, giving a fireplug effect. He stared hard at Scott as we ordered our drinks. He brought us two Watney’s on draft. Scott held out a twenty to pay for the drinks. The bartender shook his head. “Scott Carpenter doesn’t pay in this bar.” He paused, then asked almost shyly, “Why are you here? Are you …” He let the question dangle.

  Scott used to be paranoid about being seen in gay bars. He’s gotten much better. Now he simply said, “Yes.”

  The bartender said, “Oh. Wow. I—oh.”

  Scott said, “This is my lover, Tom. We need some help.”

  “Sure. Anything I can do.”

  We showed him the picture. He nodded immediately. “I recognize the guy in the picture. Can’t miss him. We get priests and seminarians in here all the time. He’s the only one who wears his priest outfit. You know, that collar Catholic priests wear. He wore it in the bar. He got some odd stares, and a couple of people got real obnoxious. Wanted him to solve their sins and that shit. I had to throw out one guy who got abusive about his childhood in a Catholic school. Wanted your guy in the picture to make it better.”

  “He ever with anybody?” I asked.

  “He was always with some group when I saw him.”

  “How about just with one person: maybe they looked like lovers?”

  He shook his head no. He suggested we try the other bartenders. They’d be back in about half an hour. Most of them bowled on Roscoe’s sponsored bowling team on Tuesday nights. They’d be in after their games for a drink or two. Someone else in the group might know more. We sat on the couch in the back patio room next to the fireplace to wait.

  Forty-five minutes later we moved to the front room and saw a happy, smiling, giggling group gathered near the front of the bar. Goosing and shoving each other, they bellied up to the bar in high good spirits. Seems they’d won that night. We strolled over and caught the bartender’s eye. He got them quieted enough to listen to us. I thought I saw nods of recognition from several of them on seeing Scott. Gay ex—high-school jocks are pretty much like straight ex—high-school jocks. They read the sports pages, watch games on TV, join the softball league.

  The bartender explained what we needed, told them they could trust us. A few doubtful glances, one shrill “Ooh, you two are so cute together!” We showed them the picture. The quietest one, short-haired, with his chin on the shoulder and his arms around a lithe, muscular, effeminate guy, said, “Yeah,
I’ve seen him.”

  His dark eyes shifted from the picture to us, sad puppy-dog eyes I’d be surprised ever to see smiling happily, set in a likable face. No smile, but pleasant. A few inches shorter than us, but muscular and slim. The face of someone you could talk to.

  “I only work part-time Friday and Sunday nights,” he explained, moving away from his friend. He tapped the picture. “He comes in every Sunday around midnight. He drinks Chivas on the rocks. I’d say about ninety percent of the time a guy joins him. The priest always arrives here first. He waits for his friend while looking out the picture window.”

  I asked for a description for the friend.

  “Miller Lite, no glass, no tip. Priest always tips a dollar.” He paused to think. “Maybe a black-haired guy with his hair all slicked down like from the Fifties. Quiet dresser: button-down shirts and slacks, no jeans. Maybe in his late forties, a slight paunch, but in nice shape. I remember them because it’s pretty quiet on Sundays and they’re usually here.”

  “Ever hear them talk?”

  He shook his head. “Not to remember.”

  “A name or anything?”

  No luck.

  His buddies shook their heads. They’d never seen them at all. According to the bartender who’d seen them, the mystery man hadn’t shown up the last two Sundays.

  We talked a few minutes. One timid soul asked Scott to autograph a bar napkin. Scott did so. We left them to their celebration. We ordered another round of Watney’s and took them to the back room and sat on the couch next to the fireplace. We didn’t have much, but it was a start. Several times I tried to start a conversation with Scott. I had my back to the room, and he kept looking over my shoulder. Finally I said “What?” and turned around.

  In the same room across from our cozy area, people had gathered around the video machines. One, a pinball game, sat unused. Two men in deep concentration played at the other, a Tetris game. Four guys stood around them, drinks in hand, groaning or cheering at the activity on the screen.

  I do not have Nintendo or other video games at my place. I used to play them for hours. Over time Scott brought me several advanced computer programs and games. About four years ago I realized I’d gotten too involved, when the sun rose on me hunched over a video screen and I hadn’t been to bed all night. We had a few minor fights and one major blowup about the time I spent playing them. Fortunately, the time I met the sunrise with Nintendo had been during the season while the team was on a road trip. Scott came home to a video-gameless house. He keeps a few at his place for my nephews and nieces to play with when they come over. I control myself and ignore them.

  In the bar I couldn’t make out clearly the faces of the players. Scott rested a hand on my shoulder. “Isn’t that the cop? What’s-his-name, Turner?”

  I shifted position. “Which one?”

  “At the game. The far one.”

  I craned my neck. It sure looked like him. Dark-haired, tight blue jeans, a red sweatshirt, white Addidas tennis shoes, eyes glittering, one hand deftly maneuvering the joystick, the other making rapid taps on a control button.

  “A cop, here? In a gay bar?”

  “Don’t be prejudiced,” Scott said.

  I had visions of undercover cops and entrapment. I moved to join the group, not sure what I wanted to do. Scott followed. The guy working the right-hand control lost with one line left to go over at 90,000 points. The cop passed 140,000 before the game beat him. He laughed and reached behind him to his left to grab his drink from the table. The group drifted away and we moved closer. He held a quarter, but checked his watch as if deciding if he had time for another game.

  “You guys go ahead,” he said, easing off his chair and looking at us for the first time.

  I don’t know what I expected, but he smiled and said, “Hi, Tom, Scott. Good to see you.” He pointed a thumb at the machine. “You play?”

  “What are you doing here?” I demanded.

  His smile vanished. He looked from one to the other of us and raised an eyebrow. “Drinking beer and playing video games?” he said.

  Scott caught the humor behind the crack and forestalled any comment on my part.

  “You on duty?” Scott asked.

  “No.” Turner smiled. Matter-of-factly he said, “All three of us are gay.”

  “Oh,” I said. I’d never met a gay cop before, never pictured one as thirty, good-looking, and athletic.

  We sat together for a while, sharing notes on the various degrees of closetedness forced on us by our disparate jobs. Turner seemed quite comfortable. He pointed to Scott. “You don’t announce it on the pitcher’s mound.” He turned to me. “You don’t announce it in front of your classroom, and I don’t announce it to the squad room. Our friends know. My family knows, and they cope in one way or another, just like us.”

  We told Turner what we’d found out. He said he’d be interested in talking to the mystery man, if we could find him, but he didn’t think it would do any good.

  “Look, you guys,” he said. “You’re not going to get anywhere. First of all, you’ve got to prove it’s a murder, figure out how somebody did it and why, all without making it obvious to anyone you’re investigating.”

  I interrupted. “Maybe they used a drug or poison.”

  “Possible. Prove it.”

  I couldn’t, so I shut up.

  “You’ve talked to people, just like I did. The guy was a goddamn saint. Nobody had a reason to kill him.” He took a slug of beer. “Yeah, it’s suspicious that the chancery and half the cops in the city are covering up. Maybe the church doesn’t want people to know some of their priests are HIV positive.”

  On occasion I’d read about priests dying of AIDS, nothing widely discussed, often with the distinct impression the church was doing its best to pretend it hadn’t happened. I asked him if he’d heard about Lesbians for Freedom and Dignity.

  “The group they call Lesbian Radicals from Hell?”

  Obviously more people than just Neil knew the pejorative nickname for the group.

  Turner explained that the police didn’t buy into conspiracy theories as much as they did in the days of the infamous Chicago Red Squads. Back in the late sixties and early seventies the cops had spied on peace groups and other activists. Suits had been filed, a stink raised, and finally the cops had lost in court. “I take them seriously a little more than some because I’ve heard from guys who’ve covered events they’ve tried to screw up.”

  He proceeded to describe the fanatical nature of the women who wore the green and white Lesbian Radical from Hell buttons and T-shirts. On occasion they drove the cops nuts. Nowadays police received training in being restrained, but these women never let up. So far the women had stopped short of physical violence but had given themselves up for arrest. A police record was claimed as a badge of honor, those women without one being something less than true radicals.

  He checked his watch again and excused himself. “It’s after nine. I’ve got to pick my kid up from a seminar he’s been to at the Latin School.”

  After he retrieved his coat from the top of the video machine he came back over to us. “Drop it, you guys. Seriously. It could only get dangerous and people could be hurt.” He leaned closer. “No, I haven’t given up my investigation. I’m too good a cop to let them stop me, but I’ve got to be careful. You guys can only get hurt.” He shook hands with us and left.

  At Scott’s the answering machine blinked red off and on. My brother Glen’s voice told me to call him no matter what time we got in. It was just after midnight and I thought of not doing it, but I’d never had that kind of message from him before. I punched in his number. Glen snatched up the phone before the end of the first ring.

  “Jerry’s missing!” he announced.

  6

  The boy had been expected home from a basketball game at six. By seven his parents were angry he hadn’t called. By nine they’d called all of Jerry’s friends and the school. By eleven they were frantic. Now, after mi
dnight, they were scared. They’d called the police, who promised they’d do what they could after he’d been gone twenty-four hours. His coach and teachers said he had an uneventful day at school, followed by a normal basketball game: scored ten points, made a couple of great steals. No failing grades, no fights with another kid. Jerry’d been seen walking home by himself on the same path he’d used since third grade. It was a three-quarter-mile stretch, well lit, with no dark spots for lurking attackers. All these years he’d traversed it uneventfully. I remembered years ago he insisted he wasn’t a baby and could walk it by himself. His concerned parents had shadowed him for a week. They’d discovered a network of parents who watched the same streets and corners, joined the group, and worried less.

  I felt guilty about not telling Glen about Father Clarence’s threats. After I got off the phone I called the rectory. I got the damn answering machine. I hoped their parishioners would revolt against the lazy shits and their mechanical approach to crisis.

  Scott suggested calling Father Clarence in Manhattan. Directory assistance found the number listed under the last name and first initial. I dialed and got an answering machine. We debated going in person and decided first thing in the morning would be just as good.

  I paced the floor for an hour. Scott does what he does when he’s upset. Late as it was, he headed for the gym down on the second floor of the penthouse. After a while I joined him. Together we punished the machines for half an hour.

  I wound up curled in a chair in the living room, falling asleep around five. At six he woke me. The alarm had gone off. I had to get to school. He came with me. He’d go straight to Glen’s house. I’d join them after picketing, and together we’d confront Clarence.

  First thing, I got hold of Kurt and explained the situation to him. He told me to forget the union, asked me if he could do anything. I told him I’d let him know. From Glen’s I phoned Frank Murphy, the River’s Edge cop. He had no news, promised to push as hard as he could to find Jerry. While Glen and Jeanette went to school to question or requestion Jerry’s friends, classmates, and teachers, we drove to the rectory. We didn’t see the red Corvette but, being unsure of his habits, stopped anyway, on the off chance Clarence had come in from Manhattan without it.