Killing Critics

by Carol O'Connell

  Father Brenner winced. He should have known better than to tell her, but under the circumstances, the theft of candles was the only cheerful note he had to offer the elderly nun, all that he was not prevented from repeating. And surely Kathy was safe from Ursula now. All the children were safe.

  Though he had never liked this woman, she was continuity to him, a last tie to the old days. He suspected she would live to speculate on whether or not his immortal soul had been admitted above or below.

  “I’m glad to see you looking so well,” he told her in all sincerity.

  “Thank you, Father. Now, about Kathy.”

  “I was rather pleased that she remembered where the candles were kept. Sorry I can’t enlighten you further, Sister Ursula, but she didn’t stop to chat.”

  “How many times do you think she’s done this?” Perhaps Sister Ursula’s true vocation was police work. Interrogation had always been her forte.

  “She’s only stolen candles once that I’m aware of, but the candles have gone missing several days in a row. So it would seem she is coming to church on a regular basis. I thought that might make you happy.”

  “She can buy votive candles in any supermarket or bodega for a few dollars. Doesn’t it make you wonder why she steals them from the church? Don’t you wonder what dark things she might be doing with them?”

  This had been a grave mistake, he could see that now. Ursula had something new to fixate on, to draw out into long strings of conspiracy. Why had it taken him so many years to rechristen her eccentricity as madness?

  “Well, I’m pretty confident that she’s not selling the candles on the black market.”

  The nun glared at him, to let him know his levity was not appreciated. “I know she’s doing something we would not approve of. She’s certainly not burning those candles to the glory of God.”

  The priest sighed. Ursula was a compulsive soul who would harbor dark suspicions of any parishioner who had not died the minute after baptism. She had been this way even in her young days.

  No, now that he thought of it, she had never been young. Even when her face was fresh and unlined, she had been dry as a stick, humorless and without mercy, condemning children to hell in her mind for the sins of youth and beauty, knowing to what use they would put those attributes in adult life.

  Kathy Mallory had been the supreme target, wild of spirit, possessing grace in the body and uncommon intelligence. But the little girl’s worst crime had been her lovely face. In Ursula’s mind, such a child should have been hidden from the world, so as not to create temptation in every man who encountered her.

  This beautiful child had brought home the truth that Ursula was quite insane. Among all the generations of children passing through the school, only Kathy Mallory had struck back.

  “Stealing candles from a church. Well, I’m not surprised. Once a thief, always a thief,” said Ursula. “I always wanted to catch her red-handed.”

  “Well, you broke up the floating poker game. That was something.”

  “But even under the threat of everlasting damnation, the other children wouldn’t give her up. It was never a clean win. She was only a child, yet she was the most worthy adversary I ever had.”

  Sister Ursula’s devotion to God was beyond the pale, and she could not have told a lie under torture. Young Kathy had been a gifted liar, an amoral character, a thief, a sinner only Nietzsche could love. Her simple creed in those days had been the child’s code of honor: Thou shalt not rat on anybody.

  And yet, on the last day of the world, when the earth gave up all its mysteries and all questions were answered, it would probably not surprise him to learn that God loved Kathy Mallory best—because she had not ratted on the nun.

  The child had taken her revenge, cradling a broken wrist in her good hand as she kicked the nun’s leg out from under her and brought the screaming Ursula to ground. Then Kathy had stalked off, never to break her silence, never to give in to the Markowitzes’ questioning or his own. She had been utterly satisfied with her revenge, and in the child’s mind, the affair was settled.

  Kathy’s old enemy now sat beside him, an aged monster at the end of her ruthless quest to suck the spirit from generations of children, an overzealous vampire in the service of God.

  “Thank you, Father, for bringing me this new information about Kathy.”

  “What are friends for?”

  This was not friendship, of course, for he suspected Ursula did not like him, and proximity to madness had always made him nervous. Whatever their relationship was, it would continue until one of them gave up the ghost.

  It is penance.

  He nodded at this new insight.

  When Mallory was certain there were no stakeout vehicles near her condominium, she stepped into the street, heading for the front door. A long black limousine stopped in front of her, a window rolled down and a familiar face nodded her back to the curb. She waited on the sidewalk as the car pulled up. A door opened and she slid into the rear seat beside the aged Mafia don.

  He smiled at her, displaying red, receding gums and broken, crooked teeth with wide gaps between them. She knew his type. He would take great pride in having all his own teeth, however rotted they might be. He was probably unaware that it gave him the look of an old dog who could no longer chew.

  He turned to face her. His breath reeked. “I hope those offshore account numbers were of some use to you.”

  She nodded.

  He leaned over to speak more intimately. “Mallory, have you ever thought of getting into another line of work?”

  “No. I like being a cop. I’m good at it.”

  “You take after Markowitz.” He reached out one gnarly hand to touch hers. She balled her hand into a fist to warn him off. He did pull back, but he also smiled, as if he found her gesture of violence exquisitely charming.

  “I suppose you learned a lot from your father.”

  She nodded again. “So the sooner you retire, old man, the better.”

  His cracked lips spread wide over the yellow teeth, and his frail body shook when he laughed. The laughter turned into a barking cough. He reached out to the bar recessed into the back seat of the limo. Where the booze should be, there was a water pitcher and a portable pharmacy of medication. He fiddled with a plastic mask attached to a small bottle of oxygen. He clasped it over his face and inhaled deeply.

  Enjoying the good life, old man?

  Mallory glanced at her watch while she waited out the dregs of the coughing spasm. “I haven’t got all day,” she said. “What do you want?”

  He removed the mask. “I came to warn you.” His every breath was a ragged piece of work. He held up one hand to call for a time-out. In another minute, he was himself again. “Blakely tried to hire one of my boys to whack you. I put a stop on that.”

  “How comforting.” She touched the glass partition that separated the driver from his employer. “Bulletproof glass?”

  “Yes, and soundproof—very private. I conduct all my business in this car, so my driver checks it for bugging devices every morning.”

  She could only see the dark hair of the man behind the wheel. He stared straight ahead. “And who checks the driver?”

  “He’s family—my nephew’s youngest boy. Satisfied? Now listen to me, Mallory. Don’t underestimate Blakely. He’s scared now—not thinking straight. Next, he’ll lean on one of his own people to do the job. He’s gone underground. It may take me awhile to find him. But I can give you a good bodyguard—”

  “I don’t want your bodyguard. And you don’t touch Blakely—you got that? You can’t kill all your mistakes, old man. Blakely is being threatened with tax evasion, not mob connections. There won’t be any investigation. I keep my bargains—you better keep yours.”

  The driver’s head turned slightly to find her reflection in his rearview mirror. He looked away quickly, as though she had caught him at something.

  Now what was that about?

  “I want you to take the b
odyguard.” The old don’s voice was insistent, but not so confident anymore. “I’m going to give you a man I would trust with my own life.”

  “So you’re still worried that it’s all going to come back on you.” And if she didn’t live through the night, it would. Buying Blakely had been a bad mistake, and the payoff trail to a senator had left the old Mafia don vulnerable. It was only a matter of time before his own people realized what a liability he was.

  She caught the eyes of the young driver in the rearview mirror. Was this man suddenly worried too?

  “Cops don’t need bodyguards.” Her eyes traveled over the car’s lush appointments, looking for the thing that didn’t belong here.

  “Cops don’t usually have gunmen after them,” said the don, as though explaining elementary facts of life to a small child.

  “Yeah, they do—every time they hit the street.” Her eyes were fixed on an irregular upholstery stud near the glass partition. She leaned closer. The black stud was not leather but plastic, and it had three machine-made holes. She pulled it from the plush leather. It came out easily, only anchored by a pin. She blew a shrill whistle into the small plastic transmitter.

  On the other side of the glass wall, the driver put one hand to the ear where the receiver must be hidden. There was real pain in the mirror reflection of his eyes.

  The old man looked from the driver to the eavesdropping device in Mallory’s hand. Eyes rounded with shock, he knew he had been betrayed, yet he tried to deny it with the slow shake of his head.

  Mallory knew everything in the don’s mind: This could not be happening, not to him, not at the hands of his own family.

  “Soundproof? Bugproof? Don’t you wonder who your driver reports to?” Mallory touched the button to lower the glass partition. “Let’s ask him.”

  The man at the wheel was turning around, one hand fumbling in his coat where the holster would be. She was already pointing her revolver at the driver’s face—and the bulletproof glass was sliding down.

  The driver left the car at a dead run. Across the street, Frank the doorman was averting his eyes from the running man with the gun in his hand. Frank was a good New Yorker. What he did not see, he could not witness to in court at the cost of a day’s pay.

  When the running gunman was out of sight, Mallory holstered her revolver and turned back to the old don. “Was that one of your hotshot bodyguards?”

  Angry now, the don reached for the car phone. “That punk is a dead man.”

  Mallory grabbed his wrist. It took very little effort to restrain him. “Who are you going to call? Another bodyguard ? One of your nephew’s kids?” She sat quietly for all the time it took him to grasp this simple thing—he was the dead man.

  She opened the door and stepped out of the car. “Might be smarter to call a cab and head for the airport.” She closed the door slowly, saying, “Don’t light in any one place for too long. You know the drill, old man.”

  Mallory crossed the street to the condominium. Frank the doorman was smiling as he held the door open. “Two cops came by, miss.” He followed her into the lobby. “They showed me their badges and told me to let them into your apartment.” He pushed the button to fetch her an elevator. “But they didn’t have a warrant, so I told them to go screw themselves into the ground. I hope I did the right thing.”

  She put two twenty-dollar bills into his coat pocket to tell him he had done exactly the right thing.

  The elevator doors opened, and she looked up to the mirror mounted high on the back wall. It gave her a compressed view of an empty interior. When she stepped off the elevator at her floor, she had her revolver out of the holster. The gun preceded her into the apartment. After checking all the rooms and closets, she sat down on the couch and rifled her tote bag for the cellular phone.

  It was gone. But where—

  She checked her watch again. Now she reached over to the standard telephone on the end table and dialed Father Brenner’s number.

  Where is the damn cellular?

  While she talked to the priest, she searched the drawer of the table—a futile activity. Mrs. Ortega, world’s foremost cleaning woman, had put the apartment back in order after the robbery. So what were the odds that a single item would be out of place? Where had she lost the damn cellular phone?

  She finished her instructions to Father Brenner. “I want you to say a mass for her.”

  “Consider it done, Kathy. What was your mother’s name?”

  “You don’t need her name. When you talk about her, just say she was a woman who was brutally murdered. And leave me out of it.”

  She glanced at the messages accumulated on her answering machine.

  “Kathy?”

  “That’s all you get. It’s enough, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I’ll say the mass tomorrow.”

  “No, do it tonight, I need it tonight.”

  “All right, tonight it is. So you’re not looking for spiritual comfort for yourself?”

  “No. You can save that routine for the believers, the suckers.”

  “Are you still lighting the candles, Kathy?”

  Mallory hung up the phone.

  She emptied the tote bag on the coffee table, and spread the files and notebooks—not here. The last time she had seen the cellular phone it was in this bag, wasn’t it? No, wait. She remembered sliding it into the pocket of her blazer last night. She reached out for the desk phone, ignored the pulsing light of the messages waiting, and pushed the buttons for the number of her cellular phone.

  “Hello?”

  The voice was Andrew’s. So she had left it behind on the roof. “Hello, Andrew. How are you?”

  “Oh, Mallory. I was hoping you might call. Shall I give you your messages?”

  “Sure.”

  “You have one from Jack Coffey. He says the chief’s boys are after you with orders to bring you in. Oh, and J. L. Quinn called and asked for you. But he didn’t leave a message.”

  “Did Quinn say anything?”

  “Well, we did have a lovely chat. But there’s no message. He said he’d probably catch up with you later in the day.”

  “Thank you, Andrew.”

  Picking up a spare phone from her office was next on her list of things to do. It was shaping up to be a busy day. She pulled out her notebook and ticked off what she would need from her apartment.

  The doorman called on the house phone to announce J. L. Quinn. She should tell Frank to turn the man away. Time was precious, and she had already stayed here too long. What could Quinn want now? Perhaps his long chat with Andrew had raised a few questions.

  “Send him up, Frank.”

  When she admitted Quinn to her apartment, he was wearing his courtesy smile. She was learning to categorize his facial expressions, discovering small variations in the mask. He casually examined the surroundings, as if he were looking for something.

  She remained standing and folded her arms to let him know he would not be staying long. When he turned to face her, his smile was unaltered, but his eyebrows were raised, and she knew he was going to apologize.

  “Sorry to drop by without calling first, but if you recall, the only number you gave me was for the cellular phone, and it seems that Andrew Bliss has that.”

  He glanced at the long leather couch, probably waiting for an invitation to sit down. She ignored the subtlety.

  “So, Quinn, I understand you had a long talk with Andrew.”

  “Yes, he told me he made a confession to a green-eyed angel. I was surprised you hadn’t arrested him.”

  “Andrew’s idea of confession is my idea of a rambling drunk. I think we got as far as the sins of puberty. What do you want, Quinn?”

  He was staring at the walls, bare but for the single clock, a piece of minimal design with dots in place of numerals. The furnishings of her apartment were expensive, and stark. There should be nothing here to give away any shading of her personality. But by the faint nod of his head, she knew these environs were what he h
ad expected to find; that much was in his face when he turned back to her.

  “Mallory, I wonder if you’d have dinner with me tomorrow night. And perhaps the theater.”

  She turned away from him and covertly scanned her front room as though for the first time. What did Quinn see in this place? Perhaps it was what he did not see: no personal items to connect her to another human being, no dust, nothing out of place, and no wall hanging to indicate an interest in anything but time. The large clock dominated the space. The furniture was arranged in precision symmetry.

  And now she understood.

  This extreme order had not created the intended false front of a guarded personality—the real effect was all too personal, next to naked exposure. It was an effort to shake off the feeling of violation.

  “I’m free tomorrow,” she said. “Would you like to do something a little more exciting than dinner and the theater?”

  “Name it and it’s yours.” One splayed hand indicated that his offer included the whole earth. “Anything.”

  “A fencing match.”

  His smile was back, but only for a moment. “So Charles told you about the scar.” He walked over to the couch and ran his hand over the back of it, approving the quality of the leather, and perhaps wondering how she had managed it on a cop’s salary. “A fencing match. Well, that does sound more diverting.”

  She sat down in a chair and gestured to the couch. “Do you still keep your hand in? You have a membership at a fencing club?”

  “Yes, on both counts.” He settled into the plush leather cushions and crossed his legs. “What’s your background, Mallory?”

  “One semester of fencing classes at school, but I think I can take you.”

  It was predictable that he would not smile at this. He would never be rude enough to suggest that she was blowing smoke.

  “The agility of youth goes a long way, but it won’t take you all the way. Don’t count on an easy win.”

  “I can beat you. I’m willing to place a bet on it.”