Gilman, Dorothy - A Nun in the Closet

by Dorothy Gilman

  "I assumed, of course, that you shot him," said Sister John.

  "Me?" He looked astonished. "The guy's on my payroll and I should shoot him?"

  "Ah," murmured Sister John, nodding.

  "What's more he's a friend of mine."

  "Was," pointed out Ianicelli, "and not so good a friend if he stole fifteen pounds of you-know-what, boss."

  "With the money I pay him?" said Scozzafava, shaking his head. "Christ, is nothing sacred? Last week Ev Brown, today Sheriff McGee-Okay, let's skip that for the moment. Let's start with the fact he's dead and take it slow and easy, boys. For instance if he's dead somebody had to kill him. The question is, who?"

  "One of this bunch, boss?"

  Scozzafava's glance moved over Alfie, Brill, Naomi, Bhanjan Singh and dismissed them contemptuously. "Amateurs," he said. "Let me think a minute." Again there was silence, interrupted only by Scozzafava's fingers impatiently tapping the table. He suddenly snapped his fingers and pointed at Sister John. "You," he said. "You mentioned a Giovianni." When she nodded he said, "Charlie, what's the name of that pretty guy with teeth who works for Grassia? Used to be Nick's bag man."

  "Giovianni, boss."

  Scozzafava nodded. "I'm beginning to smell something, Joe, something's getting through to me. Joe, I want you should call Grassia. Tell him I want a sit-down. Tell him where we are-I have a feeling when he hears where we are it'll be enough to bring him running. Tell him we've got to talk."

  "Boss, you think-"

  "Never mind what I think, find a telephone and call him. He should be in Scarsdale, it's Saturday night and he's a family man. Tell him I got four men with me and he can bring four. Tell him it's urgent."

  "Right, boss," he said, and hurried out of the room.

  Mr. Scozzafava stood up slowly and looked around the room like a man suddenly released from an unsatisfying and constricting role. "This is no longer a social call," he announced flatly. "Charlie, move these people into the living room and then take over the back door here. Roy, you find a shovel and start digging outside, some nice quiet corner in the garden, you understand? One can't be too careful."

  "I understand, boss," Roy said, and grinned unpleasantly at Sister John as he strode past her.

  15

  "I don't like the odds," murmured Alfie as they were herded into the living room. "I get the distinct impression that Mr. Scozzafava isn't planning to plant nasturtiums in that hole in the back yard."

  "No," said Naomi distastefully. "Us."

  It had grown dark outside while they were in the kitchen, and the clock on the mantel said half-past nine. Turning on the light Brill said, "There are six of us against their five, you know."

  Alfie snorted. "I can kick, Naomi knows how to bite, and you won a Golden Gloves championship, but I can't see Sister Hyacinthe, Bhanjan Singh and Sister John brawling, can you?"

  "No indeed," said Bhanjan Singh, seating himself on the floor and tucking his legs under him. "Wisdom goes beyond strength."

  "I agree wholeheartedly," said Sister John, and turning to Brill, said, "We were going to talk about plans for the migrant village, you know. There's a map of the property on the mantel." She walked resolutely to the mantel, head high, and returned to the couch. "I've been wondering, would it save money to place the houses in a row, with one furnace for every two or three houses, and the basements connecting, or would it be more sensible to have the houses detached?"

  Looking a little dazed, Brill sat down beside her. "It depends, of course . . . Where will your sewage lines enter?"

  "Isn't she worried?" Naomi asked Sister Hyacinthe.

  "Oh, I don't think so. She has perfect faith, you know."

  "Maddening," said Naomi, and turned fiercely to Bhanjan Singh. "Faith in what, Bhanjan? Is there a God?"

  With his eyes closed Bhanjan Singh said serenely, "Man has taken huge steps forward and has proven that God cannot exist. He sees only the steps behind him; what he does not see are the steps remaining ahead. He rests, believing he knows all."

  "Isn't there something we can do?" demanded Alfie. "Good God, when this Grassia comes he'll bring more men."

  "Maybe they'll have a fight and kill each other off and we can plant them in the garden," said Naomi.

  Bhanjan Singh opened his eyes. "All wisdom can be stated in two lines: what is done for you-allow it to be done. What you must do for yourself-make sure you do it."

  "What you must do for yourself . . ." echoed Brill, suddenly thoughtful. He looked entranced, and then gleeful, and reached over Sister John's lap to grasp her notebook. "Tear off a corner of your paper for me, will you?" he asked.

  "Whatever for?"

  "Never mind, there's a wild chance if I do this right." He nibbled the tip of his pencil, hesitated a moment and then began scribbling. "Think you could get this into the bag of garbage under the kitchen sink? It's important."

  "Just-throw it away?" faltered Sister John, and when he nodded she said, "How very odd. I'll try, of course."

  Leaving the couch, she headed for the kitchen. Mr. Scozzafava, reading a Daily News in the dining room, glanced up without interest and she successfully negotiated the passage into the kitchen, glancing at Brill's note as she went. On it he had scribbled: JOHN! SATURDAY NIGHT JULY 11, 12 MIDNIGHT MEETING, BLACK LIBERATION ARMY AND WEATHERMEN. BE ABSOLUTELY SURE YOU'RE NOT FOLLOWED. YOU KNOW WHERE I AM, NUNS ARE OKAY. BRILL.

  She walked into the kitchen and deposited the note in the bag of garbage, empty of all but two of Alfie's Coke tins and a few snips of string. Charlie, seated on a stool by the back door, watched her moodily.

  "What a mess," said Brill, following her out into the kitchen. He began plucking stalks of mustard from the floor and stuffing them into the garbage. "Anything else to go? I'll take it out to the pail."

  At this Charlie slid off the stool, saying threateningly, "Oh no you won't."

  "The sister wants the garbage out," Brill told him coldly. "You see any reason why the garbage can't go out?"

  "None at all but you're not taking it out, brother. Get lost, I'll take it. Where's it go?"

  "The bucket's at the bottom of the porch steps."

  Charlie nodded, took the bag and carried it out, leaving Brill with a scowl on his face. "There's a man who's probably going to execute me before dawn . . . Well, anyway, that's done. I have, you might say, shot an arrow into the air, to fall to earth I know not where. What shall we do next now?"

  "Wait," said Sister John confidently, "and pray."

  It was eleven o'clock when Mr. Ianicelli returned, walking into the hall and banging the screen door behind him. Glancing into the dining room he said, "Grassia's here, boss, we stashed the cars in the barn."

  Scozzafava put down his newspaper. "What took you so long?"

  "He wasn't at his house, he was at some damn fool church reception."

  The screen door whined again and a burly man walked in wearing a light cashmere coat against the chills of the night. His face was large, with blunt, curiously flat features. He stopped in the hall, blinking at the bright lights, and then glanced into the living room. If he was surprised to find it occupied by six people, two of them nuns, he gave no evidence of it. He nodded to them pleasantly and turned toward the dining room. "Christ, Frank," he said, unbelting his coat, "I certainly am surprised to see you here. You been using this place, too?"

  Mr. Giovianni followed him inside, dressed tonight in a white suit and plaid tie, but the three men behind him still wore the belted raincoats they had worn in the garden on Monday night.

  Without preamble Scozzafava said, "Who shot McGee?"

  "Fred," said Grassia, taking a chair opposite Scozzafava at the dining-room table. With a jerk of his head toward the living room he asked, "You care if they hear this?"

  "It's too late for that," said Scozzafava with a shrug. "Why the hell did Fred shoot McGee?"

  "Because," Grassia said, inserting a cigar between his lips and lighting it, "McGee had the gall to sell Fred fifteen pound
s of cocaine that turned out to be sugar. Plain old table sugar." His voice was reproachful. "You know we can't stand for a double cross like that, Frank."

  Scozzafava nodded. "It was my cocaine he stole, Nick, I'm missing exactly fifteen pounds"

  "Yeah? He pull the double cross on you too, then? Fred figured it had to be your snow, seeing as how he's your man, but when he found it was sugar-"

  "A rotten apple," Scozzafava said, nodding. "Okay, fair enough, no hard feelings, except what happened to the real stuff, the cocaine? It doesn't make sense, McGee pulling a stupid trick like that. The sisters here have proof McGee snatched the fifteen pounds out of the pantry just this afternoon."

  Grassia's jaw dropped. "You had it here, Frank?" He stabbed his brow with the back of his hand. "If I'd only known! Christ, we been using the house, too, Frank. How the hell did these nuns get here, anyway? You could have knocked me over with a feather when the boys told me the place is suddenly occupied."

  "Turns out to have been Joe Moretti's place legally, Nick. He died and left it to nuns."

  "It still belonged to him!" Grassia shook his head in wonder. "Those were the days, remember Frank? He was a good boss before he got deported and we all split. Beautiful man."

  "We split but I don't know why you thought you could go on using the house, Nick, when it was me who took Joe's place."

  Grassia shrugged. "We always used it when Moretti was boss, didn't we? He'd send me here as often as he did you, Frank. Habit, that's all." He sounded aggrieved. "Hell, we'd all been Moretti's men and then Picolo split and I went with him, and then Picolo went up the river and I took over; how was I to know you were using the place too?"

  "I had the keys, you ever have the keys, Nick?"

  "No, but-"

  Scozzafava jerked his head toward the rear of the house. "Just the outside?"

  "Okay, so why not?" asked Grassia, shrugging. "A few bodies here and there-it's nice and quiet, just like a cemetery. Which brings me to another point, Frank. One of my best men shot a guy here last weekend and loused up the job. My best hit man."

  Scozzafava's glance was sympathetic. "Would that be Fingers Jacoby they found Wednesday in the Roslyn parking lot?"

  Grassia nodded. "My best man, Frank. Broke my heart to put out a contract on him."

  Scozzafava shook his head. "Even the best of them lose the silver touch, Nick, but I never would have believed it of Fingers Jacoby." He looked pensive. "You say he did it here, Nick?"

  Grassia nodded. "Outside, in the back."

  "And Fingers missed?"

  "He missed all right," Grassia said grimly, knocking the ashes from his cigar. "We never found no body, not even a drop of blood."

  He looked up, and seeing the expression on Scozzafava's face he froze with the cigar halfway to his lips. There was a long silence and then both men turned their faces to the living room, their eyes resting with interest on Sister John and Sister Hyacinthe. Scozzafava said softly, "Cocaine turns to sugar, and bodies disappear . . . Charlie?" he shouted, and in an aside to Grassia explained, "Charlie's my hit man, the only man with a gun. You come armed, Nick?"

  Nick looked affronted. "To a sit-down? I trusted you, Frank."

  "Charlie," he said as Charlie came in from the kitchen, "take another look at the cocaine you brought up from the cellar. Taste it, smell it, make sure it's the real thing. Where'd you leave it, Charlie?"

  "Right here on the stairs in the hall, boss."

  "Okay, bring it here."

  In the living room Sister John turned to the others and said in a low voice, "This is our chance, of course. I'll give them the real snow in exchange for your safety, it's the only thing to do."

  "I hate to disillusion you," Alfie told her, "but I think it's rather late for that. We know too much, we know who killed Sheriff McGee and who killed someone called Fingers Jacoby, and-what's the matter with Charlie?" he asked, staring into the hall. "He looks as if he's seeing a ghost."

  Charlie was staring openmouthed at a point in the curving staircase beyond their vision. He said, "It's gone, boss, the sugar's gone. We stashed it right here, halfway up the stairs out of the way-so help me we did-and it's gone."

  With a martyred sigh Scozzafava rose and walked into the hall where he, too, stared, apparently at an empty staircase. "It didn't just walk off by itself," he pointed out testily. "Search the damn house again; there has to be somebody else here."

  "Or the house could be haunted," put in Sister John quickly from the living room. "We had the most extraordinary experience the other night. Voices crying, chains rattling, a glowing face at the window . . ."

  Scozzafava gave her an annoyed glance. "You know damned well it was us."

  Giovianni, stationed beside the door, looked around the living room and said in a voice of discovery, "Hey, when I took the census they told me three nuns lived here but I see only two."

  Grassia snapped his fingers. "There's your answer, Frank, your men missed a room and there's some nun playing hide-and-seek with us."

  "So find her," Scozzafava said, glaring at Giovianni. "She'll have to be upstairs or we'd have seen her steal the sugar off the stairs. Christ it's hard to get reliable help these days."

  Grassia nodded. "They don't know the meaning of work any more, all they want is the money. Not like the old days, is it Frank?"

  "You can say that again," Scozzafava told him gloomily. "The Puritan ethic's shot to hell."

  From upstairs came a triumphant shout and the group in the living room exchanged anxious glances. Sister John said quietly, "You don't think-"

  "He could have," said Brill. "Who else would they have found?"

  "The damn fool-he's just greedy enough," put in Alfie.

  Shouts of laughter floated down from the upper staircase. Giovianni shouted, "Boss, you'll never believe who we found dressed like a nun and hiding all the snow in a closet. You won't believe it."

  "Try me and see," Grassia told him sharply. "Stop the games and come downstairs."

  Three people slowly made their appearance on the stairs, their shoes first-one pair looking very familiar-followed by two pairs of pants on either side of a long and flowing skirt. They reached the bottom of the staircase and presented to the world a disheveled and panicstricken Sister Ursula.

  "Everett Brown!" gasped Grassia.

  "In the flesh," said Giovianni, grinning.

  "Who?" asked Sister John, walking into the hall to join them. "Who did you say this man is?"

  "My accountant. Was my accountant," Grassia said, and walking over to Sister Ursula hit him hard across the face with the back of his hand. "Stool pigeon," he growled. "What d'ye mean, who is he, you been hiding him, haven't you?"

  "We found him bleeding to death in a closet," she told him coldly, "and I'll have to ask you not to hit any guest of ours in this house."

  "Hey, I know that name," Alfie said, joining her in the hall. "He's the guy who was in all the papers last week; I remember the headlines. The Mafia accountant who turned state's witness, right? He was on his way to the court house from jail-under heavy guard, too-and he was kidnaped right from under the noses of the marshals."

  "Bright boy," said Grassia, and turning to Scozzafava said, "Frank, you mind doing me a favor and lending me your hit man?"

  "Not at all," Scozzafava said, and with a nod to Charlie, "Kill the man, Charlie. Finish him off."

  "I won't allow you to shoot Sister Ursula again," said Sister John, looking pale but resolute. "Sister Hyacinthe went to a great deal of trouble to save his life, and it's out of the question that you shoot him again."

  "Out of whose question?" said Scozzafava rudely. "Get it over with, Charlie, we've got a busy night ahead. Start with Ev Brown but for Christ's sake use a silencer, I'm very sensitive to noise."

  "Has it occurred to you that Sister Ursula-I mean Mr. Brown-may be sensitive to getting killed?" demanded Sister John. "Gentlemen, think of the Golden Rule, think of your consciences, it must already be the Sabbath Day by now."r />
  "You think of it, Sister," said Scozzafava in a dangerous voice. "Go ahead, Charlie, show what a real hit man can do."

  Charlie brought out his gun and fitted a silencer to it with expert fingers. He stood with his back to the front door, a distance of six feet between him and a cowering Sister Ursula.

  "Charlie is not going to shoot anyone," said Sister John quietly, and began to walk slowly across the hall toward him holding out her hand. "Give me the gun, Charlie."

  Charlie grinned. "Better stay back, Sister, I've shot twenty-three people already." He lifted his gun and aimed it at Sister Ursula, clinging desperately to the newel post.

  Sister John continued walking toward him, her face calm, her voice gentle. "Give me the gun, Charlie."

  Alfie said, "For God's sake somebody stop her, she's moving into his line of fire."

  "We mustn't," whispered Sister Hyacinthe behind him. "She wouldn't like that, you know, she has perfect faith."

  "The gun, Charlie," repeated Sister John, advancing on him, her eyes fixed upon his.

  "For Chrissake get her out of my way," shouted Charlie. "Boss, how can I shoot Ev with a nun in the way?"

  "Then shoot her too," said Scozzafava furiously. "Go ahead, shoot."

  "Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum: benedicta fu in mulieribus, et benedictus fractus ventrie tui Jesus," murmured Sister John, and came to a stop in front of Charlie, still holding out her hand. She said, "The gun, Charlie."

  He stared at her as if hypnotized.

  "Shoot, Charlie," screamed Scozzafava. "For Chrissake shoot. Look, has anybody else a gun? Somebody give me a gun and I'll shoot the lot of them. Charlie, for the last time-kill!"

  Charlie and Sister John faced each other for an endless, pregnant, spellbound moment. No one moved or breathed. At last the silence was broken almost ludicrously by the sound of glass shattering in the living room. A man jumped through a window, followed by another. The front door flew open, knocking Charlie to his knees, and from outside a voice called over a loudspeaker: "This is the FBI speaking, we have the house surrounded . . . This is the FBI speaking, we have the house surrounded . . ."