Dies Irae

by Ruby Spinell

  He stepped on the gas. Where was she going now? Hadn’t Zeke told him she stayed in Westchester Thursdays? The woman was impossible. They hadn’t spoken in six months. He had no idea if she was well. She never asked for money; was she making enough to make ends meet?

  Eli wasn’t sure afterwards why he parked the car in the rear lot, checked his billfold, grabbed a small overnight case from the trunk, and boarded the four o’clock to New York, keeping surreptitiously to the rear.

  He thought of those early years in the city. Young, foolishly in love, they saved up for a sitter and got a room in the Village for the night. Suppose they just happened to run into each other again. A little blue flame of hopefulness burned in his chest; all things seemed possible.

  He looked at his features in the glass against the becoming darkness. Older, not necessarily wiser. He missed her in his life.

  As the train sped south, a wry smile played around the corners of his mouth. She was probably meeting some guy, some artsy type, a writer, painter. God knows; With Mir, a rock musician was possible. He could tell already, he’d be on the return train. At least he had a book in the tote. He gave a great sigh, chalking it up to experience!

  Mir, collapsing in one of the front cars, let her mind go blank. The conductor spoke three times, then, unable to break through the glaze on the attractive face, he finally shook her shoulder. She pulled her mind away from the monastery.

  The train, descending into the dingy alley that was Harlem, brought her to the present. Some heavy duty communication had taken place back there. Sister Damian had wanted to talk. The two and a half hours went like minutes; her mind was racing. Better let it go now. Relax. Enjoy Danley’s exuberant maleness.

  Once Eli convinced himself he was bumbling into a tryst, he kept well behind her in the crowd leaving the train at Grand Central. She was walking spiritedly toward the main information desk when he saw her arm go up in greeting. Arthur Danley bore down on her. Eli stopped abruptly.

  A woman’s voice behind him said, “Hey mister, watch it!” He stood watching the look on Danley’s face. A bear of a guy; he saw him put his hand on Mir’s fly-away shoulder-length greying-red hair as if to tame it. Danley’s head bent. At fifty feet, their laughter pierced Eli.

  In Grand Central, Arthur Danley looked at her as if she were a newly discovered passage to ancient China.

  “It does great things for my ego, Arthur D. to see you standing there grinning like that.”

  Making a curiously inept gesture at smoothing her hair, he bent down. “Very glad you decided to come! Here, let me take that, I’ve a car in the garage across the way.”

  He sat looking at her in the black Lincoln, “How do you feel about going straight to El Faro? Or do you want to freshen up somewhere first?”

  “Let’s go to El Faro. I can do whatever needs doing there. I’ve been running all day, just barely made the train.”

  “Seems to me that’s the usual state of affairs with you, you’re always running,” but his eyes were frankly appraising.

  “I said I was going to eat sparingly, but I’m starved. I want you to order me a dry, dry martini straight up, while I’m primping. I’m going to eat, I’m going to drink, I’m going to celebrate my new assignment!” She sat back against the soft, tan leather upholstery with a satisfied smile on her face. The back of his powerful hand caressed her cheek slowly, coming to rest on her lips.

  She had watched his profile as he maneuvered the luxury car through rush hour traffic. He enjoyed every minute of it. A fine color inched along the broad cheekbones. Some of his actions had reminded her of Anthony Quinn, like how his eyes shone every time he stole an inch of someone’s space, or cut someone off without the brush on brush of metal. She felt wellbeing seep through her limbs. She had long since stopped questioning it. A powerful man handling a powerful car was definitely a turn-on.

  “Don’t forget the martini, please?” He nodded. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She made her way from the table in the semi-private dining room to the ladies’ room.

  Well! Mir looked at herself, You look like you’ve run the thirty mile and won. The clothes one wears to an interview at a monastery are not the ones to wear to dinner with a man like Arthur Danley, my dear. She put her case down on the table, slid out of the high-necked sweater, sniffed her armpits, decided she smelled OK, and pulled a red, scoop-necked, silk velour from the overnight bag and drew it on.

  It went well with the black skirt. After putting on tiny, pierced ruby earrings, she bent her head low and brushed the hell out of her hair. Straightening up, she ran fingers coated with gel through it.

  He watched her walk up the three wide steps, watched her walk every single inch of flooring to the table, with a flare behind his eyes. When she sat down, he made a pretext of knocking ash from his cigar. Gruffly, he spoke to the table, “That was not judicious.”

  “Not discreet? Or not wise? Women celebrating is always innate Wisdom.” A teasing smile played around her eyes as she faced the glare in his.

  Arthur Danley looked slowly from the top of her head to the low-slung breasts to the twin pinpricks of red in her ear lobes and gave a long drawn-out sigh. He was drinking some kind of black ale.

  Gently she tapped her martini glass on his, “Cheers.”

  The colorless liquid leapt over the rim, the droplets flashing in the candle light before soaking in the padded tablecloth as he grabbed her wrist and held it for a long moment. “Order for me?” she said. “Not too hot.”

  “I can see why,” he said, laughing at her across the table. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkled. “That martini has gone straight to your head hasn’t it?”

  She nodded in mock submission. They ate in silence for some time.

  “You do know your way around the better restaurants, Arthur D.”

  “I know my way around the poorer ones also.”

  “I believe it,” she mumbled through a mouthful. She did not mention seeing him on Bleecker.

  “So, you had your first meeting with the sisters at Annunciation Monastery today. How did it go?” He stretched back, opened his suit jacket and stuck his thumbs in his belt.

  “Pretty well, I’m excited, could have killed you though, with that build-up!” She frowned at him. “I walked in there so overwhelmingly conscious of my lack of sensationalism, my thoughtfulness, and my sensitivity, that I nearly tripped over my feet.” He leaned across the table suddenly and slowly ran a finger softly down one side and up the other of the cleft of her breasts. “Oh no, don’t do that. You have to be wearing the right uniform for that.” She laughed to herself and then shook her head as if trying to scatter some thought from her brain.

  “What are you thinking?” he said.

  “Noooo.”

  “Come on.”

  The martini, the wine, the food, the man, the air of seduction, lessened her inhibitions. “I had this fantasy.” The waiter came and removed their plates. They ordered espresso. His large, powerful hands were clasped an inch from her breasts on the cleared white tablecloth; curly gold hairs sparkled on their backs.

  “Yes?”

  “I saw myself kneeling, kissing your ring. You were piously fondling my breasts.”

  Flares leapt like incendiary bombs in his eyes. “When did you start having these thoughts, my child?”

  She choked, “That’s it! That’s it exactly, that’s the Voice! They would sit there behind the velvet curtains in their little cubicles asking all sorts of impertinent questions. How long did I think of it. What did I do when I thought of it. Did I stop doing it before I finished thinking … Oh, God! Impurity. I know what impurity is. One day, an old priest, after long nit-picky questioning, started breathing heavily. Suddenly, he was wheezing.” She gave an imitation at the table. “I up and left.”

  “What were you telling the poor fellow?”

  “Nothing worth wheezing about.”

  “Maybe it was your perfume.”

  “No. He asked one hell of a
lot of questions.” He was looking at her fondly. “Oh, Arthur, I’m sorry! I’ve had too much to drink. It’s your bag, I mean, I’m an idiot to knock your livelihood. I’ve known some amazingly beautiful men in the priesthood …”

  “Don’t!” Two fingers came down on her lips. “I’ve been many things, Mir. I grew up in alleys. I’ve worn rags, I’ve worn rings. It’s all a game. I’m not attached … Ahh, since we’re being honest tonight, hell, I’m damn attached … I’m attached to the power that comes with it, the freedom it allows.”

  He changed the subject. “You think you’re going to enjoy doing the article?” She nodded. “Did you know your ex was in charge of the investigation?

  “Yes, I guess I did hear that.”

  “What’s he like?”

  “Eli? Oh …” Arthur Danley watched her closely. “Eli’s a curious amalgam.” She grew serious. “He’s very good at what he does.”

  “But lousy at being a husband?”

  She ran her tongue along her lower lip. “Sometimes I think he married me in order to study Kaballah. Did you know you cannot study Kaballah unless you’re married?”

  Danley was cautious … “Is it a turn-on?”

  He got what he wanted when she laughed out loud. “Yes! I’m not being fair, Arthur, not fair at all. We loved each other. He married me, took on two kids, made a home for the rest that came along. My first husband just up and left one day, I was just a kid myself. Her voice softened. “Eli’s Eli …”

  “Do you see him?”

  “Not much at all. It’s been at least six months since we talked.” “Seems to me … seeing the care in your eyes … you should keep in touch.” He did not look at her as he said this.

  She whispered in return, “Is that pastoral advice, Your Reverence?”

  He didn’t smile, but looked steadily at her. “What I’d like to do right now could not, under existing sanctions, be called pastoral. Would you like brandy with your coffee?”

  “Please.”

  Some men don’t know the first thing about seduction, Mir thought, watching his hands on the brandy bottle the waiter had left at a sign from him, on the table. And then, there are men like this. A curly fleece escaped from the cuffs of his shirt.

  “I am grateful for the introduction to Mother Michaels,” Mir said. “She’d have had nothing to do with me without your say. It will put food on the table.”

  “You’ll do good work and rather you than some harebrain.”

  “How did you decide to become a priest?”

  He tried to be jocular. “Have we had that much to drink?”

  “You needn’t answer.”

  He looked at her seriously, “I’ve always been a wheeler and dealer. One day I decided to wheel and deal God. I’m good at it. One has to do what he can do well.” He shrugged his shoulders. “In many ways, I’m still maneuvering as I did on the streets as a kid.”

  He changed the subject. “Still want to see my friend Zhang’s work? His show’s at the Caroline on Spring.

  “Yes, I would like that.” She was feeling very trusting and laid back. She wanted to stand by his side and feel the otherness of him. They could discuss the paradoxicality of Zen and Western abstract art. She wanted the slow burn to spread while they discussed the Eastern inspiration.

  At the C. Hill Gallery, he moved her about through the crowd discussing expressionism and atypicality and synthesis and mountains and clouds and spirit and air. And every word said what his fingers were saying on her arm, her waist, her back. Every word said, I want you.

  The on again off again drizzle had succeeded in saturating the shoulders of Eli’s overcoat. A trickle of cold water gleefully found an opening at the seam between the collar and the body of the coat and poured onto not-so-warm flesh.

  He felt cold, wet, angry, and disbelieving. If it had been anyone but Danley! He’d be home in his nice warm apartment with his feet up. The pipe dream about Mir, long burst, he settled into surveillance. He hadn’t lost his touch, even the un-routine patrol hadn’t spotted him.

  While they ate and he held up a wall, an old friend at the Village precinct traced the car. The big, black Lincoln was registered to Maysenrod, Robert D.

  Danley, his arm about Mir, was coming out of the gallery with three others. The five of them stood talking in the light rain. Then Mir and Danley walked towards the Lincoln. He slipped hurriedly down the side street, hailed a taxi, and was able to point the headlights of the big car out to his driver before it turned the corner and headed north.

  Trailing Mirari like this left a bad taste in his mouth. She couldn’t know what she’d gotten into!

  He had a pretty good idea where they were heading. The address on the registration was one of those reclamation brownstone streets worth billions. He had the driver stop well out of sight, paid him, and began walking down the opposite side of the street. I wish I had a dog and a stack of newspapers, he thought. The brownstone, more elaborate than some of its neighbors, had a refurbished carriage house attached. He watched as it swallowed up the Lincoln.

  As the doors folded down hiding the tail lights, he eyeballed his surroundings looking for a vantage point. There wasn’t any. Then he saw the alley two houses up. It jutted toward the rear of the buildings.

  Someone making a cursory attempt to separate garbage and keep it from the rain and the neighborhood cats and dogs had built a three-sided lean-to along Danley’s garden fence. From there, he watched the windows on the second floor light up, watched the broad-shouldered proprietary way Danley pulled the drapes across the large center window as Mir walked up behind him.

  Eli hunkered down with his back against the lean-to and asked himself what a sane man would do in a similar situation. He let all the muscles in his neck relax and willed the loosening ripple down his torso to that tip of spine nearest the dirt. A light spit … spit … of water hit the lid of the can to his right. The hiss of tire noise on the wet streets sifted back to the little oasis.

  If he hadn’t been as still, inside and out, Eli would never have sensed the man. He didn’t breathe and he made not one iota of sound. It was the void approaching soundlessly on his left that warned him. Letting the breath ease out of his lungs, he waited.

  This wasn’t just any man. No one moves so emptily without training. Lots of it. Most people did not realize how far their psychic body sticks out, a bundle of tentacles, pleasant or unpleasant, riffling the environment. Like Sister Damian’s electromagnetic energy.

  He smiled to himself, crouching there in the dark. Someone who could pull in so expertly, ahh … when had he last encountered one such as that? It had been a long time. Too long!

  The surge brought him to his feet with one knee bent. Bursting skyward, the knee came up under the chin, even as his curved right hand crushed a nose. The figure slumped for just a moment, dazed, before he could make a comeback, Eli brought pressure on his neck until he crumpled. Catching him, he lowered him quietly to the ground.

  It was over too quickly. He pulled the limp body into a bit of light from the ground floor of the house across the way. A man measuring about six feet, dressed entirely in black, face black-stained, lay at his feet, his nose evidently broken.

  No windows opened in the other apartments. The drizzle quickened and turned to drops. No use leaving him out in the wet. Eli pulled the limp body into the makeshift shelter.

  He looked for long moments at the second-floor window. Could Mir take care of herself? He hoped so. A sixth sense told him to get out of there. He wondered if the man had seen him well enough to identify him. That would depend on how long he had been observed. He’d have to chance it; he certainly wasn’t going to kill anyone tonight.

  He made his desultory way out to the main avenue. He wasn’t exactly a father waiting up for a daughter to return from a first date. Why did he feel like one? Aimlessly, he watched the traffic, then hailed a cab to take him to Grand Central Station.

  As the train left the city, he got the book out. So the bishop
’s unofficial quarters came with a guard. And not just any guard. Someone trained by Special forces, trained in martial arts. How much was at stake guarding a bishop? He wondered if Walt Bath had anything on Maysenrod yet. The book lay unopened on his knees.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The old-fashioned cage elevator that took them from the garage to Danley’s apartment had brass railings, and a gold snake with a mouth like a yawning cat glazing over in the center of the marble floor. Mir moved her feet.

  “Something else, isn’t he?”

  “I don’t think he wants me to stand on his head.”

  “Oh … I dunno, I’m sure he’s gotten used to it after all these eons.”

  He opened the cage onto a hall with the softest, deepest, reddest carpet she had ever seen. Instinctively, she kicked off her shoes as her black coat slid off her shoulders. He watched the flush rise in her cheeks as she dug her stockinged toes into the pile.

  “Well!” she exclaimed. And then, “I don’t see a crucifix.”

  Arthur Danley was very quiet. He looked at the tall woman wearing the blouse the color of his rug for a long time before he reached out and drew her up against his hip. “Do you know you walk like a wild woman? You walk like an animal walks in deep wood. The first time I saw you, I saw a lioness.” He chuckled, remembering, “trying to find something to eat in a very strange place. Did you ever eat the English muffin? Mine was dry.”

  Astride his thigh, she nibbled on his ear, “Like this?” She listened to him moan. “I want to love you,” she whispered.

  “Come see the apartment first. You have absolutely no restraint, you know.”

  “True, Your Reverence, true … Which is your room?”

  The place was lovely, as old, well-kept buildings that have lots of money poured into them can be. High ceilings, tall windows, wainscotting, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, wideboard plank flooring. The warm touch of wood from days when it was plentiful.

  “It’s beautiful!” she murmured. But he was looking at her. Feeling his eyes on her, she turned. “Which is your room?”