True Confessions

by John Gregory Dunne

“Glass hands, that was always my problem,” Tom said. “Some guys got a glass jaw, I had glass hands. Knuckles like potato chips. Even now, I give a hooker a nice right, they swell up.”

  “The ladies don’t hit back either, they tell me,” Des said. “And you’ve got a rubber hose now, they tell me that, too. Saves wear and tear on the knuckles is what I hear.”

  “It gives you a little edge. They must’ve taught you about that at priest school, the edge. Like you want to break up a teachers’ strike, what you do is bring over a bunch of nuns from the old country. That’s what I mean by an edge.”

  “I’m glad to know that,” Des said. It was odd hearing Tommy talk about the edge. He sounded like Seamus Fargo. And made him feel just as uncomfortable.

  “That’s just what we need over here, Des. A boatload of harp nuns with their plastic blarney stones and the cowshit still sticking out of their ears.”

  He never misses a trick, Desmond Spellacy thought. Add a rubber hose and he would be one tough customer. The thought made him shiver.

  “And speaking of the edge, I hear you’re going to Europe this summer, see the Pope.”

  “You do keep up on my schedule.”

  “I try.”

  “Actually it’s a pilgrimage,” Des said. “The Dominican sisters. And some of the girls from Holy Rosary. Honor students, I think. You know the kind of trip. Fifteen stops in fourteen days. A night in Shannon to see the old sod. It was two days in London until the Mother Superior got wind of it. All those Protestants scared her, I think. Skip Paris and go directly to Lourdes. If we’re lucky, maybe we’ll see a deaf mute talk. Or a blind man see. What’s a trip like this without a high point? And then overnight in Fatima. It seems we’re stopping every place Our Lady touched down. Then a public audience with the Pope in Rome. The girls from Holy Rosary and fifteen thousand of their closest friends. I’m just a chaperone, really.”

  “Keeping the ginneys out of their knickers is what you mean.”

  “Somehow, Tommy, I thought you’d say something like that.”

  Tom Spellacy ignored him. “I knew a girl from Holy Rosary once. Clementina something. A dago name. Clementina Testa. Let her loose in Rome and she’d lead you a merry chase. Maybe teach you a few things you might’ve missed along the way.”

  “No doubt,” Des said. “You always did favor girls like . . . what’s her name? Clementina?”

  Tom Spellacy flashed. “Don’t give me that pious crap, Des. Not after the way you fixed that raffle at Our Lady Help of Christians.” That should stop him, my knowing that, he thought. “No wonder you give the big hello to Tommy Brady over there. You nearly had the city attorney on his ass.”

  There was not a flicker from Desmond Spellacy. He split a piece of melba toast into quarters and surrounded the chicken salad with them.

  “Tommy’s brother, John, he’s in the department. He was pissing bullets there for a while, Tommy. Jesus, Des, having him palm a ticket so that Sonny McDonough’s daughter gets the new Stude-baker. You should know better.” He took a bite from his sandwich. “One thing I always wondered is what you got out of it.”

  Desmond Spellacy was matter-of-fact. “Sonny’s vote on the Planning Commission.” That was one thing about Des, Tom Spellacy thought. There was no bullshit when he was in the corner. “It got the property condemned for the new high school at Our Lady.”

  “You don’t get him for a Studebaker now, Sonny. Or a Cad either. Your pal, Jack Amsterdam, he’s probably told you all about it.”

  “He hasn’t mentioned it.”

  “Yeah, well, Jack hasn’t been getting too many reservoir-cleaning contracts since Sonny got on the supervisors.”

  “I don’t know who’d want to clean a reservoir anyway,” Des said.

  “For six hundred grand I think I’d give it a shot,” Tom said. “It seems that Sonny’s rent, though, comes a little higher than Jack’s been used to paying.”

  An entry for Sonny’s file, Desmond Spellacy thought. He had a feeling that file would be filling up rapidly. Chet Hanrahan had been right. You could get a crick in the neck looking the other way. He wondered what it was about cement that seemed to breed venality.

  “That’s what you’d call a bribe, isn’t it?” Des said, and realized immediately that it had come out wrong.

  “There’s people who’d call it that,” Tom said. “The DA and them. It must make you glad you’re a priest, not having to know things like that.”

  They ate in silence, methodically, not looking at each other. Tom Spellacy wondered when Des was going to get to the point. Des wasn’t one just to pass the time of day. He had to have something on his mind. Maybe he already had what he wanted. That was Des’s way. If you didn’t ask for anything, you didn’t owe any favors.

  Finally Desmond Spellacy said, “How’s Mary Margaret?” He wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin.

  “She thinks it’s the catacombs, Camarillo,” Tom said. “Eats with her fingers. They didn’t have any spoons in the catacombs, she tells me. And I tell her they didn’t have Instant Cream of Wheat, either.”

  “You’re a compassionate sort.”

  “I want to hear your advice on marriage, I’ll go to one of those fancy retreats you give. Where is it this year? Santa Anita?”

  The amenities, Tom Spellacy thought. He sometimes wondered how much he really liked Des. It was as if he was always waiting for you to stumble, and after you did, it proved some kind of point that only he could understand. Until he found the opportunity to use it. He was like a cop that way. Maybe that was it. They understood each other too well.

  “The Malibu Colony.” There was a trace of a smile on Des’s lips. “ ‘Contemporary Marriage and the Postwar Industrial Society: The Church’s View.’ “

  That was one thing about Des, Tom Spellacy thought. He was seldom without his sense of humor. And not just about the pre-tentions of the Church. At times he seemed almost amused by sin. He supposed that made it hard being a priest.

  “Ma would like to hear that,” Tom said. “She wouldn’t understand it, but she would’ve liked to hear it.”

  “God rest her soul.”

  “Shit, Des,” Tom said. “She was a lot like Mary Margaret, Ma. Those rosary beads always wrapped around her fingers. I used to think they were a part of her hand, I was a kid. Like the warts.”

  Trust Tommy to remember the warts that covered Ma’s fingers, Desmond Spellacy thought.

  “I did some checking up, Des. You know how many people in the history of this city got killed getting hit by a trolley car? Phil Spellacy. The only one. You ever think, that’s a hell of a place to sleep one off, on the trolley tracks. He must’ve thought they were bear tracks, Phil, and the old trapper was checking them out when the trolley hit him.”

  “He nearly put Ma in the ground with the drinking.”

  “She was a nut, Ma, anyway. She and Mary Margaret would have gotten along good, yakking it up with all the saints there. No wonder Phil hit the sauce. Purgatory she was always talking about, Ma, remember? And how much time old Phil would have to spend there, she ever stopped saying novenas for him. Me she had down for life plus ninety-nine years. Not you, though, Des. The express. No stops.”

  Desmond Spellacy thought, It’s always been like this. Push. Probe. Find the nerve.

  “Tell me something, Des. What’re you going to call yourself when you become Pope?”

  “Simplicius II, that has a nice ring about it,” Des said. “Or Gelasius III. There hasn’t been a Gelasius since 1119.”

  “You been boning up.”

  “He who is prepared, Tommy, is never surprised,” Des said. He squeezed lemon into his tea. “But then, on second thought, Gelasius has the ring of the Dark Ages. Something simpler. More to the common touch.” He picked up the teacup. “Thomas. After you. There’s never been a Pope Thomas. Thomas the First.”

  “Thomas the First. I like that.” Tom tapped the empty beer bottle. “Nice and common.”

  “I like it, to
o,” Des said. “A constant reminder to me that the flesh is weak.”

  Tom Spellacy’s smile hardened. He wondered if Des were fishing. Or if he knew about Corinne.

  “The first Pope who bought a church with a Studebaker.”

  “A high school.”

  “I seem to recall something about the end and the means,” Tom said. “From Sister Clarita. Remember her? In the fifth grade at Saint Anatole’s. It was a no-no, I think is what she said.”

  “I seem to recall that,” Des said.

  “She was a pain in the ass, Sister Clarita. The ruler on the knuckles is what she was famous for.”

  “You were lighting up in class is the way I remember it,” Des said. “And smoking in the fifth grade was against the rules, I think. At Saint Anatole’s, at least.”

  “She kept me back was the reason I did it. It was the fifth commandment I was bad in. Thou shalt not steal.’ ‘Like your brother in Folsom,’ I told her. You know, as an example of what would happen.”

  “That would do it, probably,” Des said. “She died a couple of months ago, you know. I said the mass.”

  “I wasn’t invited.”

  “It started me thinking, the funeral. Seven hundred dollars it cost. There’s this fund His Eminence pays funeral costs out of.

  Nuns and priests. So I did a little checking. He paid for 291 funerals last year. Nuns, priests, indigents in the old people’s homes.”

  “Two hundred ninety-one times seven hundred, Des,” Tom said.

  Desmond Spellacy waited until the waiter cleared away the lunch dishes. “Two hundred three thousand seven hundred dollars, actually,” he said finally. “So I went to see Sonny McDonough. To see what he’d say about McDonough & McCarthy handling all the funerals in the archdiocese. Of religious, I mean.”

  “Wholesale is the word you’re looking for, I think,” Tom said. “Jesus, no wonder you want those nuns from Ireland. The boat sinks, you can build a cathedral on what you save.” He paused to see if Des would react. No. He was good at ignoring remarks like that. “What did Sonny say then?”

  “He said he’d think about it.”

  “Mention the name Corky Cronin to him,” Tom said. “It might make him think a little harder.”

  “Oh?”

  “Cornelia Cronin. A bookkeeper in one of his stores. She broke her back one weekend. In Catalina. On Sonny’s boat. While Mrs. Sonny was off making a retreat. With the Jesuits, I think. He prays better on the boat, Sonny, is what I hear.”

  “You hear a lot.”

  “She gets five hundred a month for life, Corky. For the limp, I hear. And to keep her trap shut, too, I bet.”

  Desmond Spellacy nodded. Sonny seemed to have quite a history. At least he didn’t get along well with Jack Amsterdam. That was a plus. He suddenly felt uncomfortable. He always had been able to translate a minus from Tommy into a plus for himself. It was a malignant kind of mathematics. And it was becoming a habit. I’m sure Tommy knows what I’m doing. It probably pleases him. The way a spot on a white coat would probably please him.

  He remembered the letter. There was no way to avoid it.

  “I got a letter from Mary Margaret.”

  “She wants you to get rid of that Spic chaplain at Camarillo.”

  “She did mention that.”

  “And she wants a parish named after Saint Barnabas.”

  “Something like that.” Don’t stall. Get it over with fast. “She said she was coming home soon, Tommy.”

  Swell, Tom Spellacy thought. Just what I need. He’s so good at breaking the news, Des, maybe he’d like to break it to Corinne, too.

  “She didn’t mention it last time I was up. It must’ve slipped her mind, I guess.”

  He had trouble, when Mary Margaret was away, remembering what she looked like. A little like Brenda, that was it. He had taken her picture out of his wallet. It was not something he wanted Corinne to see. The photograph was also fifteen years old. Taken when he was still sleeping with her regularly. If it ever could have been called regularly.

  “A family reunion is what she has in mind, she said,” Des said. This was going to be more difficult than he thought.

  “It must’ve slipped her mind I’m a member of the family, too,” Tom said. “The way she didn’t write me first.”

  Wriggle out of this one, Monsignor. Learn a little about family life you might have missed in confession. With your fucking manicure. Pumping me about Sonny and them, like I’m some sort of harp booby in the Holy Name Society, I don’t know what you’re doing.

  “Tommy.” Des chose his words carefully. “It’s for Kevin when he gets discharged from the army. She wants Moira there, too, if I can pull some strings and get her a weekend off from the novitiate.”

  “Oh,” Tom said. “That’s swell, Des, you doing a nice thing like that. I didn’t realize that was it.”

  Desmond Spellacy looked at him warily. He knew Tommy would not just let the subject drop.

  “But one thing I wonder is how she put it to you in that letter there,” Tom said. “P.S., tell what’s-his-name to put the crucifix back over the bed?’ Or, Tell himself to dust off the statue of the Infant of Prague I like to kiss when I wake up in the morning.’ I don’t know. Maybe it was something about the Sacred Heart of Jesus calendar she likes to check the date out on. Or maybe she didn’t say anything. You just said to yourself, ‘I wonder if good old Tommy knows anything about this. They get forgetful when they’re soft in the head, so maybe she didn’t mention it to him. He’s made a date to go to the ball game that day, Tommy, I could be neck deep in piss, so I better check it out with him first.’ “

  “Are you finished?” Des said.

  “Turkey, we’ll have, and stuffing and gravy. You’re her pen pal, you can carve. You’re good at carving is what I hear, all that roast beef you put away with His Eminence there.”

  “Tommy, she wrote me because she thought I could do something about Moira.”

  “She always did like to chat with the priests. All her little secrets, Father got them first. When she was having Kev, the first one she told was Father Dolan there at Holy Martyrs. Remember him, Dummy Dolan? ‘So you’re going to be a dad,’ Dummy says to me one Sunday morning. First I heard of it. ‘You know what I’m going to call him, it’s a boy?’ I says to him. ‘What?’ he says. ‘Dummy,’ I say. He didn’t like that much, Dummy.”

  “I can see where he might not.”

  “He went crackers, the story is,” Tom said. “But he left three hundred grand, I hear.”

  “Three hundred and twenty,” Des said. “He bought Coca-Cola when it was first issued. He left every cent to his goddamn cat.” Desmond Spellacy sighed. “I had to break his will.”

  “I wouldn’t mention that to your pen pal, I was you. Mary Margaret always had a soft spot for old Dummy.”

  “She’s not my pen pal,” Des said. “But I’ll remember it anyway.”

  “She always had a soft spot for you, too, Mary Margaret, now that I think of it. You were the one she always had her eye on, we were kids.”

  He watched Des signal for the check. The fact of the matter was, Mary Margaret always had been sweet on Des. You might enjoy it more, he had told her early in their marriage, you tried thinking it was Des doing it to you. She had hit him in the mouth with a fistful of rosary beads. Women. Brenda. Mary Margaret. Corinne. He felt hemmed in by them today.

  “I don’t remember that,” Desmond Spellacy said.

  “ ‘Mary and Des,’ she used to write in her notebooks over to Saint Anatole’s there. You know, she’d draw the little heart with the arrow through it, and inside the heart it would say, ‘Mary and Des.’ And ‘S.W.A.K.’ She wrote that, too.”

  “Sealed with a kiss.”

  “You do remember.”

  “You have an overactive imagination, Tommy.”

  “I bet she put that on her letter, S.W.A.K.”

  “She didn’t.”

  “It would’ve saved me a lot of trouble, you and he
r got together, I think,” Tom said. “But the Church would’ve lost a great golfer.”

  Des was silent for a moment. It had gone about as well as could be expected. One thing you could never do with Tommy and that was rise to the bait. You never knew when he would erupt.

  Jack Amsterdam was approaching the table. He took the check from the waiter’s hand and waved him away.

  “I’ll take care of it, Monsignor.”

  Desmond Spellacy stood up. “You shouldn’t do that, Jack.”

  “Your money’s no good here, Monsignor.”

  “Do you know my brother Tom?”

  “I haven’t had the pleasure,” Jack Amsterdam said. He spoke with an effort, his voice husky, as if the words were squeezed one by one from his diaphragm. “He’s got the family resemblance, Des. Is he older or younger?”

  It was as if Tom Spellacy were not even there.

  “Older,” Des said.

  “That’s nice,” Jack Amsterdam said. “It’s nice to have an older brother. I wish I would’ve had an older brother.” He put his hand on Des’s arm. “I don’t hear from you yet about Saint John Bosco.”

  “We’re doing some new surveys, Jack.”

  “I see,” Jack Amsterdam said. “His Eminence, he got the invitation to my fund raiser at San Conrado’s?”

  “He did.”

  “Tell His Eminence I’m counting on him.”

  “I will.”

  Jack Amsterdam turned to Tom. “Nice to meet you. He’s a winner, your brother.”

  Tom Spellacy wrapped both hands around his beer glass. “And only the winner goes to dinner.”

  “I like that,” Jack Amsterdam said. “You hear that, Des. Only the winner goes to dinner. It runs in the family, brains.”

  Tom Spellacy rotated the beer glass between his palms. “I used to work for you,” he said quietly.

  Both Des and Jack Amsterdam stared at him. “When was that?” Jack Amsterdam said.

  “When you were running whores,” Tom Spellacy said. “I was your bagman in Wilshire Vice. I did the payoffs.”

  For a moment, none of the three said anything.

  “I got to be going, Des,” Jack Amsterdam said finally.

  “Sure, Jack.”