Jim McGill 02 The Hangman's Companion

by Joseph Flynn

  “But Ricky’s a punk, so he ran. He went to Bao and reported what happened. Bao knew who the men in Musette’s life are; a guy like that does his homework before he does business with someone. Bao pieced it together that his punk had shot Musette’s son, a Secret Service agent, and the other guy on the scene, the one who had spotted Ricky, was Father Francis Nguyen. Bao knew silencing a priest didn’t require violence. All you had to do to shut him up was confess to him. So that was just what Bao sent Ricky to do.”

  Sweetie stepped directly in front of the priest. “I won’t ask if you saw Ricky enter your confessional, Father, but if you had any feeling something was wrong when he first arrived, like maybe the devil had dropped in for a chat, you should have cut him off at his first word.”

  Now, the priest had his poker face on.

  “Of course, there could have been problems with that,” Sweetie continued. “If Ricky actually had been sorry for what he’d done, how could you turn a true penitent away? And if he just wanted to shut you up, and you tried to dodge him, he might have shot you right there. Might have shot any witnesses who were in the church, too.”

  Francis Nguyen’s expression hadn’t changed a millimeter, but Sweetie saw in his eyes that she’d found the truth. The priest had been ambushed just like Deke.

  “Now, I’ll have to mention something that was confessed to me,” Sweetie said. “Not being a priest, I can do that. Deke Ky told me his mother was something of a business consultant to certain criminal enterprises. I’d bet my pension she had worked with Horatio Bao before. So he came to her with a new idea. Only this time she wanted no part of it. Which meant it had to be something pretty awful.”

  Try as he might to not show any emotion, Bishop O’Menehy winced and lowered his head. His dismay was shared. Father Nguyen put a hand over his eyes. Even Sweetie sighed.

  She said, “The greatest stain on the Church’s name over the past generation has been its tolerance of pedophile priests. Over the last ten years, this disgrace has been exposed to the world. Dioceses across the country have had to pay tens of millions of dollars in damages. Finally, after suffering years of condemnation, the Church hoped it had put the whole sorry episode behind it. But then along came Horatio Bao.”

  Both men looked up at Sweetie, the anguish clear in their eyes.

  “Bao had this idea,” Sweetie said. “He knew a lot of guys like Ricky. A lot of them were doing prison time. And some of them had been locked up with pedophiles — some of who were former priests. So Bao had his bad guys approach these child molesters with a proposition. They told the ex-priests they could either protect them or kill them. Being weak, the pedophiles cooperated, but what did Bao want from them? He wanted them to say they had committed molestations that had never been discovered. A claim a great many people would be inclined to believe.”

  Sweetie didn’t say so, but her expression made plain she would be among the credulous.

  Tears fell from the bishop’s eyes.

  “The Church couldn’t have that,” Sweetie went on. “It had already lost an untold number of communicants and a good deal of its moral authority. More stories of kids being molested might damage the Church beyond repair. So Bao came to you, Your Excellency, with bad news and good news. The bad news was another scandal was about to erupt; the good news was for the right amount of money he could keep it quiet. Of course, he told you this in the confessional, and, worse, he probably told you it was all a scam and asked your forgiveness for his sins, too.”

  The older man began to sob. Father Nguyen moved close and put an arm around him.

  Sweetie said, “But blackmailing her church was an idea Musette Ky couldn’t abide. Bao had told her his plan, at least in outline. She could wreck the whole thing. But if Musette were killed, and Bao made his scam work in this diocese, he could take it to parishes nationwide.”

  Both clerics were aghast. The mass marketing of evil was an idea that had never occurred to them.

  “You’ve got a game that plays,” Sweetie told them, “you play it for all it’s worth. The rollout was probably where Bao wanted Musette to help.”

  To Sweetie’s surprise, the two men clasped hands and began to pray together in Latin. Call and response, bishop to priest. Sweetie waited patiently until they finished.

  Addressing both men, she continued, “Having guaranteed your silence via the confessional, Bao thought he was safe. Public speculation about the shooting of Deke Ky said it had to be connected to his job protecting James J. McGill. So Bao had no worry there. And by Ricky shooting Musette Ky’s son, even inadvertently, he thought he had intimidated her into silence. But then word of the troubled relationship between Father Nguyen and the diocese reached Bao. He must have felt threatened by the possibility that Father Nguyen might be expelled from the priesthood. If that happened, would a former priest still be bound by the seal of the confessional?”

  Bishop O’Menehy started to speak but Sweetie cut him off.

  “I know, Your Excellency, the seal is inviolable, but that’s not how a crook would think.”

  Sweetie looked at Francis Nguyen. “That was probably why Bao sent Ricky to your church. To warn you there would be consequences if you ever talked about what you’d heard, priest or not.” Sweetie hesitated, but decided this was no time to hold back. “That or Ricky was supposed to bring you somewhere out of the way and shoot you.”

  Now, Bishop O’Menehy’s put an arm around the younger man.

  Sweetie went on with her story. “After nursing her son back to health, Musette Ky hired me to investigate Deke’s shooting. She knew, if I was any good, I’d learn of her involvement. Ms. Ky wasn’t at home the last time I visited. Deke says she went back to Vietnam.”

  Francis Nguyen nodded: He could see that.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Sweetie said, “if Musette Ky eventually sends me something, say a recording incriminating Bao, just in case I’m not the detective she hopes I am. But with a little help I did find a number of Vietnamese immigrant families of modest means who have experienced sudden gains in upward mobility. All of them have moved into properties owned by pawns of Horatio Bao; all of them have young children in parochial schools. At least one of these kids has been coached how to explain the changes in her life. And if a kid tells a story often enough, she comes to believe it.

  “Stories like how she was molested by a priest. The whole thing is despicable beyond words, but if the kids are well coached, and the pedophiles in prison fear for their lives, it would probably work. Because the public is preconditioned to believe it.

  “Given the absence of any new public accusations, Your Excellency, I have to believe you found enough money to make at least a down payment on Bao’s demands.”

  George O’Menehy might have been dead a week for how ashen he looked.

  “So what do we do now?” Sweetie asked. “Because you know blackmailers never stop until they’ve taken everything you have.”

  Neither Father Nguyen nor Bishop O’Menehy had an answer. But Sweetie did.

  “What we do is get them to attempt a new crime and catch them in the act.” She smiled. “Then the only people they’ll get to confess to will be cops.”

  Rue de Lille, Paris

  30

  McGill’s team gathered in the basement where he’d clocked Glen Kinnard. He was joined by Gabbi, Odo, and Harbin, who had consented to joining the team. McGill had insisted they do a dress rehearsal. They all wore black unitards and sneakers.

  Magistrate Pruet, in his everyday attire, looked on with a measure of unease.

  “Please put your masks on,” McGill said.

  He and the others slipped on their masks. Each of them bore the face of a black dog with blood red eyes and gleaming white fangs. Gabbi had done a great job of finding masks for the job, McGill thought as he caught sight of the others on the team.

  No, the other members of the pack.

  “Turn to face the magistrate, s’il vous plait,” McGill said.

 
; They turned in unison to face Pruet.

  Confronted by the pack, the magistrate involuntarily retreated. He bumped up against a support pillar. The fear of suddenly being trapped showed on Pruet’s face.

  McGill took pity and turned to the others, breaking the tension.

  “Can everybody see all right? Have a full field of vision?”

  They all did.

  “No problems breathing?” McGill asked.

  None.

  “Okay, let’s get the sticks. Do a little high-low timing practice. Gabbi, please start with Harbin. I’ll start with Odo. Each of us will go through the drill with all the others.”

  Each member of the pack picked up two escrima sticks, usually made of bamboo, but in this case hardwood. The sticks were smooth black cylinders an inch in diameter and thirty inches long. Paired off, the pack members faced each other, grasping the sticks close to the bottoms, the tops resting against their clavicles.

  “Gabbi, you and I will strike first, on three. One, two, three.”

  With the stick in his right hand, McGill took a slow easy swipe at Odo’s head. Gabbi did the same with Harbin. Both defenders easily parried the blows with the sticks they held in their left hands. Clack. McGill and Gabbi followed with slow head swipes using the sticks in their left hands. The defenders parried with their right-hand sticks. Clack. The same pattern was used to attack and defend their opponents’ legs, right and left. Clack-clack.

  To Pruet, it all looked like some macabre dance.

  Until McGill said, “Okay, pick up the tempo.”

  Suddenly the din of stick striking stick filled the room. The only thing that kept Pruet from covering his ears was a fascinating rhythm to the noise. The percussion of combat. If a stick were to hit a head, a skull would fracture; if a kneecap were struck, it would shatter. After a moment of watching the sticks flash through the air, Pruet realized he could discern other sounds. The whir of the sticks displacing air; the pull and thrust of anaerobic respiration.

  For the moment, the magistrate concentrated on McGill’s battle with Odo. It seemed to him that the president’s henchman was too quick for the Corsican. Odo’s parries were arriving only at the last possible instant. Pruet’s heart rose to his throat, thinking his friend would soon be killed or disabled.

  But McGill called out, “Break!”

  And the combatants stepped back and returned their sticks to their resting positions against collarbones. After what Pruet thought to be far too short a time, McGill asked, “Everyone ready to go? Good. Odo and Harbin attack. On three. One, two, three.”

  Neither pair started slowly. Speed had already been established. Pruet found himself drawn to watch Gabbi now. He didn’t want to see harm befall a woman and would call a halt himself, if he deemed it necessary. But la femme Américaine was equal to her opponent. A fact that was not lost on the brawny man attacking her. He did his best to outpace her, but — merci à Dieu — he wasn’t able to get past her defenses.

  A new sound caught the magistrate’s ear.

  He turned to look at the other combatants. Odo was setting upon McGill, swinging his sticks at fantastic speeds. Fear filled the magistrate’s heart anew. If one of Odo’s strikes were to land —

  That was when Pruet identified the sound he’d heard: McGill was whistling.

  He couldn’t identify the tune, not with all the furious clacking going on, but it was something in time with the parries the president’s henchman used to defend himself. Odo heard the whistling, too, and took it as an insult that McGill could deflect his best efforts so casually. The Corsican became infuriated, spurred on to try even harder to brain McGill. Should he succeed, the fate of nations would be altered.

  Gabbi and Harbin ceased their own contest to stand beside Pruet and watch.

  The magistrate knew he should shout an order to desist.

  But he didn’t. He feared his voice might be the distraction that would cause disaster.

  As Odo’s attack rose to fever pitch, McGill’s whistling grew in volume. As if to be a further taunt. Finally, Pruet recognized the tune. “I Love Paris,” Cole Porter’s famous song. The composer had been American, but every Frenchman of a certain age knew the song.

  And even a Corsican or two. McGill’s emphatic intonations made his position clear to Odo: Here was a visitor who had developed a great affection for the City of Light and its people. Odo didn’t stop swinging his sticks. Rather he slowed the tempo, and the volume of McGill’s whistling dropped. Eventually the combatants returned to the lazy pace at which McGill had begun the exercise.

  The two men stepped back and raised their masks.

  McGill smiled, sweat running down his face, and said to Odo, “Don’t let anyone put you off your game, M’sieur Sacripant.”

  Gabbi translated the idiom. “Ne laissez pas n’importe qui vous distraire.”

  “The Undertaker uses his stench as a distraction. None of us can afford to be distracted,” he told the pack. “Thirty seconds, then we change partners.”

  31

  They watched the death match video again; Harbin seeing it for the first time, keeping his expression impassive. McGill pointed out the giant’s weaknesses, as he saw them. Pruet added the one he’d discerned that couldn’t be gleaned from the video.

  The magistrate said, “This fellow has a further weakness. He has a hearing deficit on his right side, as well as his vision problem.”

  He cited The Undertaker’s inability to locate the source of…

  Pruet didn’t want to say the sound of his soon-to-be ex-wife whimpering.

  …a sobbing woman hiding in his apartment, he said.

  “That’s good to know,” McGill said. “What strategy does it suggest?”

  Odo answered, “A blow to the left ear. Leave the bàtard deaf.”

  “The same could be said for his left eye,” Harbin added. “Leave him blind, too.”

  McGill nodded. “Anything that makes him easier to bring down.”

  “We’ve got to stay on our toes,” Gabbi cautioned. “This prick might not be fast, but within a radius of a couple meters, he’s got a burst. That’s how he grabbed the poor fool in the video.”

  McGill agreed. “Can’t forget that for a second. If he does manage to grab one of us, the others all close in and attack immediately. Head shots.” McGill looked at Pruet. “I know the reason we’re not just shooting this guy is so you can use him as a witness, but—”

  “Other imperatives must prevail,” Pruet agreed.

  “As long as that’s clear.” McGill turned back to the pack. “If one of us is grabbed, the man or woman holding the position immediately clockwise delivers the first two blows; the person to the left follows with two; the next to the left finishes up with two.”

  It wouldn’t do to have them all swing at once and deflect each other’s strikes.

  “And if we need to go around again?” Harbin asked.

  “God help us all,” McGill answered. “But we’ll do encores upon demand.”

  There was a knock at the door. The four members of the pack looked at the magistrate. Pruet went to see who had come calling. A man in a dark suit whispered something to him. Pruet nodded and closed the door.

  McGill gave it a second in case the magistrate had something to share. When he didn’t say anything, McGill continued talking strategy. They would also target The Undertaker’s teeth, hands, wrists, elbows, and knees. Any areas covered by masses of flesh, muscle, and fat would be secondary targets. But better to get in some kind of hard blow than forgo one altogether.

  Harbin brought up a salient question: “When do we attack, m’sieur?”

  “Tonight,” McGill said. “I’m expected to be at dinner with the queen tomorrow.”

  An appointment, Pruet silently prayed, that McGill would keep, undamaged.

  “The queen, m’sieur?” Odo asked.

  “The one in London.”

  The Corsican looked at Pruet to see if he was being mocked again.

  The m
agistrate said, “We will all do our best to see you are on time, m’sieur.”

  McGill told Pruet he was happy to hear that and suggested how the magistrate might be of help. He had Pruet stand on a crate to approximate The Undertaker’s great height. The magistrate was given his own pair of sticks to hold out and simulate the giant’s reach. Then everyone practiced reaching the targets previously discussed. Stopping short of actual contact.

  When McGill called a halt, everyone was breathing hard, but not overworked.

  Harbin had another question, “Why the dog masks, m’sieur?”

  “The Undertaker is supposed to stink like a bear. In my country, a great frontiersman named Davy Crockett hunted and killed many bears. He did so by using dogs.”

  Gabbi added, “Also you can put a scent of your preference inside the mask to obscure The Undertaker’s stench.”

  “That, too,” McGill said.

  “Did your countryman hunt with sticks?” Odo asked.

  “No, he was happy to shoot and eat his prey. And if worse really comes to worse, I expect Magistrate Pruet to shoot The Undertaker.”

  Yves Pruet nodded solemnly.

  Everyone was given the time and place where they would rendezvous.

  The magistrate asked McGill to remain behind a moment.

  When the others left, he said, “The mask also allows the American president’s husband to remain anonymous.”

  “Yes, it does,” McGill said, “but that’s not why you asked me to stay behind.”

  “No, I have news for you. Your client, Glen Kinnard, was not content to watch satellite television. He has taken advantage of his relaxed security to escape.”

  St. Germain-des-Prés, Paris

  32

  McGill ran up the steps of the Église-de-Saint-Germain-des-Prés. He’d asked Gabbi if she knew an English-speaking priest who would hear his confession. Preparing for the hereafter was as important to McGill as getting ready for the here and now. She’d given him the name of her own confessor, Père Hébert Clavel — and after McGill looked at her inquiringly, she told him she’d made her own visit to the good father after completing her shopping trip.