“You didn’t recognize even one of them, for Christ’s sake? His shape, his voice, something?”
“Not so’s I could swear to it, Bassett.”
Bassett thumped his hands on his knees in frustration. He rubbed his palms against the rough tweed. After a moment he said without enthusiasm, “I suppose we can ask Morietti to post us on the free spenders in the next few days.”
“There won’t be any,” Kearns said. “Every jack-nipping kid of them took his cut of the swag home to mother. Let me tell you, it’ll be a rainy day before any of that money comes out in the open. And do you think the women are going to talk? I don’t. No, sir.”
“But one of those kids is a killer.”
Kearns set the stub of the cigar in the crowded ashtray. Mercifully it had gone out. He said, without looking at the detective, “If you’d felt the naked edge of glass in your back, Mr. Bassett, you’d’ve got the feeling that maybe all of them were.”
15
THE FIRST PERIOD ON Monday mornings was left open at Hillside High School for religious instruction. Those who did not attend Father Walsh’s class went to study hall, a small group, primarily Negro who were Baptist, with a smattering of the children of the middle class residents of Hillside, the people who lived north of the village, along the river, and who commuted to the city to their work. Most of the latter youngsters did not stay to complete high school locally: it had been their parents’ intention that they should, enrolling them; for the most part they believed in public school education and they believed in the democratic leveling—theoretically. But most of them got qualms at the first sound of the Hillside accent in their children’s speech, and very soon all sorts of doubts set in about the whole school system, and not long after that, a way was found in such homes to send the children to private schools or other public schools in the county of better scholastic record.
Men like Father Walsh worked hard among this middle class to persuade them not to transfer their children, to join with him and other local leaders in trying to improve Hillside. They were sympathetic. They liked the young priest. So did their children. While Father Walsh taught only religious instruction, he sometimes dropped in on the other classes and gave what the youngsters called a pep talk. He could even rally a class in mathematics. “Well,” he’d say, after a few minutes’ observation. “I’d better go now. I don’t want to learn too much that’s new in one day. Not at my age. But you …” He would tap the head of a youngster in passing, “… you’ve got lots of room left up there. Fill it up.”
Georgie, trying to cram that week’s assignment in Christian Doctrine into his head in the last five minutes before the first bell, decided that on account of all that had happened to him—his mother sick, his house burning down—he could get away with saying he didn’t have time to do his homework. Only the funny thing was, he didn’t want to have to say that. No more excuses for Georgie Rocco. Georgie could do anything he wanted to do. A mortal sin is committed by one who sins against God, 1, in an important matter, 2, with clear knowledge, 3, with full consent. He closed the book, holding the place with his finger, and recited the words to himself.
Tommy Lodini went by. “Hey, Georgie!” Lodini clasped his hands in the air and shook them. A lot of the guys did that—not saying anything, but congratulating him on the raid Saturday night. The girls were still making happy talk over the football game. Somebody had chalked the score on all the school steps, on the walls, all over. Georgie himself had almost forgotten about the game, it seemed so long ago, with the raid and all. Man, this was how to live, one bang after another!
A mortal sin … one, an important matter, two … He had to look it up. When you can’t remember something, Father Walsh always said, try to think of what it means. That’s all that counts. Words are simply the tools you put something together with. Something important. When you came right down to it, Georgie thought, important things were done by important people, good things, bad things. So only important people could commit mortal sins. Man, he had something there, Georgie decided, something to try on old Padre Walsh that would get him talking most of the period maybe. Some of the guys did that, got a teacher started on a subject he was hipped on so the first thing he knew the bell rang without half the class being called on at all. Georgie had always wanted to pull something like that, but he hadn’t been smart enough. Anything he’d ever tried turned out to be silly. Even guys dopier than him would join in the ha-ha’s. It always made him feel like a creep. Only Georgie Rocco wasn’t creeping any more, not for any man.
“Father …” Georgie raised his hand.
“Yes, Georgie?”
“For a mortal sin … I mean, to commit a mortal sin, just an ordinary person couldn’t do it, could they?”
“I think they could,” the priest said, “but I think quite a number of people go through life without ever committing a mortal sin, if that’s what you mean. They obey the commandments of God, and the Church, they try to control their passions …”
“That’s what I mean,” Georgie interrupted, for he knew that once old Walsh got going, it wasn’t going to be Georgie’s question any more. And Georgie liked his question. “I mean, an ordinary little guy doesn’t have passions, does he?”
Georgie Rocco, the metaphysician. The priest looked at him. “We are each of us responsible before God to the limit of our understanding. A man does not have to be a king or a bank president or a lawyer to commit a serious sin …”
“I know, but, Father …” Georgie tried to interrupt.
This time the priest went on: “Our Lord Himself seems to have made a point of being an ordinary little man, but there was nothing ordinary about His capacity for love and suffering.”
“I didn’t mean that kind of passion,” Georgie said.
“Ah,” Father Walsh said, an exaggerated sound of sudden understanding, “you mean the Elvis Presley kind, or the television bang, smash, boom kind, that kind of passion.”
One of the girls in the class tittered.
“A lot of ordinary people seem to understand that kind,” the priest said. “I’m not sure I do.”
The hell you don’t, Georgie thought.
“But I try. Let’s take a look at this word ‘passion.’ What is it? It’s excess. An excess of hatred, of love, of anger, of any of the emotions that make up the human being. When they are controlled by a man’s will, they are forces for good. Let go—they are the forces for evil in the world. Now I don’t think your ordinary little guy could do as much evil as Hitler did, but somebody killed a man in this town last Friday night, cruelly struck him in the back of the head and killed him. It wasn’t Hitler that did that, but the man’s dead. The Firm Commandment says ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ It doesn’t say thou shalt not kill one, or six, or six million. It says simply thou shalt not kill. And the commandments of God were given to all men, rulers, and laborers.”
He knows, Georgie though. Or he thinks he knows. Why would he harp on murder if he didn’t? Twisting a question like that. Georgie wished now that he had not opened his mouth. But having opened it—no retreat. That was Georgie’s code now: no retreat.
“Now then, to come back to your question, George—you remember it, don’t you?”
“Yes, Father, but I wasn’t sure you did.”
A little shivering sound of shock ran through the class.
Father Walsh got that hard, tight smile on his mouth that made many a wise guy squirm. “I was wondering when you asked the question, George, if you were making a pitch for the ordinary man—or for mortal sin?”
“I was just asking a question,” Georgie said sullenly.
“Somehow, I got the feeling it was a loaded question,” the priest said. “But I’m a suspicious man on Monday mornings.” His tone grew lighter. He was getting himself out of a spot, Georgie thought. And sure enough, Walsh fired his question: “How many things are necessary to make a sin mortal, George?”
“What I meant, Father,” Georgie persisted, “it’d
be easier for a priest to commit a mortal sin than somebody ordinary, like me.”
“I thought I answered that part of your question, George. We are, each of us, responsible before God to the degree of our understanding of what we do. Since a priest’s understanding of the nature of sin—and of the danger of temptation to sin—is greater than most laymen’s—so would his responsibility be greater, and his sin graver. As for the word ‘easier,’ I’ve always said to you that words are tools. It’s the meaning that counts. Some men get their job done by using the tools backwards—as you’ve just done. And in those terms, yes, it is easier for a priest to commit a mortal sin.” The priest addressed the class: “Who will tell me the three things necessary to make a sin mortal?”
Christ! What did that mean, using his tools backwards? It couldn’t mean what Georgie thought of, the screwdriver handle he had used on old MacAndrews. It was just one of those tricks that happened. Coincidence. When people threw words around like Padre Walsh, some of them were going to hit home. Walsh couldn’t know … unless Pekarik or Daley told him. Daley wasn’t even a practicing Catholic. Pekarik … no, Georgie was sure of it. Pekarik was getting to be like Georgie Rocco’s shadow. He’d never had it so good—scoring the touchdown, thirty bucks for his old lady … Georgie listened dully while Rosie Gerosa told the priest the three things that made a sin mortal. But Georgie had learned one thing: he was a man of action—no more philosophic ping-pong for him.
And if Padre Walsh thought he knew something, okay. What the hell? Georgie Rocco knew something, too. And he knew he knew it. And Padre Walsh knew he knew it. The nerve of him, talking about sin like the price of eggs. And after what Georgie had seen. Talk about cool! Georgie had learned something else: you couldn’t tell what was inside a man by looking at his face—or listening to him preach—or watching him play football—or seeing him tape the handle of a screwdriver. He’d never gone back to dig out the tape: that was a funny thing about himself, Georgie thought. He was always going to look for it when he couldn’t do it. Then when he could, he put it out of his mind on purpose. No retreat, Georgie said to himself, explaining something inside him that was close to fear. No retreat!
“Now, George.” The priest returned to him suddenly, having ranged the class and the subject of sin, mortal and venial, and all the circumstances necessary to make a sin mortal. “To go back for just a minute, before winding up, to who commits what kind of sin. It was the soldiers and the rabble who crucified Christ, it was one of His own beloved disciples who denied Him, and one of them who betrayed Him, but on the Cross, with His dying words, Christ made no distinction when He said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ We must look into our own hearts for the gravity of our sins, not into the hearts of others. And beyond that lies the mercy and understanding of God. Class dismissed.”
After class, on the way to study hall, Georgie said to Pekarik, “How about that? I made him sweat, didn’t I?”
“Yeah,” Mike said with a sort of giggle, “but, man, you gave me the sh-sh-shakes!”
16
THE MOURNERS AT JAMES MacAndrews’ funeral were not numerous, Bassett observed from where he sat in his parked car across the street from the funeral home: a member or two from the church in which MacAndrews had been an elder; he would say three friends of sister Grace’s, who had an almost professional air about them as though attending funerals was their business; lodge brothers, Bassett supposed of the four men who stood near the steps smoking till the last minute, congenial among themselves, eager to assist. That the warmest personal support Grace MacAndrews found in her hour of bereavement was the arm of Alden Royce, the Graham Company executive, was an irony too painful, in Bassett’s view, for a person given to the ordinary human sentiments to contemplate. She walked from the limousine, stiff and proud and tearless. Mourning becomes Electra, he thought, for those who saw her stood in awed respect until she passed, the lodge brothers concealing their cigarets behind their backs.
The one person whose presence stirred the detective’s curiosity was Martin Scully. He would not have said from what he knew of the young man that conscience would have sent him here. Nor was he a hypocrite. Curious. Bassett waited out the service, and when afterwards Scully, an obvious stranger among the mourners, moved quickly to the nearest bus stop, Bassett turned his car around and offered him a ride home.
Scully accepted. He took for granted that Bassett knew where he had been, asking, “Were you at the funeral?”
“I was curious to see who would show up,” Bassett said. “You never know.”
Scully was silent for a minute. “Did you notice the big man with Miss MacAndrews? You’d have thought he was bosom family, wouldn’t you?”
Bassett said, “I shouldn’t think there was much bosom in that family.”
Scully grinned.
“Fact is, I met the man Saturday,” Bassett said. “Alden Royce, vice president of Graham—in charge of the southern hospitality division among his other duties.”
“Did he try that on you? Clean up the mess quick, or we move south?”
“It set me to wondering,” Bassett said, “if they use the same line down there: Keep these boys in line or we’ll move the whole operation up north.”
“Maybe,” Scully said. “Maybe they do. Wouldn’t that just serve us damn right—if it was all bluff? I keep telling the fellows, you’ve got to play it that way—call their bluff.”
“Like a poker game,” Bassett said, rather too pointedly. But he caught the quick glance Scully gave him out of the corner of his eye. “I don’t suppose you were sitting in on a game Saturday night?”
“Saturday night I was getting as drunk as I’m ever likely to,” Scully said, “at Luke’s Tavern. I heard about it.”
“What did you hear?”
“That a bunch of juvenile delinquents broke up the games. It’s crazy, isn’t it?”
“Wild,” Bassett said dryly. “Of course, I don’t know Hillside like a native.”
“I guess I’m what you’d call a native, but it’s crazy to me, too. What I’m trying to figure out is how I’ve been caught up in it.”
“Are you?” the detective asked.
Scully stretched his neck, maneuvering free of his topcoat collar, and rubbed the back of his head. “It’s not like a dream exactly. Everything’s familiar, but I just can’t get hold of things. I mean, at their beginning. Halfway through I’m suddenly involved and I don’t know how it started. Do you know what I mean?”
“Not exactly,” Bassett said.
“Well, if I’d had a fight with my girl, for one thing, I’d understand it. I mean, that’s part of it, too. That’s why I got drunk Saturday night. I don’t drink. But Jo and I …”He shook his head and laughed a little at his own predicament. “That’s my problem.”
Bassett chanced a direct question. “What happened?”
“Nothing. Nothing I can think of—between us, I mean. But she doesn’t want to see me. I always thought Jo and I were different, what we wanted, and hanging on in Hillside to make it come out of ourselves, our own people. Everybody’s swinging out for himself, you know? Take my grandmother—where Jo and her brother’s staying now—I’ve got six uncles and they’re all gone—New York, Jersey, and their kids, scattered all over the country. And now, that night after the fire, Jo wanted to go away, too. It’s crazy.” Again he shook his head in bewilderment.
“It’s in the times,” Bassett said, trying not to seem portentous. “No roots. Nobody wants roots. They’re afraid they’ll get hurt, afraid they’d get excavated when we start building fall-out shelters. Stay loose: that’s what the kids say these days, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Scully said doubtfully.
Bassett put his next question carefully: “Are you on good terms with your girl’s—what’s her name, Johanna?—with her brother?”
Scully thought about it. “On as good terms as you can get with a kid like that. Football, the Crazy Cat, mooching quarters from me. You w
ouldn’t know him and Jo were brother and sister, I’ll tell you that.”
Bassett pulled the car off the road below the high school. Far out on the river a freighter was moving toward Albany. A vast span of quiet water was otherwise deserted, the pleasure craft out of the river for the winter. “Let’s talk here for a few minutes,” the detective said. “What you were saying a minute ago—about the breaking up of families. Jo would have absorbed some of your feeling about that, wouldn’t she? What I’m suggesting, Scully, couldn’t she be torn in her loyalty between you and her own family?”
Scully said after a moment, “Her mother’s got a funny attitude toward me, I’ll say that.”
“And her brother?”
“I’m a square as far as he’s concerned. I guess that’s how Mrs. Rocco feels too. She’d like Jo to marry a businessman.”
Bassett did not want to get into a discussion of the Roccos’ mother, having heard what he had about her. But the whole case seemed to have waves within waves. “I suppose the boy is the mother’s pet,” he said.
“She likes boys, I’ll say that,” Scully said unguardedly. The color rose instantly to his face. “I’d better get on home, Mr. Bassett. I’ve done my duty to the men. Now I’ve got to do it to myself.” He explained: “The men at the plant elected me to represent them at the funeral.”
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