The Pariot GAme (16 page)

The driver of the Aries found a parking place on the second level of the garage, up against the outside wall. He parked the car gingerly between a metallic silver VW Jetta and an old black Cadillac sedan. Over the waist-high wall, the rain slanted away from the garage toward the back of the University Club.

The Aries engine shut down. Paul Doherty opened the driver’s side door and got out. He wore a well-fitting black suit, a well-pressed black dickey, and a perfectly fitted Roman collar with a narrow crimson ribbon at the throat. He reached into the car and took out a black narrow snap-brim hat. He placed it at an angle on his freshly-styled gray hair, being careful not to disturb the coiffure. He had been exposed for two and one-half minutes to a sunlamp, and he had kept his hands under it as well. His face had been deep-cleaned and massaged, as had his neck. He smelled of St. Johns Bay Rum and he liked that. He smiled experimentally against the facial muscles, then more broadly as he felt them tighten. He reached into the car again and took out a black raincoat, and put it on. Once more he reached into the car for a black Totes umbrella. He shut the car door and locked it. As he passed the left rear wheel, he kicked the tire. “Junk,” he said.

Bishop Paul Doherty emerged from the bright green painted doors of the elevator on the Clarendon Street end of the garage, unsnapped the umbrella, pressed the trigger that opened it, and stepped out into the rain. He carried the umbrella at an acute angle behind his head, warding off the
slanting rain. He walked briskly. At the corner of Stuart and Clarendon he turned left, walking close to the front of the University Club for its partial shelter from the rain. He ducked under the carriage lamp on the left-hand side of the double doors and pressed close against the black strips criss-crossing them as he rang the bell on the right-hand side of the door frame. Through the glass he could see the clerk look up from the desk, peer into the gray light outside, and push the unlocking button.

Stepping back slightly, Bishop Doherty opened the door with his right hand, collapsing and furling the umbrella as he stepped onto the red carpet in the foyer. He stepped into the comparative darkness of the lounge. There were people in there in the gloom, looking toward the door. He could see their faces but he could not make them out. No one spoke. There was no one on duty in the checkroom to the right. He put his umbrella on the top shelf. He removed his hat, brushing the beaded drops of water from it, and put it next to the umbrella. He took off his coat and hung it under the hat. He stepped back into the foyer and went to the desk. He asked for Monsignor Fahey.

The clerk was briefly puzzled. He was about nineteen, with longish red hair. Then his expression cleared. “Oh, I’m sorry, Your Eminence,” he said. “Monsignor Fahey’s very informal. We’ve all been calling him Vin Fahey for so long. He asked us to, when he became a Monsignor. I guess I just don’t think of him as a Monsignor.”

“Well,” Bishop Doherty said, “as long as he occasionally recollects it himself, I suppose its all right.”

“See,” the clerk said, grinning, “he’s so
regular
, you know? Just another one of the members.”

“No doubt,” Bishop Doherty said. “Yes, I can see where such familiarity would engender some sort of offspring. It nearly always has, in my experience with Vin. Limited as it is.”

“He was in the service, you know,” the clerk said.

“I had heard something about that,” Bishop Doherty said. “He might have mentioned it to me himself, come to think of it. It was a long time ago, though. Wasn’t it? Chaplain, I believe, like many other priests who were in the service.”

“Oh,” the clerk said, “not just the service, though. Airborne. Eighty-second Airborne Division. The one that jumped into Normandy on D-Day.”

“And got cut to ribbons, as I recall,” Bishop Doherty said.

“Sure,” the clerk said. “But that wasn’t their fault. And the ones that survived were heroes. I don’t think a man’d probably ever get over that, you know? Like, being with guys like that, you know, you probably wouldn’t ever want to make too much of any title that you got later on. If Vin Fahey was good enough for those guys, the paratroopers, which is what Vin said to us, you’d probably have to think it’d be good enough for anybody else you ever met afterward.”

“Sure,” Bishop Doherty said. “Well, is Monsignor Fahey here? I’m supposed to meet him for luncheon.”

“Oh,” the clerk said. “Forgive me, Your Eminence. I got so interested in talking, I guess.… Yes, he’s right in there, to your left. In the dining room. We use the bar as a dining room for lunch.”

“Thank you,” Bishop Doherty said. “And don’t apologize for our little chat. I enjoyed it.”

“You’re very kind, Your Eminence,” the clerk said.

Bishop Doherty stopped just over the threshold of the lounge as he entered it for the second time. There was light enough on the grand piano immediately to his left, but the rest of the lights in the room were dimmed except for the lights under the bar to his left that illuminated the sinks, and the ones under the glass shelves behind the bar which illuminated the liquor bottles from below. The Bols liqueurs—red, green, blue, dark maroon—were at the end of the shelf closest the door, and looked like colored bottles of water.
His eyes adjusted and he stared down the room in time to see Monsignor Fahey turn his back abruptly and bend over the wheel of yellow cheese striped and dappled with port wine.

Bishop Doherty walked briskly down the center of the room and stood behind Fahey on the red carpet. “Vincent,” he said.

Fahey turned around, picking up his drink in his left hand and holding a saucer with cheese and Ritz crackers in his right. “Paul,” he said, smiling, “I didn’t see you.” He gestured with both hands as Bishop Doherty slowly allowed his extended right hand to drop. “Oh, hell,” Fahey said, helplessly. “Come on, the table’s right over here.”

Fahey led the way through the centered tables to the third of the tables arranged in banquettes along the wall of the room. The table was dimly lighted by a sconce fixture above it. Fahey set the saucer and the drink at the place to the left of the table and with his right hand indicated the place to the right. “Sit yourself right down there, Paul,” he said. “I was afraid you might’ve forgotten our little appointment.” He glanced at his gold Hamilton watch, which he could not possibly have seen in the gloom.

“If you don’t mind,” Bishop Doherty said, reaching a chair at the table in the center of the room behind him, “I think I’ll just stay on this side of the table. I always feel like I’m out on a date for the junior prom when I sit at one of those things on the inside. Too old for that. I kept you waiting, did I?”

“Oh,” Fahey said, “not long. I finished my laps early today and so I hurried on down here. Curiosity, you know? Been a long time since you called for lunch.”

“Yes,” Bishop Doherty said. He placed the chair at the banquet table and sat down across from Fahey, holding his body erect so that the scant light from the sconce would fall on his face. “Well, sorry I kept you waiting. I stepped in just briefly to hang up my coat when I came in, but it’s so dark in here I couldn’t see you. And of course I suppose if you’d been
looking at the door, the light from the lobby would’ve dazzled your eyes so you couldn’t’ve seen me. Pity we didn’t have our clickers.”

The waiter approached. “May I get Father a drink?” he said.

“
Bishop
, Joseph, Bishop. Bishop Paul Doherty, Joseph. I assume you’ll have some of the usual sherry, Paul?” Fahey said. “That lousy stuff.”

“Oh,” Bishop Doherty said, “I think not. It’s such a wet day out there, you know, Joseph? Not cold, but still, the dampness does get into your old bones. I’m sure Monsignor Fahey can corroborate my opinion on that. No, today I think I’ll just have a Beefeater martini. Olive. Straight up.”

The waiter thanked Bishop Doherty for his order. “Clickers?” Fahey said.

“Sure,” Bishop Doherty said. “You know, Vincent. Those little metal snapper sort of things that make a clicking noise that sounds something like a cricket? Little kids used to play with them. Adults can use them to locate each other in the dark, or so I heard. At least they did when I was growing up in Saint Gregory’s parish. Harmless little gadgets.”

“I guess I had a deprived childhood in Sacred Heart,” Fahey said. “I don’t recall ever having one.”

The waiter brought the drink and left.

“Well,” Bishop Doherty said, “surely you must have had one in the service.”

“The service?” Fahey said.

“Sure,” Bishop Doherty said. “That’s what reminded me of those little cricket clickers and using them to locate other people in the dark. I haven’t thought of them in years. But before I realized you were in here all the time, I had a little chat with the desk clerk, and that reminded me of them. He’s a nice lad.”

“Phillip is a very polite and well-bred young man,” Fahey
said. “He’s in my parish, as a matter of fact. Grew up in Most Precious Blood. His mother and father live there.”

“Certainly salubrious circumstances for raising a fine young man,” Bishop Doherty said. “Auspicious, you might say. Lived with his parents and all.”

“What?” Fahey said.

“Oh, nothing,” Bishop Doherty said. “I was merely commenting that a boy growing up in Most Precious Blood and living in the parish with his mother and father is a fortunate kid these days. So many broken homes, you know, Catholics or no Catholics.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that, Paul,” Fahey said. “We’re losing control, you know. The evidence is all around us, and the powers that be seem to be blind to it all. It’s not the way it used to be.”

“Certainly isn’t,” Bishop Doherty said. “Why, when I was growing up, the worst that ever happened, it seemed, was that the father took to drinking, or ran off, and the mother had to get a job and support the family. Sometimes as many as six or seven of the little nippers. It was all she could do to dress them in rags and keep them in porridge, sometimes, and the only hope she had was a free turkey and some used clothes from the Saint Vincent de Paul Society at Christmas. And maybe a bag of coal from James Michael Curley.”

“But they kept those families
together
,” Fahey said. “Raised them right. Now, left and right, all you hear about’s divorce, divorce. But Phillip’s a fine boy. Just finished his second year at the Cross. His parents, fine people, but there’s no substitute for the Jebbies and the Jesuit training, I say. They were planning to send him to Stonehill. But, confidentially, I got him into the Cross, and then when the question of money came up, I got him the job here.”

“Odd he didn’t mention that, Vincent,” Bishop Doherty said. “I know he thinks very highly of you.”

“Oh,” Fahey said, “I told him and his parents at the time, it was to be kept entirely confidential. You know how it is, Paul. Phillip happens to be a very bright kid. Excellent grades at Saint Sebastian’s. Good college boards. He was a kid that I could do something for, and I was happy to do it. But then if the word leaks out that you did it for Phillip, pretty soon Mrs. Moriarty who empties the bedpans down at the VA hospital is after you to get a full scholarship for her idiot daughter at some swell joint like Marymount, and you just can’t do it. So they get the idea that you’re playing favorites.”

“Well,” Bishop Doherty said, “you can’t have that, certainly.” He raised his drink. “Happy days.” Fahey raised his glass. “
Dominus vobiscum
,” he said. “And also with you,” Bishop Doherty said. They drank.

“You don’t miss the Latin, Paul,” Fahey said, as they set the glasses down.

“Oh,” Bishop Doherty said, “I couldn’t say that. Of course I miss it. But I miss it when I’m saying the Mass in the vernacular, because of course it was in that context that I was trained to say
Dominus vobiscum
and not the Lord be with you. In bars? No. I had an aunt once, at least I think she was an aunt, who used to say God bless whenever she knocked back a drop of the craythur, as she called it, but somehow I never thought of her in terms of her celebrating a Mass when she had herself a belt.”

“God has no context, Paul,” Fahey said. “God is in all contexts.”

“Oh, most assuredly, Vincent,” Bishop Doherty said, “but I incline to the notion that He prefers some haunts over others. Such as this place for example. Even God, omniscient as He is, would have been able to make good use of a clicker to find you in here, had He dropped in for a bite to eat on His weekly afternoon off from the tabernacle at Most Precious Blood. And, of course, as Phillip unwittingly reminded me, if God
had come in here, scouting you up, and clicking His clicker like crazy, you would’ve known right off that your Friend was near, and that it was no enemy to fear.”

“I …” Fahey said, as the waiter reappeared and asked whether they would like another round. “Oh,” Fahey said, “no, no, we’ll … What’s the special today?”

“Vincent,” Bishop Doherty said, “I’m surprised. One drink each, as seldom as we see each other? Is there something wrong with your small bowel? You know, we are getting along in years, though, come to think of it. Especially you. I hadn’t realized how much older you must’ve been than I, when we were ordained. Why don’t you have some milk or something to settle your stomach, and I’ll have another drink while we look at the menus. Then when Joseph comes back, we can order.”

“No.” Fahey said. “Another round, Joseph.” The waiter left. “What the hell do you mean, older,” he said. “I’m almost two months younger’n you are. You know that.”

“I did,” Bishop Doherty said. “At least, I thought I did. But then after talking to Phillip, I realized that you must’ve been a late starter and thoughtfully concealed your much greater experience from us callow youths in the class for fear of hurting our feelings. I approve of that sort of lie, Vincent, the kind that one tells to spare the sensibilities of another and not simply to inflate one’s self or advance one’s own causes. I guess, all these years, I never really understood you. And, you’re right: Young Phillip there is a very intelligent young man. If he hadn’t reminded me—heck, caused me to realize it for the first time, as far as that goes—I never would’ve come to the understanding that you had done so much for all of us. I doubt the boy even has a glimmering of the good he did. But that’s the way God works, isn’t it? I guess you’re right. He is in here, working His plan through the unlikely vessel, the unsuspecting vessel, of Phillip. God’s having drinks and lunch
with us, right here in the University Club. I didn’t know you were at Sainte-Mère-Église.”