Dark Debts (23 page)

“I didn't say I thought you were crazy.”

“Well, I know you think it.”

“I promise you, I haven't had a thought one way or the other. I'm just listening. The minute I think you're crazy, I'll tell you, okay?”

Maureen nodded and even smiled a little. Kevin reached across the table and squeezed her hand.

“We're both pretty wrung out,” he said.

“How long has this been going on?” Michael asked.

“Six months, more or less.”

“And you haven't been able to get anyone to do anything?”

Kevin shook his head. “Father Garra came over one night and blessed the house, but Danny started screaming obscenities at him and he got mad and left. I think he writes Danny off as a spoiled, obnoxious rich kid who resents authority.”

“Father Garra grew up in Brooklyn, in a very poor family,” Maureen added. “I think he was done with us the minute he saw the house.”

“Well,” Michael said, smiling, “Kevin probably told you that I grew up a spoiled, obnoxious rich kid. And I
still
resent authority.”

Maureen and Kevin both laughed, but their eyes were filled with fear.

After talking with them a little longer, Michael met with Danny alone, in Danny's room, the walls of which were covered with posters of heavy-metal bands and pictures of skeletons and winged demons—drawn, apparently, by Danny. The furniture was draped in clothing, mostly jeans and black T-shirts also sporting heavy-metal logos. Danny was a thin, pale-skinned boy with shoulder-length blond hair and watery blue eyes. He sat on the bed and stared into space, answering Michael's questions with shrugs and two-word sentences. None of which was a sign of anything other than youth. He did seem to be more depressed than the average teenager. His eyes had a peculiar unstable quality, as if he couldn't see anything in the room, but saw something else in its place. And the air
did
seem heavy somehow, although Michael couldn't be sure if he really felt it, or just felt it because he'd been told he would.

“Who invited you here?” Danny suddenly asked, in a voice surly beyond his years.

“Your parents.”

“And what do you think you're gonna do?”

“I don't know yet.”

“Just couldn't pass up the chance to get into a teenage boy's bedroom?”

“Wrong number, pal. But points for keeping up with current events.”

“What then? Little girls?”

“Sheep. I grew up in Georgia. Why don't we talk about you for a while?”

Danny stared at him and said nothing.

“You wanna tell me what's going on?” No answer. “Your folks say you've been having a rough time.” No answer. “Look, I'm arrogant enough to think I might be able to do something for you, but you're going to have to give me a hint.”

“Leave me alone!”
Danny screamed. He picked up the lamp by his bed and hurled it across the room; it crashed against the wall and fell to the floor in a thousand pieces. Michael tried to stay calm. Danny was breathing hard and still trying to stare Michael down.

“You already had my attention,” Michael said calmly. No response. Just a glare that made Michael grateful there wasn't a second lamp. Whatever was wrong with this kid, it was beyond his area of expertise.

Michael surrendered from the glaring contest, turned, and headed for the door. He was about to open it when he heard Danny speak.

“Father Kinney?”

Michael turned around. What he saw stunned him. Danny had collapsed on the bed; he was sitting slumped over as if exhausted. The murderous glare was gone, replaced by a look of fear and complete helplessness. Danny was barely recognizable as the same kid. He didn't speak again or look up. For a moment, Michael thought he'd imagined hearing his name called.

“Father Kinney,” Danny whispered. It was a statement, as if Danny were somehow introducing the thought of Michael to his brain. Absorbing it.

“Yes, Danny?”

Danny still didn't look up.

“Do you really think you can help me?” he asked in a small voice.

Michael couldn't speak for a moment, he was so shocked by the transformation. The kid on the bed was a portrait of humility.

“I'm going to do my best,” Michael finally said. Danny nodded. He stared at his hands, which were in his lap, trembling. At that moment, Michael swore to himself that no matter what it took, he was going to find a way to help Danny Ingram.

Kevin and Maureen were waiting for him in the kitchen, eager to have their suspicions solidly confirmed. Michael knew he couldn't do that, but he was not going to be one more priest who wouldn't take them seriously.

“I don't know what's going on,” he said to them, “but there's obviously something. What I'd like to do, as soon as possible, is get someone in here who knows a lot more about this kind of thing than I do.”

“How long will that take?” Kevin asked, ready for another runaround.

“How's tomorrow?” Michael had no idea how he was going to pull it off, but the outpouring of gratitude and relief that followed was enough to cement his promise.

He'd called his secretary, Linda, on his way back to the office and told her he needed to find someone who had experience with exorcisms.

“Exorcisms?” she asked, in her usual charmingly patronizing tone. (No one on the staff could pour a cup of coffee without an editorial comment from Linda.)

“I'm not joking and I'm pressed for time.”

“Where are you?”

“Plandome. Long Island. First thing you'd better do is check and see if there's an official exorcist for the Rockville Centre diocese. I seriously doubt it, but I don't want to get anyone's nose out of joint.”

“And if there isn't?”

“I don't know, try the Yellow Pages. Figure it out. I'll be back there in about half an hour.”

“I'll find someone by the time you get here.”

Linda was true to her word, and when Michael got back to his office there was a list of names and phone numbers waiting. Michael looked at the local names and, flying by instinct, called one Father Robert Curso, a parish priest in the South Bronx. According to Linda's note, he worked at a soup kitchen on 124th Street during the week; there was a number, Michael could probably reach him there. It took a little effort to get in touch with him, since the person who answered the phone at the mission spoke no recognizable language. (Michael tried three and gave up.) He finally got through to Father Curso (
“Call me Bob”
), who had a brusque smoker's voice and sounded like a former drill sergeant. Michael explained who he was and why he was calling, then started a brief summary of the case. Halfway through Michael's spiel, Bob cut him off.

“Has he shown any signs of abnormal strength?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Spoken any foreign language he's never studied? Exhibited telepathic ability or aversion to religious symbols?”

“They didn't mention anything like that. Just these minor disturbances and fits of temper.”

“So what makes you think he's possessed?”

“I didn't say I thought it,” Michael said, losing patience. “
They
think it. Look, if you're not interested, just say so and I'll call someone else, but somebody has got to do something, because
whatever
is wrong with this kid, these people are going through hell and no one is doing a damned thing to help them!”

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment, then Bob asked, “How old are you?”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“Nothing, really. I'm just surprised.”

“At what?”

“You got a lot of spunk for a Jesuit.”

“What is
that
supposed to mean?” Michael asked, though he knew exactly what it meant. Curso, like most parish priests, thought of himself as in the trenches and therefore superior to the order priests. To him, a priest who belonged to a religious order was someone who sat in an ivory tower and wasted time writing his latest PhD thesis on some obscure, esoteric, and irrelevant subject. Secular priests resented the Jesuits in particular, because they thought the Jesuits considered themselves better than anyone else. Which, of course, they did. (The truest description Michael had ever read was a quote from Denis Diderot: “You may find every imaginable kind of Jesuit, including an atheist, but you will never find one who is humble.”)

“Give me the address,” Curso said. Michael gave him the address and detailed directions. “What's that,” he asked, “forty-five minutes on the expressway?”

“About that.”

“Okay. I'll meet you there.”

“When?” Michael asked.

“In forty-five minutes.”

“Are you kidding? This time of day, it'd take me forty-five minutes to get to the Midtown Tunnel, not counting the forty-five minutes it would take me to get a cab. I was thinking maybe first thing tomorrow morning . . .”

Bob chuckled. “There you go.
Now
you sound like a Jesuit.”

“I'll get there as soon as I can,” Michael said, and hung up, already hating Bob Curso and wondering what the hell he'd gotten himself into.

At the house, Kevin and Maureen had their lists of incidents and witnesses spread out on the table, ready for Bob's perusal. He ignored it all and asked to see Danny, alone. Michael waited with the Ingrams in the kitchen, telling them what he knew about Bob, which wasn't a lot. Bob hadn't been in Danny's room ten minutes when he returned to the kitchen.

“Father, we've been writing everything down,” Maureen said, “in case you have any questions.”

“I don't have any questions,” Bob said.

“Then . . . you think we're right?” Kevin asked, afraid to hope.

“No,” Bob said. “I
know
you're right.”

At that moment, Michael concluded that Father Bob was, in the kindest estimate, some sort of occult-obsessed drama junkie. (But then, it probably wasn't easy to find a calm, rational person with a strong exorcism-conducting résumé.) Michael didn't see how Bob could hurt anything, though, and there was still the outside chance that he could help. Kevin and Maureen were so thoroughly convinced Danny was possessed, they'd probably convinced
Danny
that he was possessed. For all Michael knew, the theatrics of an exorcism might be enough to convince Danny he was cured.

The bureaucrats had given them the runaround Bob had expected, and then some. They put Danny through weeks of psychological tests, physiological tests, interviews, and various other forms of torment. When the bishop finally exhausted every stalling method he could think of, he sent Michael and Bob to the cardinal. They did the whole dog-and-pony show and left more than a hundred pages of test results and documented incidents. The cardinal promised to get back to them as soon as possible and reminded them how busy he was.

Bob, who'd been through it all before, was frustrated but not surprised. Michael was dumbfounded. What on earth could it possibly hurt for him and Bob to dress up and throw around a little holy water? “The guys in the red hats don't like to be bothered by thoughts of the supernatural,” Bob said. “They're afraid it'll make people think they're not serious politicians.”

Another week went by. Danny's fits were becoming more violent and lasting longer. It was clear that if he wasn't already, he would soon be a threat both to himself and to everyone around him. It was also clear Kevin and Maureen weren't planning on doing anything other than waiting. There was no point in suggesting they move on to another potential remedy.

At the end of the week, Michael called the cardinal. It took two days to get him on the phone, for which he did not apologize or offer an explanation. He did explain that he had sent the reports to an independent psychologist for “further evaluation.” Dr. Brennan was on vacation for a couple of weeks, but he'd look at them as soon as he got back.

Michael had gone ballistic. “We don't have a couple of weeks! We don't have a couple of
days
! Something has got to happen now!”

He might as well have been talking to concrete. The cardinal just kept repeating his refrain, showing no sign of even hearing Michael, much less taking him seriously.

The next morning, Michael got a call from Maureen. The night before, Danny had attacked Kevin with a fireplace tool, leaving a gash in Kevin's forehead that had taken eleven stitches to close. Danny fled the house. When he returned, in the early hours, he claimed he didn't remember doing it. He'd been in his room ever since, but Maureen was afraid to even be in the house with him. Michael hung up and called the bishop.

“Michael, I have been as clear as I know how to be. There is a very definite way a thing like this is handled, and it's being handled. It will proceed at its own pace.”

“Yeah, well my thing's got
its
own pace, and it's not waiting for you! I'm telling you, if we don't do something
right
now, something serious is going to happen! Someone is going to end up dead!”

“Then take him to a psychiatrist.”

“He's been to a
hundred
shrinks! If there's one thing that's obvious, it's that he doesn't need another damned shrink!”
And if you'd get off your royal ass long enough to go sit in a room with him, you'd know that . . .

“The experts will make that determination. Meanwhile, I've heard all I want to hear about it, and I'm sure you have more than enough work at the magazine to keep yourself occupied.”

Late that afternoon, Michael and Bob had a long talk over a pitcher of beer. Bob knew what he was going to do. He was going to proceed without the Church's authorization. He wanted, and needed, Michael's help. At that point in his life, other than the occasional dicey article and a bad habit of running his mouth too much, Michael had never been anything but a good soldier. The thought of being involved in an illicit undertaking did not appeal to him. But there was a prospect that was much worse: the way he would feel if he said no and something awful happened. He agreed.