Dark Debts (29 page)

Corruption.

First under this heading was the Church officials' unconscionable pattern of covering up pedophilia—shuffling offenders from one parish to another, exposing new victims to a known threat, with cognizance and without warning. Michael had even heard of cases where bishops had destroyed files on repeat offenders in order to avoid lawsuits and, of course, bad publicity. (Given what had happened to him, Michael had no problem believing it.)

Thanks to all the publicity that the Church had not been able to fend off, buy off, or lie its way out of, pedophilia had become a problem to every priest in the country, guilty or not. At his own parish, a particularly paranoid couple had met with Michael before he'd finished unpacking to inform him that he was never to be in a room with their altar boy son unless one of them was present. None of this had anything to do with the priest Michael had replaced. He knew that from asking, and from having grown up in the South. Southerners had only to hear of something once, from any source of national media, to be convinced they were all its next victims. And his parishioners' fears were exacerbated by the fact that Michael had come to them by way of New York City, which meant there was no limit to the range of perversion he might be importing. He realized, thinking about it now, that his preference for civilian clothes had a lot to do with getting tired of watching strangers size him up everywhere he went. He knew the look and he knew what it was about—people wondering if he was someone with a penchant for adolescent boys. (A couple of times he'd had to bite his tongue to keep from saying, “Don't worry, I've got a girlfriend.”)

Whenever he had confronted his superiors with any or all of these issues, the unvarying response was “the Church isn't perfect.” Maybe not, but if it didn't at least
aspire
to be, it might as well be a bank. He'd spent all these years telling himself that the bureaucracy and the religion were two different things, but the bureaucracy controlled him: where he lived, what he did, what he could and couldn't publish . . .

And yet.

He loved being a priest. And, in spite of all his disillusionment and all his gripes and frustrations, he loved the Catholic Church. Fiercely.

Maybe blindly?

No. It was impossible, these days, not to ask questions. It went far beyond Church issues. Larry was right. The current theological trend was “let's find a way to salvage something from all this, given the fact that we sophisticated intellectuals know it can't possibly be true.” Since it was no longer respectable to believe in Jesus's divinity, scholars had to convince themselves and everyone else that it really didn't matter. To Michael, this was sheer insanity—to say that it made no difference whether Jesus was God come down to live on earth or simply the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on civilization! And then there were people like Tess, who were convinced Jesus's entire existence was a fabrication. Which would mean the gospels were all a very elaborate fraud. Not to mention damned good fiction.

Even the people who agreed with him kept his head spinning with their constant commentaries and analysis and insights and new theories and new versions of old theories. All of them convinced they'd happened upon the angle that was going to make sense of the whole mess once and for all. There were more versions of Jesus these days than there were of Barbie. Historical Jesus. Eschatological Jesus. Mythological Jesus. Political Rebel Jesus. New Age Jesus. Jesus Seminar Jesus. Twelve-Step Jesus. Apocryphal Jesus, who made clay birds fly and killed a playmate and brought him back to life. Jesus a.k.a. Joshua and/or Jeshua, who was channeling new holy books and starting new cults all over the place in order to explain (to the select few who happened to be in the right bookstore staring at the right shelf at the right time) where it had all gone astray.

We can never know—really know—anything.

And still, people are expected to devise a moral code and make life-altering decisions, based on what they suspect or guess or hope to be true. What sense does that make?

That was the main reason Tess's proclamation had upset him. If she thought Jesus never lived—and even if he lived as a mere mortal—then she thought Michael's whole life was a lie. Then
who
did she think she was in love with?

They needed to talk about it. Really talk, with no clock ticking.

But what if she talks you into something you end up regretting? Your brain goes out the window the minute you get in a room with her. (Some rooms more than others.)

If my faith is so flimsy that I can be talked out of it, I have bigger problems than Tess.

He heard a noise and looked toward it. A member of Atlanta's large homeless community was making his way up the street with a shopping cart full of meaningless possessions. The guy was barely recognizable as human. He looked like he hadn't had a bath in decades, and there was a wild, glazed stare in his eyes that led Michael to believe he was high on something other than life.

Oh, great.

The guy stopped his cart against a bus bench (downwind, mercifully) and looked at Michael. “You got a cigarette?”

“I don't smoke,” Michael said. “And I left my wallet at home,” he added, fending off the next question.

And I don't have a MARTA token or the time and I don't know the bus schedule and even if I had any money, I wouldn't give it to you because I'd be afraid I was subsidizing your addictions, which is why I send checks to organizations that would be happy to help you if you went there.

The guy turned his crazy gaze away, across the street.

“You'd never know it burned, would you?” the bum asked, staring at the hotel.

Michael looked at him, surprised.

“It was a sight,” he continued, eyes fixed on the building. “Flames comin' outta the windows, people jumpin', like it was rainin' bodies.”

Michael stared at the guy, trying to put it together. It was difficult to tell his age under the dirt and beard and ravages of alcohol, but even if the guy was old enough to have been alive in 1946, he certainly would not have been old enough at the time to remember it in any detail, much less talk about it like it was a week ago.

The bum pointed to Ellis Street. “There was bodies piled up on that street, musta been a dozen. People knockin' each other off ladders. This one woman jumped and her arm got caught on the cable that held up the sign with the name of the hotel. She just hung there like meat on a hook. 'Nother guy fell on the cable, 'bout cut his head off.”

In addition to the fact that he shouldn't possibly have been able to remember the fire that well, there was something else about the guy that gave Michael a bad feeling. Even as he described the horror in vivid detail, his eyes were dead. If anything, he seemed to be trying to suppress a chuckle. And there was something familiar about his voice. Michael couldn't place it, but it wasn't a comforting familiarity. More like something from an old nightmare.

The bum looked back at Michael. The dead eyes came alive for a second, and the face looked a little more human. Then, without warning, the bum broke into a rotten-toothed grin, which turned into a laugh—a brittle, cackling laugh. Michael felt himself jump, startled. He was too confused to move, even though he was starting to get nervous. This guy's insanity was not necessarily harmless. Still, Michael stood transfixed, for reasons he couldn't understand.

The bum stopped laughing but continued to stare at Michael. It was a chilling stare. Penetrating. Michael felt like the creep was looking into his soul.

It's the look. AGAIN?

“I don't have to tell you about the fire, do I?” the bum asked. Michael couldn't speak. How could this lunatic know?

Because you were standing here staring at the building with a forlorn look on your face? It doesn't take a Rhodes Scholar.

“Well . . .” Michael said, his voice trailing off. He didn't want to divulge anything to this creep and his stroke-of-luck intuition. What he wanted was to get the hell out of there, but somehow he didn't like the idea of turning his back on the guy. And what was he supposed to say to announce his departure?
“Have a nice evening” 
?

“Hey, don't let me hang you up,” the bum said. “I just run my mouth, I got nothin' else to do.”

Michael nodded, again unsettled by the guy's clairvoyance.

Michael wondered what Bob Curso would do. Bob spent his days in un-air-conditioned buildings in the Bronx with guys like this. How did he find some common plane for even the most basic communication? He wished Bob were here, except if Bob were here, he'd be laughing his head off at his friend the pampered Jesuit. (
“You guys are gonna get to Heaven and be pissed off that they don't serve two liqueurs after dinner.”
)

Still, Michael told himself, there was more going on than his aversion to two years' worth of BO. This guy was bad news.

Evil.

The derelict obviously had no intention of leaving, so Michael was going to have to either walk to his car backward, or turn his back and pray. He decided on the latter.

“Well . . . good night,” Michael said. The bum just nodded, apparently unfazed. Michael turned and started down the hill, walking as fast as he could without looking as nervous as he was. He listened for the sound of footsteps behind him. None. Thank God.

Now that he felt relatively safe, Michael chided himself for his paranoia, not to mention his lack of compassion. The bum was just a guy who'd fried his brain with drugs or alcohol, for reasons that would probably tear at Michael's heart if he knew them. Or else he was at the mercy of screwed-up brain chemicals, which certainly wasn't his fault.

Would your hero Jesus be hurrying down the hill, greatly relieved to make a getaway?

“Hey!”

Michael stopped and turned back to look at the bum.

“Bring your wallet next time, Father!” he yelled.

Michael froze. He wasn't wearing anything even remotely clerical.

“What makes you think I'm a priest?” Michael asked.

He smiled again. “Isn't the better question, what makes
you
think you are?”

Michael tried again to place the voice. Did this guy know him? Had they crossed paths somewhere along the way? He strained to remember, but nothing came to him. He turned around again and headed for his car. Behind him, the bum broke into an insane, piercing cackle.

A
round three o'clock in the morning, Michael sat bolt upright, trembling in the dark, gasping for air. In the middle of the dream it had come to him, splitting his consciousness like lightning from Hell.

He knew where he had heard that voice.

J
esus.

How?

How could the voice he'd heard come from Danny, six months ago in Long Island, turn up in a homeless wino in downtown Atlanta?

It wasn't the same voice. It was just similar.

No. He knew all about the fire. He knew all about you. He knew you were a priest!

There has to be some logical explanation.

Something was wrong. Now. In the room. Everything looked normal, but there was a heaviness. He recognized it: a milder version of what he'd felt in Danny's room.

It's in here.

He turned on the light. The feeling remained. He shivered, then realized that the room was cold. Not ordinary cold. Icy, but stuffy at the same time. He was having trouble breathing. The air was too thick. There was an odd smell, like a smoldering candle.

It's getting stronger.

The air was closing in on him, squeezing from all sides. He tried to move; his body was paralyzed. The air squeezed tighter. He felt as if he were in a pressure chamber. It had never been this strong with Danny.

“Get . . . out . . . of . . . here . . .” he managed to whisper. But the only response was that the pressure became more intense. Michael could almost hear it laugh. He searched his mind for the words Bob Curso had used.

“I . . . command . . . you . . .” He was barely able to force the words out of his mouth, much less sound commanding.

God, help me. It's going to kill me.

“ . . . in . . . the . . . name . . . of . . . Jesus . . . Christ . . .” There was a loud sound, like wind through a tunnel. He felt the air reverse direction. The squeezing became pulling. A sucking motion. For a few seconds, he felt he was being pulled apart.

Then it was gone.

The sudden absence of pressure almost threw him to the floor. He steadied himself, then looked around, checking the corners. But he knew it was gone. The air was warm again.

His first impulse was to tell himself he'd imagined it. Or maybe it was something physiological. He'd worked himself into a state because of the bum. He'd convinced himself the demon was after him, and had given himself an anxiety attack.

But he knew better. The same way he'd known during Danny's exorcism. It wasn't in his mind. It was on the outside. A presence. With a will and a fury of its own.

With a trembling hand, he picked up the phone and dialed Bob's private number. Held his breath until he heard Bob answer.

“Hello?” Groggy. Annoyed.

“Bob, it's Michael Kinney. I'm sorry to—”

“Hello?” Bob insisted, angrier.

Michael yelled into the phone. “Bob, it's Michael—” The line went dead. Michael cursed the phone company and hit the Redial button. A ring. Another ring. A clicking sound. A sickeningly sweet voice: “
The number you have dialed is not in service at this time. Please check the number and dial again.
”

Michael hung up; he tried again, dialing the number carefully. He heard two rings, another clicking sound, and then loud static—crackling, popping, white noise in the background. A final try yielded the same. He gave up.