True Confessions (13 page)

He has trouble with the word
fake
, Desmond Spellacy thought.

“Which leaves your friend, Mr. Tobin,” the Cardinal said.

“I think he might like to be made a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre.”

To keep his mouth shut was left unsaid. That was Monsignor Spellacy’s way. Never say more than was necessary. His talk was like a gong. You had to listen for the echoes. He had been that way ever since the Cardinal had first become aware of him as a young curate at Saint Malachy’s. Saint Malachy’s, that dumping ground for problem pastors. First Tim O’Fay and his Civil War hit parade. Then Monsignor Cosker. Tippling Tommy. A connoisseur of altar wines. Not the spot for a young curate who did not know how to roll with the punches.

“It can be arranged,” the Cardinal said. His mind was begining to wander. The morning had wearied him. Like a bad cold, death, something he could not shake off. With age and the emphysema and the polyp on his prostate, the Cardinal knew he didn’t have much time left. A year, possibly two. The succession, that was what mattered. Already he had petitioned Rome for a new auxiliary bishop. Someone who could take over when his time came. Poor Augustine O’Dea. At least that was one thing the Cardinal and the Vatican agreed on. Knowing Babe Ruth wasn’t a qualification that carried much weight in Rome. “Anything else?”

“Monsignor Fargo called.”

Seamus, the Cardinal thought. An acquaintance for sixty years. Not friend. Acquaintance. He wondered how it was possible for two men to know each other for sixty years and not become friends. “What did he want?”

“To talk about your insurance program.”

“Oh, my God,” the Cardinal said irritably. That was one reason they had never become friends. Seamus Fargo was impossible. He had tried to thwart the archdiocesan master plan at every turn. He complained about central financing. And about central purchasing. And centralized construction planning. The Cardinal was encroaching on the power of the pastors. A pastor must be lord of his own house. The Cardinal wondered how many times he had heard Seamus’s arguments. “What did you tell him?”

“That you were busy, Your Eminence.”

“That’s never stopped him before.”

“He’s agreed to see me at eleven instead.”

The Cardinal nodded. God, Seamus could make him feel guilty. With good reason. We’re both getting old, the Cardinal thought, we have to make way for others. But Seamus wanted to hang onto everything. He wasn’t going to like being replaced as chairman of the new fund-raising drive. He had administered these drives for more than a quarter of a century without any help from professional fund raisers. Now the new twenty-million-dollar program that was scheduled to be kicked off in the fall was going to be handled by a professional. Mr. Leo I. Walsh, chairman of the board of Diocesan Giving, Inc.

“Will you mention Mr. Walsh to him?”

“I’ll say we’re having discussions,” Desmond Spellacy said. “I think we should wait until the contracts are signed with Mr. Walsh before we inform the monsignor that it’s a ...” He searched for the precise phrase.

“A
fait accompli?
the Cardinal said.

“The term has a certain . . . austerity, Your Eminence.”

“Austerity,” the Cardinal said. “Yes.” An austere number himself, Monsignor Spellacy. “I’m told the Aquinas Guild is going to honor Seamus.”

“Next month. For his services to the Church.”

“He deserves it,” the Cardinal said. “I’ll write him a note. I think I should attend.”

I’m babbling like a guilty old man, the Cardinal thought. And Monsignor Spellacy is taking it all in. It would be a cold meeting between the two monsignors. Seamus could not stand Desmond Spellacy. He had made that clear often enough. My fault, the Cardinal mused. It was to Seamus that he had sent Desmond Spellacy after Saint Malachy’s. Someone had turned Saint Malachy’s around and the Cardinal knew it wasn’t poor Tommy Cosker. All the reports indicated that it was young Father Spellacy. But perhaps Father Spellacy needed a little more seasoning. A little humility. A little less hubris. Seamus Fargo, pastor at Saint Basil’s, was just the man to take a young curate down a peg or three. A martinet of the old school, Monsignor Fargo. No conversation at dinner unless he initiated it. No social visits with parishioners without his permission. Lights out in the rectory at ten o’clock. No good words for Sigmund Freud, H. G. Wells or F. Scott Fitzgerald. Desmond Spellacy had spent two years at Saint Basil’s under the thumb of Seamus and he seemed to wear the experience well. Better than Seamus. He wondered how Seamus would react if Desmond Spellacy were named the new auxiliary.

“Desmond.”

“Your Eminence.”

“Tell your brother I’m grateful.”

Desmond Spellacy nodded and left the Cardinal’s study.

He knows, the Cardinal thought. He knows I’ve suggested his name to the apostolic delegate. For a moment, the Cardinal felt a spasm of irritation. If he doesn’t know, then I’ve had a fool as chancellor for the past ten years. The spasm passed. It was really guilt, the Cardinal knew. Guilt about his treatment of Augustine O’Dea. He just had not expected the apostolic delegate to mention Augustine as his successor. But then the apostolic delegate was a hard one to figure out. Thirty years a Vatican diplomat in the capitals of the world had taught him to play his cards close to the cassock. As with his sudden visit to the archdiocese the week before. Ostensibly to officiate at the rededication of the old Spanish mission in Santa Barbara. And then afterward, the long, private dinner with the Cardinal. A dinner during which death was never mentioned. Only eternal rewards. As if the apostolic delegate already had a set of the Cardinal’s X-rays in his briefcase.

“A very effective preacher, Bishop O’Dea,” the apostolic delegate had said.

’Terribly effective,” the Cardinal said. “He has the knack of satisfying everyone.” He paused. “And offending no one.”

“A gift,” the apostolic delegate said. With that wintry Vatican smile. “He is a humble man.”

“With a common touch,” the Cardinal said. “When he was pastor in San Juan Bautista, he used to dye his hair green on Saint Patrick’s Day. Of course, there weren’t many Irish in the parish, but it made a great hit with the Mexicans, I’m told.
El padre verde
, they called him.”

“I see,” the apostolic delegate said.

“I knew you would,” the Cardinal said.

“
Bene, bene,”
the apostolic delegate said. “A wonderful endorsement.” He patted his lips with the linen napkin. “There are other good men?”

“Monsignor Spellacy.”

“Young.”

“Thirty-eight.”

“No pastoral training.”

“A chaplain during the war,” the Cardinal said. He enjoyed sparring with the apostolic delegate. “I daresay a chaplain hears things and knows things and does things your average pastor wouldn’t hear or know or do in a lifetime.”

“Perhaps,” the apostolic delegate said. “He is still young.”

“Cardinal Gibbon was thirty-four when he was made a bishop.”

“In the nineteenth century,” the apostolic delegate said. “Cowboys and Indians. A time for a young man.”

“You were thirty-seven, I believe,” the Cardinal said. “Benedict’s secretary.”

“Pius XI,” the apostolic delegate said. “I am not an antique,
Eminenza”
His eyes did not blink when he smiled. “Yet.”

“Like me, you mean,” the Cardinal said. It was Desmond Spellacy who without asking had put the
Vatican Directory
on his desk before the apostolic delegate’s arrival.

“Antiques have great value, Your Eminence,” the apostolic delegate said.

“Some of them,” the Cardinal said.

“Yes.” The apostolic delegate drew the word out for several syllables.

“You were in Berne during the war?”

“Ankara.”

“I thought Berne,” the Cardinal said. He wondered how amused the apostolic delegate would be to know that Desmond Spellacy had brought the
Vatican Directory
to his attention. An instructive volume in which to browse and pick up dates and places.

“Only until 1941,” the apostolic delegate said. “Then Ankara.”

“A peripatetic life.”

“Yes.”

“Grand.”

The apostolic delegate parted the rice pudding he never ate with a spoon, separating it into quadrants. “Monsignor Spellacy is intelligent?”

“Very.”

“A holy man?”

“And a practical one as well.” As holy as I myself, the Cardinal thought. As holy as the apostolic delegate himself, he also suspected.

“An interesting combination,” the apostolic delegate had said.

And that was that. It was always best not to rush Rome on such matters. Not for nothing was it known as the Eternal City. It took an eternity to get anything done there. But the Cardinal was quite sure that the apostolic delegate had already forwarded his recommendation to Rome and that the new auxiliary would be Monsignor Spellacy. As well as his likely successor. He felt another twinge of guilt about Augustine O’Dea. Such a good man. But at sixty-one years of age still to be claiming that his favorite book was the Baltimore Catechism. Because the rules were so clearly laid out. And what was there to say about a man who had seen
The Song of Bernadette
eleven times.

Except that he was a kind, holy man.

A friend.

Betrayed.

Which left Monsignor Spellacy.

He’s more like me than I care to admit, the Cardinal thought.

I wonder if he’ll feel guilty at eighty.

On a morning as bad as this one.

“Monsignor.”

•’Sister Margaret.”

“That crying this morning when the policeman called, I’m very sorry about it.”

“Nonsense.”

“Tell the policeman I’ll say a novena for him.”

“I will, Sister, he’ll appreciate it.”

Desmond Spellacy held Mary Margaret’s letter in his hands. He wished she hadn’t written him. She should have written Tommy. He could guess why she had written him. He put the thought out of his mind. It would be tough enough telling Tommy at lunch. He could imagine the reaction.

Ten minutes to eleven. He knew Monsignor Fargo wouldn’t be late. Desmond Spellacy smiled. Seamus wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. On the stroke of eleven, he would be announced. He would be civil. He wouldn’t shake hands. That was Monsignor Fargo’s way.

The fact is, he liked Seamus Fargo.

That flinty intractability.

“The older he gets, the bluer his eyes get,” the Cardinal had once said. “They’re pale as snow now. And never a twinkle. I’ve always hated priests whose eyes twinkle. Show me a priest whose eyes twinkle and I’ll show you a moron. But I look at Seamus and those cold eyes and sometimes he makes me yearn for some dumb harp twinkler, talking about the leprechauns and Mrs. Teddy Feeney’s trip to Donegal and how she picked up a little shamrock belonging to Saint Patrick himself. A thousand years old, the shamrock is, and still as green as the Emerald Isle. You don’t get that from Seamus.”

“No, Your Eminence.”

“We were curates together in Boston. You didn’t know that, did you?”

“No, Your Eminence.”

“Fifty years ago.”

So that was it. That was why Monsignor Fargo was the only priest in the archdiocese who could crack the Cardinal’s composure.

“When McKinley was president,” the Cardinal had said. “William McKinley. The Spanish-American War. That McKinley.”

“Teddy Roosevelt.”

“Don’t rub it in, Monsignor.”

“I’m sorry, Your Eminence.”

“Do you know why Seamus was sent out here from Boston?”

“No, Your Eminence.”

“Exiled is more like it. He ran afoul of old Cardinal Sheehan. A terror, he was. There was a man who knew how to take care of snippy young priests. As I seem incapable of taking care of snippy old ones. Anyway. Every winter Cardinal Sheehan would go to Nassau. When the frost was on the pumpkin, so to speak, there would be the Cardinal sailing out of Boston harbor, giving his blessing. And an elaborate blessing it was.
’Ben-e-di-cam-us Do-mi-no.’
You could hear him in Worcester. ‘Isn’t it grand?’ the old biddies in the archdiocese would say. They didn’t have two lumps of coal to see them through the winter, and there they’d be saying, ‘Isn’t it grand?’ Just like they were sailing right along with His Eminence toward the sun and the sand. ‘Ah, yes,’ Seamus would say. ‘Such a sensitive man, His Eminence. You know why he goes to Nassau, don’t you? It just breaks his heart to see the poor shiver in the dead of winter.’” A rumble of a laugh had started in the Cardinal’s chest. “ ‘It breaks his heart to see the poor shiver,’ “ he repeated almost to himself. The memory of fifty years past seemed to warm him. “Once too often,” the Cardinal said, “once too often Seamus said it. The Cardinal got wind of it and Seamus was on the next train west. And lucky not to have been put on a Conestoga wagon.”

It pleased Desmond Spellacy that he had liked Seamus Fargo before he heard that story. As it pained him now knowing that Seamus Fargo would disapprove of him being made a bishop.

Oh, yes, that he was going to be a bishop he was certain.

“Desmond,” the Cardinal had called him earlier in his study.

After all these years, the Cardinal had called him “Desmond.”

That was the clue, the kind of veiled hint the Cardinal specialized in. Familiarity did not come easily to Hugh Danaher, and when he used it, there was usually a point to be read.

He could not explain why the idea so depressed him. Not that he didn’t want it. For ten years he had wanted it. Perhaps that was it. Becoming a bishop would only authenticate the work he had been doing for the past ten years. And would continue to do for the next forty, if the Vatican tapped him on the shoulder.

Forty years. Living out his death. What was it the Cardinal called himself? A bookkeeper in ermine. Central financing to improve the care and feeding of souls.

Living out his death.

He supposed the die was cast at Saint Malachy’s with Tommy Cosker. It was at Saint Malachy’s where he first got to know Dan T. Campion. “Look at it this way, Des,” Dan T. Campion had said. “It’s an opportunity with Monsignor Cosker the way he is. Twenty-five years old you are, and you’re running things. You make it work here and you won’t have to wait until you’re sixty to get a parish of your own like the rest of the deadbeats.” One thing about Dan Campion: he always called a spade a spade. “I did the parish taxes last year, Des,” Dan T. Campion said. “It was like doing the books of one of them nigger countries over to Africa there.” And so Desmond Spellacy quietly had taken charge of Saint Malachy’s. The first thing he did was to liberally spike Tommy Cosker’s altar wine with Welch’s Grape Juice. The pastor falling down on the altar, that was a bad way to begin the day. Then he got Bucky Conroy to dry-clean all the vestments free for a couple of years. In return for a letter of recommendation to Fordham for Bucky Junior. Who was also known as Bad Bucky. With good reason. Two counts of statutory rape, dismissed, and one pregnant colored girl in South Pasadena. 𠇊A high-spirited youth,” he wrote in his letter, and asked the forgiveness of God and Fordham. And then hit Bucky Senior up for a new furnace and a year’s supply of altar wine.

The envelopes had been his idea. And the listing of contributions in each Sunday’s parish newsletter in order of generosity. “They won’t like it if you make them look cheap, Des,” Dan T. Campion had said, “but they’ll give more so they won’t.” No more nickels, dimes and quarters rattling in the Saint Malachy’s collection baskets. My Weekly Sacrifice, the envelopes said. Or, This Is for My God and My Parish. Name as well as amount listed on the front of the envelope. So that no one could claim ten outside and only slip a five inside. “You shouldn’t embarrass them,” Monsignor Cosker had said. The way to raise money was a cake sale in the parish hall, Monsignor Cosker thought. Something more personal, less regimented. “It’s an honor being a Catholic,” Tommy Cosker liked to say. “It should be fun.” Such a dear sweet man. Not that he minded the debt being paid off. If only it were more fun.

Living out his death.

He knew why the Cardinal had sent him to Saint Basil’s. Seamus Fargo was a different kind of pastor than Tommy Cosker. “A terrible sermon, Father,” Seamus Fargo would say. “We eat everything on our plates in this parish, Father,” Seamus Fargo would say. “The new freedom, Father, is the old license,” Seamus Fargo would say. In his two years at Saint Basil’s, Desmond Spellacy had only two extended conversations with Monsignor Fargo. The first was the day he arrived at the rectory. “You’ll find that Fm a different man than Monsignor Cosker, Father,” Seamus Fargo said. “Less pliable. Less amenable. I give orders and I expect them to be followed. None of your mailings here, Father. No letters of recommendation for young hoodlums. No grape juice in the altar wine. You’re surprised I know that, aren’t you, Father? It’s a violation of canon law, you know. Perhaps if I were to be your confessor, you might wish to confess it to me.” Which Desmond Spellacy did. “Your penance, Father, is to do as you’re told. Nothing more, nothing less. With no complaint.” And for two years there were no complaints from Desmond Spellacy. He said mass, heard confession, took the census, counted the collection, visited the sick, prayed for the dying and kept his mouth shut.

His second conversation with Monsignor Fargo was on the day he left Saint Basil’s to become vice chancellor.

“I’ll make myself perfectly clear, Father,” Seamus Fargo had said. “I told His Eminence I was against this appointment. You have the makings of a good priest, Father, but you’re not one yet. You have a mind like an abacus. You do everything, in fact, but feel. And it’s the unfeeling ones that bring the Church into disrepute. That is what I told His Eminence, Father. Apparently he disagreed. Is there anything you wish to say?”

“I would like you to continue as my confessor, Monsignor.”

“I think you’d be more comfortable, Father, with one of those priests who read Sigmund Freud.”

“I would prefer you, Monsignor.”

“There is no edge in it, Father.”

A battle of wills. Desmond Spellacy often wondered if he had pushed it because he knew that ultimately Seamus Fargo must yield. That was the edge. A victory for pride. The thought made him uncomfortable. Can a proud man discern pride? It was a sin he never confessed. And for the past ten years, Seamus Fargo had said, “Your penance, Father, is to do one good deed.” As if he was incapable of one. Maybe feeling that way was Seamus Fargo’s edge. A tough old bird.

Desmond Spellacy ran his finger under the starched khaki collar chafing against his neck. He was certain that Seamus would ignore the uniform. It was just another of Monsignor Spellacy’s pretentions. The Parachuting Padre. He tried to imagine the curl of Seamus’s lips as he said those words.

If only he knew, Desmond Spellacy thought.

His orders had been to jump into Bastogne with the relief troops. The Catholic chaplain was dead, the troops needed a priest. What the troops needed was food and ammunition, but orders were orders. He had stood in the open doorway of the C-47 with an altar stone in his kit and a package of twenty-four thousand unconsecrated hosts in his arms, and when the green jump light went on, out he went. But when the parachute opened, the hosts were ripped from his arms, and the wind tore the package open and hosts drifted down like snow behind the German lines. It seemed forever before he hit the ground, and when he did, the altar stone broke in two and then the paratrooper on his right blew up and then the one on his left. “Freeze,” he heard someone say, and then, “Mine field.” Big deal. He had figured that one out already. What he hadn’t figured out was how to get out of his parachute harness without moving, and if he didn’t, the wind would pick up the chute and drag him across the mine field like a human firecracker. So he said a perfect Act of Contrition and then he rolled over and released the harness. Then he sat in the snow, waiting to be killed, and added up the score. The altar stone was broken and he had lost twenty-four thousand communion wafers and he was trapped in a mine field, but other than that, the mission was a big success. He could not help wondering what the Germans had thought as they picked the hosts out of their hair. It was not exactly the kind of story a priest should have on his mind as he died, but so be it. It took six hours before the mine field was cleared, and by that time his hands and feet were frostbitten. The medics took him to a field hospital, where he spent the rest of the Battle of the Bulge with hot compresses on his fingers and toes. For all of which he was promoted, awarded the Legion of Merit and invalided back to the States for a War Bond tour as the Parachuting Padre.

Eleven o’clock.

Monsignor Fargo got right to the point. “You mean, Monsignor, that I am no longer free to buy fire insurance for Saint Basil’s?”

“His Eminence wishes the chancery in the future to purchase all the insurance for the archdiocese.”

“Including my automobile insurance?”

“That is correct.”

“Even my own life insurance?”

“Equally correct.”

“Am I permitted to ask why?”

“Certainly.”

“Why?”

“It will save $241,000 a year in premiums. Two hundred forty-one thousand and change.”

“I’m glad you did not forget the change, Monsignor.”

“Thank you, Monsignor. The change adds up.”

Seamus Fargo surveyed Desmond Spellacy across the desk. “I’m told you’re in negotiation with Leo Walsh.” He added with ill-disguised contempt, “The fund raiser.”

So he’s heard, Desmond Spellacy thought. Not that it was surprising. Seamus heard everything. “We’re having . . . conversations,” he said carefully.

“Conversations,” Seamus Fargo said.

“Conversations,” Desmond Spellacy repeated.

“Am I to be replaced?”

“Your experience is irreplaceable, Monsignor.”

“This is your doing, no doubt.”

“There is nothing done yet, Monsignor.”

Seamus Fargo rose. “His Eminence approves of your methods, it seems.”

“The Vatican approves of His Eminence, Monsignor.” Desmond Spellacy stood and faced the old man. “I might add, Monsignor, that I’m pleased that you’re being honored by the Aquinas Guild.”

Seamus Fargo shook his head almost imperceptibly. “Thank you, Monsignor. Good morning.”

“Good morning, Monsignor.”

The Parachuting Padre.

Living out his death.