Eminence Page 12

  She chose the chair near the door. He moved the other chair closer—so close that their knees were almost touching.

  She opened her notepad. “Have you had any contact with this St. Stephen’s Monastery?”

  “Before today, no.”

  “But you knew your wife was attending services there?”

  “Not really. We don’t talk about things like that.”

  Lennon wondered what, if anything, they did talk about,

  “Well,” Lennon proceeded, “I’ve asked her doctor, I’ve asked her; now I’ll ask you: What do you think of it . . . of your wife’s restored sight?”

  He hesitated, realizing he hadn’t actually given it any thought. His secretary had notified him at the restaurant at lunch. From that time until now, he had been consumed by details: the party; postponing some appointments, cancelling others; checking particulars such as the notification of relatives; and, after reviewing the list of reporters who had phoned for an appointment, issuing the stipulation that Pat Lennon alone be granted an interview.

  Now, confronted by the question, he was uncertain of his reaction to the cure. He was in slight awe of it, he supposed. Until now, he had only heard about miracles. And he’d never believed any of them. As far as he was concerned, there had to be a rational explanation for everything. He was an architect. His work was based on immutable laws of physics and math. He couldn’t erect a building suspended in air with no support. No power would or could operate against or above nature.

  Yet there was no denying it: His wife had been blind. Oh, she could fake some things, such as an orgasm, but she couldn’t have acted blind for five years. Besides, doctors he trusted had confirmed the blindness. And just now a doctor whom he both trusted and paid very well had affirmed that she had recovered her sight.

  What was he to think of it? He hadn’t had time to puzzle that out.

  However, he would have to answer the question. “There isn’t much to say. I’m grateful.”

  She tapped the pen against her lips. “How grateful?”

  He smiled. “You mean, have I responded in a concrete way?”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ve sent a check to help defray the cost of their ministry—in gratitude for the wonderful gift my wife has received.”

  “The amount?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “Substantial?”

  He smiled. “Quite substantial.”

  “The check is in the mail?”

  He seemed mildly offended. “It has already been delivered by messenger.”

  “Nice. Then, one final question: why me? Why did you exclude every reporter but me?”

  Looking less apologetic than at any time since she’d been with him, he hitched his chair even closer. Her antennae were quivering.

  “Because I’ve watched you work. Because I’ve watched you. You’re good. And I wanted to get to know you better.” He leaned forward. “I think we can get together on lots of things. I think we can have fun together.”

  “Mr. Whitehead—”

  “Hank.”

  “Hank, your propensity for womanizing precedes you. It’s no secret.”

  He smiled, gratified at the recognition.

  “My problem with what I’m sure you’re proposing is that I don’t fit the profile. Your preference,” she continued, “seems to be kids, girls in their late teens. The type who plans on becoming ‘either a brain surgeon or a pompon girl.’ Hank, I simply don’t fit the pattern.” Gershwin’s “What You Want with Bess?” sprang to mind. Except Lennon knew very well what Hank wanted with Bess.

  He gave her knee, which by this time was virtually an extension of his own, an intimate pat. “All the more a tribute to yourself, dear girl. I’ve wanted you for a long while. And now—”

  Pat swung her right leg around, up and over so that it landed in Whitehead’s lap. He was now the kid in the candy shop with his hand in the chocolate bin.

  “Take a gander at my calf. Feel it.”

  “Gladly, m’dear.”

  “Strong, isn’t it?”

  He nodded in eager agreement.

  “I build it up along with the rest of my body with lots of exercise.”

  His tongue caught the saliva at the corner of his mouth before he could be accused of drooling.

  “Hank, you know how your leg jerks up in a reflex action when the doctor raps your kneecap with his little rubber hammer?”

  He nodded again.

  “Well, if you move your hand another fraction of an inch, my leg will jerk up and take your head off.”

  He scowled.

  “And,” she continued, “should you even think of removing your trousers, I will kick your balls so hard that you’ll wish you’d been castrated.”

  She delivered all this in a calm, unemotional tone.

  His mood had deteriorated from that of sheer anticipatory glee to near apoplectic anger. “You . . . you can’t do this!” he stammered. “I . . . I gave you . . . I gave you an exclusive interview. I’m going to take a bath . . . I say I’m going to take a bath with the rest of the news media because of this. You . . . you owe me. Dammit! You owe me!”

  “And I’m going to pay that debt, Hank: I’m not going to tell the other boys and girls of the media why you wouldn’t let them in. This way, they’ll just be puzzled—instead of laughing their heads off over a middle-aged fool. Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .” She rose so abruptly that he almost toppled over backward in his chair. “. . . I’ll show myself out,” she said, as she opened the door. As she left the room, she added, over her shoulder, “Oh, and thanks for the exclusive.”

  As she briskly descended the stairway, she scanned the main floor crowd. She spotted the doctor in animated conversation with an attractive chic blonde. He was holding a drink. It was not wine. He appeared to be feeling no pain. Lennon hoped the nurse was driving.

  She made her way to the door, departed without ceremony, climbed into her car, and headed back downtown.

  It had been a worthwhile interview. Of particular interest was the fact that Mrs. Whitehead had not been totally cured, but only restored to her prior condition. Could that mean a psychosomatic cause and “cure”?

  Interesting, too, was the fact that Mrs. Whitehead had attended services at the chapel several times previously. Plenty of opportunity for the monks to note her obvious social status, and, possibly capitalize on it.

  Capitalize . . . capitalism. She wondered about Whitehead’s check. How much had he given them? What would it mean to them? Was that their game? Were they for real?

  At this point, there were just lots of questions and very few answers.

  She would go back to the News and file her story. And then? She couldn’t go back to the apartment. Not right away. Not with Joe living it up in Port Huron. She didn’t know what she would do.

  CHAPTER

  9

  “This wine seems an extravagance,” Brother Dominic commented.

  “But it is awfully good,” Brother Francis said.

  “Sinfully good,” Brother Bernard contributed.

  “Now, Bernard,” Father Robert spoke in a conciliatory tone, “there is nothing sinful about wine. Our blessed Lord changed water into wine at Cana of Galilee for His very first public miracle. And then He used it again at the Last Supper when He changed wine into His sacred blood. And we use wine in the holy sacrifice of the Mass. Of course, there is always the possibility of the misusing of wine that leads to drunkenness. But sinful man can always find a way to pervert God’s good gifts.”

  “All very good,” Bernard replied, “but there is a world of difference between Mass wine and an expensive cabernet sauvignon.”

  “Slow down,” Brother Paul ordered. “We deserve a treat tonight. We made a killing this afternoon.”

  “What does he mean by that?” Brother Francis asked of no one in particular.

  “Just an expression of speech,” Dominic replied. “It means something very good happened this afternoo
n.”

  Francis glowed. “Oh, the miracle!”

  Paul smiled. He seldom smiled. “I guess you could say it was a miracle.”

  “Giving sight to the blind! I’d say that was a miracle!” Francis enthused.

  “Other than that,” Father Robert said, “someone made a . . . significant contribution.”

  “Oh,” said Bernard, “causa celebrandi.”

  “That’s right,” Paul said, “that good old catchall, ‘a reason to celebrate.’ Drink up.” An order to be obeyed without question. Even his casual suggestions had the ring of authority.

  The five religious were seated in what they called their refectory. Actually, it was simply one of the roomier spaces created by the plasterboard partitions they had erected in converting the building into a quasi monastery. This compartment happened to be located in an area where sufficient plumbing and electrical outlets existed to create a kind of kitchen.

  They were at their evening meal. They sat on plain wooden benches at either side of a long rectangular table. Each still wore his habit, but all had pushed back their cowls, as was their custom when they were by themselves.

  Even with their faces revealed, it was remarkable how much Brothers Dominic, Francis, and Bernard resembled each other. Each was within an inch or so of five-feet-seven. Each was of average build; each wore his hair cut almost to skin level. Brother Francis, who acted as barber, gave periodic haircuts to the others—except for Brother Paul; he got a professional cut once a month.

  The three lookalike Brothers differed from each other most visibly in the expressions conveyed by their facial features, accented by their eyes—mirrors of their souls.

  Brother Dominic was blue-collar to his roots. Carpentry was the common denominator of his family. His ancestors in Poland had been woodworkers. They had passed the trade through most of the male descendants down to and including Thaddeus Kukulski—Brother Dominic’s name before entering religious life. He performed much of the hardest manual labor in this tiny band. Assisted, to be fair, by Francis and Bernard, Dominic had created the plasterboard partitions that formed the cells, offices, chapel, refectory, and common john that made up St. Stephen’s Monastery—such as it was. He, again assisted in some small degree by the other two, had built the altar and the kneeling benches. Although he was not an expert in the field, by default he became the electrician. He also cut Brother Francis’s hair, since Francis, the group’s barber, could not operate on himself. And Dominic continued to learn. Of all his virtues, the strongest was probably obedience.

  Brother Francis quite naturally followed in the footsteps of his namesake, Francis of Assisi. A simple soul, more apt than the others to take literally nearly all he heard, Francis was the gullible one. He was not talented in any discernible way. In the world—before he’d entered religious life—he had held one menial job after another, frequently being hoodwinked by the unscrupulous who reveled in taking advantage of simple trusting individuals.

  Among the jobs he’d held before joining the Congregation of St. Stephen, he had been a waiter at a Coney Island restaurant; deliverer of pizzas; dishwasher at a greasy spoon; laundry worker at a public hospital; and garbage collector for a suburban municipality. There had been other jobs as well, all comparable, all low on the totem pole of life, all nondescript, none upwardly mobile.

  It never took his fellow workers long to discover his trusting simplicity. After which discovery, most of the pack would capitalize on what they considered his weakness. As a result, almost everyone he knew was in his debt and almost no one would ever repay. But Henry Horkan—his real name—would go on perpetually expecting to find redeeming features in people whom the rest of society had dismissed as refuse.

  Henry Horkan counted the moment he had been accepted into the Congregation of St. Stephen the luckiest day of his life. Finally he amounted to something. If the Congregation was not yet as missionary and actively involved in its community, as he had been led to believe it would be, he remained confident that one day all the promises would be fulfilled. But then Henry—Brother Francis—did tend to believe in people.

  Of the three look-alikes-whom Brother Paul occasionally referred to as Ping, Pang and Pong, after the characters in the opera “Turandot”—the one who did not belong in this Congregation was Brother Bernard. Before entering religious life, his name had been John Smith—or so he now said. Besides being such a stock name, it had humor glued to it; he always gave his name with an air of irony that made people think he was joking.

  From youth onward he had been a difficult person to know. He had always been intelligent, yet his intelligence was compromised by an exceptionally suspicious nature. For example, at the college level, he had entered a Jesuit seminary. Intellectually and spiritually he might have been able to pass the necessary tests of mind and spirit, but his imagination built impossible scenarios. He came to suspect the Jesuit Society of planning to overthrow the Catholic Church as well as the Pope whom Jesuits vow to obey and serve in a unique manner. He also discerned “The Plot” behind the Second Vatican Council and was sure he saw through the deceit of the so-called experts— the periti—at the Council, who deliberately misled the bishops. Thus, instead of offering the bishops good advice and sound direction, the experts led their masters into heresy and near schism.

  It just seemed that throughout his life, things had gone steadily downhill. There appeared to be no suitable place for him anywhere. Certainly not in “the world,” where, he perceived, people ridiculed him and his values to his face as well as behind his back. Nor was there a home for him in the Church that he had once purposed to serve as a Jesuit.

  Then, through a friend—who later lost interest in it—he’d heard of the new Congregation of St. Stephen. The strong pre-Vatican II spirit of this small group, while holding to the letter of the current law, attracted him. The decisive factor was the Congregation’s size—just a few members of presumably like-minded men. Within such a limited group, he felt he could have some effective impact.

  To date, he had achieved none of his goals. But the Congregation was young. Time was on his side.

  Father Robert was, ostensibly, the leader of this little group. He was considerably older than the others. Like the others, he’d been in “the world” for the major part of his life thus far. As a parochial high schooler in Detroit, he’d joined the Third Order of St. Francis. In simple terms, the First Order consists of priests, the Second Order is for religious Brothers and nuns. The Third Order offers lay people the opportunity of joining with those dedicated to religious life while the lay person remains in “the world.”

  As a member of the Third Order, Hugh Wier—his name before he entered religious life—wore a knotted cord around his waist and a special scapular around his neck. Both were worn under his ordinary clothing. The cord and scapular were designed to remind him of his special dedication to the ideals of St. Francis of Assisi. Others could not, and were not supposed to be able to, detect this miniature religious habit. But it, as well as the special daily prayers he recited, were supposed to inspire him to influence others by the sanctity of his life.

  He was, in childhood, and continued as an adult, a person of simple faith. Like the others now in the Congregation of St. Stephen, he had been surprised and overwhelmed by what he and they considered the profane novelties and profound nonsense of the Second Vatican Council. Like the others, he had dedicated himself to stemming the tide of sabotage being conducted within the Church—the Mystical Body of Christ—before that body destroyed itself. And like the others, he lived in abject fear of Brother Paul.

  John Reid, Brother Paul, was the latest, hopefully not the last, to join the Congregation of St. Stephen. He too had once been a seminarian. His seminary training had been in Chicago, and fairly recent. Thus he had been in the seminary during the present era when, instead of being inclined to dismiss students for less than significant cause, the tendency was to hold on to the desperately needed bodies.

  Nonetheless,
despite the drastic priest shortage, the Chicago faculty had expelled John Reid. In a relatively brief time, he had managed to terrify, disgust, intimidate, and/or dominate many of his fellow seminarians and even a few faculty members.

  Before taking the drastic step of sacking him, the seminary rector had him tested and treated—as it turned out, all too briefly—by a psychiatrist. The psychological evaluation was that John Reid was a psychopath. While Reid was furious over his dismissal from the seminary, he found the diagnosis amusing. He had no idea why some shrink would find his personality psychopathic.

  It was the psychiatrist’s conclusion that John Reid was a classic textbook case. Nor was the good doctor’s diagnosis precipitate. He had studied young Reid for several months. The psychiatrist was fascinated with the student. The doctor yearned to bottle the essence of John Reid to illustrate to future students the ingredients of a pathology.

  Reid, a darkly handsome man with chiseled features, was attractive, impressive, and intelligent. He appeared to be free of anxiety and of feelings of insecurity. He found headaches intolerable, so he gave them to others. To the casual observer, he seemed a person of force and character; a competent, perhaps superior, man. The preponderant and overpowering flaw was his consistent pattern of failure. He never learned from his failures because he seemed subconsciously to be seeking disaster.

  With remarkable ease and seeming sincerity he would promise the doctor—anyone, for that matter—whatever he-or they—wanted from him. Time after time he would break his word. Yet he would be able to look the doctor—or anyone—straight in the eye and promise again and again, as if he should be taken seriously.

  To Reid, emotions—love, ambition, regret, shame—had always been little more than words, with little or no influence on his conduct. All of which left him with an absent dimension.

  On the surface at least, his sexual life was almost perfectly suited to the seminary. He did not have a particularly strong sex drive and he was nearly incapable of forming any lasting attachment or any strong, vivid personal relationship. On the other hand, any time he felt like indulging his sexual inclinations he did so, even under conditions where a normal person might reasonably refrain. Finally, his sexual life invariably showed abnormality.