The Night Church Part 34

He closed the ledger. Now it was time to investigate the older parish records, which were in the bas.e.m.e.nt. It was critical to look through the past couple of years. Patterns might emerge. This entry suggested that the Night Church was helping the parish, but it did not tell what Mike most wanted to know, whether Harry was a dupe or a willing partner.

Mike went down the hall past the dining room with its ornate table and wainscotted walls, and opened the door in the pantry leading to the bas.e.m.e.nt. He didn't intend to poke into any dark holes, and looking down those wooden steps made him more than a little nervous. When he saw how the dark down there swallowed his penlight's beam he wished he could dare to get help. But he couldn't. Nor could he just abandon this part of the investigation-it was too important. When you were seeking evidence of payoff or kickback the rule was to look to the time before your suspect perceived the danger of his ways ... then it was usually all laid out neat as a pin. People kept careful records of their sunny days.

Mike had been here more than once before, both as a boy and as a man. There was a wine cellar from long ago, and Harry still had a few bottles of Sandeman's '37 vintage port in it. Harry had brought one up once or twice for some Holy Name celebration or other. How Harry had resisted selling that port. Mike understood why. He needed those evenings with port and cigars and good company to remind him of the importance his church had once enjoyed among men of power, and to give him leave to dream.

Mike descended the stairs quickly, his penlight beam bobbing on the steps. He crossed the floor . . . and was interested to note that there was a great deal of dust. Good. n.o.body was worrying about the old records as yet. Maybe Mike was finally a step ahead.

His light danced as he swung it around, revealing steam pipes, rusty electrical conduit, dark old beams, cobwebs, and shadows behind shadows.

The journals were in a bookcase that sagged against the far wall. As Mike moved toward it he noticed a great crack beside the case. Dank, earthen air drifted out. Deep sounds seemed to come from it, of machinery throbbing, Probably led to some old drainage pipe that communicated to the subway out on Queens Boulevard. Mike peered into the hole, flas.h.i.+ng his penlight into blackness. As he painted his light along the walls there was a sound of rustling movement. A shadow made Mike jump back. Something the size of a dog seemed to be scurrying toward him. But that was absurd; it was a rat tricked large by the light. Mike shook his head. Harry's rectory was literally crumbling into the sewers. He reached out to grab the last three or four journals and get the h.e.l.l out of there. His motions were too quick; when he brushed matted fur he jerked away.

Lightning flashed as his head knocked into a cold steam pipe. He sank heavily to the floor, cursing, holding his head, his penlight rolling crazily away. That light was sanity and protection. Despite his throbbing head he lurched after it, grabbed it, and cradled it like a candle in his cupped hands. It was still working, thank G.o.d.

He had to get himself together. This was the sort of clumsy lack of professionalism you expected from a wet-pants rookie. He scrambled to his feet and scanned the bookshelf with his penlight.

The journals went back to the turn of the century, year by year, all neatly numbered in gold embossing.

Mike took down 1963, 1971, and 1975. That ought to be enough, and long enough ago for any records of connection between the day and night churches to be clearly indicated.

Mike sat down on the bottom step with his penlight and began reading. He found nothing of interest in 1963. By 1971 every third or fourth month ended with red ink. The records for 1975 told a more somber story. Now the red ink was constant.

In April of that year the Hamil Foundation had kicked in twelve thousand dollars, earmarked for restoration of the portraits of the apostles in the dome. Mike remembered the scaffolding. Father had said the apostles were being revised to fit the discoveries of modern scholars. Afterward they did not look inspired anymore. Now that Mike thought about it, they looked ugly. In July the foundation had donated new pews to add seating in the wings.

Additional seating in a dying parish?

Mike took down 1977 and 1978. January of 1977; $9,712 from the Hamil Foundation to soundproof the windows.

July of that year: $1,270 for three hundred folding chairs.

Soundproofing and folding chairs? It was eerie, to find the records of the growth of the Night Church this way, so hidden, yet so obvious if you knew the basic truth that it existed.

Mike replaced the journals. Al this foray had done was to confirm what he had discovered upstairs. The parish re-ceived regular contributions from the Night Church. But what about Harry? The answer to that question wasn't here after all. It might lie somewhere in the records of the Hamil Foundation, and might even be located-given a few years of investigation. But the quicker route to the truth lay in a direct confrontation with Harry Goodwin. "Old friend," Mike whispered into the silence, "don't join the guilty. Be different."

Using his much abused penlight Mike made his way back upstairs. He paused in the front hall. He hated to do it, but he was going to have to play one hel of a rough game with Harry. "Hey, Harry," he bellowed, "wake up and get the hel down here! Come on, Harry, get moving!" That would scare him thoroughly, get him good and vulnerable to unexpected questions. He unholstered his pistol.

From the distance there came hurrying feet. Then the hal was flooded with yellow light and the tal figure of Father Harry Goodwin came gangling down the stairs wearing grayed pajamas under a raincoat liner.

"At least you remembered that pistol I gave you," Mike said from his position in the doorway. As he had known it would, his voice caused Harry to throw up his arms, and in so doing to hurl the litle twenty-two almost to the ceiling.

"Mike Banion!"

"Good morning, Harry." Mike did not put his own pistol away. Not just yet. "We have to have a discussion."

"Yes, Mike, certainly. By all means!" He was staring at the pistol. "Mike?"

"Let's go into the office, Harry. It's a couple of degrees cooler."

"I don't use the air conditioners. Out of the question."

"I understand." Mike followed the stooped, shaking man.

"Mike, you're pointing your gun at me."

"Yes."

His eyes were awful in the grim light of the office. With absurdly clumsy hands he put on his gla.s.ses.

"Now," he said, "please, Mike, tell me why."

Best to get right into it. Make him think his interrogator knows more than he really does. "How well are you ac-quainted with Franklin t.i.tus Apple?"

"Oh!" He blinked furiously. "Hardly at all, Mike. And you should use the past tense. He's dead. I buried him in July." He looked again at the gun. His eyes were practically popping out of his head. "What is this about?"

"It's about you and Apple. Or t.i.tus. The Apple is an alias. You'll be happy to know he isn't dead at all.

You buried another man. A very old and dear friend of mine." Mike stared hard at the priest. "I want to know about your financial relations.h.i.+p with t.i.tus."

"I don't understand, Mike." There was hurt in his voice.

"Let me try another approach. How much does Mr. t.i.tus pay you to let his congregation use Holy Spirit at night?"

"What do you mean, Mike?" The tone pleaded.

"The Night Church. Surely Surely you know of it?" you know of it?"

He shook his head. His eyes were frightened, his lips slack. Mike put the gun away. When he did so Harry blinked.

"You're innocent, you darned fool! Aren't you?"

"Well-I must be-I suppose-what Night Church?"

"Good G.o.d almighty! Harry, we'd better get ourselves some coffee made." The old priest stood up, his eyes still wide, his mouth working. Mike clapped him on the shoulder. "Come on, Harry. I'm afraid I have some bad news for you."

Mike found the old-fas.h.i.+oned circular toggle switch that controlled the kitchen lights and turned them on.

"Our second bad-news night," Harry said. "We mustn't make them a habit."

Mike didn't answer. He put the kettle on and got out the jar of Folger's Instant, pulled a couple of chipped mugs off their nails "Harry, I think you might be one of the few priests ever to learn this-" The kettle whistled. "Excuse me." Mike made them their coffee, took a swallow from his cup. All these delays were intentional. He wanted to observe Harry. Maintaining an impression that he was in suspense was one of the most difficult things for a man to do. But Harry squirmed. He wasn't having any trouble at all, poor guy.

"My word, Mike, this is strong. What are you going to tell me-my church has been declared off-limits to Catholics? That I know, believe me."

"What I've got to tell you is that your parish is being used by a group called the Night Church. Mr. t.i.tus, known to you under the ridiculously inoffensive alias of Mr. Apple, is their leader. They meet in your church in the small hours. They are probably the most vicious group of people you or me or anybody else has ever heard of."

"In my church?"

"There are hundreds of them. They must fill the church when they come, and they do that often. During one of their rituals, Patricia Murray was raped."

"But I often wake up at night. When I check my church it's always empty."

"Oh?"

"These people are using my church?" His voice sounded hollow. "Mike, are they desecrating my altar?"

"What the h.e.l.l do you think, Harry? They practically tore Patricia in half on your altar!"

Harry reacted to Mike's words as if they were actual blows. Mike knew this was going to destroy the poor old guy in the end, no matter what happened now. The whole sense of Harry Goodwin's life was being extinguished.

"You say that the people attend these rituals? My Catholic people-the ones who don't come to me anymore?"

Why lie to the man? To do so would be to disdain him, and Mike did not treat his friends with anything less than respect. "I suspect that they fill the church."

Harry closed his eyes. His face screwed up into such pain that for a moment Mike thought he was having a coronary.

At last he let out a long, ragged gasp. He stared at Mike through devastated eyes. His hands were shaking so badly that he could hardly get his coffee cup to his lips.

"We're going to get rid of them, Harry."

Harry Goodwin continued to stare.

"Harry?"

There were perhaps words, but Mike couldn't understand them.

"Tonight it's going to be different. They are probably going to come here, and I suspect they will have Patricia with them, and Jonathan too. I haven't been able to get in touch with the kids all day. That tells me the Night Church has them, and it's going to do its business with them. But Mike Banion is going to be waiting for the Night Church. And I am going to break it into little pieces."

In the absolute silence that followed Mike could hear the priest's tears dripping onto the oilcloth tabletop.

It was as desolate a sound as he had ever heard, in a life that had witnessed all the kinds of grief there were.

Harry Goodwin bowed his head. In the grim light Mike saw that speeches weren't going to help him. It was too much. The priest was still breathing and thinking and living, but inside him everything important was blowing to dust. The words from the Funeral Ma.s.s came to mind: Man's days are like those of gra.s.s; Like a flower of the field he blooms; The wind sweeps over him and he is gone, And his place knows him no more. And his place knows him no more.

Mike prayed then, a wordless, desperate prayer-not for G.o.d's love or His protection, but for His vengeance, that it might roar through the Night Church like holy fire.

"I'm going over to the church now, Harry."

"I'm coming too."

"I know."

They walked across the gra.s.sy parking lot to the black and silent building.

Chapter Twenty-three.

THOUGH HE HAD entered this old church a thousand times through the seasons of his life, Mike Banion had never approached it as he did now, with the caution of a profes-sional intruder. He was here to investigate, not to pray.

He had no illusions about what he was doing: coming to this place was as dangerous as going to t.i.tus's house had been. A cop would run out of luck if he did this sort of thing often.

From the end of the block the streetlamp cast a dissipated, silvery glow. There was a smell of wet in the air. Perhaps toward dawn it would rain as it had yesterday and break this suffocating heat. The sky was green and dense. New York summers often ended like this, with thick, humid clouds and muttering storms.

Wind soughed around the belfry and eaves but here on the ground it was stifling.

Mike reached down and grabbed an unexpected object from the gra.s.s-a bit of crumpled paper. It was no blessing of evidence, though, only a Junior Mints box. It had proba-bly been dropped by kids on their way home from the Cinemart on Metro Avenue. Mike held it a moment, unwill-ing to let go of something so comfortably of the known world.

They mounted the worn granite steps to the church. It seemed a hundred years since he had gone up these same steps as a little boy all in white, on his way in to receive his first Holy Communion. The boy he had been waved and shouted, "Remember, remember me!" And the wind blew, and the rain rained, and the aging cop could not deny that there had once been a poet in him, but the d.a.m.n thing had died.

He put his hand on the k.n.o.b of the big oak door. Un-locked, of course. No matter how he was told or who told him, Harry was never going to lock his church. Very, very slowly, Mike turned the large, cold k.n.o.b. It was well oiled, and obliged Mike by not making a sound. He pulled the door a bare quarter of an inch. There was a single, distinct click, which Mike heard echo through the nave.

"Are they there?"

"Quiet, for G.o.d's sake. Just stick close to me, and don't talk."

The priest was one h.e.l.l of a liability, but he had such a stake in this, he could not be left behind. No matter the consequences, it was his church and he had a right.

If Terry's terrible death had been intended to frighten anybody smart enough to open the grave from further pur-suit of Franklin t.i.tus, it was certainly working. Mike admit-ted his fear. He had come to think of these people as ghouls.

Poor Terry. Whatever had they done to him? The coroner had found evidence of severe infection in the corpse. It had been quarantined pending virological and bacterial studies. One of the morgue guys had said something about plague. Mike thought of the chart he had found in t.i.tus's house. They gave Terry their disease before they put him in the coffin. Now that the chart had been enhanced by the lab, it was perfectly clear that it recorded the progress of an illness so virulent it could kill in minutes.

The church door swung open on absolute darkness. The Spirit seemed empty, but Mike still did not want to go in. The way he saw it, this was as much Mr. t.i.tus's church as Harry's. Maybe more.

The air that came out of the dark interior was dry and had an unexpectedly familiar smell.

"Been doing some painting?"

"No. It hasn't been painted in years."

The smell told a different story. Earlier this evening they must have spruced the place up. How were they planning to hide that from Harry?

Was all as it seemed here?

Harry, old buddy, have you put one over on me? If they feel free to paint, they don't care whether you know about them or not.

Mike felt very isolated, standing here in the black foyer with his old friend beside him.

Your faith matters to me, Harry. You're my d.a.m.n priest!

He waited for their eyes to get used to the faint glow filtering through the stained-gla.s.s windows from the street. It didn't amount to much, but they could see the aisle clearly enough to avoid tripping. Mike began the long journey to the altar rail. He intended to hide in the narrow, dark s.p.a.ce behind the high altar against the likelihood that the Night Church would be here tonight.

Before him he could see the dim outline of the altar where Patricia Murray had been raped-not by some poor screwed-up jerk but by intelligent people in a brutal ritual.

Patricia. Pretty kid. Be a great wife for Jonathan. To see those two at this altar, her in white, him jammed into a blue suit and looking sheepish-the thought was enough to make a man weep.

Wordlessly, because words weren't his way, Mike prayed for the kids. He looked toward the votive candle and was conscious of something so real and true he could hardly begin to understand it. But he loved something about it. The mystery of it, maybe.