Counterplay

receive Holy Communion. He closed the Bible he read constantly and got up with a sigh.

Prison had aged him. Raised a good Catholic who’d followed in the footsteps of several generations of Flanagans and joined the New York Police Department, he’d considered himself a good cop, even when he started going after scumbags and sinners the regular application of the law seemed to overlook. He saw it as just helping an overcrowded justice system. When he first started taking orders from Kane, he thought they actually came down from the Archbishop of New York. After all, the world was a better place for Christian men and women when sinners were sent to the fiery pit…albeit a bit earlier than planned.

It had been devastating to realize that the only master he was serving was the evil one, Andrew Kane. Like Fey, he wanted to live only to testify against Kane, and then if some inmate wanted to shank him in the prison yard, he was ready. He’d been doing his best to prepare to meet his Maker and ask for forgiveness by reading his Bible and attending mass and confessing as frequently as the guards would let him. When Kane escaped, he felt as though he’d been robbed of a chance at partial redemption.

As he made his way down to the chapel, he felt tired, and his legs heavy; he attributed it to having fasted since midnight in preparation for receiving the Blessed Eucharist.

Because of his “status” as a segregated prisoner, kept away from the general population who might just want to kill an ex-cop for the fun of it, he was alone when he entered the chapel. He walked to the railing at the front where he dropped to his knees to accept communion.

After a few minutes, he was aware of the rustle of robes. He looked up at the scarred face of the priest, a big man with sad eyes. Must be new…wonder where Father Woodard is today? he thought as the priest began the rite of communion.

When Flanagan accepted the wafer representing the body of Christ into his mouth, he noticed an unpleasant metallic taste. It was there even stronger after he drank the wine representing Christ’s blood.

The poison in the wafer was powerful but slow acting. Slow enough to allow the priest who fed it to Flanagan to check out of the prison for his drive back to Manhattan where he was the caretaker of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

The priest did not enjoy killing. He hated Andrew Kane for sending him on these missions and hated himself for creating the circumstances that had doomed his immortal soul. Even if those circumstances had evolved from love.

All of his young life since entering puberty, he’d been taunted for the acne that had ravaged his face. No girls would have anything to do with him, even when he starred on the football field. A freak, they called him, Freddy Krueger. Even his own family seemed repulsed; his parents had urged him to go into the priesthood “since no decent woman will marry you.”

So he’d committed himself to God, a young priest known for his compassion and love of children, which is what had drawn her to him. She was not what others would have called pretty, either, though as he got to know her, he thought she was the most beautiful of all women. The mutual attraction had led to love, which had led to sex-not only forbidden by his vows, but illegal in the eyes of the law because she was only seventeen. She’d become pregnant and given birth to their child, and suddenly he had two people who loved him unconditionally.

However, when the girl’s parents, who had never cared much about her before, discovered who the father of the child was, they threatened to sue the church and go to the law. But Andrew Kane had settled with the parents and recommended against prosecution to the DAO. Then he called the young priest into his office.

So you love this woman and child? Kane had asked.

Yes, he’d said enthusiastically, hoping this attorney would understand that such was his motivation. I am prepared to leave the priesthood to be with them.

Oh no, you misunderstand, Kane said. I don’t want you to leave the priesthood. In fact, I am going to get you a special appointment to serve the Archbishop of New York, but really you’ll be working for me.

I don’t understand, the priest said.

Kane grinned-a wolfish look, the priest would later recall, his blue eyes predatory and mean. I’ve had your little whore and brat “relocated,” Kane said. But don’t worry; they’re safe as long as you do what I ask.

And what if I don’t? he asked.

I’ll send them back to you in pieces, Kane replied and grinned again.

The priest had never seen the young woman or his child in person since. Every once in a while, Kane gave him a photograph of a small blond girl who looked like a cross between the priest and her mother as she grew older. And so he had been corrupted, turned into a spy, a heretic, and eventually a killer. He lost his faith in a God who would allow such a thing-not for himself, he accepted that he had sinned with the young woman, but for her sake and the child’s. Whether they knew it or not, they lived at the whim of a madman. The archbishop had been just one of many victims, and now the police detective.

An hour after returning Michael Flanagan to his cell, a guard walked past on a routine welfare check and noticed the former police detective was lying on the floor curled into the fetal position. When the prisoner did not respond to verbal commands to get up, the guard entered the cell and rolled Flanagan over onto his back.

“Jesus Christ!” the guard exclaimed and threw up.

Flanagan’s face was difficult to look at; his eyes were bugging out of his head, the whites turned bright red from burst blood vessels. White foam was caked around his mouth, and his swollen tongue protruded from between purple lips. His face was stretched into a mask of intense pain.

“Holy shit!” the guard later told his colleagues during a coffee break. “Whatever fragged that asshole must have hurt like hell!”

13

The twenty-something arab-american bicycle messenger rode briskly down Crosby, hopped the curb up onto the sidewalk, and came to a stop at the old brick building on the corner with Grand. He dismounted, leaned his bicycle against a railing, and walked up the small flight of stairs to the security door where he pressed the buzzer and waited.

A young boy’s voice answered over the intercom. “Yes?”

“I have a package for Roger Karp,” the messenger said. Oh no, a kid. They can take forever, and there ain’t going to be no tip. He had plans to go out dancing that night with some of his fellow NYU students and was already running behind on his deliveries. He leaned toward the intercom. “Uh, kid, you don’t have to sign for it. I can leave it right here, and you can get it when you want.”

“Sure,” the boy said. “I’ll be down in a couple minutes.”

The messenger put the box down on the doorstep and turned to leave. He didn’t get far as he was surrounded by three men-one in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, another in a business suit straight off the rack, and the third in dreadlocks, and all of them pointing guns at him.

“Police! Get your frickin’ hands in the air,” the one in jeans and a pullover sweatshirt yelled. He waved something that looked like a badge. “Step away from the door and walk slowly toward me…. Don’t drop your hands or I’m going to put a hot one in your frickin’ head.”

“Don’t shoot!” the terrified young man shouted. “I’m just a bike guy!” He hurried to the bottom of the stairs, where he was instructed to lie on the ground with his arms extended above his head. The cop in the cheap business suit stepped forward and frisked him from head to toe, then ordered him to roll over-“keeping your fuggin’ hands where we can see them if you don’t want to get shot”-and frisked him again.

“He’s clean,” the frisker yelled and stepped back with his gun still trained on the young man. “Okay, get up.”

The young man did as told and was escorted by the arm across the street from the entrance to the Karp family’s loft. “Of course, I’m clean,” the messenger complained as they walked, regaining some of his courage now