'I'll check in with you in a while,' I said.
'Of course.'
'If it matters,' I said, 'you seem a pretty good man to me.'
The priest smiled softly. He picked his hat up off my desk and put it square on his head. Nothing rakish. 'Thank you,' he said. 'I will talk with my confessor.'
He went out of the office and closed the door very quietly behind him. I stood up and rinsed out my coffee cup and put it on the table beside his. Then I walked over and looked out my window and thought about what the priest had told me. As I stood, he came out the side door of my building, walked to the corner, and started up Boylston Street. He had his hands thrust deep into his raincoat pockets. His collar was turned up despite the sunshine, and his head was down. He wasn't finding a lot of joy in this world. For his sake I hoped he might be right about the next one.
Chapter 32
Chollo and I were back outside the Deleon complex, parked in a different spot. It was cold for spring and the partial sun was overmatched by the hard wind that kicked the gutter trash along the street. Paper cups, hamburger boxes, plastic cup lids, beer cans, the indestructible filter tips of disintegrated cigarettes, scraps of newspaper, bottle caps, match books, gum wrappers, and discolored food cartons with bent wire handles were tumbled about fitfully by the erratic wind. I could hear road sand and grit propelled by the wind, pinging against the car.
'Angela is the same as Lisa?' Chollo said. 'Right?'
'And she's not there voluntarily,' I said. 'You ever hear of a couple getting married and only the guy goes to visit the priest?'
'You think he used her other name so when the banns were announced, nobody will know?'
'Maybe.'
'So why announce the banns?' Chollo said.
'Propriety,' I said.
'And you think he's holding her?'
'Yeah.'
'And he's forcing her to marry him, even though she's married already to another guy?'
'Yeah.'
'And he's going to the priest and publishing the fucking banns?'
I stared at the moldering tenements and took a slow breath.
'Yeah,' I said. 'That's what I think.'
'That's fucking crazy, man.'
I nodded, still looking at the blank gray clapboard buildings across the street.
'Yeah,' I said. 'It is.'
We were quiet for a while, listening to the wind, looking at the tenements.
'And you are sure it's your friend's wife in there?'
'Yeah.'
'Enough fucking broads in the world,' Chollo said. 'Free for the taking. Don't make much sense to go stealing one from some guy. Especially, the guy's a cop.'
'Makes sense if you're crazy,' I said.
'And you figure he's crazy and he's got the cop's wife.'
'It's an explanation,' I said.
'Be nice we knew what the setup in there was,' Chollo said. 'Case we decide to go in and get her.'
'Yeah.'
A dog trotted by, head down, ears back, busy, on his way somewhere. He was a street dog, so mongrelized after generations of street breeding that he barely looked like a dog. He looked more like something wild, some kind of Ur-dog-the original pattern, maybe, that had existed before the cave men started to pat them.
'I think I'll go in, take another look around.'
'You going to tell them you're the tooth fairy making a delivery?' I said.
'I will tell them I work for Vincent del Rio, who is an important man in Los Angeles.'
The way he said Los Angeles reminded me that, despite the unaccented English, Chollo was Mexican.
'Yeah?'
'I will say that Mr. del Rio is seeking an East Coast associate for some of his enterprises. And that he has sent me here to assess Luis Deleon's setup. I will explain this is why I have been sitting outside here,' Chollo grinned at me, 'with my driver.'
'Not bad,' I said. 'They don't know me, why don't I go in with you?'
Chollo shook his head.
