“But sir, my call seems to have set off alarm bells in the council.”
Conrad put a finger to his lips. “We will not speak of the council.”
“No, of course, I’m sorry, sir. I—it’s just, I’m pretty new at this, and…” His voice dropped to a whisper, “there’s a
“I know there is.” Conrad put a reassuring hand on the nervous priest’s forearm. “Perhaps you’ll be good enough to tell His Eminence I’ll join him in a few minutes, after I talk with the young man.”
“Yes, of course. Right away.” Father Peter scurried away.
Conrad turned and approached the front pew. He smiled gently, put his hand on the young man’s shoulder, and spoke with the voice of a shepherd.
The lost sheep was not insane, but was clearly headed down that road, Conrad decided. Unmoored from his former self and now drifting, desperately searching for solid ground upon which to construct a new identity.
“I think I can work with him,” he told Cardinal Allodi, after Father Peter left the office to sit with the young man. “He was Junior Army ROTC in high school, he responds well to authority. I can whip him into shape for it.”
“I don’t like it,” said Allodi. “The risk of exposure is too high, too many variables you can’t control.”
“Well I don’t really like it either,” said Conrad, thinking:
After a full minute, Allodi said, “All right. You have a tentative green light. On two conditions. First, Father Nick must never, ever catch even a hint of this. If he had any inkling of the council’s inroads into the Holy See…” Allodi didn’t need to finish the sentence. They both understood what was at stake.
“Yes, sir.” He waited to hear the second condition.
Cardinal Allodi reached inside a leather briefcase and pulled out a file folder. He handed the folder across to Conrad.
It was a personnel file. Conrad read the tab: FR. DANIEL BYRNE.
“You’ll find details of his contacts at the seminary, his life in New Orleans before coming to Rome,” said Allodi. “You need to find him and present Father Nick’s offer, before going ahead with this operation.”
“He’ll reject it.”
“That’s not for you to pre-judge, that’s for him to decide. If he takes the deal, we can avoid the risk of exposure entirely. If he doesn’t, then you may proceed. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Eminence.”
Tim Trinity peered into the darkness. “Got any idea where we’re at?”
“Not precisely,” said Daniel. “I’ll stop next time we see a street sign standing.” There was still no electricity in this part of the Ninth Ward, and Daniel couldn’t see past the beam of their headlights.
What he did see made him feel sick to his stomach. Piles of splintered wood and smashed windows, twisted metal and scattered shingles, broken furniture and rotted mattresses. The ruins of small houses. The ruins of blue- collar lives. Row upon row of them, block after shameful block. No sign of rebuilding.
As if reading his thoughts, Trinity said, “Looks like the aftermath of a three-day kegger in hell.”
Ory’s sister lived in a neighborhood that was rebuilding, if slowly. Maybe four in ten houses rebuilt, three in mid-renovation, and three still in ruins. This block had electricity, and a third of the streetlights were actually working.
Priestess Ory greeted them at the curb. In her shop, she’d been dressed very colorfully, but now she was wearing a simple white dress and white head-wrap. Her feet were bare. She led them beside the house to a gate in the privacy fence surrounding the backyard.
“Welcome to our peristyle,” she said.
Inside was a courtyard, covered by a corrugated tin roof on stilts. The inside walls of the fence were painted green with red and yellow trim, and black drawings of the
In the center of it all stood a striped pole, surrounded by an altar that would give Ory’s store altar an inferiority complex. A magnificent collection of fetishes and offerings, bottles of rum and perfume and sarsaparilla, plates and bowls overflowing with yams, plantain, apples, peppers, nuts, figs, and hard candy. Two framed portraits—Saint Peter and Saint Barbara—were propped up against the altar, behind the offerings.
Priestess Ory brought a couple of mugs to Daniel and Trinity. “Legba and Shango both love rum. We drink to honor them.”
Trinity winked at her, said, “L’Chaim,” and downed his in one swallow.
“Oy vey,” Daniel deadpanned.
Priestess Ory let out a good-humored laugh, then took Daniel’s hand in hers and turned serious. “You have a skeptical mind, and I respect that,” she said. “I’m not asking you to believe anything, I simply ask that you clear your mind of preconceptions and be open to your feelings. You may not believe in the
Daniel felt the ghost of an ice cube slide down his spine. “I’ll behave myself. Promise.” He drank the rum.
“Thank you,” she said. “This is a
“My peppermint twist is a little rusty,” said Trinity, “but you should see my watusi.”
“He’s just nervous,” said Daniel.
“I know,” said Priestess Ory. She turned to the back door of the house, and called,
The screen door opened and a white man and two black men stepped into the courtyard. All three were shirtless and shoeless, wore white pants, and each carried an African drum. They set the drums up along the east wall, sat behind them on stools.
The drummers began beating out a compelling rhythm with their hands. The screen door opened again and an older black man came out, carrying a wicker basket, followed by five black women and two white women, all dressed like Ory, the youngest about twenty-five, the oldest in her sixties. Three of the women carried colorful sequined flags.
The drumming grew, both in complexity and volume. The old man put the basket down, picked a conch shell off the altar, lifted it to his mouth, and blew a long note through it.
Priestess Ory called out,
