Макс Коллинз - Road to Paradise

“I know. I know.”

“If you’d like to take confession—”

“No! Uh, no. Thank you, Father. You really do have a beautiful church here at San Xavier. Pleasure meeting you.”

The priest took his cue and rose and allowed Michael out of the pew. “As I said — you and your family are always welcome here. We do have several Anglo families who are members.”

“Thank you, Father.”

Outside, Michael moved quickly to his Lincoln in the parking lot. Across the way, tourists were buying trinkets and finger food — somehow it cheapened the experience. No way would he give confession, though he had two more killings on his conscience, Tommy and Jackie, those DeStefano crew would-be hitters he’d taken out at Cal-Neva.

But that had been self-defense, or at least in defense of his family (admittedly he’d pretty much just whacked Jackie), and he felt he could sort that out with God personally. He would make do without an intermediary in a collar. Besides, even after all these years, he had vivid memories of the pale faces of the priests who emerged from their side of the confessional after his father, the legendary Angel of Death, had dropped by to cash in his latest sins for forgiveness.

Still, Michael felt refreshed somehow, as he drove back to Paradise Estates. Relieved that he and the Man Upstairs were on speaking terms again. He found the pageantry and the Latin liturgy and the Host on the tongue all reassuring; he was taken back to his childhood, before his mother and brother were gone, when the world was big and unknowable but his life had been small and secure.

A stray thought popped into his mind: after Connor Looney killed Mama and Peter, his father had gone to the Looney mansion, to beard the lion in his den; but, before leaving the boy to sit in the car in the dark, Papa had given him a gun and said, “If I’m not back in an hour, go to Reverend Dodd at First Methodist for sanctuary.”

Papa did not want Michael going to Father Calloway at St. Pete’s, because mob money had built that church.

“No sanctuary there,” he’d said.

And one other thing Papa had made very clear: heaven was the next life; this life was hell, and just navigating through its flames was enough to keep a man busy.

When Michael pulled the Lincoln in the drive, Pat came flying out the front door, a whirlwind in a yellow pants suit. For a split second he thought she was glad to see him, and wanted to rush into his arms as a result of last night’s rekindling.

And she was glad to see him, but not because their love had been renewed or that she’d reconsidered about joining a church...

Her eyes were wide and hysterical, and her voice quavered with terror: “Oh, Mike — Anna’s gone! She’s gone! ”

She gripped his arms with steel fingers.

His hands found her shoulders. “Easy, baby, easy. Go slow.”

The words were a rush: “I called across the street, at the Parhams’... to see if Anna wanted to have lunch with us.”

“Right. She and Cindy and some girlfriends were having a slumber party...”

“But they weren’t !” Her eyes and nostrils flared, and words streamed: “Molly Parham said she thought Cindy was staying with us last night — Molly’s fit to be tied, too, but she isn’t part of the Witness Goddamn Fucking Protection Program, with gangsters wanting to kill her and her whole fucking family!”

He took her into his arms and patted her gently, saying into her ear, “Settle down, honey, settle down — it’s nothing. Just a couple of high school girls putting one over on their parents. Just a bunch of kids trying to...” He remembered Anna’s words. “...Get out from under their parents’ thumbs for one night.”

Pat pulled away to look at him, her dark blue eyes showing red-tinged white all around. “No, no it’s worse than that. She’s gone, Michael. She’s run off!”

“What makes you think that? Did she leave a note?”

Pat shook her head, her blonde locks flouncing, as if the hair itself were as hysterical as its owner. “No... but come inside, Mike. Come inside.”

His wife dragged him by the hand through the living room and down the hallway to the bedrooms, and into Anna’s. She yanked the closet open, dramatically, and then opened several doors, and showed him.

“Most of her clothes are gone,” Pat said, working to control herself now. Making her case. “Not everything — she left enough for me to maybe not notice, right away. And her little powder-blue suitcase, that’s gone, too.”

Michael drew in a breath, let it out as he took in the room. “How did she sneak the stuff out of the house?”

“I don’t know! She says we patrol her like Nazis, but it’s not really true. I’ve left her here alone lots of times, when I’ve gone to the store or whatever.”

He moved closer to Pat. “Do we think that girl across the street helped? Cindy?”

She shrugged helplessly, saying, “Maybe. Cindy told her parents the same lie Anna told us.”

“What about Cindy? Is she gone?”

Eyes flared again. “Well, she’s not home !”

“No, honey, I mean — has Cindy run off, too?”

Pat threw up her hands. “I don’t know... I don’t know. I only know the Parhams are pretty upset.”

“Let’s go talk to them.”

They did.

Sid Parham was in life insurance, and his wife was a substitute grade school teacher; they were solid citizens, and wonderful, generous parents, whose daughter hated them.

But Cindy’s clothes were all present and accounted for, as well as her suitcase. The Parham girl did not seem to have taken off with Anna, though probably had aided and abetted the getaway.

The two sets of parents sat in the Parham kitchen, which was much like the Smiths’, looking out on a familiar fenced-in backyard with pool.

“They took off together yesterday afternoon,” said Mrs. Parham, a slender, not particularly attractive strawberry blonde in a blue-and-white floral-print-shorts outfit, “in Cindy’s new little red Mustang.”

“We bought Cindy a Mustang,” Sid Parham said pointlessly, a bald heavyset Uncle Fester — ish fellow, dressed for yardwork. “For graduation.”

“She hasn’t graduated yet,” Michael pointed out.

“Well, there are a lot of things going on this time of year,” Parham said defensively. Suddenly Cindy having a car seemed to be the problem. “Her having it early made sense. Senior parties and prom and—”

“Prom,” Pat said.

Michael looked at her, and their eyes locked. He said, “Tomorrow night’s the prom, back at—”

But he stopped. He’d come very close to saying Crystal Bay.

“Back where you used to live?” Sid said, finishing Michael’s statement with a question. “St. Paul, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Michael said. “St. Paul... If you hear from Cindy, let us know right away. Right away!”

“You’ll be the first,” Sid said.

“Don’t be worried,” Mrs. Parham said. “Cindy does this kind of thing all the time.”

Back in their own kitchen, Michael and Pat sat and held hands, tightly.

“You think she’s gone back home for prom?” Pat asked, shaking and on the verge of tears. Hope and despair fought for control of her voice as she said, “She’s gone back for prom, hasn’t she?”

“It’s a possibility.”

“Where else could she have gone?”

“It is a real possibility.” He sighed and shrugged. “But it’s a long damn drive... twelve, thirteen hours.”

Shaking her head, Pat said absurdly, “She doesn’t have that kind of driving experience!”

“Easy, Pat — remember, she doesn’t have a car. If Cindy didn’t drive her, she’d have to take a bus or plane. A girl her age can’t rent a vehicle... unless she has fake ID, which I suppose—”