Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A Crimson Haze

Matt stared at the pool, an emerald-cut liquid aquamarine glinting under a ceaseless spotlight of sunshine.

"I made my case, and they accepted it."

Frank hissed out an exhaust of smoke. "It's none of my business; I'm just a little envious. Of course I wondered what you were doing in the seminary, as everybody must have. Seminarians are always misfits of a sort, like raw recruits in the Army. You were so smart, so smooth, so self-contained. And you looked like a movie star. I wondered if your vocation was revenge, to drive some girl-all girls--crazy."

Matt laughed. ''My vocation was to save my own sanity, and it did. That's why it was misdirected. Too selfish."

''Laicization is seldom granted. Most ex-priests exit into a moral limbo of sorts. I had to marry in the Episcopal Church, but you're free to be Catholic--"

"I'm not free yet," Matt said abruptly. ''When you married. Was your wife the first woman--

?"

"No. I wasn't a virgin bridegroom. Went a little crazy after I left. I didn't know how to do it at my advanced age, have relationships. So I . . . experimented before I got it right."

Matt felt himself flushing. "I wasn't asking that. I just wondered if she was the first woman you dated. Usually former priests begin--and end--with ex-nuns, but you said she was a widow."

"Sandy's no ex-nun, for sure. Listen, Matt, if you're going to go around asking questions on any level, you better figure out how to phrase them exactly so you learn what you want to know." Frank's sideways glance was embarrassed. "Then you won't learn more than you need to know. Here we go again, me offering direction and you listening. At least I've been through the mill first. That's the worst, learning to socialize with the world of women in a whole different way. That, and overcoming all the avoidance therapy we get in seminary."

Matt nodded. "What about coming to terms with church doctrine? Now that I'm out here, it doesn't seem possible to live by it."

Frank's hearty laugh came like a burst of machine-gun fire. His heavy shoe ground out the cigarette on the concrete, then he picked up the flattened butt and wrapped it in a fast-food napkin he pulled from his pocket.

That was Father Furtive, terminally tidy, Matt thought. How had he made the awesome transition between the priesthood and the secular world?

"Feel a bit more compassion for confused parishioners during confession?" Frank asked.

''No, it's damn hard. We exit the priesthood as we entered, awkward ugly ducklings no matter the outward sophistication. We're overeducated, over-ethical and under experienced. Haven't you learned by now that there's no way not to sin, not without losing our humanity, and certainly our humility? The secret is to select sins that do the least damage, to others and one's self."

"First, do no harm,' " Matt quoted the Hippocratic oath taken by doctors. "Isn't that a principle of the Tao?"

''Yup. We grew up on a culture and a church that insisted we must do good, even if it meant imposing our notion of good on people who didn't subscribe to it. I've concluded that in matters of spirituality, the absence of malice is more important to the human soul than the presence of some rigorous system of perceived rectitude. More people have been hurt by being forced to fit someone else's notion of 'good' than by being allowed to be human."

Matt absorbed his words, realizing that Frank had become an automatic outcast by leaving the priesthood. His renegade marriage was just that, unsanctioned by the church in which he had grown up and made his promises to the priesthood. Matt still could be perfect, if he did things according to Hoyle and the Holy See.

He could marry in the Church, if he could find an un-divorced woman. If he was lucky, he would find a perfect life partner the first time out, commit only a few venial sins of longing and lust, and enter matrimony as virginal as Mary, avoiding the pitfalls of sexual trial and error. But then the onus would be upon selecting the right partner in the dark, and both of them would go half-blind into the most important alliance of their lives. Failure would push him into the divorce trap, which would forever enjoin the perfect ex-priest to lifelong celibacy again.

Matt began to see what Temple had meant when she had asked him what on earth he would do. Temple was shrewd, but she was also trouble. She wasn't Catholic, and didn't understand or kowtow to the culture. Maybe that was why he liked her so much.

"Theology and human behavior mix like oil and water, don't they?" Matt said finally.

Frank nodded. "Human behavior is always a conundrum, but inhuman behavior is worse."

"Are you counseling me again?"

He shook his head. "Warning you. It's not easy. Compared to this, checking out Rafael Hernandez was a snap."

Matt held his breath. "That's what you came to tell me?"

"He's clean, Matt. I used my contacts from twenty-five years ago, I used computers. I even used some pull in the various dioceses. Nothing. Not a word of scandal or complaint. I interviewed several ex-altar boys by phone. Hernandez can be a bit severe, even a little pompous, but misconduct--never."

"You're absolutely sure?"

"Certain enough to stand up in a court of law and swear that I was unable to unearth a scintilla of evidence."

When Matt said nothing, Frank pulled out another cigarette and lit it in disgust. "What do you want, Devine, a chorus of archangels announcing the news from on high? I did my best, and I'm satisfied. Why can't you be?"

"Sorry, Frank. I appreciate the favor. It's just that the price of being wrong is so high."

"It always is, we just don't notice it in every case."

"So." Matt bent to pull his canvas shoes on dry feet. "Now you can concentrate on what really brought you to Las Vegas." He shrugged on a shirt that still clung damply to his shoulder blades.

"Hinting? I'm not about to talk about that. Seal of the professional," he punned with one of his rare flashes of humor as he stood with Matt.

"I'll walk you to your car. Maybe you could leave your phone number."

''Sure." Frank pulled out a card, scrawling his home number on the reverse with a ballpoint pen. "I travel a lot, but messages reach me everywhere. You have any questions, call. If you don't, let me know how you're doing. I'm curious to see what you end up doing,"

''Professionally or personally?"

"Both." He-opened the wooden gate to the parking area.

Matt tucked the card in his shirt pocket, spying Frank's car right away. A rental Taurus, forest green. Perfect for a priest, or an FBI man. He began to see the logic of Frank's new profession.

Pulling up next to Frank's authoritatively nondescript car was Temple's lurid little Storm.

He watched her car absently, thinking about what he and Frank had discussed.

Frank was opening his car door when Temple came clicking around behind it, grocery bag in one arm, tote bag on her opposite shoulder, oversize prescription sunglasses slipping down her narrow, upturned nose.

"Hi," she began, then glanced at Frank and stopped cold.

"What are you doing here. Miss Barr?" Frank's recent affability had hardened into alertness.

"I could ask the same of you. I live here."

"Do you?" Frank turned to Matt with surprise, as if wondering why Matt hadn't volunteered this fascinating fact. "You know each other?"

Matt was momentarily tongue-tied. More was going on here than the obvious. How did Frank know Temple? Had he been checking on Matt?

"We're neighbors," Temple said into the growing conversational gap. "Matt teaches me martial arts."

"Are you trying to say we shouldn't worry about your safety. Miss Barr?"

"I'm trying to explain how Matt arid I know each other, although I don't know why." She shifted the bag. "I've got some frozen yogurt. I'd better get inside."