Richard Hawke - Speak of the Devil

I hissed, “Sister!”

“Oh!”

A wedge of light shone through the partially open door. I hated to do it, but I stepped into the light so she could see my gun.

“Oh!”

“I’m with the police,” I hissed. “I’m sorry to scare you. I need to get inside. Quietly.”

The woman nodded. I stepped into the kitchen and she followed. She was in a blue and white habit. She was olive-skinned, with gentle Asian features, and looked hardly old enough to vote. Cheeks like a chipmunk’s. Her eyes were wide, staring at my gun as she sidled up next to a wooden stool.

“I need to know where the prioress would greet visitors,” I said.

Her voice was barley above a whisper. “In the Great Room.”

“How do I get there?”

She pointed at a door. “You go through the dining room. The Great Room is just past it, on the left.”

“I’m going to have to ask you to stay here,” I said. “How many other people are in the building?”

“We have fourteen residents.”

I indicated the wooden stool. “Sit.”

She scurried onto the stool like her life depended on it.

I WAS HALFWAY THROUGH THE LONG DINING ROOM WHEN MY CELL phone went off. I yanked it from my pocket. I wanted to smack it silly. It was Tommy Carroll.

“Where the hell are you?” he snapped.

I answered in a whisper. “I’m inside the convent.”

“What?”

“The convent. I’m inside.”

“What’s happening?”

“The prioress is with a visitor. I’m on my way to eavesdrop.”

“He’s there ?”

“Somebody’s here.” The long rough wood table where the nuns ate looked like something from the Cloisters, which is to say, from around the twelfth century. A large candle was burning in an iron holder in the middle of the table. Its flame was casting fidgety shadows on the walls. I asked Carroll, “Where are you now?”

“I’m a block away from the convent.”

“Are you alone?”

“There’s a cruiser here with me. I’ve got a uniformed. We’re coming in.”

“No. Just hold on. Send the cruiser down to the far end of the block. You stay where you are. He’s essentially trapped. You keep your cell phone clear, and I’ll call you if he’s coming out.”

“What are you planning to do?”

“Just plug up the street, Tommy.”

“Don’t you fucking tell me what to do.”

“If you want a full-scale assault on a nunnery, go right ahead. I should warn you, the prioress has already made noises about calling in the media.”

“Where’s Dugan?”

“He’s out there. Ford Fairlane.”

“Where’s the money?”

“With Jigs.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“I’m hanging up. I’ll call you back. Five minutes tops.”

I set the phone to vibrate and made my way to the dining room door, my gun at the ready. I moved out of the dining room and into a hallway. At the end of the hallway was the front door. From the room to my left, I could hear talking. I edged forward. The voice doing all the talking was a female’s. Sister Anne.

“… to thank you for coming. If you’d sit tight while I give our friend a call…”

A shadow passed over the buttery light at the same instant that I spotted a telephone sitting on a small table only a few feet from where I was standing. A second later, a woman stepped into the hallway. She spotted me and let out a cry. “Who are you?”

I ran past her into the room. A man with stringy hair and a patchy beard was already rising to his feet.

“Don’t move!”

But move he did. He darted to his left and out of the room. I turned and sprinted back into the hall with the idea of drawing on him there. But I hadn’t factored in the woman. As I ran from the room, we collided. She went down with a high soprano yelp. At the end of the hallway, the man was yanking open the front door.

“Stop!”

I took aim, but he was already out the door. I jumped over the woman and ran for the door.

He was angling across the grass toward the street. I took off. A fast-moving car braked to a halt in front of the convent, and the driver’s door flew open. The guy swerved and changed direction, running toward the rear of the convent. Tommy Carroll lumbered from the car. His gun was out. I saw a small flash; the shot sounded a half-second later. His bullet clanged off the metal fence.

Carroll grumbled, “Son of a bitch .”

Our prey dashed into the darkness behind the convent. I followed some fifty feet behind, but his fuel was fear, which is the swiftest. As I raced past the rear kitchen door, I spotted someone coming around the far corner of the building. It was Jigs. He angled into the darkness behind the convent. An instant later, I heard a thud , followed by what sounded like a rattling of chains. Then I heard Jigs’s voice, the low, deadly version.

“You can move, brother. Or you can live. Those are your choices.”

Then I heard the cocking of his pistol.

THE GUY WAS ON THE GROUND, ON HIS BACK. ONE OF HIS LEGS WAS slung over a swing-set seat, the chain curled around his foot. Jigs was next to him, on one knee. The barrel of his gun was pressed right where the man’s eyebrows met. Amazingly, Jigs was smoking a cigarette. He must have been running with the thing dangling from his lips. Jigs looked up at me, squinting through the smoke.

“What say, Fritz? Should he stay or should he go?”

In the faint moonlight, the man’s complexion already looked like that of a corpse. His eyes were wide in pure panic. They were the only part of him that dared move. Before I could answer, Tommy Carroll ran up to us. He stopped short. He hadn’t heard Jigs’s question, but that didn’t seem to make a difference. He glanced at me, raising an eyebrow.

“He’s unarmed,” I said.

Carroll was fighting to catch his breath. “That can be fixed.”

“Like with Diaz?”

I didn’t even see the fist. It might have been a Jimmy Reese special. Pop ! My jaw took the jolt. A flash of light split my vision and I backpedaled several steps to keep my balance. I hit one of the swing-set poles and grabbed hold of it. The chains danced.

“Let him up,” I said to Jigs.

Another figure had appeared from the front of the building. It was a policeman. I recognized him.

“What’s up here?”

Carroll answered, “It’s fine. Get back to your car. Just wait there.”

Officer Leonard Cox retreated. Not before he and I had traded a look. Not a terribly chummy one. I ran a sleeve across my mouth. A little blood. “Cox, huh? It’s nice to know we’ve got a bona fide hero so close.”

“Shut up,” Carroll snarled.

Jigs tossed his cigarette aside. He removed his pistol from the terrified guy’s head and slipped it into his belt. He grabbed hold of the guy’s collar. “Get your feet under you, mate.” With a swift yank, he lifted him from the ground. He reached into the man’s pants pocket and pulled out a wad of twenties. Holding him as if he might fall over otherwise, Jigs ran a quick check over the rest of him.

“He’s clean.”

Tommy Carroll stepped forward and showed that he had more than one punch in him. He landed this one right in the guy’s abdomen. This time the guy really would have fallen if Jigs hadn’t been holding him.

I started, “Tommy-”

A light came on, casting the scene in harsh yellow. We all froze.

“Mr. Malone?”

Standing at the rear door was the woman I had tumbled into in the hallway. Next to her stood Sister Mary Ryan. The young nun was there, too, along with three other nuns, each in blue and white habits. The woman I had tumbled into was standing with her arms crossed.

We were outnumbered.

HIS NAME WAS GARY HARVEY. HE HAD RECENTLY BEEN FIRED FROM his job doing road maintenance for the city. It’s not easy to fire a city worker, but apparently Harvey had managed to make it happen. To begin with, he chewed drugs like they were candy; we found a baggie on him with an impressive assortment. Harvey didn’t even seem to know what the different pills and capsules were, nor did he seem to care. He looked at the baggie as if it were his cherished child.