Dennis Lehane (Editor) - Boston Noir

“I’ve been threatened, Mr. Markey.” Father Tom slides the vicious letter across the coffee table.

Mr. Markey leans forward and reads it, steeples his fingers, and brings his hands to his face. “It won’t be the last, I would guess. I should make one thing clear, Father. I don’t care what you did or didn’t do. I don’t particularly care what happens to you. I don’t care about you in any but the most Christianable way. I care about Holy Mother the Church.”

“I didn’t do what I’ve been accused of.”

“You’re up to your neck in shit, my friend.” Mr. Markey walks to the French doors and closes them, then turns back to Father Tom. “You attended O’Connell Seminary, am I right?”

“I did.”

“Yes, you did. You guys had a regular fuck show going over there, didn’t you?”

“I don’t have to listen to this.”

“Yes, you do. I’m the only guy who can keep you out of Concord.” Mr. Markey takes a handful of Skittles from the bowl on the coffee table and eats a few. “You do not want to go to prison.”

“I’m innocent. I won’t go to prison.”

Mr. Markey smiles and shakes his head. “They’ll put you in protective custody, of course. What you need to understand, however, is that the guards are scarier than the inmates when it comes to pedophiles. They’ll piss in your food, shit in your bunk, and they’ll sodomize you with a control baton if you complain. They’ll degrade you in every way they can. And then one day while you’re playing cribbage with another kiddie diddler, the guards will turn away when some trusty goes after you with a lead pipe.”

Father Tom puts his head in his hands. He takes a deep breath and sits back, stares at the ceiling. He hears Mrs. Walsh whispering-her prayers, no doubt-as she climbs the stairs. “Why has His Eminence sent you here, Mr. Markey?”

“I make problems go away.” He shows Father Tom his handful of Skittles, rubs his palms together, holds out two fists and says, “Which hand has the candy?”

“The left.”

Mr. Markey opens his empty left hand and then his empty right hand. He turns his palms to show he’s not hiding anything. “Do you remember a priest named Dan Caputo?”

“Died last year. Had a parish in JP and did all that social justice work. ‘Speak truth to power,’ and all that-he was an inspirational leader.”

“But he had a secret, as so many of us do. The cops found his battered corpse in an alley in Chinatown, his pants down to his ankles, a cock ring on his dick, and what would prove to be semen on his lips. When they checked his ID and found out who he was, they called the cardinal, who called me.”

“I didn’t hear about any of this.”

“Exactly. We got rid of the porn magazines and videos in his car. He died a hero.” Mr. Markey sits in the armchair and looks at Father Tom. “The Catholic Workers named their new place after him. The Father Dan Caputo House of Hospitality.” He laughs. “Nothing is ever what it seems to be, Father.” He reaches in his pocket. “Weather alert.” He takes out his BlackBerry. “This event has all the makings of a Storm of the Century.” He reads his text message. “Calling for three feet inside 128.” He puts the BlackBerry away. “Now this is what we’re going to do. First, I’m going to offer our Mr. Ferry a handsome settlement in exchange for a signed statement admitting that he has been lying about the molestations due to his profound depression and anxiety. He’ll agree to check himself into a mental health clinic; you’ll be reassigned to a desk job at the chancery for the time being, and in a while this aggravation will be forgotten.”

“It’s in the papers.”

“You’ll do a press conference at which you’ll graciously and humbly accept Mr. Ferry’s apology and forgive him.”

“And if he doesn’t agree to your conditions?”

“That would suggest that he is a man of principle. But a penniless alcoholic, we both know, cannot afford principles.”

“But if he surprises you, then we go to trial and I’m exonerated.”

“Neither necessary nor desirable.” Mr. Markey walks to the fireplace and leans against the mantle. “Let me ask your opinion, Father, about this epidemic of predatory priests. Not you, of course. The guilty ones like Geoghan and Shanley. That lot. And Father Gale over here at St. Monica’s. The priesthood turns out to be a good place to hide in plain sight. Am I right?”

“I wouldn’t call it-”

“Six hundred and fifteen million dollars the Church in the States paid out just last year. That makes two billion total. Fourteen thousand felonies by forty-five hundred pedophile priests. And it’s only the tip of the iceberg, believe me.” He squats and warms his hands over the fire. “I have a theory, for what it’s worth.” He moves his left hand into the flame and leaves it there. “A theory of arrested development.”

“You’ll burn yourself.”

“You go to the seminary out of high school, and it’s all paid for. You graduate and get your parish assignment-no chasing down leads, no job interviews.” He pulls his hand out of the flame and examines it. “Along with the assignment comes food, clothing, and shelter, a salary, a woman to cook, clean up after you, and do your laundry. You get a professional allowance, health insurance, and a pension. You snap on the Roman collar, and you have instant respect without having earned it.”

“That’s unfair.”

“The Church stifles your emotional growth. You’re a boy called Father. Not just you personally, Father. All of you.”

“Are you finished?”

“Then there’s the disagreeable issue of celibacy. Troublesome, am I right? Me, if I can’t release a few times a week, Jesus, I’m impossible to live with. Sure, you can masturbate and remain celibate and sane, but jacking off’s a sin, so what to do?”

“Pray.”

“You can pray away a boner?”

“One chooses to remain chaste, Mr. Markey. It’s a sacrifice, not a curse.”

Mr. Markey puts his hands behind his head and shrugs his shoulders. “But why little boys? That’s what I wonder, and then I think, yes, of course, arrested development. If you’re a boy yourself, you’re comfortable among other boys, and you also know an abused boy would never say anything about sucking your cock for fear the other kids would call him a fag. Shame keeps him quiet. Am I getting warm, Father?”

“You think you know me, but you don’t.”

“Thomas Aloysius Mulcahy, born February 15, 1948, at Mass General, second son to Brian, postal worker, and Kathleen, née O’Sullivan, Mulcahy. Attended St. Cormac’s Grammar School and South Boston High; B student, perfect attendance in eleventh grade. You had mumps, chicken pox, measles, and rubella. You wore corrective glasses and corrective shoes. Your beloved brother Gerard died of spinal meningitis in 1958, and your dad blamed himself, drank more heavily, and abandoned the family six months later. So there you were at ten, alone with a hysterical mother and bereft of affection.”

Father Tom closes his eyes and sees himself lying on the floor by his mother’s locked bedroom door, crying, not knowing if she was also dead. He feels Mr. Markey’s hand on his shoulder and opens his eyes, wipes them.

“So you understood just how vulnerable boys who’d lost their dads were. They needed the love and guidance of an older man, and you reached out to them.”

“You’re making compassion sound obscene.”

“You took them for ice cream, to Fenway, to the beach. Their mothers were so grateful. You were a savior. Lionel even thought you were using him to woo his mom. And, of course, with you being a priest, he was confused.”

“You spoke with him?”