Douglas, Nelson - Cat with an Emerald Eye

"Same city, same job."

"It seems a shame ..."

She left: it for him to fill in the blanks: with your education and training, to be just a telephone counselor, to be a low-paid layman, when he had been Somebody once. A man with a vocation, an ancient role ... a low-paid priest, Matt added as he finished the faultfinding litany.

If having a son or daughter enter the religious life is the crown of a Catholic parent's life, having that same child leave the religious life is a disappointment beyond telling.

"Have you found a Polish parish there?" she asked anxiously.

"No, Mom. Not too many Poles in Las Vegas. But"--he knew he was about to mislead, knew he shouldn't, couldn't stop himself-- "ah, I've been involved with a Hispanic parish. Our Lady of Guadalupe."

"Oh. The lovely holy card. Do they still have a statue of the Virgin in church?"

"Yes, it's an old parish."

He could almost see her nodding, slowly, her face the same faded gold color as her gray-streaked hair, both coarsened by time, by... circumstances. She looked at least a decade older than her fifty-two years, and nothing like the only youthful photos he had seen of her, as a young girl in her parents' house on Tobias Street.

"That's wonderful," she said, no joy in her voice, only the same, resigned monotone he had heard all his life.

"Yes." He made his hands unclench on the telephone receiver. "Everything's fine here. And I met one of my old teachers, from Saint Stan's, at OLG."

"Oh?"

"Sister Seraphina from seventh grade. Do you remember her?"

"A little. That's nice. Is she all right?"

"Retired now, but fine. Still a dynamo."

"We have all lay teachers at the school now. I thought of being an assistant, but--"

"Why don't you? It'd be a great idea. And I'm sure the school can use all the help it can get."

"Oh, I'm too old to deal with all that grade-school clatter."

"You're only fifty-two, Mom. Just a kid."

She laughed, flattered despite herself. "Not when you get to be my age. I do all right, but the winter is coming on again, and everything aches."

Matt ground his teeth. He remembered Chicago winters and the bone-chilling blasts of wind that blew off the great cold lake until the city crouched around it like a bum. He also remembered other reasons his mother had to ache in every bone.

The parquet floor at his feet became use-scuffed linoleum. Cliff Effinger was laid out on it like a corpse, definitely Cliff this time, and only unconscious, not dead. Matt looked down into that slack face of memory now as he did then, amazed, thankful that he had done this, exploring a universe of what he'd like to do next....

But he hadn't, and that had been seventeen years ago. His mother should have forgotten by now, moved on, joined a folk-dancing class, met new people, maybe even remarried. But she hadn't. And Cliff Effinger still lay outstretched on the kitchen floor of memory, down but not counted out. Out cold but not out of their lives. No longer strong enough to cow a sixteen-year-old boy, but still potent enough to leech the life out of a woman past fifty.. . .

"Mom, I've got to ask."

"Ask what?"

"Have you got... anything? A photo, a belonging, anything of Cliff left that I could have?"

"What are you asking?"

"I need ... something concrete that was his. It's part of ... my therapy." True enough, if truth stretched all the way from Chicago to Caesars Palace.

"He left nothing." Her voice was even duller than before, and Matt blamed himself. "He just left, after you . . . made him. Took what junk he valued and went."

"And you never heard from him again?"

The silence was long and wounded. Matt began wondering how he could backtrack, change the subject, avoid the consequences.

"A postcard a couple of times."

"Did you keep them?"

"Are you crazy? Matt, I was glad when you went into the priest-hood, I thought at least the boy'll be safe from now on, but you left. Why did you leave? It was sanctuary. Now you're in that horrible place, where he went."

"So the postcards were from Las Vegas?"

"I suppose. I don't pay attention to that kind of thing. Gaudy. Corrupt."

"Do you remember the pictures?"

"What do you want?"

"I need to know this. It's our past."

"It's not past."

She was right about that. Matt relaxed, let his breath ease out. "I have to understand my own past," he said.

Another silence. "A ... tall tower. With a bulb on the top, like in Russia."

"Russia?"

"One of the postcards. That's what it showed, night. There were all those little colored lights."

"And the other one?"

"I crumpled it and threw it away the minute I saw the bright lights. I never got another one."

"What did he say?"

"On the first one? He was bragging how great it was. Saying I should come out and see the sights. You know how he could be when he felt... like Somebody. Las Vegas." She snorted derisively.

"He was Nobody then, and he's Nobody now, Mom. He isn't in our lives anymore."

"Isn't he?"

"Look, one last, crazy question. Just think about it. You don't happen to have anything--

anything--he might have left his fingerprints on, no matter how unlikely?"

Another long, long silence. "Just me," she said.

Matt wished he had followed his vengeful sixteen-year-old instincts and killed the man when he was still certifiably living.

****************

Temple was caught between her bedroom and the living room when the phone rang, and she didn't really feel like answering it.

She had a lot on her mind: what Max Kinsella was doing to Gandolph's computer; where Midnight Louie might be; what Matt Devine would think if he found out that she was consorting (provocative word!) with the Mystifying Max.

Temple's biggest qualm was Matt. Poor baby, he had depended upon her so much lately.

Who was rattling his cage now that she was otherwise occupied? Who was providing him the feminine advice and comfort he so badly needed? Sister Seraphina? Please . .. more old nuns and Catholic cats Matt did not need.

So when the phone rang, Temple considered ignoring it.

But . . . she finally skittered across the slippery floors to the kitchen phone and swooped up the receiver.

"Temple?" The voice was female and familiar, yet out of context.

"Righto."

"You sound .. . flustered. I didn't interrupt anything?"

"Just dealing with a few loose ends." Who was this? One of the psychics ready to confess?

"You'll never guess who sent me a long, gossipy letter."

Temple stopped fretting about absent problems to listen to the phone, to really listen.

"Mom! Why are you calling? Is Dad okay?"

"Fine, honey. I was trying to tell you. Honestly, Temple, will you ever slow down long enough to hear what anybody is saying? I got this long letter from Ursula just the other day."

Ursula? Wasn't that a nun-name? Why would somebody at Our Lady of Guadalupe be writing this Unitarian lady in Minneapolis?

"Oh, you mean Kit. Aunt Kit."

"That's not how she signed her letter, or ever has. Anyway, she says she met you in Las Vegas."

"She did. We did. She was here for a convention, and I ran into her."

"Convention? What kind of convention would Kit be attending? Doesn't she still work for that antiquarian bookstore in New York City?"

"Maybe so, but I didn't really hear much about that. Like I said, we literally ran into each other, and she recognized me, can you believe it?"

"Yes, I can. You've changed very little from the time you were in your teens, Temple. Never even grew. Your aunt Ursula was always a keen observer."

Temple had not wanted to hear--again--that she was Tammy Teen, so cute, so clever, so immature.

"Anyway," Temple said, "we had ... lunch and--"