The Sacrifice Page 19

  But he didn’t make a move. Granted, the guy had maybe thirty years on Rybicki. But Rybicki had maybe thirty pounds on the guy. So he wasn’t afraid. Not for a moment. He just didn’t want to get involved. He would just munch his burger and nurse the Miller Lite.

  Davis returned, set the burger plate before Rybicki, and shoved the condiments on the counter toward him. Rybicki squeezed on a touch of mustard. That was all. He bit into the burger. Heavenly. The meat was thick and pink and juicy. The onions were just singed—al dente. And only three bucks. Three bucks for a perfect burger. He vowed that given the chance he’d be back with some regularity. But he wouldn’t be recommending this find to anyone; he’d keep it as his own private oasis.

  Davis glanced at the couple. He saw what Rybicki had seen. Davis felt no urge to intervene in any way. His only concern was that there be no bloodletting in his bar.

  “So what’d you do in the chancery? You not being a priest or anything?”

  “I ran the elevator.”

  “That’s it?”

  “It was busy. Lots of people came to the chancery. Mostly guys who worked there. Priests who ran the various departments in the archdiocese: the Tribunal, the Propagation of the Faith, Catholic schools, Catholic cemeteries … like that. I started there a little bit before Cardinal Mooney died.

  “You couldn’t tell he was so near death. He went off to Rome to help elect a new Pope. But he died just before the Cardinals were locked up in the Sistine Chapel for the duration.

  “He was a class act, he was.” He nodded in recollection. “A real class act.”

  “You got to know him?”

  “Saw him just about every day. Going and coming. It didn’t take him long before he knew my name … and used it. ‘How are you, Mr. Rybicki?’ he would say. Yup …” He nodded again. “… a real class act.”

  Silence.

  The couple at the far table were quiet—both of them.

  Good. Davis was all for quiet. Especially from people like that couple.

  They had entered the bar about two hours ago. She’d ordered a white wine, which she was just now finishing. He was nursing only his third beer.

  Davis didn’t care. They could sit there till closing time as far as he was concerned. As long as there was no trouble, Davis was the soul of indifference.

  “A real class act,” Rybicki repeated.

  “What was that?” Davis’s concentration wobbled. He had forgotten what Rybicki was talking about.

  “The guys who used to work in the chancery. Starting with the bishop … and on right through the ranks.”

  “You think it’s gone downhill now?”

  “Oh, yeah. You know, when I was running that elevator you had to have an appointment to see the boss.”

  “That so?”

  “Every morning they gave me a list of names that I stuck up on the wall of the elevator. These were the guys who had an appointment and who could get out on the second floor. That was the boss’s floor.

  “Some of the movers and shakers—not just in the Church, but also the business community—would get off on two. I got to know them pretty good, too.

  “Then in the late sixties, early seventies, the crybabies started comin’ in. Usually I would recognize them from seeing their pictures in the papers and on TV. Peaceniks, flower children—those guys. Hair all over and dressed to slop pigs.” He made a face. “Disgusting!”

  “That why you got outta there?”

  “Partly. Anyway, because I got to know a lot of the brass—mostly Ford and GM guys—I got a job as a security officer at GM headquarters on Grand Boulevard.”

  “And you lived happily ever after?”

  Rybicki did a double take. Was Davis making fun of him? After a moment he decided not. Rybicki was a mesomorph. Had he been playing pro football in the present, he would have been an interior defensive lineman. Even at his present age, people shied away from the casual insult. “Yeah,” Rybicki said at length. “I’ve been doin’ okay. All things considered.”

  “So what brings you downtown on a late Sunday? Reliving old times?”

  “Nah …” Rybicki was glum. “I wanted to see that sonuvabitch they were gonna ordain today.”

  “Huh?”

  “You know … you musta read about him in the papers.”

  No reaction from Davis.

  “On radio or TV?” Rybicki couldn’t believe that anyone in the metropolitan area wasn’t aware of the unique Catholic religious event that had been scheduled for earlier this day.

  Apparently there was at least one oblivious person. And Rybicki was talking to him.

  The barkeep picked up another clean glass and began polishing it. “’Fraid not.”

  “You don’t read the papers?”

  “Sports … some comics.”

  “No TV news?”

  “Sports. Maybe the weather. That’s about all my customers talk about. I reckon I don’t have to be up on anything else.”

  “I guess it figures,” Rybicki said, almost sadly.

  “So what was going on that got you down here?”

  “It’s kind of complicated.”

  “Try me. I’m a quick study.”

  So Rybicki related the tale of the noted Episcopal priest—noted, apparently by everyone but Davis—who’d left the Episcopal priesthood and was supposed to have been ordained in the Catholic Church today.

  “Today? Supposed to be? What happened?”

  Rybicki told him about the bomb.

  “That was on TV?”

  “Yeah. That was the news update you were gonna turn off a little while ago, but I ast you to leave it on … remember?”

  “Yeah … I remember you asked me to leave it on.” Davis whistled softly. “Man, this is gettin’ bad if I’m not payin’ any attention to a bomb going off in a church in Detroit!”

  “Well, that’s what happened.”

  “Why would anyone want to knock off a priest? Especially with a bomb?”

  “For starters he—this new guy—likes the idea of women priests.” He looked at Davis sharply. “How would you like to go into a Roman Catholic church and see a woman up there in vestments, saying Mass?”

  Davis smiled. “I was raised a Catholic … even went to a parochial school for a while. Tell you the truth, thinking back, I’d rather see and hear a woman doin’ it than some of the men I remember.”

  Rybicki waved away the remark. In doing so, he almost knocked over his glass of beer. “Get serious,” he said. “Besides women at the altar, this guy—this Wheatley—is gonna bring his wife in. They’ll be living together.” He shook a warning finger at Davis. “Now don’t come back with a smart-alec remark like, ‘Husbands and wives generally live together.’”

  “I know you’ll believe me when I tell you, you took the words right out of my mouth.”

  “I thought so. There’s no use talking to you.” Rybicki rose as if to leave.

  “Don’t go,” Davis said. It wasn’t the first time he’d had to placate a disgruntled customer. Why didn’t I keep my mouth shut? “I promise: no more smart-ass remarks. I really oughta be up on something like this. I got a hunch you can give me straighter stuff than the media will.”

  “Well, okay.” Rybicki sat back down on the bar stool. “The thing that pisses me off is that all these hippies and yippies who used to crowd into the chancery are gonna think they won. They wanted women priests. They wanted married priests. Now they found their hero in this Wheatley guy. Hell, his daughter’s even gonna be a priest. And he’s married.” He made it sound like some loathesome disease.

  “So with this one guy, they’ve achieved a couple of their main goals. What comes next: abortion; annulments on demand; getting together with Lutherans, Baptists, what all? I can just see these turkeys the way I used to see them at the chancery. The only reason I put up with ’em then was I knew they were doomed to failure.” He sneered. “I knew they could never win. The Catholic Church was the mighty fortress!”

  “Man,
” Davis managed to get a word in, “you are really worked up over this.”

  “Damn straight I am!”

  “Bad for your blood pressure.”

  “I don’t give a damn!”

  Davis was getting a bit uneasy about Rybicki. Somebody who says he doesn’t give a damn, after making it obvious that he definitely does give a damn … well, in a situation like this, it could mean that this guy feels, “What the hell; I’ve got nothing to lose.” And with that sentiment, the sky’s the limit—up to and including even murder.

  “Whoa …” Davis warned. “Isn’t it possible that the guy … what’s his name?”

  “Wheatley.”

  “Wheatley … that he’s like an innocent bystander in this thing. Okay, so maybe he wants to switch religions. So maybe he can’t see anything wrong with women priests. But look: All he can do is submit his case. He can’t do it on his own. No more than the flower children of the seventies—the ones that used to drive you up the wall—could.

  “I mean, I’m no expert, but isn’t it pretty much up to the Church whether or not to let him have his way? It’s like the hairy kids years ago. They wanted all this stuff. But you didn’t get so worked up because—as you said—they were doomed: The Church wouldn’t let them have their way.

  “So now it’s a different story. Now the Church is getting out of their way … am I wrong?”

  Rybicki was silent, pondering.

  “I can see your point,” he said finally. “But it doesn’t seem to help me. I mean, you can’t bomb the whole screwed-up Catholic Church. What you can do is blast one small corner of it. Just to get the attention of Rome. Yeah, all the way to the Vatican with a bomb set off here in southeast Michigan. Right here in Detroit’s core city.”

  Silence as both Davis and Rybicki mulled over each other’s words.

  Suddenly a commotion from the only other people in the room—the odd couple. The man shouted something—it was unintelligible—at his companion.

  Wouldn’t you know, thought Davis; only three customers in the place and every one of them poses a potential problem.

  Davis didn’t know which deserved the bulk of his attention. He finally returned his focus to Rybicki, while remaining alert to the couple. “Look, I don’t have any firsthand knowledge of the bombing this afternoon. Right now all I know is what you told me. Were you there? I mean when the bomb exploded?”

  “I was there,” Rybicki said with a tone of self-satisfaction.

  “Well, how did you feel about it … I mean, when the bomb went off … and afterward?”

  “I was rocked at first. I didn’t expect any explosion. It was deafening. Scary, too,” he added after a moment.

  “Well,” Davis pursued, “what about after? After the bomb?”

  An odd smile crossed Rybicki’s face. “I felt glad … happy. I thought whoever did it oughta get a medal.”

  “You gotta be kidding! I mean, you didn’t know what the damage was. You didn’t know whether the priest was dead or alive. You didn’t know how many people—how many Catholics—had been injured or killed. How could you feel happy?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” Rybicki protested. His face twisted. “An’ I don’t take kindly to bein’ accused of not givin’ a shit who got hurt. Sure I hoped that nobody else got hurt. The point is, I figured that if somebody tried to get the sonuvabitch with somethin’ as big as a bomb, well then, he probably got him.

  “And if some others got hurt or killed … well, there’s worse things than death.”

  “That’s crazy, man,” Davis said. “This is human life we’re talking about. You can’t wish that much misery on somebody. My God, the guy’s a priest! Ain’t anything sacred?”

  Rybicki leaned over the bar. He was a large man; when he extended himself his face was only inches from Davis’s. “Listen, my friend: The bogus priest may have survived this attack this afternoon. But he can’t be so lucky that he continues to dodge the bullet every-time someone tries to kill him.”

  Davis instinctively leaned back away from Rybicki’s strong presence. “Friend, you make it sound like there’s an army out there waiting to kill this priest. That can’t be so …”

  “Maybe not an army … but there’s lots of people who’d gladly buy into a lottery for the next chance to get rid of the guy. We’re not so very many, but”—Rybicki’s voice dropped to a harsh whisper—“we’re committed. We’ll do it!”

  With that, Rybicki downed the last of his beer, slammed the glass down on the bar, spun about, and strode out. He walked such a straight line that any cop checking him for sobriety would be satisfied.

  It had been a disturbing conversation. Jim Davis was a peaceable man. He was that way by nature and had made pacification a principal practice. Operating a bar, especially in downtown Detroit, called for this. Many’s the argument he’d had to mediate. Many’s the fight he’d had to break up.

  But this Rybicki, he was a rare bird. His quarrel was with the Catholic Church. Davis did not get many beefs like that.

  And as for killing that priest, how much of that was for real and how much was the beer talking? Judging from his long experience listening to customers whose basic attitudes were colored by alcohol, Davis would wager that Rybicki had just pumped himself up and was no real threat.

  Davis turned his attention to the remaining couple. He couldn’t understand why the woman had stayed this long. She’d given every indication that she didn’t want to hang around with the guy. Was she just baiting him? Some women did that … oftentimes to their eventual sorrow.

  Suddenly she stood, picked up her purse, and walked purposefully out of the bar. Closely followed by her erstwhile companion.

  Davis listened carefully. He half expected to hear a gunshot. But … nothing. All was quiet.

  Too quiet.

  Ten o’clock. Time for the local nighttime news on Channel 50.

  The anchorwoman gave a big introduction to the most startling news story any area channel would feature anytime. A bomb had gone off in a local historic Catholic church this afternoon. Old St. Joe’s, a place of prayer almost from the first days of the founding of the city of Detroit, was the scene of a bomb explosion that had destroyed part of the sanctuary and killed a visiting priest. After a commercial break, a reporter would be back with all the details.

  Well, thought Davis, at least that Rybicki guy was right about the church bombing. He hadn’t made that up.

  But Davis wasn’t about to wait around for the commerical break to end. It was past closing time. He began locking up. He’d be able to pick up the details on the eleven o’clock news after he got home. And tomorrow, nice and early, there’d be the newspaper.

  As he turned the deadbolt, he wondered if he would ever see or hear of Rybicki again.

  SIXTEEN

  Most nights, before retiring, Father George Wheatley watched the eleven o’clock TV news. This evening he was early by an hour: He watched the ten o’clock news. That finished, he clicked the off button and watched as the screen zeroed into a white dot, and then darkness.

  He walked slowly and deliberately around the house, checking all the locks. As he reached the front door he could see through the window the unmarked police car at the curb directly in front of the house.

  Nothing had happened except for the arrival of his son, Richard, driven home by Lieutenant Tully and his wife. That, thought George, might rank as the safest ride in the city.

  Richard briefed his parents on all that had gone on at and after the dinner at the Koznickis’. Then, not at all sleepy, he headed for his room and a little computer nonsense, as well as some homework before bed.

  Neither George nor Nan had been hungry. They’d each had a bowl of cereal, merely to accompany their vitamin supplements.

  They hardly said a word all evening. At about nine-thirty Nan kissed George on the forehead and went up to bed. George would’ve accompanied her, but he waited to see how the news treated this afternoon’s explosion.

  There w
ere many shots of the interior of the church, especially the sanctuary. The damage did not seem widespread. The bomb’s effectiveness appeared to have been limited to the section between the altar and the rear of the sanctuary, with emphasis on the area nearest the altar. Just where he himself would have been standing. He and Father Tully. George shuddered.

  Now he would go to bed. Not because he was sleepy. Tired, yes; sleepy, no. He was going to retire because it was time to do so. He well knew what that meant: a long, lonely night of turning this way and that.

  At times like this, he tried to convince himself that lying down, quietly resting, was good for one … even if sleep was delayed. The way he felt right now, it looked as if it might be an all-night delay.

  That could be unfortunate. Tomorrow likely would be a most busy Monday. This thing had to be investigated. The culprit had to be apprehended. Plans had to be rescheduled.

  George wanted to be ordained in the Roman Church. That hadn’t changed. He wondered whether his sponsor, Cardinal Boyle, would still want to go through with it. After all, the Cardinal wouldn’t want to establish an atmosphere wherein it could be open season on the clergy.

  George knew that the Cardinal must even now be mulling over the possibilities. No use trying to figure how it was going. Tomorrow would be soon enough. And that was only a few hours away.

  Everything was secured. His surveillance team was in place. Wheatley stood very still, gazing through the window at the officers. He couldn’t actually see them. But they were there, that he knew.

  They would do whatever was humanly possible to protect him, his wife, and his son. But there were so many windows and doors in this rambling house. It was too large for his diminished family. On the other hand, if ever he was ordained, he would be expected to move into St. Joe’s rectory, which was also too large for his family. Meanwhile, he was grateful for the roof over their heads. Grateful to the Episcopal Church of Eastern Michigan, which, in recognition of the years of distinguished service George had given the Church of his birth, had permitted the Wheatleys to stay on in the rectory until George’s future was firmly and irrevocably settled.