Vespers, page 27
to go down, these two Bobby and Hooper- • are in the habit of exchanging
money for dope, you see, and vice versa, Mrs. Reagan, which is why
little girls in red hoods should not go wandering off into the woods
where evil and corruption lurk, hmmm?
So there in the hallway, out comes the crack. A hundred vials, identical
to the tiny glass tubes perfume samples come in, except that these vials
don't contain Eau du Printemps. These vials contain little crystals that
look like exaggerated grains of salt but which are actually cocaine
base, which is made by heating a mixture of baking soda, cocaine
hydrochloride and water, and then letting it cool.
These little vials are deadly.
Out comes the crack... "And out comes the piece," Rudy said. "The what?"
"The piece."
"A gun?"
"A gun."
"Bobby pulled a gun?"
"No, no. The nigger pulled the gun.
... because what he has in mind, you see, is taking these hundred vials
worth four hundred bucks and not giving Bobby a red cent for them. That
the piece is for. Which upon closer looks like a .38 caliber Smith &
Wesson Re Police Model 33, capable of putting very lar in anyone's head
who is stupid enough grabbing that plastic bag of crack away Hooper.
Unless the someone is standing a little side of and slightly behind the
nigger, and there's a baseball bat (and also a softball and a but it is
only the bat that is of importance) corner of the hallway, where one of
the kids when his mother called him upstairs to The bat is propped
against the wall, and the the softball are on the floor, the ball in the
the mitt (although this is an insignificant detail)!: the kid standing
slightly behind and to the le Hooper is not Bobby Corrente but his kid
bro Frankie Corrente, who is rapidly learning the of the street, and
especially how to seize opportunity.
Not to mention the handle of a ball bat.
Which he does, in fact, seize.
And swings the bat with practiced ease target that is Nathan Hooper's
head. From the of his eye, Hooper sees the bat coming, and he of raises
his left shoulder, sort of hunkering into it, turning at the same time,
trying to deflect blow, which he partially succeeds in doing in that bat
hits his shoulder first and only then bounces to graze his head. This is
not enough to .,rious wound, but it is enough to prevent ;sion and
possible coma. It is also enough to his grip on the gun to loosen before
he can fire shot. And as the gun clatters to the floor and young pulls
back the bat for yet another swing at fences, Hooper recognizes it is
time to get the out of here, but not without the dope for which he has
now paid with a broken head. So off he goes with the bag of dope in his
left hand and the pack in full cry behind him, and the rest of the story
ends in church not once, but twice.
"The second time is today," Rudy said. "When we went back to look for
the stuff."
Because, yes, Virginia, it is true that Hooper stashed the dope
someplace inside the church.
Bobby and his pals know this is so. Not because when he came out with
the priest on the way to the hospital, they couldn't see the bag of
crack nowhere in sight; he could've had it in his pocket, right? But
because pretty soon after the incident on Easter, Hooper began bragging
around Fifth Street that as soon as it was safe to go back to St. Kate's
he was gonna be one rich nigger. And also, this must've been three, four
days before the priest got killed, they were fooling around with a pussy
kid named Fat Harold, kidding around with him, you know, giving him
knucks and the burn, this was near the school, .and he told them he was
with Hooper when he called the church and warned the priest he wanted
his dope back.
So the dope is there inside the church, ri Someplace inside the church.
Four hundred dollars worth of crack.
And there hasn't been a single snooping around looking for it because
there aren't any blacks go to St. Catherine' second of all, they know
what happened to on Easter, and they don't want a taste of medicine.
This doesn't mean Bobby and the guys been in there tiptoeing around half
a dozen looking for it, but they can't find the fucking the nigger hid
it too good. So it's beginning to like four hundred bucks is going
straight dow toilet.
Until today.
Today, Bobby gets sore.
And he tells them they''re going to that churc they're gonna turn it
upside down till they findi fuckin' dope.
Whichis what they done.
"But not me," Rudy said. "I just went alonl didn't hit the priest, I
didn't knock over any of things, the candlesticks, the altars, the thing
with incense, I didn't do any of those things. And, a how is it burglary
if nobody stole nothing?" Carella explained that it was burglary if some
knowingly entered or remained unlawfully building with intent to commit
a crime.
"But we didn't go there to commit a crime," Ru "We went there looking
for dope rightfully
to Bobby." Carella explained that criminal mischief was a
And so was assault. And so was reckless "rment.
Rudy shook his head over the inequity of the law.
"Good thing I didn't do none of those things," he "Who did?" Carella
asked.
The entire reason for this little exercise. Get one them talking, get
him to nail one of the others.
get another one talking to save his own skin, have him nail yet another
one. The Domino
ry of law enforcement and criminal investigation.
"I just went along," Rudy said.
"Too bad you've been charged," Carella said sympathetically. "But you
get a thing like this, a bunch of guys acting in concert..." He shook
his own head over the inequity of the law.
"I don't see why I should take the rap for something I didn't do," Rudy
said, beginning to sound a bit indignant.
"Yeah, it's too bad," Carella said. "But if you didn't see who knocked
over the altar, for example, or who hit the priest..."
"Bobby hit the priest."
"Bobby Corrente?"
"Yeah. I saw him grab the candlestick and hit him with it. And Jimmy
Fava knocked over the big one. And..."
And that was the beginning.
When Dominick Abruzzi came back squadroom after having talked to his
client, he "May I have a word with you, Detective No more sneering of
the word "Detective." "Sure," Carella said•
"My client went into the church because having an allergy attack,"
Abruzzi said• Carella looked at him.
"Lots of pollen in the air this time of church is relatively pollen
free. It was a him." "I'm sure," Carella said. "Dust free, probably"
Abruzzi looked at him.
"The wagon gets here at six," Carella said. that, you can talk to your
client downtown. night, Mr. Abruzzi," he said, and went to lieutenant's
door and knocked on it.
"Come!" Bymes shouted•
in this church, here in this hallowed place, Our ther who art in Heaven,
hallowed be Thy name, searching now behind a life-sized piaster statue
of the Virgin Mary holding the crucified Christ in her arms, here in
this place, on his hands and knees but not praying, lifting altar cloths
instead and looking under them, groping along stone walls inch by inch,
inspecting niches in which there were statues of saints he did not
recognize or could not remember, Carella was transported back to a time
when a young boy who looked somewhat like the man he'd grown into, sat
in a church not too far away from this one . the family had not yet
moved uptown to Riverhead --- sat Sunday after Sunday listening to the
drone of ritual, barely able to keep his eyes open.
Sunday after Sunday.
He was inside a church again today, seeking not salvation but dope.
Because Lieutenant Byrnes had told him to find that dope. Because if
there was dope inside the church, then the black girl was truth about
her brother stashing it there and Hennessy was telling the truth about
so calling up and wanting it back, and the existed that Corrente or
somebody else had back for it sometime before this afternoon. that was
the case, then maybe the somel who'd come looking for it had run into
the instead., And such a chance encounter called i great many
possibilities, least of which violence. Where there was dope, the [
murder always existed. So find the goddamn and at least maybe you had
your goddamn Sunday after Sunday.
Sundays with sunshine blazing through the high windows on either side of
the illuminating stained glass that had been a local artisan here in
this Italian section of the (which was no Firenze, that was certain),
dust climbing to the ceiling while from the organ loft fat notes floated
out onto the scintillated air, boy with slanting eyes and unruly hair
listened to priest and wondered what it was all about.
On the day of his first holy communion was ten or eleven, somew.here in
there a life was so alien to him now that he could no remember the exact
dates of the most events in a young Catholic's life his slicked down the
cowlick at the back of his head, walked to the church with her and his
father and Uncle Lou, all so long ago.
Carella he was called Stevie back then, a name :'d always sort of liked
until a girl a few years later Lbbed him Stevie-Weevie in an attempt to
make feel childish; he was twelve and she was a vast difference at that
age, he'd gone in tears. But on the day of his first holy Stevie Carella
accepted the wafer on his allowed it to melt there, careful not to bite
it ..cause this was the flesh and the blood of Jesus and the wafer would
bleed in his mouth, blood would flow in his mouth, or so he'd given to
understand by one of the nuns who'd taught him his catechism every
Monday and ay afternoons after school.
He'd felt a deep and reverent attachment to God that day. He did not
know exactly what it was he believed, it was all mumbo-jumbo of a sort
to him, but he knew that he felt an inner glow when that wafer dissolved
in his mouth, and he knelt there at the altar railing with his head bent
and his cowlick plastered down, and he felt somehow enriched by what had
happened this day, so very long ago.
Enriched. And somehow joyous. He'd gone to his first confession the day
before, nothing to confess at that age, he truly was without sin, an
innocent... Well... I lied, Father, and I ate meat on Friday, and I
talked back to my mother. Sins. A boy's sins. lorgiven, absolved with a
handful of Hail Marys, a couple of Our Fathers, and an Act again, the
lamb again, joyous in the presence, on the following day, the Sunday of
his communion. '
A year or so later, two years, so remember now, he was confirmed in that
church, wearing the same blue suit, which beginning to outgrow, red ann
ribbon on his his Uncle Lou looking tall and handsome in suit that
matched his own, neatly mustache, his father gave him a gold signet rin
his new initial on it, L for Louis, in honor godfather, SLC for Stephen
Louis Carella, am a man. Sunday after Sunday in that then in the smaller
church in Riverhead, three from the house his parents were renting, his
own bedroom, he was a man now, he no shared bedroom with his sister
Angela.
called him Stevie anymore. He was Steve Sunday after Sunday.
Rainy Sundays in the new church, slithering down the windows, plain
glass Riverhead, he missed the stained glass they'd Isola, the priest's
sonorous voice floating out the heads of the worshippers, the scent of
wafting from thuribles, a lightning flash, the thunder, the scent of
something else now, or real, the perfume of young girls, its scent
headier than the incense, he was beginning to mind wandered, he thought
of panties when he ,uld have been thinking of God.
Years later, on the Saturday before Easter he st have been fifteen or
sixteen, he could hardly tuber anymore he was infused with the same
spiritual fervor he'd felt on that day of his first , and he'd got on
his bicycle, a black and ite Schwinn with a battery-powered horn, and
pedaled over to the church, and locked the bike the wrought-iron fence
outside... His father used to tell stories about the days when didn't
even have to lock your front door, but that when there were chariots in
the streets...
i ... and he took off his hat... He used to wear this shabby blue
baseball cap that seen better days, but it was the good luck hat worn
when he pitched a no-hitter... and he went into the church and dipped
his into the font of holy water and made the sign of cross, and then sat
down and waited his turn to enter the confession box. And he knelt on
the padded kneeling bar, and the little door slid open and he could
vaguely see the priest's face behind the screen partition, and he
crossed himself and said, "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned, this is
six months since rny last confession."
There was a silence behind the screen.
Carella waited.
And then the priest said, "And you pick the busiest time of the year to
come?"
Carella confessed his sins. He had done bad things that had kept him
away from the for six months because he'd been afraid of those things to
a priest, evil things like Irish girl named Marge Gannon, and mastur
little.., well, a lot.., and saying Fuck you, dirty bastard. The priest
told him what he had as penance, and Carella said, "Thank you, and left
the confession box, and was starting the center aisle toward the altar,
fully say the penance so that tomorrow he could communion and feel the
same glow he'd first time, when all at once he stopped dead middle of
the aisle, and he thought What mean, the busiest time of the year? Does
busiest times of the year? I was feeling good came in here, I wanted to
be near God! So hell do you mean he actually thought those what the
hell, here in the church, standing middle of the aisle halfway to the
altar hell do you mean, the busiest time of the year?
And he turned his back to the altar, and the aisle, and out of the
church, and he lucky baseball cap down on his head, unchained his bike,
and rode away from the without looking back at it. He had not been "
church again until his sister's wedding eleven ago.
He was in one today.
Looking for dope.
Father Michael had searched the church and undoubtedly he'd known its
nooks crannies more completely than any outsider ld have. And Carella
had searched it again with and Bobby Corrente and his friends had done
ther more reckless search,, and no one had come with the hundred vials
of crack. So maybe the wasn't here, after all, maybe all the versions of
Rashomon were false. And even if the crack was here, what were we
talking about? Five hundred .liars? That was the street value of the
crack Nathan Hooper allegedly had stashed inside St.
Catherine's. A lousy five hundred dollars. Was that enough to kill
someone for? In this city, yes. In this city five hundred pistachio nuts
was enough to kill someone for. And if someone had come to this church
to retrieve that dope... And had been intercepted by Father Michael...
Perhaps challenged by him...
Yes, it was possible. The lieutenant was right.
Where there was dope, there was often murder.
Sighing heavily, he started the search one more time.
From the top.
Playing his own Rashomon tune.
Imagining himself as Nathan Hooper entering this church on Easter Sunday
with the pack in full cry behind him.
