A Great Day for the Deadly(64)

Michael Doherty was sitting under an amber- and yellow-shaded, mock-Tiffany reading lamp in an equally mock-leather armchair across from the reception desk, reading a copy of Time. When the elevator doors opened to let Gregor out, he looked up and smiled. Then his smile grew wider, and Gregor understood why at once. Father Michael Doherty was dressed in a pair of twill pants, a button-down shirt left open at the neck to reveal a Roman collar and a good wool sweater. Except for the Roman collar, Gregor was dressed in exactly the same way. It was a style of dress adopted universally by a certain class of American middle-aged male, what Bennis always called “the Harrison Ford look.” They both seemed to have declared themselves members of that class with a vengeance.

Gregor walked out of the elevator and across the reception room floor. Michael Doherty stood up and held out his hand.

“Mr. Demarkian,” he said. “I’m sorry to bother you. I’m Father Michael Doherty.”

“You call yourself Father,” Gregor said.

“I’ve never really understood the men who don’t,” Doherty answered. “You do all that work to get through the seminary, all that work to get ordained. Well, maybe that’s because I came to it late. I think we’d better go into the lounge, if you don’t mind. I could use a beer and we could both use a place where Edith can’t eavesdrop.”

“Is there such a place?”

“Several. But don’t count on the rooms. I think they’re bugged.” Doherty walked toward the reception desk, toward the left of which was a frosted glass door. “It’s right through here,” he said. “It’s very nice, really, and I almost never get a chance for a beer and a talk away from work anymore. Come along with me.”

Gregor came along with him, a little apprehensive that what he was going to find behind the frosted glass was a hoked-up replica of an Irish saloon or a New York City Irish neighborhood bar. He found instead a plain place with a large fireplace in it, too many scarred wooden tables, and a scattering of the same St. Patrick’s Day decorations that had infested the rest of Maryville. Gregor was getting so used to those, he hardly noticed them. There was a candle in the shape of a leprechaun on their table and a tiny basket full of silk shamrocks. Gregor pushed them out of the way as soon as he sat down and asked the waitress who seemed to be hovering just over his head for a glass of red wine. Father Doherty asked not simply for a beer, but for a St. Pauli Girl. Gregor thought about what Jack O’Brien had said, about Father Doherty and Doherty Lumber.

The waitress brought their drinks, smiled at Gregor and told Michael Doherty to have a good day, and disappeared in haste. Doherty watched her go and said, “It’s one of the great advantages of being a Catholic priest in a town like this. The service is always outstanding. Of course, if you don’t watch yourself, you could end up thinking you were one step better than God.”

Gregor shook his head. “According to the Cardinal, that’s not really true. According to the Cardinal, there’s been more than a little trouble on the religious front up here in the last few years.”

“If you mean garden-variety anti-Catholicism, there’s been some,” Doherty admitted, “but not in town. You get that mostly from the region around us, the small farming communities with heavy enrollments in scattershot fundamentalist sects. And I do mean scattershot. This is not the Southern Baptist Convention we’re talking about here. This is single churches with no connections to any organized denomination, run by pastors who’ve ordained themselves because that’s the best way they can think of to make a little bit better living than they could have doing factory work in Colchester. Their parishioners are poor and scared and undereducated and probably on the whole not very bright, and they have been known to get both nasty and violent—but on the whole I don’t worry about them. Quite frankly, on the whole I think they’re sad but harmless.”

Gregor took a sip of wine. “Tell me,” he said thoughtfully, “do you think the rest of the Catholics in Maryville would agree with you? What about the rest of the priests? What about Father—is it Fitzsimmons?”

“Barry Fitzsimmons at Iggy Loy?” Doherty grinned. “Let’s just say if he held any other opinion on this one, I would have heard about it. Everybody would have heard about it. That’s what Barry’s like.”

“And the rest?”

Doherty took a long draft of beer and poured some more from the bottle into his glass. “There are two more,” he said, “and we all see each other fairly regularly. I haven’t heard anything about any anti-Catholic activity of any kind, serious or not, from any of them. Why? Did you have a reason for thinking there would be?”