Dear Old Dead(7)

“They’ll be back,” Augie told her.

“Really?” Sister Kenna sat down at the desk and looked over the tray of food. “You really ought to sit down here and get something to eat. Mrs. Angelini sent up all the things you like best. And you need your strength. Dr. Pride is down in OR bellowing for you right this minute.”

“OR being kept busy?”

“Oh, yes. All three theaters. We’ve got those back-up doctors Dr. Pride set up last summer, you know, those men he used to know in medical school who said they’d come down if there was ever a real emergency. Two of them who said they would wouldn’t, but the other three are here. It’s a good thing, too, because it’s all very bad out there.”

“Any news as to how soon it might get better?”

Sister Kenna shook her head. “I haven’t had time to watch the news, but the television set is turned to Channel two down in the cafeteria and people report when they have a chance. There seems to be some kind of impasse, but there hasn’t been an end to the shooting. Three police officers are already dead.”

“Wonderful. It’s drugs, I take it.”

“I think so.”

Augie went over to the desk and looked at the cafeteria tray. A hot turkey sandwich, piled very high with turkey and gravy on white bread. An enormous slice of Mrs. Angelini’s killer chocolate pie, with whipped cream and a cherry. A cup of coffee. Augie got a chair from near the window and sat down to eat. It was embarrassing how accurately Mrs. Angelini had her pegged. It was embarrassing how much of a rut she’d let herself get into. Back on the day she had entered the convent she’d told herself, secretly, that it would be good for her figure. She would become an ascetic and a saint and live on Holy Communion   wafers and air, like Saint Catherine of Siena. Instead, she’d become thoroughly addicted to chocolate and even rounder than when she’d started out.

Mrs. Angelini had included four little cups of cranberry sauce. Augie picked up the closest one and began eating that.

“Tell me,” she asked Sister Kenna. “How are the Sisters taking all the newspaper stories? What are they saying about Dr. Pride?”

“Saying?” Sister Kenna looked confused. “They’re not saying much of anything, Sister. Just that it’s a shame.”

“A shame that he did it or a shame that he got caught?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what to think of it myself, Sister. I mean, Dr. Pride is a kind of saint, isn’t he? Starting this place and working here. He could have been a doctor in private practice and made a lot of money. He wasn’t just stuck with a situation like this.”

“True.”

“And then there are these—these glory holes. Do you know what a glory hole is, Sister?”

“Yes, I know.”

“Well, I don’t, and most of the other Sisters don’t either, but some of the girls in the refuge program—they know. And they laugh.”

Augie winced. “I’m sure they do. Are they upset about all this?”

“No,” Sister Kenna said. “No, they’re not. One of them, Julie Enderson—do you know Julie Enderson, Sister?”

Augie knew Julie Enderson. Julie was a prostitute who claimed to be eighteen years old. Augie was fairly sure she was no more than fourteen. Julie was the great good hope of the refuge program at the moment. She was bright and energetic and good at schoolwork when she put her mind to it. She had a chance to make it out of this place if she really wanted to. Everybody at the center knew Julie Enderson.

“I hope Julie isn’t off her stride,” Augie said carefully. “That would be unfortunate.”

“Julie says it’s just like Dr. Pride, that he’d pick a vice where there was no question whatsoever that he wasn’t forcing anybody else into anything. And the other girls agreed with her.”

“Well, that’s one way of thinking about it,” Augie conceded. “It wouldn’t have occurred to me, but that’s one way of thinking about it. Anything else going on over there?”

“Not really.” Sister Kenna stood up. “But I do think you ought to talk to the girls about Mr. van Straadt, Sister. I mean, I don’t like him either, but the things they say about him—and he does give us so much of our money, and we need the money, don’t we?”

“Yes,” Augie said. “We need the money.”

“I’ll leave you here with your dinner,” Sister Kenna said. “You eat up and then come down to OR and calm Dr. Pride. There’s talk that the police are going to send in a whole set of SWAT teams this time. The last time they sent in one and it didn’t work. But you know what that means. It’s going to get even worse around here than it already is.”