Precious Blood(37)

Gregor wondered whether that explanation would have satisfied Bennis Hannaford, or even Donna Moradanyan, and decided it might. It would depend on the mood they were in. “Maybe Father Walsh thought he’d done enough mucking around with the Mass,” he pointed out to Boyd. “He already had the altar girls, and the women giving out the Communion  —”

“Andy never thinks he’s done enough mucking around with the Mass. If he didn’t know he’d get canned for it, he’d rewrite it. And besides, if he didn’t have something up his sleeve, he’d never have agreed to cancel the women. Girls. Whatever. No matter what Tom Dolan said.”

“What does Tom Dolan have to do with it?”

“Didn’t I tell you? He called this morning right before Andy left for the studio. They were on the phone for nearly half an hour. I figure Tom was reading Andy the riot act.”

“Father Walsh canceled the altar girls only after he talked to Father Dolan?”

“Yup. But the goat showed up just the same. And I wasn’t expecting it.” Declan Boyd sighed. “I ought to be thankful for small favors. If Tom and Andy hadn’t been friends in high school, the altar girls would probably have shown up just the same. After all, it’s one of those days. Andy’s alerted the media.”

“About what?” Gregor asked.

“About the Mass,” Boyd said. “The Tribune is not exactly the most pro-Catholic paper on the face of the earth, and WCCN isn’t much better. They love the crap Andy pulls. Wait a minute.” Boyd scooted forward on the couch, to get close enough to the television to readjust the volume control. “Here it is,” he said. “The good part. Why don’t we just take a look and see what Andy’s going to do now.”

What Gregor really wanted was to meet Father Andy Walsh, in person, as soon as possible. The more he heard about the man, the more fascinated he became. Because no meeting appeared to be in the offing for several hours, he supposed a television talk show would have to do.

Gregor took a seat next to Declan Boyd on the couch and turned his attention to the set.





[3]


Gregor Demarkian had not watched much television in his life. In his childhood, it had not existed. During his working life, he hadn’t had time. After Elizabeth died, he simply hadn’t had the interest. The programs always seemed to be about nothing in particular, and rarely made sense. News anchormen always made him feel as if he were watching schizophrenics trying to appear normal for half an hour.

Even so, he wasn’t totally without experience of the medium. He’d spent his share of nights cooped up in hotel rooms on one assignment or another, waiting for phone calls or worrying about what he was going to have to get himself into the next day. Before he’d been assigned to organize the Behavioral Sciences Department, he’d done most of his FBI work on high-level kidnapping cases. High-level kidnapping cases had given him a gastric ulcer and a passing acquaintance with The Tonight Show.

The Tonight Show, he supposed, was what he’d instinctively expected Barry Field’s talk show to be like. In some ways, it was. There were the same potted plants, the same fake windows covered by half-transparent curtains, the same little platform that raised the furniture a short step up from the stage. What there wasn’t was a desk, an announcer, a sidekick, or a band. Barry Field’s set had been built to look like a living room in a better-than-average suburban ranch, right down to the total lack of decoration on the walls. There wasn’t even a cross.

Barry Field didn’t look much the way Gregor had expected him to, either. He was the customary twenty pounds overweight—why was it television evangelists always had so much trouble with bulk?—but the weight wasn’t distributed in the usual way. Instead of looking sleek and smug and buttered, he merely looked lumpy. The light in his eyes wasn’t complacency, either. Gregor knew that look very well. It was blind ambition.

“Did you say this man used to be a Catholic?” he asked Declan Boyd.

“Not only Catholic, but slated to go to the seminary,” Boyd said. “From what I heard, he was one of the Cardinal’s prime protégés. Him and Tom Dolan and, believe it or not, Andy Walsh.”

“I didn’t think O’Bannion had been Cardinal here that long.”

“He hasn’t. He was an aide to the archbishop—it was two archbishops ago. An auxiliary bishop, they call it. He was spiritual director of the two high schools the Cathedral runs.”

“And Father Walsh and Father Dolan and Barry Field were students together at this high school.”