The Sixth Station(28)

When I looked totally stumped as to how one would do such a thing, he stepped in and draped it for me. “Thanks, I almost hung myself trying to get this veil on.”

“Let’s go,” he said, handing me my red satchel. I put my Fryes and leather jacket into the shopping bag and then put a newspaper on top.

He looked me over and shook his head. “Hmmm. Not very nun-like, but too late to do anything about that.” We began to head toward the door that led to the stairs that led to the tunnel that led to Forty-eighth Street.

“Sadowski,” I said, pausing midstep, “why are you doing this? What do you care if I get an interview with someone who nobody’s heard about in decades who lives God-knows-where doing God-knows-what?”

“I’m living vicariously?”

“Right. Not to look a gift horse, and it’s a big gift—but, I mean, why have you rescued me from mad crowds both times I was in trouble, and now this? And the car and all.”

“I’m a priest. I help people,” he said, his hand on the knob of the door.

“Pardon my Latin, but bullshit.”

He opened the cellar door and flicked on the wall switch. “Guess the light’s broken,” he said, as I followed him through the door and down the pitch-black stairwell, beginning to think that maybe this wasn’t a great idea.

He must have picked up my concern, because he called back, “Don’t worry, God is on your side.”

Oh. “Next time he chooses up sides, you think I can be spared from His team?” I said, waiting for an answer that didn’t come.

“Eugene? Father Sadowski?” I heard him mount the stairs and open the door. Then I heard it slam shut.





10





I tried to feel my way along the wall. It was damp and felt cool-going-to-cold. Like a tomb. Like the tomb of Jesus Himself, I thought for no reason, and I suddenly had an overwhelming need to get out of there.

I felt my way along the damp walls and reached the stairs. I mounted a few steps, forgetting that I was wearing the damned habit, and caught a stacked heel on the hem. I fell backward probably six or so steps and hit my head against the rear stone wall. OK, I really, really need to get outta here, I thought, frantically rubbing the back of my head over the veil. Was I bleeding? I didn’t feel anything wet, so I stood back up carefully and felt for the stairs again.

I made my way back up and reached for the doorknob. Locked.

Panic hit in a way that I hadn’t experienced since I let go of my mom’s hand at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade when I was seven. The difference was on Thanksgiving my mom had reached through the crowd and grabbed me up in about ten seconds. There was no one to grab me now—although I feared that right outside that locked door there may well, in fact, be two people: one in Armani and one in a clerical collar. Was I simply having an anxiety attack, or were my reporter instincts taking over?

Be rational.

I moved back down the stairs and felt my way through the tunnel and up the opposite stairs to the rectory door. Locked again. Why would Eugene lock me in?

Just then I heard the other door opening on its old hinges. Sadowski called out, “Alessandra? Where are you? It’s safe. Come on, we don’t have time.”

In full anxiety attack mode now, I heard him climbing down the stairs.

“Oh, boy,” I heard him mutter. Then, “Alessandra! Dammit. Where are you? Alessandra!”

I was barely breathing, or trying my hardest not to, my heart pounding so hard I was sure it was echoing around the tunnel.

“Alessandra!” Ms. Russo, you don’t know what you’re dealing with.

He called out, “I had to check to see if there was anybody out there.”

At that, the lights came blazing back on, and there he was standing right at the bottom of the steps below me. Holding a gun.

I let out a cry, and he looked down and said, “Oh. This.”

I tried to make myself as small as possible as he started up the stairs. “I went back into the rectory to get it,” he said. “In case—”

“In case of what?” I whispered, my voice almost leaving me completely.

“In case the goons who trashed your place were out there.” He was three steps from me now.

“It’s all clear,” he said, holding out his free hand.

“No!” I said.

He seemed surprised. “I told you, there’s nobody out in the school or the yard. It’s okay. Really.”

“What do you want? Why are you doing this? You have a gun and you locked me in.”

“No,” he said, dragging out the word. “I locked them out, in case there was a them, that is. But there isn’t. Come on now … just step down toward me.…”