He moved across the street and Varley came out of the doorway of the old warehouse on the corner. “I waited, Mr.. Meehan, like Billy said.”
“What happened to Fallon?”
“Went off in the car with Billy.”
Meehan frowned, but for the moment, that could wait and he turned his attention to the queue again. “What are they all wailing for? This bleeding soup kitchen to open?”
“That’s right, Mr.. Meehan. In the crypt.”
Meehan stared across at the queue for a while and then smiled suddenly. He opened his wallet and extracted a bundle of one-pound notes.
“I make it twenty-two in that queue, Charlie. You give them a quid apiece with my compliments and tell them the pub on the comer’s just opened.”
Varley, mystified, crossed the street to distribute his largesse and within seconds, the queue was breaking up, several of the men touching their caps to Meehan who nodded cheerfully as they shuffled past. When Varley came back, there was no one left outside the door.
“He’s going to have a lot of bleeding soup on his hands tonight,” Meehan said, grinning.
“I don’t know about that, Mr.. Meehan,” Varley pointed out. “They’ll only come back when they’ve spent up.”
“And by then they’ll have a skinful, won’t they, so they might give him a little trouble. In fact, I think we’ll make sure they do. Get hold of that bouncer from the Kit Kat Club. The Irishman, O’Hara.”
“Big Mick, Mr.. Meehan?” Varley stirred uneasily. I’m not too happy about that. He’s a terrible man when he gets going.”
Meehan knocked off his cap and grabbed him by the hair. “You tell him to be outside that door with one of his mates at opening time. Nobody goes in for the first hour. Nobody. He
waits for at least a dozen drunks to back him, then he goes in and smashes the place up. If he does it right, it’s worth twenty-five quid. If the priest breaks an arm, accidental like, it’s worth fifty.”
Varley scrambled for his cap in the gutter. “Is that all, Mr. Meehan?” he asked fearfully.
“It’ll do for starters.” Meehan was chuckling to himself as he walked away.
Father da Costa could count on only three acolytes for evening Mass. The parish was dying, that was the trouble. As the houses came down, the people moved away to the new estates, leaving only the office blocks. It was a hopeless task, he had known that when they sent him to Holy Name. His superiors had known. A hopeless task to teach him humility, wasn’t that what the bishop had said? A little humility for a man who had been arrogant enough to think he could change the world. Remake the Church in his own image.
Two of the boys were West Indians, the other English of Hungarian parents. All a product of the few slum streets still remaining. They stood in the corner waiting for him, whisper-ing together, occasionally laughing, newly-washed, hair combed, bright in their scarlet cassocks and white cottas. Had Jack Meehan looked like that once?
The memory was like a sword in the heart. The fact of his own violence, the killing rage. The violence that had been so often his undoing through the years. The men he had killed in ¯ the war – that was one thing, but after… The Chinese soldier in Korea machine-gunning a column of refugees. He had picked up a rifle and shot the man through the head at two hundred yards. Expertly, skillfully, the old soldier temporarily in control. Had he been wrong? Had it really been wrong when so many lives had been saved? And that Portuguese Captain in Mozambique stringing up guerrillas by their ankles. He had beaten the man half to death, the incident that had finally sent him home in disgrace.
“The days when bishops rode into battle with a mace in one hand are over, my friend.” The Bishop’s voice echoed faintly “Your task is to save souls.”
Violence for Violence. That was Median’s way. Sick and dis-gusted, Father da Costa took off the violet stole he had worn for confession and put on a green one, crossing it under his girdle to represent Christ’s passion and death. As he put on an old rose-coloured cope, the outer door opened and Anna came in, her stick in one hand, a raincoat over her.