Silk Stockings - 4

Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem.

Thunk. If ever the gate slammed shut it was on St. Leonard’s Catholic Church but whether anyone was saved was another story. Not told in the New Testament. But you had to look upwards into the gold and red dome to feel the solemnity and grace which pervaded every pew. Even those of us who did terrible things for Costa Nostre kept in line in this particular place at this particular time: it was only two weeks until Easter. Even the people who broke the law communed with Lent as if to ask God for forgiveness for their many mortal sins. After all, think about it, What is the buying votes and racketeering on the cosmic scale of things? God, unlike Cthulhu or Richard M. Nixon, never calls collect. Still, I rubbed my derringer under my jacket, because happiness is a warm gun. There was also a stiletto for more private work.

 I was huddled down into a pew in the back - my family wasn’t in a tremendous amount of lucre to rent one of the front pews - and was thinking as the Mass plodded forward. I had been thinking about it since morning in the tub while I was bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A young man in a dry month.

It being Lent there were pluses and minuses to the service: on one hand the Gloria and Alleluia was omitted so you were back on the street that much quicker to make more money and on the other hand marriages were discouraged during the same period. And who doesn’t want free vino? Angels and wine or the dry desert of the Lord’s atonement? Tough call.

 It was to marriage that my thoughts coalesced. On the one hand, I was making good strides towards entering into the secrets of my particular trade even if it was an illegal one. On the other hand, I wanted to get married and there were more than a few young ladies who would not touch someone with even Cos never mind Costa, and shoot yourself in you were the complete package, that is having been a made man. I thought back to the circumstances in which I had made that status. It began in this church only during the night hours and in secret. It was not the tale that I told my friends.

The time was only a year before and during Lent. In this very church.

Then it had been the darkest of nights and I stole up Hanover St. noticing a warm car that melted the snow on its hood. I headed for the cement walkway to the entrance. Then as now, there were figures of Jesus, including the crucifixion above the door. The door was locked from the inside. However, I knew that there was a hidden keyhole so that the priests could come and go as they pleased. I flipped out a huge chain of keys and selected the right key for the task at hand. It was cold and that made me hurry. I was there to ask a favor the signor for a small favor: the wife of one of the top men was ill and she wanted to take communion at her house. She was afraid and she was afraid that she was going to die and the next time she saw the inside of a church was for her requiem, but the doctor said that this was a hallucination and that she just needed to get over the flu that she had.

In the corridor, I was as quiet as a church mouse until I saw a door with opaque glass. I also heard voices, two old men speaking very quietly about something. I nestled in two here what they were talking about. One of them was the signor and he was speaking with deference as if to a higher figure. But I could not see them except as shadows on the wall. I had a suspicion that it was an emissary of the archbishop. Then I heard a dreaded monologue from the other man, and it struck me like a mortal blow:

“A year ago, we discussed a junior priest. He was south of the city, and we moved him north. Unfortunately, he has committed certain activities that have made certain young men damp in their attachments to him. We must send him abroad. Pause. You must make the arrangements.” Young men. Damp in their attachments. I listened for more and got some specific examples. I knew the church he was assigned to. Gigio’s brother was there as an altar boy. He was driven up by his pop.

Then there was movement and I had to scatter. Easy enough to do because I hid behind a dolly piled up high with the consecrated hosts: Chalice, Paten, Ciborium, Pyx, and Monstrance. Couched down I watched the two men depart with the emissary putting on his jacket.

But I was not yet done.

Normally I would have described myself as unflappable. In the words that I said would use ‘cool.’ But something broke inside me. I did not know exactly what was going on, but I had a holistic guesstimate in spades. And, for whatever reason, I decided that, on this day, the emissary was going to breathe his last. It was a rough kind of justice that I could do. Taking a shortcut to the car I didn’t down on the passenger’s side and picked the lock. There were only the streetlamps to provide illumination. And I just manage to slide into the back seat.

 I only had to wait a moment. I put on my gloves.

 It helped that the emissary was more than slightly sloshed. He fumbled with the key and put it in. I think it was three times but it could’ve been four. The stench of one was in the air.

The car then started and went slowly towards Charlestown. Remember this is the North and with its squirreling of wiry streets. And the driver was being extremely careful because if he was stopped any police officer would know that he was drunk. Beyond drunk in point of fact. He started over Causeway Street to perform a right turn over to Charlestown. He stopped. It was clear that he needed to upchuck from the weight.

I froze waiting to see whether I was discovered. But the driver was interested in relieving his gullet not seeing if there was anyone in the car. He fumbled out towards the bridge over the Charles River unable to put one foot in front of the other without a wobble. It was at this point that I slid out of the rear passenger door and shadowed him. Gaining foot by miserable foot as he was going to his home base.

And then with a slap, it happened: I pulled out the stiletto and with my left hand grabbed his throat and with the right slid the triangular blade under his Adam’s apple. I hoped and pleaded that no one was watching us. I shived the stiletto so everyone would know he was not pulling the Dutch act. I pushed the body over. And then immediately fled. There was a splash and lights went on in the apartments.

But the body and his blue pinstripe suit were sinking into the mouth of the Charles with a gurgle. It was a dry river but filled by my lack of tears.

Then there was a montage where my capitano reported up. For five days, I was frantic because I was sure that the incident would be reported to the mother church and I was going to leave behind “sleeps with the fishes” as my wake.

It then surprised me when I was told to tell no one as to what happened and even more strange I was to be considered a made man from that point forwards. I was told to make up a story about the status. The details about what was going on were too secret for even the church to let go of.

It is amazing which details one remembers in retrospect. A whir and a hiss in onomatopoetry.

I drew breath and was back in the present, with the wooden back of the pew holding me to attention. There was another person, who must have plopped into the pew while I was remembering. I glanced over to one side and saw a long black sheet of hair, and beneath it was the series of delicate features that I had only imagined. Her complexion was pale olive as if she were half Greek or Italian. Her lips were rouged a distinct shade of Revlon red which hypnotized me. I knew the face and was accustomed to it. But I took charge and went back to looking forward. Inwardly, I that out a long suspiri. The desiri shook me but it was also tanged with d’Amor. It was the modern man against the medieval child.

 Through the last quarter of the Mass, I would glance at her but no end but of her looking back soured that anything would happen at all. Disappointing really but not unexpected.

But as I got up, she did not move and kept praying. And praying. Finally, she got up and looked at me. She blinked and said: “How could you go to church when everyone knows the sort of people that you hang out with the rest of the time?”

I made a noncommittal sound.

She continued: “Look either you’re really stupid or you think that I am. Don’t you know where people like you go?” Not to your bed.

This made me blanch because I had not expected a Spanish Inquisition. So, I dropped my head and fled the high arches and stern-looking paintings that glowered down and from the Corinthian spires as if the paintings urged in a dream to kill myself or perhaps take the derringer on someone else.