Page 102 of Carnal Urges
I forgot. She already has.
“I’ll be back in a few hours. Got a few loose ends to clean up before the move.”
“Copy that. Everything’s ready at the new digs. Is it okay if I eat this muffin the wee lass baked me? I thought I’d better check with ye first.”
“She baked youmuffins?”
“Aye. For me and Spider. Haven’t a baldy notion what’s in ’em, but they’re awful green and lumpy. Looks like she grabbed a fistful of dirt and rolled it in some grass.”
Had I known she’d go straight into the kitchen and start cooking the shite she eats when I left the bedroom door unlocked this morning, I might have double bolted it instead. “Sounds manky.”
“Looks it, too. But she said it had lots of roughage and would be good for me, so I feel like I should give it a go.”
Roughage. Christ.Smiling, I say, “Aye, you can eat it. Don’t come crying to me when you have to purge your guts into the porcelain throne.”
I hang up, take the elevator down two floors, and get into the Escalade I parked next to the back exit of the garage. I drive across town to the Old North Church, the site where the lanterns hung in the belfry alerted Boston patriots that the British were coming by sea at the start of the American Revolution. I park in the lot and go inside through a small door in the side chapel, then make my way through the nave, passing row after row of empty pews, until I get to the confessional booth.
I open the door and sit down on the narrow bench, closing the door behind me. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been eleventy-seven years since my last confession.”
An exasperated sigh comes through the carved wooden privacy screen to my left. “For feck’s sake, lad. You don’t have to make a mockery of the blessed sacrament.”
Like me, Father O’Toole still has his Irish accent from when he first landed on Boston soil, decades ago. Some things die hard.
“How are you, padre?”
“Don’t give me that padre shite,” he says crossly. “It’s still Father O’Toole to you, boyo, no matter how high and mighty you fancy yourself. And I’m the same as I was the last time you asked. A sinner livin’ on borrowed time.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“Some of us more than others. Then there’s you.”
I smile at the dour tone of his voice. “Aye. Then there’s me. Still saying a prayer for my salvation every night?”
He snorts. “That ship sailed years ago, sonny, which we both know. The only O’Donnells I pray for nowadays are your mum and da, God bless their souls.”
He pauses. His voice drops an octave. “The old girl’d be awful proud of you, you know. Even though you’re damned for eternity for all the blood you’ve shed.”
“Just had to add that last bit in, didn’t you?”
“I’m a priest. Guilting sinners goes with the territory.”
“I’ve always wanted to ask. Why should I be damned if the only people I kill are evil? You’d think it could be looked upon as a public service.”
“Ach. Pure ego, that is. God doesn’t need a helping hand dispensing His justice, lad.”
“I disagree.”
“Of course you do. What have you got for me today?”
“A name. I need you to pass it along.”
“To whom?”
“Whomever your contact is in the Russian Orthodox church.”
“Ach. The Russians again. Bloody communists.”
“They’re more capitalists than communists nowadays.”
