“What was it you were saying, Ethel?”
“You should listen more careful, Bruce. It isn’t like you not to listen.”
“I’m sorry. I really am. But I just had to hear what those doctors were talking about.”
“Whyever for?”
“It’s just this project I’ve got. Now, please: What were you telling me?”
“Well, I was just telling you not to feel bad if you can’t help me.”
“If I can’t help you!” Whitaker sounded offended.
“I mean with my job here and my problem with Sister Eileen.”
“Oh, but Ethel, I am going to help you. That’s why I had to pay such special attention to those doctors. They don’t know it, but they’re helping me help you. Help us.”
“Bruce . . .” Ethel’s brow was furrowed. “I don’t understand you. I really don’t.”
“Ethel, you said that if Sister Eileen were gone from here, your job would be secure, didn’t you?”
“Well, yes. It’s Sister Eileen who’s threatening me. If she weren’t here, there’d be no one to fire me . . . far as I can see.”
“Well, that’s it. Just trust me and I’ll get you through this.”
“Gee, Bruce, I’ve never had anyone take care of me like you do. Not even my parents. It’s a funny feeling . . . but I kind of like it.”
It was a bit of a magic moment for them. They leaned closer across the table, both spilling their coffee. Fortunately, by now there was very little left to spill.
Ethel’s nose wrinkled. “Bruce what is that smell?” She glanced under the table. “Did something die?”
Whitaker sniffed. He did not detect any particular odor. But then the sensory perception of smell does tend to neutralize itself over a period of time. “I don’t get any smell, Ethel.”
“Oh, yes, Bruce. If you don’t mind me saying so, it seems to be you.”
“Me?”
“You.”
Whitaker sniffed again, more intently.
“I believe you may be right, Ethel.” Gradually, he was remembering. He reached into his trouser pocket. It was there, all right. It blended into his hand and fingers the way the handle of a good golf club should. Very carefully he removed it, keeping it close to his side so onlookers couldn’t see it. Ethel, of course could.
“Oh, my God, Bruce, what is it? Is that a fetus, Bruce? Oh, my God, Bruce, why would you carry a fetus around in your pocket? Oh, my God, Bruce, that is gross!”
“Quiet, Ethel. It’s not a fetus.” But Whitaker was studying the object as if it might be something akin to a fetus. “Ethel, do you know if penicillin can grow on baloney?”
“Baloney! Do you mean to tell me that is baloney?”
“Well, yes, as a matter of fact ... at least it was baloney.”
“Where in the world did you get it? And why would you carry baloney around in your pocket?” For the first time in their relationship, Ethel began to seriously wonder about Bruce. After all, she began to reason, how far can you trust someone who carries a slice of baloney around in his pants’ pocket until the meat begins to grow a culture?
“Ethel, you’ll just have to trust me on this. I did somebody a favor by taking this baloney. Honest. Then I forgot all about it until now. Honest, Ethel, it is just a fluke. Forgive me?”
Ethel thought about that one for a while. “Well . . . okay, I guess. But I still think this is a bit strange.”
They continued to sit across from each other but the magic moment had been somewhat spoiled. Not unlike the baloney.
Ethel had to think things through once more. It was a new and wonderful feeling being protected and looked after by someone for the first time in her life. But when that someone carried dead baloney around in his pocket, the rapture becomes somewhat modified.
* * *
“That is almost unbelievable: The entire riot was caused by inferior marijuana?” Inspector Walter Koznicki observed.
“Yup,” Lieutenant Ned Harris replied. “One kid bought a bad joint from another kid. The trouble was the one kid was Hell’s Kitchen and the other guy was Devil Drivers. And both gangs were at Cobo in force.”
“So what began as a war between two gangs grew into a full-scale riot.” Koznicki frowned. “It makes me wonder whether everything that goes wrong in this city is caused by drugs or dope.”
“Kinda seems that way don’t it,” Harris agreed. “Even muggers usually go through a pawnshop to support a habit. I guess some of the domestic disturbances are just bad blood between a couple or a triangle. But even some of them start when somebody is snorting . . . or drinking.”
“What are the damages for the other night?”
Harris consulted his note pad. “Let’s see . . . seventy-three injured—twelve still hospitalized—luckily no one killed.”
Koznicki shook his head.
“And all over a lousy joint!” Harris added.
“Do the media have the complete story yet? Including the marijuana?”
“As far as I’ve been able to tell, so far only Cox of the Free Press has it.”
Koznicki smiled. “Ah, yes, Cox of the Free Press.”
“He got it about the same time we did, I think. So far, it’s his exclusive.”
“There is no reason to hold it any longer. You might as well hold a news conference. Mr. Cox will still have his scoop.”
Harris was about to leave the office. He hesitated. “Is there something else, Walt? You’ve been sort of glum the last day or so.”
Harris, tall, handsome, black, had moved through the Detroit Police Department virtually in Koznicki’s shadow. Koznicki, almost ten years Harris’s senior, had gone rather quickly from patrol to homicide, from sergeant to lieutenant to inspector. Harris had followed suit and everyone believed that one day he too would be an inspector. In the homicide department, Koznicki and Harris had been partners at one time. They remained close friends. They were sensitive to one another.
Koznicki waved a hand, as if brushing away Harris’s concern. “It’s nothing.”
“Something.”
“Oh, I’ve been a bit concerned about Father Koesler.”
“Koesler! What’s he been up to?”
The priest’s involvement in several homicide investigations over the past few years had never set well with Harris. He was a strong believer that murder was a matter for professionals to investigate. There was no room for amateurs in something so serious.
The fact that Koesler would have agreed wholeheartedly with Harris made no difference. With Harris it was an emotional reaction. Intellectually, Harris would admit that the relatively few times Koesler had been involved in police business, he had been practically dragged in because he was a natural source for consultation on religious matters, or because he was simply there on the scene and thus involved. Intellectually, too, Harris would have had to admit that when drawn into an investigation, Koesler had proven helpful. Sometimes to the point of actually solving the case. And this, emotionally, was Harris’s complaint.
If there were a reasonable aspect to Harris’s standpoint, it would be that the department might be mesmerized by Koesler’s luck and grow somewhat dependent on him. Down that road, Harris was certain, lay disaster. Thus he was not overjoyed when Walt Koznicki dropped Koesler’s name.
“Is your Father Koesler ill or something?” Harris inquired with no noticeable concern.
“No; nothing like that. He is substituting as a chaplain in St. Vincent’s Hospital.”
“Right in our backyard,” Harris commented, not happily. “But why should that give you concern? Nothing wrong with being a chaplain, is there? I mean, he’s qualified; he is a priest, after all.”
“No, no. It’s just that he has a premonition that something bad is about to happen at St. Vincent’s.”