“You laugh, but it’s a serious matter. I’ve been doing some reading about your case.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, although I hesitate to puff you up with any more pride than you’re already afflicted with. ‘My confessor!’ How could you, with the poor man ready to bolt at the sight of a priest in the first place? In any case, it’s a very interesting moral point, allowing me to plunge deep into the casuistry for which we Jesuits are justly famous, he says, reeking of pride himself. Did you know that Augustine wrote that war is justified as love’s response to the plight of a neighbor threatened by force?”
“No kidding? Well, that goes a long way toward making up for a lot of the other stuff he says.”
“The difficulty,” Father Dugan continued, ignoring her remark, “is that you are doing things reserved to competent authority. You are not, after all, a prince. A better argument would be what we call the principle of double effect, when you are forced to do an evil in the course of performing a good act. There are four justifying conditions. First, the action from which evil arises must be good in itself. Second, the intention of the agent must be upright, that is, the evil must be unintended. Third, the evil effect must be coincident in time with the good effect-this is not an ends justifying the means argument. Finally, there must be a proportionately grave reason for allowing the evil to occur.”
Marlene thought for a moment. “Hm. Absent the third condition, you could use that to justify anything. So, pounding a guy is wrong, but if I had acted just as he was about to hurt his girlfriend, it would’ve been justified. Not very practical, is it?”
“No, but practicality is not the point, is it? Ut est aemulatio divinae rei et humanae.”
“God’s ways are at odds with the ways of humans,” said Marlene. “Who said that, Augustine?”
“Tertullian.”
“Oh, right. Mr. ‘It is certain because it is impossible.’ My kind of guy.” She looked up and could not find her family in the crowd. “Father, I got to go. Take care.”
“You take care, Marlene,” said the priest. His eyes held hers for a few seconds. “I’m concerned for you. Once you step off the map, it’s not a simple thing to find your way back again.”
The crowd was dense in the center of the street, especially where the projecting stalls narrowed the way into choke points. She stepped up on a handy milk crate and was able to spot Karp’s head bobbing above the throng, one great advantage of marriage to a giant. She cut between the stalls to the sidewalk, which presented an easier passage, and passed the monastery church, where she noted that the take this year was pretty good. There was a statue of the saint set up, surrounded by a fence of chicken wire, into which people had stuffed currency, lots of high-denomination currency. There were people passing all around, but no one in particular was guarding the cash, it being well known in the neighborhood what would happen to anyone who stole from the saint. It would be a fate requiring the intercession of neither heaven nor the NYPD: extremely unpleasant and extremely Sicilian.
The thought of this brushed Marlene’s mind, and she wondered what the principle of double effect would have to say about the (very) occasional good deeds performed by the Mob, and in what way she differed from its members. She shook her head in annoyance and chased the thoughts-what you got from hanging out with Jesuits.
The people who lived along Sullivan Street had set up aluminum lawn chairs for the old folks, now assembled in little groups to gossip and enjoy the evening. Passing around one of these, Marlene almost collided with a young woman whose face was familiar.
“Tamara?”
“Oh, hi,” said the woman unenthusiastically.
“How’re you doing?”
“Oh, you know, okay, I guess.”
“Any more … you know …?”
Marlene didn’t like what she saw in the woman’s eyes when she said this. The last she had heard, the lovely but unwise Ms. Morno was no longer receiving unwanted attentions from Arnie Nobili. She gave Morno a quick once-over. Hair clean and shiny, face unmarked, V-neck aqua sweater with the sleeves pushed up, skin-tight white jeans, heeled sandals. Apparently, a young Italian-American woman in fine shape.
Tamara said, “No, not since you know, last year.”
“Arnie’s still off the sauce?”
Shrug, a worried look. “I don’t know. Look, I got to go back. My grandmother lives here, I got the whole family …”
Marlene let her go with a smile and an indication that she should call whenever she felt the need. She walked a few yards down the sidewalk, cut between a pair of booths, and there was her family. Karp had bought zeppole all around. He handed her a warm bag of the little golden spheres of sweet dough sprinkled with powdered sugar.
Marlene accepted it and looked at her sons and laughed. The little fat faces were covered in grease and white powder. Each had a tiny paper bag of zeppole with which they were doing all the things that children of that age do with soft, edible items in bags. Lucy exhibited elaborate disgust and ate her own zeppole like a duchess. The dog hovered pantingly in front of the stroller, its massive head poised to catch any fragments, of which there were many dropped. Marlene linked arms with her husband and chewed her ancestral bread, thinking warm and satisfying thoughts.
Suddenly, the dog growled, a deep, alarming sound. Marlene startled, looked at her dog, looked at where the dog was looking. A man was pushing through the crowd. He passed them almost near enough to touch. He was dirty, unshaven, and even through the odors of the fair, Marlene could smell the chemical stench of the chronic boozer. The dog snarled and bared its teeth. Marlene saw that the man was Arnie Nobili. He was wearing a loose, orange-striped sports shirt over a grubby old-fashioned undershirt, and filthy gray work pants. He vanished between two booths, heading for the sidewalk beyond.
Marlene felt ice form in her belly. She knew exactly where he was going. She pressed the bag of zeppole into Karp’s hand and said, “I got to do something.”
Karp saw the expression on her face and felt a stab of fear. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Marlene?”
She disappeared between the stalls. “Marlene!” he called again, louder, and then pushed the stroller after her, followed by Posie, Lucy, and the dog.
“Arnie!” Marlene called. “Arnie, wait up! Stop!”
Nobili stumbled, looked over his shoulder. His face, stupid with drink and mindless determination, twisted into a scowl as he recognized her. He skittered around clumsily to face her, reached behind his back, and pulled a large blue revolver out from his waistband. He pointed this at her menacingly, backed away a few steps, and then continued on his path.
There were shouts, a scream, but these were lost in the general noise of the fair. Marlene saw a woman run into a building. A man grabbed two young children and pressed them to the wall. She was ten feet from Nobili. Over his shoulder she saw a blur of aqua blue and white. He stopped and extended his arm, pointing the gun at Tamara Morno.
“MAR …!” Karp shouted.
Marlene cleared her pistol from its holster. Nobili’s gun went off. Shrieks and screams.
Marlene could not see if the woman had been hit. She heard the sounds of the stroller’s wheels approaching behind her.
“… LEEE …” said Karp.
Marlene had the front sight of her pistol in the center of Nobili’s back. She fired twice. Nobili stiffened, threw his arms wide, and dropped to his knees. Marlene saw Tamara Morno flattened against a wall, an overturned lawn chair at her feet. She saw Arnie Nobili lift his pistol again, slowly but steadily. He couldn’t miss her.
“… NNNN!” Karp finished.
She shot Nobili twice more, once in the back and then in the back of the head. He dropped the pistol and fell slowly forward until his face touched the sidewalk, so that for a moment he looked as if he were worshipping something only he could see. Then his body slumped sideways and was still. Tamara Morno was gone.