Father Ryan. The Reverend William Ryan, S. J.
"I've got you now," Nicky said from the other side of the chessboard.
Bill stretched inside his navy blue sweatsuit and reminded himself for the thousandth time to stop thinking of him as Nicky. He wasn't a little boy anymore. He was a grown man now—a Ph.D., no less. And he had a last name, too. Justin and Florence Quinn had adopted him in 1970 and he carried their name proudly. People called him Dr. Quinn, or Nicholas, or Dr. Nick. No one called him Nicky.
Nicky… Bill was proud of him, as proud as he'd have been if Nick were his own son. His SATs had earned him a free ride through Columbia where he earned a B.S. in physics in three years. Then he'd breezed through the graduate program, blowing the faculty away with his doctoral thesis on particle theory. Nick was brilliant and he knew it. He'd always known it. But along the way to gaining maturity he'd lost his old smugness about it. His skin had cleared up—mostly—and his long unruly hair now covered the misshapen areas of his skull. And he was wearing contacts.
That had proved the hardest to adjust to: Nicky without glasses.
"Checkmate?" Bill said. "So soon? Really?"
"Really, Bill. Really."
Another sign of Nick's adult status: He no longer felt he had to call him Father Bill.
Bill studied the board. Nick had spotted Bill both his bishops and both his rooks, and still Bill was losing. In fact he could see no way to get his king free of the web Nick had woven around the piece. He'd lost.
Bill knocked over his king.
"I don't know why you continue to play me. I can't be any sort of challenge for you."
"It's not the challenge," Nick said. "It's the company. It's the conversation. Believe me, it's not the chess."
Nick was still a bit of a social misfit, Bill knew. Especially with women. And until he found himself a woman—or one found him—their traditional Saturday night chess games here in Bill's office at St. F.'s would probably go on indefinitely.
"But I seem to become worse at the game instead of better," Bill said.
Nick shook his head. "Not worse. Just predictable. You fall into the same kind of trap every time."
Bill didn't like the idea of being predictable. He knew his main flaw in chess was lack of patience. He tended toward impulsive, seat-of-the-pants gambits. But that was his nature.
"I'm going to start reading up on chess, Nick. Better yet, I'm going to invest in a chess program for the computer. That old Apple II you gave me will be your undoing. It'll teach me to wipe up the board with you."
Nick did not appear terribly shaken by the threat.
"Speaking of computers, have you been tapping into those data bases and bulletin boards like I showed you?"
Bill nodded. "I think I'm becoming addicted to them."
"You wouldn't be the first. By the way, I recently downloaded this new article about cloning. It reminded me of that brouhaha back in the sixties over that friend of yours—"
"Jim," Bill said with a sudden ache in his chest. "Jim Stevens."
"Right. James Stevens. Supposedly the clone of Roderick Hanley. The Stevens case, as they called it, was mentioned in the article. Current wisdom, as stated in the article, says that it was technically impossible to clone a human being back in the forties. But I don't know. From what I've picked up over the years, Roderick Hanley was a real wild card. If anybody could pull off something like that, it was him. What do you think?"
"I don't think about it," Bill said.
And that was almost the truth. Bill rarely allowed himself to think about Jim, because that brought on thoughts of Jim's wife, Carol. Bill knew where Jim was—under a plaque at Tall Oaks—but where was Carol? The last time he'd seen her was at LaGuardia in 1968. She'd called him once after flying off with Jonah, to tell him she was all right, but that had been it. She might as well have fallen off the face of the earth.
During the nearly two decades since she'd disappeared he'd learned how to avoid thinking about her. And he'd become pretty damn good at it.
But now Nick had gone and stirred up those old memories again… especially of the time when she had taken her clothes off and tried to—
"It's too bad—" Nick began, but was cut off by the arrival of a pajama-clad whirlwind.
Little seven-year-old Danny Gordon ran in from the hall at full tilt, then tried to skid to a halt in front of the table where Bill and Nick had set up their board. Only he didn't time his skid quite right. He slammed against the table and nearly knocked it over.
"Danny!" Bill cried as the chessboard and all the pieces went flying.
"Sorry, Father," the boy said with a dazzling smile.
He was small for his age, with a sinewy little body, pale blond hair, and a perfect, rosy-cheeked complexion. A regular Campbell's soup kid. He still had his milk teeth, so when he smiled the effect of those tiny, perfectly aligned white squares was completely disarming. At least to most people. Bill was used to it, almost totally inured to it. Almost.
"What are you doing up?" he said. "You're supposed to be in the dorm. It's"—he glanced at his watch—"almost midnight! Now get back to bed this instant."
"But there's monsters back there, Father!"
"There are no monsters in St. Francis."
"But there are! In the closets!"
This was old territory. They'd been over it a hundred times at least. He motioned Danny toward his lap. The child hopped up and snuggled against him. His body seemed to be all bone and no flesh, and weighed next to nothing. He was quiet for the moment. Bill knew that wouldn't last too long.
"Hi, Nick," Danny said, smiling and waving across the carnage of the chessboard.
"How y'doing, Danny boy?"
"Fine. Were there monsters here when you were a kid, Nick?"
Bill answered for him. No telling what Nick might say.
"Come on now, Danny. You know there's no such thing as monsters. We've been through all the closets again and again. There's nothing in them but clothes and dust bunnies."
"But the monsters come after you close the doors!"
"No they don't. And especially not tonight. Father Cullen is staying here tonight." Bill knew most of the kids at St. F.'s were in awe of the old priest's stern visage and no-nonsense manner. "Do you know of any monster—and there aren't any such things as monsters, but if there were, do you know of any monster that would dare show its face around here with Father Cullen patrolling the halls?"
Danny's already huge blue eyes grew larger. "No way! He'd scare them right back to where they came from!"
"Right. So you get back to the dorm and into your bed. Now!"
"'Kay." Danny hopped off his lap. "But you have to take me back."
"You got here all by yourself."
"Yeah, but it's dark and…" Danny cocked his head and looked up at him with those big blue eyes. "You know…"
Bill had to smile. What a manipulator. He knew that only a small part of Danny's fears were real. The rest seemed to be a product of his hyperactivity. He needed much less sleep than the other kids, so the fantasy of monsters in the closets not only brought him the extra attention he craved, but got him extra time out of the sack as well.
"Okay. Stay put for a minute or two while I talk to Nick here and I'll walk you back."
"'Kay."
Bill watched as Danny picked up two of the fallen chess pieces and pretended they were dogfighting jets, with all the appropriate sound effects.
"I can't imagine why no one has adopted him yet," Nick said. "If I were married I'd think of taking him in myself."
"You wouldn't get him," Bill said. When he saw Nick's shocked face he realized he'd been more abrupt than he'd intended. "I mean, Danny's adoptive parents will have to have special qualities."