“Bal Harbour,” said Paz, “take a look at some suits. I think you’re a keeper, but I want to see how you clean up. After that…shit, there he is again!”
“Who?”
“Guy in a white Explorer with tinted glass. He’s been following us. Make this next left.Now! “
Morales stamped on the gas and swept across the oncoming traffic into a left turn, leaving screeching brakes and angry horns in his wake. Paz swiveled around in his seat, expecting to see the white SUV make the turn as well, but it proceeded north with the other traffic. He felt Morales’s stare. “Wait here,” he said, “pull over, he’ll go around the block.” Morales did so and they waited. After five minutes’ silence, Morales asked, “Did you get his plates?”
“No, did you?”
An uneasy pause. “No. To tell you the truth, I didn’t even see what car you were talking about. A white SUV? I didn’t spot it. Are you sure…?”
“Fuck, yeah, I’m sure!” Paz was almost shouting. “You think I don’t know when I’m being tailed?” Paz had a moment of rage so intense he thought he was going to have a stroke right there in the unmarked. Irrational. He was seeing things. It could’ve been a white Explorer, and maybe next time it’d be a hearse with a zombie driver or a circus van playing a calliope. First that thing with Emmylou, then the craziness with Willa, now this, and he’d realized now that he’d screwed up the interview with Zubrom, he should have pulled the guy out of there, taken him downtown, and sweated him some more, the guy was laughing at them, he knew a lot more than he’d said, if he had a decent partner instead of this asshole kid, he would’ve gotten a lot more…no, that was not him, not a line of thought that should have appeared in his brain. Morales was fine. He felt cold sweat start up on his forehead and back.
“Hey, Jimmy?you okay?” Paz looked at Morales, at his pale and worried face.
“Yeah, it’s nothing, I’m a little…just go, drive.”
A little what? Paz asked himself as they rolled. A little crazy? Crazy he could deal with, but not the other thing, not the…the wordpossession floated into his mind. He skittered away from that and took refuge in the forms of old prayers and grasped certain objects hung about his neck. By the time they got to where they were going he felt nearly human again.
The next seven years went peacefully by for the de Bervilles. Georges’s affairs prospered. He had cannily observed that the world of the mid-nineteenth century had a lust for illumination, and that whales could not possibly supply all the oil required. He therefore began to procure and sell kerosene and also invest in the illuminating gas companies that were then getting started throughout Europe. By 1870 Paris was being called the City of Light, a good deal of which light was being produced by Georges de Berville et Fils. Georges bought a large stone mansion in the most elegant district of Metz. The little house at Pony was sold and replaced by a substantial chateau, Bois Fleury, at nearby Gravelotte.
The children prospered as well. Alphonse, despite his youth, was if anything more canny than his father, as well as owning a charm that his elder could not match. He had been given responsibility for negotiation with the suppliers of petroleum. In 1869 he traveled across the Atlantic to America, where he soon became conversant with American ways of business, and met many of the leading figures of American industry, including the young John D. Rockefeller, who took an instant liking to the French youth, going so far as to bring him into his family circle, a rare honor.
Meanwhile, Jean-Pierre had entered St. Cyr. He had always loved horses and excitement and desired a career in the army. As for Gerard, the youngest boy, he had received a call to serve the Church during his education at St. Arnulf’s, and was by the year in question living at the seminary in Montigny. Thus only Marie-Ange was left at home to care for her father, although she was a day student at the convent of the Sisters of Providence, located just down the Rue Richelieu from her family’s elegant home. We know from her school records that she was a student of no great distinction, except in languages, where she excelled. At this time she was near fluent in both English and Italian; German she had, of course, spoken from childhood, along with most of the citizens of Metz. What sort of girl was she then? In answer, we have from this period some letters written by Marie-Ange to her mother’s sister, her beloved Aunt Aurore, who lived in Paris. In one of these, she writes:
I confess my heart is torn between my desire to serve Christ as a nun and my love for my dear father, and my sacred obligation to him. He has been so good to me and has suffered so much! He wishes me to come out in society and go to balls like other girls do, and after that to marry, the poor man! How I wish I could oblige him, but I cannot. I do not care for balls, and, whatever may come, I shall never marry.
It is clear from this that the vocation of the Bd. Marie-Ange de Berville came early and strong.
— FROM FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH: THE STORY OF THE NURSING SISTERS OF THE BLOOD OF CHRIST, BY SR. BENEDICTA COOLEY, SBC, ROSARIAN PRESS, BOSTON, 1947.
Eight
It is strange to be confessing to you instead of to God, but then I always thought it strange to confess to God, especially in writing. If God exists, He clearly must know the evil you’ve done without a spoken word, much less a written one. Still, penance is a sacrament. You have to confess, although they call it reconciliation now. The act of speaking is necessary to reconcile us with God and restore the sinner to His grace and friendship, although it is little used now and the confessional booths are either gone from the churches or stand empty. I missed all that, coming late to the faith, but you being a cradle Catholic should understand, if the cop in you hasn’t chewed all that up by now. I hope not. I am confessing to the Christ in you, you know, even if you don’t believe in it, still it works, although I think it is better if you are open to it. I know you are open to that part of life, if against your will.
St. Augustine says in a late work that he wrote the Confessions to excite his mind and affection toward God and he (modestly) admits that the book continues to have that effect upon its readers. He also wrote it to turn away scandal when they wanted him for bishop, and his enemies pointed to his misspent youth, deep in sex and heresy. It has been four years and around eighteen weeks since my last confession, an old-fashioned face-to-facer with Father Manes in the tin-roofed church at Wibok. If I’m uncertain about the time it’s because time flows differently in south Sudan and we don’t keep your calendar.
No, I can’t get into that yet, in confessing it’s important to keep to a strict chronology, as sin breeds upon sin. Sin is a vector, you know, not a scalar. It’s not aload of sin, it’s a velocity, either downhill or up. To return to God from a life of sin you have to retrace your steps, plot the back azimuth, undo the evil. In theory. In practice I’m not sure you can. For most people they think it’s themselves, they’re pursuing their good, oh, I’ll just take this little bit of money, oh, I’ll just take this girl to bed, and on and on, I mean all that’s just superstition, the smartest thing the devil ever did was convince people he don’t exist, but some of us can see him plain, can’t we, can feel him working in us, like watching a bug crawl up your arm, I knowyou can, Mr. Policeman, I know you can feel him hanging there just behind your shoulder, giving you thoughts you think you shouldn’t have and dreams too I bet
Avoiding again, it’s so much easier to look at other folks than your own self.
Anyway, I zoomed over to Oystershell Road on my bicycle, following the dim pencil of my little headlamp, lucky not to be run over on the way, hearing distant sirens. Hunter was counting money and he came to the door of his trailer with a sawed-off Mossberg twelve hanging down his leg. He let me in, and I saw stacks of bills, mostly tens and twenties, piled on the drop-down table, and a duffel bag open on the floor where he was tossing the counted stacks. I was pretty calm, considering, as I told him what had gone down at Gulf Avenue, omitting my own contributions. His response was to say holy shit a bunch of times and then go back to the table and ask me if I wanted to help him count up. Hunter was hard to believe sometimes.