Where the Dark Streets Go Read online

  “No, not for you, but a priest should hold to it.”

  “But tonight you’re on French leave—was that it?—and if I know the French…” The young policeman rolled his eyes. His cheeks were flushed. They had had two stiff drinks before dinner.

  McMahon brushed the crumbs from the lapel of his sport jacket. “I was trying to think where that term could have come from.”

  “World War I?”

  “Much earlier, I think. From the time of Napoleon, I shouldn’t be surprised, when the French fleet turned back from the west coast of Ireland and left Wolfe Tone in the lurch.”

  “That’s the French for you,” Brogan said solemnly.

  “There was a MacMahon, a general in the French army in those days.”

  “Was there now? Were you related?”

  McMahon grinned. He was aware that after the drinks both of them were falling into a brogue of sorts. “Well, there were Wild Geese in the family, I’m told, Irish soldiers fighting in the French army.”

  “Ah, yes. We’re a race that fights best when the cause is somebody else’s. Wouldn’t you say that, Joseph?”

  McMahon flinched inwardly at the policeman’s use of his first name, the deferential young man of the afternoon. He laughed to cover his pulling-in in case it showed. But Brogan would not have noticed. McMahon would not be the first priest he had taken on the town. He said, “Well, we fight best for lost causes, and no man’s our hero until we’ve made a martyr out of him.” Nonsense, he thought. Poetic nonsense.

  “Brian Boru and Kevin Barry?” Brogan suggested.

  “I’m not sure about Brian Boru,” McMahon said. “Shall we have coffee or another drink?”

  “Irish coffee?”

  “It’s too early in the night for that,” McMahon said.

  “You’re a man after my own heart.” Brogan reached for his wallet. “Let’s have a drink somewhere else.”

  “Down the middle,” McMahon said of the check.

  “Not tonight. Who knows? Before it’s out we may turn up something that’ll put the city in debt for our tab.”

  McMahon said nothing. He did not know which he liked the least: carousing on Brogan or on the taxpayer. But with the ten dollars he had borrowed from the monsignor on the way out and his own two, he would not pick up many tabs. Remember your prerogatives and not your pride, the old man had bidden him, not for the first time.

  But McMahon enjoyed himself all the same. The streets were alive with youth and music, purveyors and flowers and chestnuts, carters of cameras and souvenirs, papier mâché and art nouveau, sailors on leave and cops on vigil. He loved the young people, beards, beads and begonias, and if he had had his way, he and Brogan would have sat astride an old Morgan car parked near MacDougal Street, and he’d have conducted the singing himself. “…Now don’t you know that’s not the way to end the war…” a young troubadour sang to the off-key strum of his guitar.

  “Beautiful!” McMahon shouted. “Sing it again.”

  A whole chorus of young people did.

  A fire truck approached, its bell clanging. The youngsters pushed back from the street, but coming abreast of them and making the wide turn even wider than necessary, the fireman gave a deafening blast with his bullhorn. A leprechaun of a boy cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted after the truck: “Yankee, go home!”

  McMahon threw back his head and laughed as he had not laughed for a long time. A shaggy-haired girl came up to him and held out a string of beads. McMahon stooped and allowed her to put them around his neck. He offered her money but she would not take it. The Yankee-go-home boy came up behind her and said, “Excuse me, miss, but your skirt is showing.”

  Finally Brogan got McMahon away. He was looking for a particular bar. When he found it and they went in, he said, “My feet need a rest. Let’s sit in a booth.”

  McMahon too was glad to sit down. He was trying to remember a line of Yeats. He got it the moment he stretched his legs under the table. “There midnight’s all a-glimmer and noon a purple glow.” So was the bar. There was this to be said for a priest’s night out: it was so rare an occasion, the whole laughing world seemed to join him. With a few drinks McMahon became a democrat, as by the light of day assuredly he was not. He thought of Father Purdy, poor little Purdy, obsequious as a snail, pulling in, poking out on his way to the throne of God.

  “I need a drink,” he said.

  “I’ll go get them myself,” Brogan said. The bar was crowded.

  He drank more than he ought to, McMahon knew, and like Miniver Cheevy, he had reasons. Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn…something about the Medici. He would have sinned incessantly, could he have been one.

  There was a small commotion at the bar before Brogan pushed his way through the men and returned with the drinks. His color was as high as the lights were low, and he was cursing under his breath. It was only then that McMahon realized they were in a homosexual hangout.

  “What did you come in here for then?”

  “On a hunch,” Brogan said. He ruffled his shoulders and then settled back, seating himself so that he too could view the bar. “It takes all kinds,” he said, “and sure the whisky comes out of the same keg.”

  “So do we all,” McMahon said, aware of the sententiousness even as he said it. “Slainte.” It was the one word of Gaelic he knew. He touched his glass to Brogan’s.

  “Did you ever know an Irish fag, Joseph?”

  “Any number, but most of them in clergy’s petticoats.”

  Brogan was shocked, for all his worldliness. The double standard had just quadrupled. “Is that a fact?” he murmured, but not believing it for a moment.

  McMahon stared at the men at the bar, the tight little behinds in the snug narrow-legged pants. “Poor bastards,” he said, and threw down his drink.

  “You’ll go for the next one yourself and see how you like it.”

  McMahon said, “I’ll have the next one on the road home.”

  But Brogan sipped. He was in no hurry. He took a match packet from his pocket, and played with it, folding one match, then another into a fan. “Go on, get yourself a drink, Joseph. I dare you.”

  “Since you put it that way, I might.”

  McMahon approached the bar flanking it so that he came up last man where it curved to the wall. He glanced down the row of faces: young, aging, delicate, tired, gay…gay, gay, gay, but there wasn’t a cruel face among them. But where that night would he have seen a face that he thought cruel? It was a second or two after his scanning of them all that he realized he knew one of the men. He turned abruptly from the bar, only to all but bump into Brogan who had come up behind him.

  “Sit down,” the detective said. “I’ll fetch your drink.”

  “I don’t want one.”

  “You’ll need it,” Brogan said. “Sit down.”

  McMahon did as he was told. The night had lost its glow and so had he. He watched Brogan fake amiability with the men, and then looked away. What had he expected from a cop? The taxpayers’ money. He picked up the fanned match packet. Pierre’s Unique. That’s where they were, in Pierre’s Unique. Eunuch, unique. Christ Jesus forgive me. He tore one match after another from the packet. Brogan returned.

  “Which one is he?”

  McMahon almost involuntarily put his hand to where at another time he would be wearing the collar.

  “The high turtleneck sweater?”

  “That’s he.”

  “I’ll be back in a minute,” Brogan said, and then before leaving, “I picked those up when I was talking to his wife.” He indicated the matches.

  “Congratulations,” McMahon said.

  Brogan went to the phone booth between the doors to the rest rooms. McMahon watched him over his shoulder until he had dialed. Then he stared at the back of Daniel Phelan, the narrow back and the skinny hips and the rundown heels with the hole in one sock. The informer priest. Phelan, he knew, had not seen him. He was tempted to run. No, you’ll stick it out, he told himself, and
learn a little deeper how the troubled man confronts his trouble. He was, he knew, absolving Phelan of the murder rather more for reasons of his own self-disgust, and he was remembering, despite the wish not to, Priscilla Phelan’s words to him that day, “Like a bull last night, Father, when I no longer wanted him…” He shuddered. With what? His own sexuality? He lifted the glass and studied the whisky. You keep it in a bottle, Joseph. Corked up tight. Up tight.

  Brogan came from the phone and slipped easily into the booth. His eyes were bright with excitement. “We’ve earned our night on the town, Joseph.”

  McMahon forced a tight-lipped smile.

  The policeman leaned closer, touching the priest’s glass with his. “Look, man. It’s only for questioning. And it’s better now than later for him. You know that.”

  McMahon grunted assent. He drank down his drink. He had not meant to. It had lost its savor.

  “Take it easy on that, Joseph. We’ve a long ways to go when this bit of work is over.”

  “How long till they get here?”

  Brogan shrugged.

  “Do we have to wait?” He hated himself for saying it, but it had occurred to him that he might be expected to take part in the arrest.

  “Just to make sure,” Brogan said. “Our work is all done—unless he tries a runout before they get here.”

  But Phelan made no move, scarcely even to raise his glass to his lips or to shift his weight one foot to the other. He might not even know Muller was dead, unless…What Brogan did not know was Phelan’s performance with his wife the night before. Was that what the poor devil now was pondering? The fear to go home lest it be expected of him again? McMahon made a restless gesture, a sweep of his hand that upset his glass. The ice tinkled out.

  “Easy, Joseph. You don’t want to call attention.”

  They sat in silence, the hands of the Roman-numeraled clock above the back bar spanning the long slow minutes from eleven-three to eleven-eighteen.

  When the two detectives walked in the men nearest the doorway, glancing round, stiffened a little, straightened a little, and then there was almost silence, talk and laughter cut mid-sound. There would have to have been some signal between Brogan and them, McMahon thought, but he did not see it. They seemed to know Phelan on sight. One on either side of him, they showed their identification. He went out with them without protest except for the motion to pay his check. The bartender waved him on. Had all this happened to him before? McMahon wondered. The resignation of the man was what troubled him. What did he know of Phelan except from Mrs. Phelan? And from the neighbors who didn’t like him. He remembered the man’s only police record, assault because a dog had lifted his leg on his shoe.

  “Well, shall we go?” Brogan said. He could not restrain a little show of expansiveness. “There’s a phone call I have to make.”

  “Make it.” McMahon jerked his head toward the phone booth. He dreaded the crawl to the street.

  Brogan grinned. “Not here. It would be a desecration.”

  He was about to get to his feet when the bartender came up to him. He was a big man, broad-shouldered. He jerked his thumb toward the door.

  “Roger,” Brogan said.

  The bartender looked down at McMahon. “You, too, Padre. I can smell the cloth.”

  “Watch it,” Brogan said. “Even a joint like this needs a license.”

  McMahon got up, again upsetting the glass. This time it broke. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  But Brogan with the back of his hand deliberately knocked over his own glass on the table.

  McMahon got out as best he could with the burden of humiliation and anger. Brogan stood on the curb and stretched to his full height. He rubbed his belly with both hands and drew in several deep breaths. “Now for a telephone. There’s a drugstore on the corner.” He touched the priest’s elbow to turn him in that direction. “You’re game, aren’t you, Joseph?”

  “For what?”

  “Aw, come off it, Joseph. They’re nice girls, and they’re clean. And they’ll think you’re a cop.”

  McMahon shook his head. “I’ve had too much to drink.”

  “You’ll have coffee while I’m on the phone.”

  He went as far as the drugstore and had the coffee. It was as black as tar, as his own mood.

  Brogan came from the phone and ordered coffee for himself. “Do you have any money, Joseph?”

  “Twelve dollars.”

  “Buy a fifth of Scotch. I’ll take care of the rest.”

  McMahon bought the whisky and set the bottle before Brogan on the counter. He was drunker than he had thought and yet he wanted more. He wanted what? Just whisky. Not a woman, not now. Just whisky and the last bitter dregs of the night.

  Brogan drank his coffee. “They’ve a nice little place on Tenth Street. You’ll be surprised. Or maybe you won’t. They’re nice girls.”

  “You said that.”

  “I know. But you won’t believe me till you meet them.” He picked up the bottle, crumpling the paper at the neck, and brandished it. “Tally-ho!”

  McMahon did not even know if Brogan was married. He did not want to know. He followed him as though the bottle was a pipe and Brogan the piper. And then as they walked, his the careful walk of the man who knows he is drunk and has to take care of the drunkard in him, he began to say to himself, “Jesus help me, Jesus and Mary, help me. Jesus, Mary and Joseph….Only Joseph can help you.” He felt the sweat cold on his brow, on his back, beneath his armpits. As they turned the corner of Sixth Avenue, he heard the rumble of the subway. Students were going down the steps, books under their arms, and the gray of their faces telling of long days’ work and nights spent in the classroom.

  “Good night, Brogan.” He heard a part of himself saying it, and it was almost as though another part of him was surprised. “My apologies to the ladies.”

  Brogan stood—with the air of a man balancing himself on the top of the world, so that again a part of McMahon wanted to go on with him—and studied the priest for seriousness, for whether or not he wanted to be persuaded. Then he shrugged. “Okay. No hard feelings, Father?”

  Father.

  “No hard feelings,” McMahon said, but he could not bring himself to a false thanksgiving.

  7

  THE FIRST THING MCMAHON thought of when he awakened in the morning was that walk to the subway entrance. Only Joseph can help you. He had never said that before. He sat on the side of the bed, his aching head in his hands, and castigated himself. There were times when he had called on a litany of saints to get him home safely, and once he had pictured himself—or dreamed it—carted home on the back of St. Christopher. On the floor at his feet was his breviary. He had managed his office, just the words, but he had managed it, and he had slept in his own bed. He would have to manage now, for he could not break his fast with an aspirin. He dreaded the first sip of wine at the altar. God forgive me. Lord, I am not worthy….He showered and shaved and saw, whether he wanted to or not, the bloodshot eyes of a priest in the mirror. I will go unto the altar of God, to God who gives joy to my youth: the new liturgy had taken that from him, but he never entered the sanctuary that the words did not pass through his mind: to God who gives joy to my youth. Youth and joy. He was forty years old and the devil was hard on his tracks. And there was Muller again, with the dark spittle on his lips: Do you believe in him, horns, tail and all? I believe in evil. Deliver us from evil. Amen, amen, amen.

  “Well, Joseph, you’ve made The New York Times as well as the Daily News.” The monsignor was walking through the hall with a cup of coffee in his hand, the papers under his arm, when McMahon went down. The old man was an early riser. He had said the first Mass. The smell of coffee carried through the house, coffee and burnt bacon. The monsignor stopped at the office door and looked back at him. “Don’t you want the papers?”

  “Not till later, thank you.”

  “You spent the ten by the looks of you.”

  “Most of it.”

  “Did
you have a good time at least?”

  He thought of the youngsters and the fire truck, and the beads now lying on his bedside table like a rosary. “A fine time,” he said. Then, remembering Phelan: “How did I make The Times?”

  “Finding the victim.”

  “Ah, of course.” He cleared his throat.

  “You’ll be in fine voice for the nuptial Mass,” the old man said dryly.

  McMahon had forgotten the wedding, and he had promised a final rehearsal after the eight o’clock Mass. At ten there was a funeral which Purdy would take. He was fonder of funerals than he was of weddings. But so was McMahon, to admit the truth. Or would have been that morning.

  “They’ll give us a good lunch at Costello’s after the reception,” the old man said. “But I hope to God they serve French champagne. The sweet stuff turns my stomach.”

  McMahon went out the side door and across the cement yard to the sacristy. He knelt on the prie-dieux near the sanctuary while Father Gonzales finished the seven-thirty Mass, which was in Spanish. Suppose it had been Gonzales whom Carlos had run into? Gonzales who knew nothing of Mrs. Phelan and her marital problems, whom Brogan would never have asked to go on the town with him. Or even going, Gonzales might not have been able to identify Phelan even if he wanted to. It was that which stuck in his craw. But there were more things than that in his craw. If it had not been Muller it would have been something else. What is it about, Lord? I shall try to be silent and hear.

  He said his own Mass with no more than twenty or thirty people in the church, and most of them there for the wedding rehearsal. The lector read in Spanish and in English. When the priest raised his hand in the final blessing, he noticed the girl rise and leave the church by the side door. He noticed her because she left without genuflecting. He spoke to the wedding party from the altar to say he would be out in a few minutes.

  He was removing the chasuble when the girl he had seen leave the church came into the sacristy. She was tall and quite thin, with heavy black hair down to her shoulders and large dark eyes.

  “Excuse me, sir. Are you Father McMahon?”

  “I am.”