After the service, Father Lou beckoned me into his study. Benji was doing all right, a bit nervous about being in Christian hands, but he’d loved going to the gym yesterday afternoon and had started a workout on the equipment. And still had nothing to say about what, if anything, he’d seen from his attic window the night Marcus Whitby was killed.
“Don’t know how well this is going to work. I put him in the fourth grade, he can read enough English for that, he’ll improve fast if he stays. Told the kids he was African-the truth, and keeps them from thinking he’s an enemy. But they’re teasing him for being in the kiddie class, so his pride is hurt. Explained to him and them what real strength is: not beating someone in the ring, beating your own devils at their game. Only weak people take part in mobs. Never know how much of a lecture like that gets through to them.”
I nodded. “The mosque he goes to, yesterday’s papers said they carry literature on how Zionism is responsible for the World Trade Center, and Jews make Purim cakes out of Muslim children’s blood. I hate to think I’m protecting someone who wants to kill my friends.”
He grunted. “Best I can tell you is, I grew up in the Catholic Church
hearing same kinds of stories. Jews killed Jesus, made matzo out of Christian babies’ blood. Grew up, learned different, learned better, hope this kid can do the same. How’s the girl?”
“Healing nicely. She’ll come home from the hospital today. To a showdown between her father and her grandmother. The father has the legal rights, but my money is on Granny … Can I talk to Benji for a minute?”
Father Lou looked at his clock. “Should be in the kitchen. Seems able to look after himself. I think he’s a good boy. Shy, but eager to respond to people.”
I walked down the unlit hallways to the kitchen, where Benji was washing dishes in the old zinc sink. He looked up nervously at my entrance, but relaxed when he recognized me.
I put a piece of bread in the toaster. “I saw Catherine yesterday. She’s doing well: she got hit in the upper arm but not badly, and they’re sending her home from the hospital today.”
“That is very well, that news. You telling her where I am?”
I nodded. “She’ll be in touch when she knows it won’t put you in any danger for her to visit you. Benji-what do you want to do in the long run, if we can sort out your problems? Do you want to stay in Chicago, or go back to Cairo?”
He started drying the plates he’d washed, carefully, as if they were Sevres china instead of industrial pottery. “Sort out my problems? You are saying what? End my problems?”
“Yes. Solve them.”
“For my family, is good I am here. I send money and my sisters and my littlest brother, they go to school, they study. For me, always hiding is no good. Is unhealthy, is-” He made an expressive gesture, comprehending humiliation and anger. “And also when I hiding I cannot working. Cannot work. I cannot work when I am hiding always. This Christian priest is what you saying, he is good man, and he is helping with learning English, but still I cannot work, I cannot go mosque, I cannot see my people.”
“So I need to figure out how to let you stay here but keep you out of the FBI’s clutches.” I spread butter on the toast. “Benji, last Sunday a man died in the pond behind Larchmont Hall-the house where Catherine hid you, you know its name is `Larchmont Hall,’ right? I think someone put
this man in the pond; I think someone killed this man. When you were watching for Catherine, what did you see?”
“Nothing. I seeing nothing.” He dropped the plate he was holding. It landed with a bang on the tiles, breaking into large jagged chunks.
I knelt to gather up the pieces, but squatted on my haunches to look up at him. “Why are you afraid to tell me what you saw? I got you away from the police. You saw how much trouble I took to keep you safe. Why do you think I would hurt you now?”
“I seeing nothing. I poor, I not a-a professor, but I know what be happening. I seeing someone, you telling police, they saying, ah, Egyptian boy, he terrorist, he killer. I seeing someone, and they killing me next. No, I seeing no person.” He flung the dish towel onto the kitchen table and fled into the interior of the rectory.
CHAPTER 43
Stiffed at the Morgue
I left the church feeling tense and jumpy. My conversation with Benji had confirmed my assumption that he’d seen Marc’s killer. And he’d managed to explain why he was afraid to report what he’d seen. I couldn’t exactly blame him; the law had shot Catherine Bayard in their eagerness to kill him. Why should he trust that I could keep them from executing him if he came forward to testify?
If I could figure out a way to get the justice Department off his back, maybe Benji would give me the information in exchange, but I didn’t have clever ideas about much of anything right now.