“Think they’re coming in through the school. Fourth–floor windows don’t have bars—must’ve scaled the wall somehow. I’m going outside to holler them down.”
“No!” I let Mitch go. He scampered into the church and made a beeline for the door that connected the nave to the school. “If it is Baladine, he may have someone outside to pick off anyone who leaves the building. If he’s coming in through the school he’s probably hoping for a surprise attack, but it could still be a feint designed to draw us—me—outside.”
There wasn’t any light; I felt rather than saw the priest scowling. “Old coal passages connect church, school, rectory through the crypt. Keep them locked to stop the kids horsing around down there. I can come into the school behind him through the basement. Know my way in the dark, you don’t, you stay here. Don’t want any shooting in the church; do your best if they come in. Calling the cops on my way; hope they get here sometime before we’re all dead.”
By tacit consent we left Mr. Contreras asleep. Father Lou went down the hall to the kitchen, and I went into the church. I didn’t know what time it was, but it was still too early for any light to come in through the church’s dirty east windows. The red sanctuary lamp gave off the only light. I fumbled my way to the sanctuary, trying to orient myself by the lamp and by Mitch, who was barking sharply at the door to the school.
I bumped into Peppy and almost screamed. She wagged her tail against my legs. I clutched her collar and let her guide me. At the steps to the altar I could follow the altar rail toward the raised podium used for sermons on formal occasions.
When we finally reached Mitch he had gotten tired of his frenzied assault on the door and was lying on his haunches. I felt his raised hackles when I touched him, and he jerked his head impatiently away from my hand. The door was too thick for me to make out the sounds he was hearing on the other side. I took it for about five minutes, then retraced my way to the altar. A massive wood and marble carving rose behind it. When I worked my away around to the back, where the crypt entrance was, the altarpiece itself blocked most of the glow from the sanctuary lamp.
The trapdoor to the crypt was unlocked. I climbed stealthily down the narrow spiral stair, Peppy following me on uncertain feet. She mewed unhappily, and I hoisted her down after me one step at a time.
At the bottom I was in a well of such intense blackness that I had no way of orienting myself. I risked the switch at the foot of the spiral stairs. It showed me the passages that I’d overlooked when I was working down here this morning, one on the north to the rectory and another opposite that connected to the school. I flicked off the light and made my way through the south door to the school basement.
Clutching Peppy’s collar, I let her guide me again, until she found a staircase. We crept up, pausing after each step to listen. I heard the humming of machinery, but no human sounds. At the top I pushed open the door. Father Lou had come this way earlier and left it unlocked.
We were in the school kitchen; a streetlight made it possible to see the big stoves and refrigerators. I went through a swinging door into a hallway and suddenly could hear voices. Keeping my hand on Peppy, now more as a warning to her to be silent than because I needed her navigation, I moved toward the sound. Father Lou was outside the door that led from the school into the church.
“If you thought your son was with me you’d have knocked at the door like an honest man,” Father Lou was saying. “You’re breaking into a school. I don’t know what valuables you thought a poor school in a neighborhood like this has, but I have you red–handed, and the cops will take it from here.”
Baladine laughed. “A police detective is stationed outside. If the cops ever show up, he’ll tell them he’s got the situation under control. I’m sure there would be a lot of mourning in the neighborhood over your death, but wouldn’t you rather get out of my way than die defending that stupid Warshawski woman and my tiresome son?”
My stomach tightened at the sound of his voice, at the reckless superiority of it. At first I thought Baladine was alone, and I was willing to risk a shot, but as my ears and eyes adjusted I realized he had at least two other men with him. I could make out only their ghostly shapes, but Father Lou’s bald head reflected what light there was. He was the short ghost whose arms were perhaps pinned by two larger wraiths. Baladine was behind him. I lowered my gun; I couldn’t possibly get a clear shot.
“I know you got into the school building from inside the church, Padre,” Baladine said in the same patronizing voice, “because my man has the outside covered. So be a good fellow and let us into the church, and I promise you’ll be alive to say mass in the morning.”