The Night Church Part 2

To help him she went to church dressed in what the sisters had called "Mary-like" clothes (long sleeves, deep hemlines, choker collars). At Holy Spirit she wore neither makeup nor scent. Even so, when during Ma.s.s his eyes went to his flock they inevitably met hers and could not look away. When she broke the gaze he would stumble in his prayers, and a ragged tone would enter his voice.

Tonight she was not wearing the Mary-like clothes, not for the man she was to meet. At least she could be certain that he was no priest.

A swish of clothing startled her. She turned around, almost falling off the chair. "Who's that?"

n.o.body. She pressed the heels of her hands to her temple. It would be nice right now to just scream her heart out, but she might as well face what was really upsetting her. She was scared to death of these awful blind dates.

But dates arranged through friends were her best shots at a decent social life. And why not? Everybody had to start somewhere.

Although she never knew what to expect, these nerve-wracking meetings were a habit she dared not break. Some-times the men she met were decent, sometimes they were not, and one of them had almost fit her nightmare.

She intended to marry well. Mary Banion, her first real outsider friend, told her she must at all costs conceal her desire for attachment from her prospective mates. "For heaven's sake, Pat, don't let them know what you're after. You'll scare them to death. Men want wh.o.r.es. As far as they're concerned the fact that they get wives instead is a disturbing mystery. They spend all their married lives trying to figure out what the h.e.l.l happened."

Mary Banion was forty-one, the second wife of a high police official named Mike Banion. Both of them had lost their first spouses. Patricia had met Mary at the bank, where casual teller-customer conversations had led to a lunch date and friendship.

Patricia envied Mary the fact that she had always been loved. Her first husband had adored her, but his private plane had given out on him over the Jersey marshes. Now Mike Banion worshiped her as a replacement for his child bride, who had died of cancer in her twenties.

Mary looked and acted Patricia's own ideal of female success. She dressed elegantly, in silks and linens.

And she was beautiful, with delicately sculptured features and glow-ing chestnut hair. The fact that her Mike affected baggy suits and low-grade cigars made her seem even more beautiful.

"I'll make him police commissioner, you'll see. Maybe even mayor if his style comes back into style."

Thus she justified her second marriage. "My old truck," she called him. No doubt she would drive him to the top.

Tonight Patricia was going to go out with Mary's son Jonathan. He was late, but he must be coming.

He'd better. She'd been preparing herself since she got home from work.

Mary was in the habit of overexplaining him, as if his merely having been born was not justification enough for his life. "You're going to find him fascinating. He's very bright."

Patricia looked askance at herself in the mirror, arched one eyebrow. Was that s.e.xy? Was that winning?

Most of the men she had met didn't call back. Mary said that often happened to extremely beautiful women. Men feared great beauty. But not to worry, it was all to the good. Only the best of them would feel comfortable with her. One undesirable group did call back, though-the nerds. They not only phoned, they came to her teller window. The girls at the bank called them "schmedlocks." "Don't worry," they said, "every good-looking teller has her schmedlocks." Ap-parently many undesirable men had hit upon the idea of meeting girls by becoming depositors at the banks where they worked.

Was Jonathan going to be a schmedlock? Possibly that was why Mary oversold him.

At least, she hoped, he wouldn't be frightening. There had been one young man who was too quiet, who went through the formalities of the evening like a zombie, who had in-sisted on taking her home with him.

Even when she refused point-blank he had kept driving. Then she saw the little black pistol tucked under his sports jacket. She had escaped by jumping out of the car when traffic slowed down on the Fifty-Ninth Street bridge.

Six weeks later a young man was caught in Ma.s.sapequa, Long Island, with the bodies of three girls under the floor of his elaborate bas.e.m.e.nt torture chamber. Was it him? She was never sure.

When she heard the buzzer she leaped up from her dress-ing table, flipped off the Sunbeam makeup mirror, and ran to the intercom in the living room. "Yes?"

"Miss Murray, a Mr. Banion to see you."

"Send him up, Tony."

She had been embarra.s.sed to ask Mary what he looked like, but if he took after his mother he would be darkly handsome, bright, and sophisticated. Thank heavens bullet-shaped Mike was a foster father. Genial as he was, Inspector Banion was not a promising source of looks or manners.

A rap at the door. "Yes?"

"It's Jonathan Banion."

What a soft voice. She hadn't noticed that on the phone. She opened the door onto a tall, lean man who smiled down at her.

"h.e.l.lo," she said. "Come on in."

He was wearing a seersucker sports jacket over an Oxford shirt. You could even call him handsome, and she thought he had the sweetest face she could ever remember seeing. He came into the center of the room and looked at her for a long moment. "Have we met?"

She knew just what he meant. "I think we must must have." She laughed. "I can't imagine where." have." She laughed. "I can't imagine where."

He held out his hands and she clasped them. They were warm and familiar, as those of a close friend might be. "I'd say that I've known you forever," he said, "but that sounds like such a hokey line."

"Let's just a.s.sume we met and forgot and take it from there."

For a moment he didn't answer. He was looking curiously at her out of his gentle green eyes. "Let's stay here awhile," he said. "We can talk more easily."

She smiled. "Would you like a drink?"

"Fix me whatever you're having. I suspect it'll be some-thing I like."

She went to the gla.s.s-topped table where she kept her small collection of bottles and fixed two gin and tonics. When she turned around he was still standing in the middle of the room.

He took his drink, never for a moment looking away from her. "Sit down, won't you," she said in exactly the way Sister Dolorosa had when greeting visitors in Our Lady's parlor. He sank onto her couch, looking acutely uncomfort-able. She sat down beside him. She should have taken the chair, but she wanted very much to be near him.

"We've got to figure out where we met," she said. Imag-ine how nice it would be, she thought, if he hugged me. Right now.

"Maybe we knew each other in another life."

"That's impossible. There is no reincarnation."

"No? You're sure?"

"Well, it's against Church doctrine."

He raised his gla.s.s. "Cheers."

"Here's to us." Watch it, lady, don't come on too strong. Take it easy. This one looks too good to lose.

"To our first date."

"It can't be. I know you."

She could almost have predicted he would say that. The more they were together the more she felt as if they were simply renewing an old and close familiarity.

"You must go to NYU," he said. He turned awkwardly on the couch and faced her. "I'm in psychology. I must see you in the halls or something."

"Never been there in my life. Do you use the Hamil Bank in Queens Plaza?"

"No, Citibank. There's a branch near the university with an automatic teller. I didn't meet you in a bank. I met you ... I met you" He frowned.

They both fell silent. No doubt the same small breath of fear that was touching her was also touching him. This was no joke; this was just a tiny bit scary.

Nevertheless she was awfully glad to see him. He put his drink down and, in a methodical way that was somehow familiar to her, leaned over to her and kissed her on the cheek. It made her smile. "You're incredibly beautiful," he said.

It was simply stated, and so sincerely that it only embar-ra.s.sed her a little. "Thank you, Jonathan."

"I've been missing you. I just didn't know it."

She nodded. "Me too." But when she tried to meet his eyes she found he was looking past her shoulder, at the dark entrance into the bedroom. She shook her head slightly, as if to say, Not yet.

"Is someone in there?"

"I'm a single girl, Jonathan, and we are all alone."

"I heard something."

"My apartment's haunted tonight. You should have been here when the TV went on by itself. But the place is empty. I checked it out. Except for us, of course."

He turned his face to his. "You are so lovely."

"Thank you," she said again. She wished she hadn't used that blusher. Her cheeks must be flaming by now.

He regarded her. "My mother calls you Pat. But you prefer Patricia, don't you?"

"What if I said I like Pat best?"

"You'd be lying."

He was right about that. She tried to make herself laugh but the sound died away. He was beautiful, he was sweet, he was just what she desired.

Why, then, did a little voice inside whisper, Nightmare man? Nightmare man?

When he touched her wrist she involuntarily pulled back. "Maybe we'd better pretend we're strangers,"he said. "Tell each other about ourselves. That's the best way to begin."

She smiled to cover the ridiculous fear that was growing inside her. "You start." Her voice was too sharp.

Calm down, girl. Take it easy.

"I'm a scientist. I'm engaged in arcane experiments few people can understand. Officially I'm an a.s.sistant professor of psychology at NYU, but I'm actually an advanced re-searcher in the physiology of the brain."

"What research?" She had to keep him talking. Then she could just close her eyes and let the sound of his voice relieve her anxiety.

"You talk, Patricia. I want you to talk too."

"You've told me so little."

"You tell me something, then I'll tell you something more."

"I guess Mary told you I'm an Our Lady of Victory girl." She did not care for the word "orphan." "I went to Clark Secretarial and got a job at the Hamil Bank. Totally unglamorous."

"Not to me. You might be the most beautiful woman on earth. I just want to look at you. Am I making you nervous? Too much heavy breathing?"

She nodded-and instantly regretted it. If only she could dare her fear and let him hold her.

"Excuse me." He went over to her faded maroon Barca-lounger, the one she had bought third hand (at least) from Rebecca Stangers at the bank. "This better?"

She wanted terribly for him to come back to her and carry her into the bedroom and undress her and do with her exactly what she had intended to save for her husband. She wanted that a thousand times more than she had wanted anything else in her life.

And he wanted the same thing-anyone could tell by the intensity that had come into his expression. His dark brows were slightly knitted, the green eyes gone from gentle to piercing. His lips were sensuous but firm. If only he would do it, he could take her. She would not allow herself to stop him.

How could it be happening like this? She was actually desperate for him, yet she had just met him a few minutes ago. It was an awful and yet a delicious feeling. As if sharing her need, he stood up and held his hands down to her. She rested her hands in his, hoping he would draw her up from the couch. He towered over her. But he also trembled and beads of sweat formed along his upper lip. He squeezed her hands like a supplicant. "I'm sorry," he said. "I know I'm coming on too fast for you. I just can't help myself."

In reply she smiled. He was encouraged, and began to pull her to him. Their embrace brought her immediate relief from her fear and left no question about what would happen next.

The bedroom was dark, at once inviting and menacing. Sister Dolorosa had explained what the nuns called "the clinical necessities," so Patricia was not afraid of her inexpe-rience. She knew what would be expected of her. But this was for marriage. This was for marriage!

They were sitting on the side of the bed when Patricia sensed movement in the room. Seeing it too, Jonathan cried out. In the same slow motion that her nightmare always imposed on her, Patricia turned to him, only to see him being taken in a hammerlock by a shadowy, fast-moving figure that had burst out of her closet.

Then someone seized her and pulled her back onto the bed with terrific force.

Impossibly, incredibly, she recognized Mary Banion among their a.s.sailants. Her surprise was so total that what should have been a healthy scream came out as a gasp.

Somebody tried to put a wet, ethery cloth over Patricia's face but she fought free. "Patricia, calm down!"

She was not calming down. Two big, vicious-looking men already had Jonathan tied up. Patricia leaped at them, tear-ing her dress as she tried to keep her balance.

"Get her!"

That was Mary Banion. Definitely. Patricia ran for the apartment door. She reached it, worked the locks, threw it open.

Feet pounded behind her as she raced down the hall and slammed her hand against the elevator b.u.t.ton.

"Oh, G.o.d, get her!" Mary really sounded frantic.

"Mary-you must be crazy!"

"Stay right there, Pat. That's a good girl." The men coming after her were horrible, big but quick, in black raincoats and hats pulled down to disguise themselves. Patricia took the fire stairs four at a time, bursting out the back exit of the apartment building.

She intended to race around to the front and get the doorman to call a cop, but on the way she saw old Franklin Apple, an elderly gentleman who had come to one of the parish seniors suppers she had served.

"Oh, Mr. Apple! Mr. Apple, thank the Lord you're here! I need help, I-"

He smiled at her and grabbed her wrists in his dry, clawlike hands. For an instant she was stunned, then filled with cold, p.r.i.c.kling terror. His skeletal old face was grin-ning. He cooed at her as he might at an agitated baby. His fingers around her wrists were as cold and hard as stone.