How Like an Angel

Nine

The inner court contained rows of crude wooden benches placed around a stone shrine that reminded Quinn of a barbecue pit. The Master was standing in front of the shrine, head bowed, arms folded across his chest.

He said, without turning, “Well, Mr. Quinn? You found Sister Blessing alive and in good health?”

“I found her alive.”

“And you are still not satisfied?”

“No,” Quinn said. “I’d like to know a lot more about this place and the people in it, their names, occupations, where they came from.”

“And what, pray, would you do with such information?”

“Try to solve the O’Gorman case.”

“You’re a stranger to me, Mr. Quinn. I have no obligations to you, but purely out of generosity I’ll tell you one thing. The name O’Gorman is unknown here.”

“Sister Blessing just picked it out of a hat?”

“Out of a dream,” the Master said quietly. “Or you would call it a dream. I do not. I think the spirit of Patrick O’Gorman is wandering in hell, seeking salvation. He spoke to Sister, he asked her help because that is her name, Sister Blessing of the Salvation. Otherwise he would have chosen me to help him since I am the Master.”

Quinn stared at him. The man obviously believed what he was saying. It would be useless to argue with him, possibly dangerous. “Why is O’Gorman in hell, Master? All indications are that he led an exemplary life, according to his lights.”

“He was not a True Believer. Now, of course, he repents, he pleads for a second chance. He calls out to the Sister while she is asleep and her mind is receptive to his vibrations. The good Sister was both curious and afraid. The combination dulled her wits and made her do a very foolish thing.”

“Hiring me.”

“Yes.” There was a trace of pity in the Master’s faint smile. “You see, Mr. Quinn, you were asked to find someone who is wandering through the eternal abysses of hell. A formidable task, even for a brash young man like you, don’t you agree?”

“If I accepted your premise, I’d have to agree.”

“But you don’t.”

“No.”

“You have a better premise, Mr. Quinn?”

“I think Sister Blessing may have known O’Gorman years ago, before she came here.”

“You are quite wrong,” the Master said calmly. “The good Sister never even heard the name until O’Gorman communicated with her from the depths of hell, seeking salvation. My heart bleeds for that poor miserable wretch, but what can I do? His repentance came too late, he will suffer throughout eternity for his ignorance and self-indulgence. Beware, Mr. Quinn, beware. It will happen to you unless you change your ways and renounce the world and its evils, the flesh and its weakness.”

“Thanks for the advice, Master.”

“It is not advice. It is a warning. Renounce and be saved. Repent and rejoice... You see Mother Pureza as an old woman, frail of body and sick of mind. I see her as a creature of God, one of the Chosen.”

“Also one of the taken,” Quinn said. “Just how much of her money was spent on this place?”

“You cannot make me angry again, Mr. Quinn. I regret that you are trying to. Have I not treated you with consideration? Answered your questions? Allowed you to see Sister Blessing? And still you are not satisfied? You are a greedy man.”

“I want to find out what happened to O’Gorman so I can tell his wife the truth.”

“Tell her Patrick O’Gorman is wandering in hell, suffering the torments of the forever damned. That is the truth.”

Outside, Quinn put his shoes back on and straightened his tie while the Master watched from the arched doorway. The sun was beginning to set and smoke was rising from the chimney of the dining hall straight into the windless air. The only members of the cult in sight were Sister Contrition’s two smaller children sliding on flattened cardboard boxes down an incline slippery with pine needles, and Brother Tongue of Prophets approaching the entrance of the Tower carrying his little bird in a cage. Behind him, puffing and red-faced, trotted Brother of the Steady Heart, who had shaved Quinn the previous morning.

The Brothers greeted the Master by touching their foreheads and bowing. Then they nodded politely in Quinn’s direction.

“Peace be with you, Brothers,” the Master said.

“Peace be with you,” Brother Heart echoed.

“What brings you here?”

“Brother Tongue thinks his parakeet is sick. He wants Sister Blessing to look at it.”

“Sister Blessing is in isolation.”

“The parakeet is acting very funny,” Brother Heart said apologetically. “Show the Master, Brother Tongue.”

Brother Tongue put his head on his shoulder and pressed his hand against his mouth.

“The bird no longer speaks,” Brother Heart translated, “and sits with his head hidden.”

Brother Tongue pointed to his chest and moved his hand rapidly back and forth.

“The bird’s pulse is very fast,” Brother Heart said. “It has palpitations. Brother Tongue is very worried, he wants the Sister to—”

“Sister Blessing is in isolation,” the Master repeated sharply. “The bird looks perfectly all right to me. Perhaps it’s as tired of talking as I am of listening. Place a cover over its cage and let it rest. All birds have accelerated heartbeats, it’s quite normal, nothing to worry about.”

Brother Tongue’s mouth quivered and Brother Heart emitted a long deep sigh, but neither of them put up an argument. They disappeared around the corner of the building, their bare feet leaving little puffs of dust.

The brief encounter puzzled Quinn. The bird had looked to him, as well as to the Master, in good health, and he wondered if it had been used as an excuse to obtain permission to see Sister Blessing. Or perhaps, he thought, to take another look at me. No, I’m getting too suspicious. Another couple of hours in this place and I’ll be receiving O’Gorman’s vibrations from hell. I’d better flake off.

The Master had the same idea at the same time. “I can waste no more of my strength on you, Mr. Quinn. You must leave now.”

“All right.”

“Tell Mrs. O’Gorman my prayers are being offered to ease her husband’s agony.”

“I don’t think that will be much of a consolation.”

“It is not my fault he went to hell. If he had come to me I would have saved him... Peace be with you, Mr. Quinn. I shall not expect you back, unless you come humbly and penitently as a convert.”

“I’d prefer an engraved invitation from Capirote,” Quinn said, but the Master had already closed the door.

Quinn walked back to the dirt lane. About a dozen Brothers and Sisters were standing in front of the dining hall when he passed but none of them greeted him. Only one glanced curiously in his direction, and Quinn recognized the leather-skinned face of Brother Light of the Infinite, the man who’d come to the storage shed to rid the mattress of fleas. It was as if the whole colony had been warned to ignore Quinn’s presence because he was a threat to them. But as soon as he walked past he could feel a dozen pairs of eyes on the back of his neck.

The feeling persisted even after he’d reached his car and there was no one in sight. Each tree looked as if it had a Brother or Sister stationed behind it to watch him.

He released the brake and the car started coasting down the dirt lane. His mind went back to his first departure from the Tower, with Brother Crown driving the dilapidated truck before the sun came up. There had been, he recalled, a reason for the timing: to get the truck away from the place before Sister Contrition’s oldest daughter, Karma, tried to hitch a ride to the city.

Quinn broke out in a sweat. The eyes on the back of his neck felt like crawling insects. His hand reached up to rub them off and found nothing but his own cold damp skin.

He said aloud, “Karma?”

There was no answer.

He had reached the main road by this time. He stopped the car, turned off the ignition and got out. Then he opened the back door. “This is the end of the line, friend.”

The gray bundle on the floor stirred and whimpered.

“Come on,” Quinn said. “You can make it back to the Tower before it gets dark if you start now.”

Karma’s long black hair appeared, then her face, blotched with pimples, sullen with resentment. “I’m not going back.”

“A little bird tells me you are.”

“I hate little birds. I hate Brother Tongue. I hate the Master and Mother Pureza and Brother Crown and Sister Glory. Most of all I hate my own mother and those awful yapping children. Yes, and I even hate Sister Blessing.”

“That’s a heap of hate,” Quinn said.

“There’s more. I hate Brother Behold the Vision because his teeth click when he eats and I hate Brother Light because he called me lazy, and I hate—”

“All right, all right, I’m convinced you’re a first-class hater. Now get out of there. Start moving.”

“Please, please take me with you. I won’t be a nuisance, I won’t even speak. You can pretend I’m not here. When we reach the city I’ll find a job. I’m not lazy the way Brother Light claims I am... You’re going to say no, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I’m going to say no.”

“Is it because you think I’m just a child?”

“There are other reasons, Karma. Now be a good girl, save us both a lot of trouble—”

“I’m already in trouble,” she said calmly. “So are you. I hear things.”

“What things?”

She sat up on the back seat, tucking her long hair behind her ears. “Oh, things. They talk in front of me as if I were too young to understand.”

“Did Sister Blessing talk in front of you?”

“All of them.”

“It’s Sister Blessing in particular that I’m interested in,” Quinn said.

“She talks plenty.”

“About me?”

“Yes.”

“What did she tell you?”

“Oh, things.”

He gave her a hard look. “You’re giving me the run-around, Karma, stalling for time. It won’t do any good. Come out of there before I drag you out by the hair.”

“I’ll scream. I’m a good screamer and sounds carry in the mountains. They’ll all hear me, they’ll think you tried to kidnap me. The Master will be furious, he may even kill you. He has a terrible temper.”

“He may also kill you.”

“I don’t care. I have nothing to live for.”

“All right, you asked for it.”

Quinn reached into the back seat to grab her. She took a long deep breath and opened her mouth to scream. He cut off the sound by pressing his hand against her mouth.

“Listen, you crazy kid. You’ll get us both in a mess. I can’t possibly take you with me to San Felice. You’re going to need money, clothes, someone to look after you. You may not like it here but at least you’re protected. Wait until you’re older, then you can leave under your own power. Are you listening to me, Karma?”

She nodded.

“If I take my hand away, will you promise to be quiet and discuss this in a reasonable way?”

She nodded again.

“All right.” He removed his hand from her mouth and leaned wearily against the back of the seat. “Did I hurt you?”

“No.”

“How old are you, Karma?”

“Going on twenty-one.”

“Sure, but how far have you got to go? Come on, the truth.”

“I’m sixteen,” she said, after a time. “But I could easily find a job in the city and earn money to buy some stuff for my face so I’ll look like other girls.”

“You have a very pretty face.”

“No, it’s terrible, all these terrible red things that they say I’ll grow out of but I don’t. I never will. I need money for the stuff to make them go away. One of my teachers told me about it last year when I went to school, acne ointment she called it. She was real nice, she said she used to have acne herself and she knew how I felt.”

“And that’s the reason you want to go to the city, to buy acne ointment?”

“Well, that’s what I’d do first,” she said, running her hands along her cheeks. “I need it very bad.”

“Suppose I promise you that I’ll buy some for you and see that you get it? Will you postpone your trip to the city until you’re a little more capable of looking after yourself?”

She thought about it for a long time, twisting and untwisting a strand of her hair. “You’re just trying to get rid of me.”

“That’s true. But I’d also like to help you.”

“When could you get it for me?”

“As soon as possible.”

“How would you know it’s the right stuff?”

“I’ll ask the pharmacist, the man who sells it.”

She turned and looked up at him, very earnestly. “Do you think I will be pretty, as pretty as the girls at school?” “Of course you will.”

It was getting quite dark but she made no move to get out of the car and go back to the Tower. “Everyone here is so ugly,” she said. “And dirty. The floors are cleaner than we are. At school there were showers with hot water and real soap, and each of us had a big white towel all to ourselves.”

“How long have you been here at the Tower, Karma?”

“Four years, since it was built.”

“And before then?”

“We were at some place in the mountains, the San Gabriel Mountains down south. It was just a lot of wooden shacks. Then Mother Pureza came along and we got the Tower.”

“She was a convert?”

“Yes, a rich one. We don’t get many rich ones. I guess the rich ones are too busy having fun spending their money to worry about the hereafter.”

“Are you worried, Karma?”

“The Master scares me with his funny eyes,” she said. “But with Sister Blessing I’m not scared. I don’t really hate her the way I said I did. She prays every day for my acne.”

“Do you know where she is now?”

“Everyone does. She’s in isolation.”

“For how long?”

“Five days. Punishment always last five days.”

“Do you know the reason she’s being punished?”

Karma shook her head. “There was a lot of whispering I couldn’t hear, between her and the Master and Brother Crown. Then when my mother and I went to make dinner yesterday at noon, Sister Blessing was gone and Brother Tongue was crouched by the stove, crying. He just worships Sister Blessing because she babies him and makes a big fuss over him when he’s sick. The only one that acted glad was Brother Crown and he’s meaner than Satan.”

“How long has Brother Crown been a convert?”

“He came about a year after the Tower was built. That would be three years ago.”

“What about Sister Blessing?”

“She was with us in the San Gabriel Mountains. Nearly all the rest were, too, including a lot that have gone away since because they quarreled with the Master, like my father.”

“Where’s your father now, Karma?”

“I don’t know,” she said in a whisper. “And I can’t ask. When someone is banished his name can never be mentioned again.”

“Have you ever heard anyone here refer to a man called Patrick O’Gorman?”

“No.”

“Can you remember that name, Patrick O’Gorman?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your ears open for it,” Quinn said. “You needn’t tell anyone I asked you to do this, it’s strictly between you and me, like the ointment. Is it a bargain?”

“Yes.” She touched her cheeks, her forehead, her chin. “Do you really and honestly think I will be pretty when my acne goes away?”

“I know it.”

“How will you send me the ointment? The Master opens all the mail packages and he’d just throw something out if he thought it was drugs. He doesn’t believe in drugs or doctors, only faith.”

“I’ll bring the stuff to you myself.”

It was too dark now to see her face but Quinn felt her little movement of protest or dissent. “They don’t want you to come here anymore, Mr. Quinn. They think you’re trying to make trouble for the colony.”

“I’m not. The colony, as such, doesn’t interest me.”

“You keep on coming.”

“My first visit was an accident, my second was to give Sister Blessing the information she asked for.”

“Is that the honest truth?”

“Yes,” Quinn said. “It’s getting late, Karma. You’d better start back before they send out a lynching party for me.”

“I won’t be missed. I told mother I was going to bed because I had a sore throat. She’ll be busy in the kitchen until late. By that time,” she added bitterly, “I expected to be halfway to the city. Only I’m not. I’m right here. I’ll be right here until I die. I’ll be old and ugly, and dirty like the rest of them. Oh, I wish I could die this very minute and go to heaven before I commit all the sins I’ll probably commit when I get the chance, like having beautiful dresses and shoes and talking back to the Master and washing my hair every day in perfume.”

Quinn got out of the car and held the door open for her. She climbed out slowly and awkwardly.

“Can you find your way in the dark?” Quinn said.

“I’ve been up and down this road a million times.”

“Good-bye for now, then.”

“Are you really coming back?”

“Yes.”

“And you won’t forget the stuff for my acne?”

“No,” Quinn said. “And you won’t forget your part of the bargain?”

“I’m to keep my ears open if anyone mentions Patrick O’Gorman. I don’t think they will, though.”

“Why not?”

“We’re not allowed to talk about the people we knew before we were converted, and there’s no one in the colony called O’Gorman. When I’m looking after Mother Pureza I often read the book the Master keeps with our other-world names in it. There’s no O’Gorman in it. I have a very good memory.”

“Can you remember Sister Blessing’s name?”

“Naturally. Mary Alice Featherstone and she lived in Chicago.”

Quinn asked her about some of the others but none of the names she mentioned meant any more to him than Mary Alice Featherstone did.

In the light of the rising moon he watched Karma walk back toward the Tower. Her step was brisk and buoyant as if she had forgotten all about wanting to die and was concentrating instead on the sins she intended to commit when her chance came.

Quinn drove to San Felice, checked in at a motel on the waterfront and went to sleep to the intermittent croaking of a foghorn and the sound of surf crashing against the breakwater.