Pagan Babies

10

HE COULD SEE HER INSIDE the store talking to the young Arab-looking guy behind the counter, the guy laughing at something she said, Debbie winning a fan while she bought a pack of cigarettes.

The guy would tell his friends about this cool blond chick who came in and was funny, man. The guy not knowing how cool she really was – the way she could zing you when you weren't looking; set you up first, see if you'd admit things she already knew, things Fran would've told her, Fran and now Johnny Pajonny, who loved to talk and act like an insider, thinking Debbie was the girl in L.A. and Debbie no doubt letting him think it.

He should never've told Johnny in the U-Haul coming back from Kentucky about the girl in L.A.

Debbie had moved away from the counter, down an aisle toward the back of the store, out of view. Now she was at the counter again, the Arab-looking guy ringing up the sale with a big grin, Debbie standing in her raincoat talking, opening a pack of cigarettes, the guy stopping to give her a light, then handing her the Bic, or whatever it was. Terry couldn't see what she'd bought, but it looked like more than cigarettes the guy was putting in the paper bag.

The whole time in the car had been an interrogation: Debbie showing a keen interest in his life, more than just curiosity. But now where would she go with it? He'd have to bring her along to find out.

So when she came out and got in the car Terry said, "I can understand why Johnny asked about the money."

"I can, too," Debbie said, "thirty thousand in cash."

She started the car, but then sat back with her cigarette, the grocery bag on the seat next to her.

"He thinks I took off with it, uh?"

"Didn't you?"

"Let me tell you," Terry said, "how it worked on a run to Kentucky.

We'd come back with a load, drop it off, and return the U-Haul. The next day we'd go to an office downtown in the Penobscot Building and the woman there, Mrs. Moraco, would pay us.

Count out hundred-dollar bills without saying a word, mostly old bills, and we'd put the money in athletic bags we'd brought along."

"You know who the buyer was?"

"I didn't ask. Anyway, the first couple of times we made the run, no problem," Terry said. "The time we're talking about, only Johnny and I made the trip. Dickie wasn't feeling good and stayed home. But when I say home I mean Johnny's house in Hamtramck. Dickie lived with Johnny, his wife Regina and their three kids-two little boys swore all the time, did whatever they wanted, and a fifteen-year-old girl, Mercy, who was studying hard to become a hooker."

Debbie said, "Mercy?"

"Regina's born again."

"Don't tell me," Debbie said, "this is about Mercy and Uncle Dickie."

"Yeah, but which one needed protection? Dickie said Mercy was always showing off her young body-and it was all there, believe me. I stopped by to pick Johnny up one time, Mercy comes out to the car in a little sunsuit. The way she leaned on the windowsill showing herself, I thought she was gonna ask if I wanted to have a good time. What Regina wanted was Dickie out of the house, but Johnny wouldn't hear of it. He said if Dickie wasn't around he wouldn't have anybody to talk to. They watched sports on TV together and argued."

"At the wake," Debbie said, smoking her cigarette, "he asked me to go have a drink with him."

"What'd you tell him?"

"I met him at the Cadieux Caf, looking for Johnny Pajonny material.

The name alone. So then what happened?"

She'd zing him and Terry would have to remind himself this nicelooking girl was not only an entertainer, she'd done time. And smoked a lot. He pressed the button to lower his window halfway.

"Regina comes home from working a checkout counter at Farmer Jack's and finds Mercy and Dickie in the bathroom together." Terry paused. "You had a drink with Johnny at the Cadieux? That's a popular spot."

"He wanted to go to a motel."

"Yeah…?"

"I told him I was a nun."

It hung there, Terry not sure if she was kidding, had actually said that.

"I handled it, Terry. Okay? So Regina finds Mercy and Dickie in the shower."

"They were in the bathroom with the door closed."

"The shower running?"

"I don't know if they were doing anything or not. I wasn't around to hear. But what happened, Regina called the cops. They arrive and find Dickie trying to stash about a hundred cartons of cigarettes under his bed, ones Dickie sold on the side. Johnny and I are on the way home, his cell phone rings and it's Regina. She says the cops are there on account of Dickie molesting Mercy, his own niece, but doesn't mention the cops finding the cigarettes; that's not her problem. We get to Detroit, Johnny wants to go right home. He's as upset as Regina 'cause now he's afraid Dickie'll have to move out. I told him I wasn't going near the house with cops there. I dropped him off at a bar on his street, Lili's, it's just off Joseph Campau, and went on to the warehouse, dropped the load, and returned the truck. Later on I called the house. Regina tells me Johnny and Dickie are in the Wayne County iail and people from Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are going through the house as we speak. See, at that time no one knew if it would be taken state or federal. So the next day I collected from Mrs.

Moraco "

Debbie stopped him. "Did you tell her?"

"I told her she better close the office for a while, and left town."

"You had a passport?"

"I told you, I'd already made plans to leave, go to Africa. But that doesn't mean I planned to skip."

She shrugged, maybe not caring one way or the other. "So the Paionnys were brought in and they gave it up."

"They gave me up. The prosecutor worked on them a few days and offered a plea deal. They said I hired them; I was the one always delivered the load and collected the money. They knew better than to give 'em Mrs. Moraco. But then once I was involved Fran got on it and talked to the prosecutor. Fran said there must be some mistake, as I was an ordained Catholic priest at a mission in Rwanda. By now a few weeks had passed. I'm over there and the genocide's going on, hundreds of thousands of people being killed and I'm in the middle of it. Did the state really want to indict me? Fran says I'm in the clear, but still have to talk to an assistant prosecutor, Gerald Padilla, downtown at the Frank Murphy, what they call Recorders Court; it's all criminal. I have to get a black suit and a collar and shine my shoes."

"Why don't you have a suit?"

"When I left, I gave it to a man less fortunate than myself. There's always a need for clothing over there."

She said, "Terry?"

"What?"

"Bullshit."

He watched the glow of her cigarette as she drew on it and blew the smoke out in a slow stream, directly into his face. Terry closed his eyes. He didn't wave his hand at the smoke, he closed his eyes and opened them again, knowing what was coming.

She said, "You're not a priest, are you?"

He heard himself say, "No, I'm not," sitting there in the dark.

"Were you ever a priest?"

"No."

"Or in a seminary in California or anywhere else?"

He felt the interrogation winding down.

"No."

She said, "Don't you feel better now?"

They were on their way again following taillights, Terry with a sense of relief, because he'd wanted to tell her even while they were in the restaurant talking and knew he would sooner or later. But not with Fran around. Fran needed to believe he was a priest. Debbie didn't want to believe it he could tell so he was himself with her most of the time, even talking about Confession when Fran was away from the table. That part was easy because it was true, and he almost told her then, tired of acting a part. After that he was open, giving her a chance to have a funny feeling about him, suspicious, and if she had the nerve she'd ask the question. And she did.

In the dark he offered a little more.

"You're the only person who knows."

"You haven't told Fran?"

"Not while he's talking to the prosecutor."

"No one during all that time in Africa?"

"No one."

"Not even your one-armed housekeeper?"

Look at that-she'd picked up on Chantelle.

"Not even her."

"She lived with you?"

"Almost the whole time I was there."

"Is she pretty?"

"Miss Rwanda, if they ever have a pageant."

"Did you sleep with her?"

Debbie asked it looking straight ahead.

"If you're wondering about AIDS it was never a threat."

"Why would I worry about AIDS?"

"I said 'If you were wondering.'"

Debbie dropped her cigarette out the window.

"She believed you were a priest?"

"It didn't matter to her."

"Why've you told me and no one else?"

"I wanted to."

"Yeah, but why me?"

"Because we think alike," Terry said.

She glanced at him saying, "I felt that right away."

"And when I explain how it happened," Terry said, "you'll think it's funny and see it as a skit."

They came to an intersection, the light green, and Debbie turned right onto Big Beaver. Now they were passing low rolling hills on the left, a heavy cover of trees lining the other side of the road and Terry said, "Shouldn't we have turned the other way?"

"I thought we'd go to my place," Debbie said. "Okay?"

Terry picked up the party store bag and felt packs of cigarettes inside and a bottle with a familiar shape, four sides to it rather than perfectly round, like most fifths of whiskey.

"Red or black?"

"Red."

"You knew what I'd say before you went in the store."

"Yeah, but I had to set it up."

"You have some kind of scheme working and you want my blessing.

Is that it?"

She said, "Terry, you're too good to be true."