Rules of Prey

CHAPTER 35

Two days after Christmas, his hand still in a cast six weeks after the surgery, Lucas walked across an empty campus, through a driving snowstorm, to Elle Kruger's office in Fat Albert Hall. Her office was on the third floor. He took the worn concrete steps, unzipping his parka and brushing snow from his shoulders as he climbed. The third-floor hallway was dark. At the far end, one office showed a lighted pane of frosted glass. His footsteps echoed as he walked down and knocked.

"Come in, Lucas."

He pushed open the door. Elle was reading in an armchair that sat to one side of the desk, facing a small couch. An inexpensive stereo played "The Great Gate of Kiev" from Pictures at an Exhibition. Lucas handed her a package he'd carried in his coat pocket.

"A gift." She smiled happily, her face lighted, weighing the package in her hand. "I hope it wasn't expensive."

Lucas hung his parka on a coatrack and dropped onto the couch. "Tell you the truth, it cost an arm and a leg."

Her smile diminished slightly. "You know we seek poverty."

"This won't make you any richer," Lucas said. "If you ever sell it, I'll come over and strangle you."

"Ah. Then I suppose…" She shook her head and began to unwrap the box. "My biggest problem, the cause of my most grievous sin, is curiosity."

"I'll never understand the Church," Lucas said.

The nun opened the small red box and fished out a medallion of yellow gold on a long gold chain. "Lucas," she said.

"Read it," he said.

She turned it in her hands and read, "'Agnus Dei: qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis'… it's from the Missal. 'O Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.'"

"That's certainly pious enough."

She sighed. "It's still gold."

"So wear it with disdain. When you start to like it, send it to Mother Teresa."

She laughed. "Mother Teresa," she said. She looked at the medallion again, then looked closer and said, "What's this? On the other side."

"A minor inscription."

"The letters are so small." She held it eight inches from her nose, peering at it.

Necessity has no law

As Augustine descries her,

So the maddog's brought to earth

With the help of Nun the Wiser.

She gasped, then started to laugh, throwing her head back and letting it roll out. "This is terrible," she said at last. "Augustine is whirling in his grave."

"It's not that bad," Lucas said with a bit of frost. "In fact…"

"Lucas, it's awful." She started laughing again, and finally Lucas began laughing with her. When she stopped, she brushed tears from her eyes and said, "I'll treasure it forever. I don't know what my sisters will think when they find it on my body…"

"They can send it to Mother Teresa," Lucas suggested.

They talked as old friends: of phony fainting spells during the rosary after school, of the boy who admitted in fourth grade that he didn't believe in God. His name was Gene, that's all they could remember.

"Are you okay?" she asked after a while.

"I think so."

"And your relationship…"

"Is doing well, thank you. I want to marry her, but she won't."

"Officially, I'm appalled. Unofficially, I suspect she must be quite an intelligent woman. You are definitely a high-risk proposition… What about Carla Ruiz?"

"Gone to Chicago. She has a new friend."

"The nightmares?"

"Getting worse."

"Oh, no."

"She's seeing a counselor."

And later still.

"You feel no qualms about Louis Vullion's death?"

"None. Should I?"

"I had wondered at the circumstances," she said.

Lucas pondered for a moment. "Elle. If you want to know everything, I'll tell you everything."

It was her turn to ponder. She turned to the big window, a black silhouette against the snow that drove against the glass.

Finally she shook her head, and he noticed she was clutching the medallion. "No. I don't want to know everything. I'm not a confessor. And I will pray for you and for Louis Vullion. But as for knowing…"

She turned back, a tiny, grim smile on her face. "… I'm content to be Nun the Wiser."