A Dance at the Slaughterhouse

And then something curious happened.

When the others queued up to receive Communion, Mick and I stayed where we were. But as the line moved along, as each person in turn said Amen and received the Host, something lifted me up onto my feet and steered me to the end of the line. I felt a light tingling in the palms of my hands, a pulse throbbing in the hollow of my throat.

The line moved. "The Body o' Christ," the priest said, over and over and over. "Amen," each person said in turn. The line moved, and now I was at the front of it, and Ballou was right behind me.

"The Body o' Christ," the priest said.

"Amen," I said. And took the wafer upon my tongue.

Chapter 24

Outside the sun was bright and the air crisp and cold. Halfway down the church steps Mick caught up with me and gripped my arm. His smile was fierce.

"Ah, we'll burn in hell for sure now," he said. "Taking the Lord's Communion with blood on our hands. If there's a more certain way of getting into hell I don't know what it is. My sins unconfessed for thirty years, my apron still wet with that bastard's gore, and I'm up at the altar as if I'm in a state of grace." He sighed at the wonder of it. "And you! Not a Catholic, but were you ever baptized anything at all?"

"I don't think so."

"Sweet Jesus, a fucking heathen at the altar rail, and I'm following after him like Mary's lost lamb. Whatever got into you, man?"

"I don't know."

"The other night I said you were full of surprises. By God, I didn't know the half of it. Come on."

"Where are we going?"

"I want a drink," he said. "And I want your company."

We went to a meatcutters' bar on the corner of Thirteenth and Washington. We had been there before. The floor was covered with sawdust, the air thick with smoke from the bartender's cigar. We sat at a table with whiskey for him and strong black coffee for me.

He said, "Why?"

I thought about it and shook my head. "I don't know," I said. "I never pla

"That's not what I mean."

"Oh?"

"Why were you out there tonight? What sent you to Maspeth with a gun in your hand?"

"Oh," I said.

"Well?"

I blew on my coffee to cool it. "That's a good question," I said.

"Don't tell me it was the money. You could have had fifty thousand dollars just by letting him have the tape. I don't know what the shares'll be, but they won't reach fifty thousand. Why double the risk for a smaller reward?"

"The money didn't have all that much to do with it."

"The money had nothing to do with it," he said. "When did you ever give a shit for money? You never did." He took a drink. "I'll tell you a secret. I don't give a shit about it either. I need it all the fucking time, but I don't really care about it."

"I know."

"You didn't want to sell them their tape, did you?"

"No," I said. "I wanted them dead."

He nodded. "You know who I thought of the other night? That old cop you told me about, the old Irishman you were yoked up with when you first started out."

"Mahaffey."

"That's the one. I thought of Mahaffey."

"I can see how you would."

"I thought of what he'd said to you. 'Never do something you can get somebody else to do for you.' Isn't that how it went?"

"That sounds right."

"And I said to myself that there was nothing wrong with that. Why not leave the killing to the men in the bloody aprons? But then you said you wanted more than a finder's fee, and for a moment there I thought I had you wrong."

"I know. And it bothered you."

"It did, because I couldn't see you as a man with that kind of money hunger. It meant you weren't the man I thought I knew, and that did bother me. But then in the next breath you cleared the air again. Said you wanted to earn a full share, said you wanted to go in with a gun."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"It seemed easier that way. They'd be expecting me, they'd let me in the door."

"That's not the reason."

"No, it's not. I guess I decided Mahaffey was wrong, or that his advice couldn't apply in this particular situation. It didn't feel right, leaving the dirty work to somebody else. If I could sentence them to death the least I could do was show up for the hanging."

He drank and made a face. "I'll tell you," he said, "I serve a better glass of whiskey at my own bar."

"Don't drink it if it's no good."

He tasted it again to make sure. "I couldn't call it bad," he said. "You know, I don't care much for beer or wine, but I've had my share of both, and I've had beer that's thi

"No," I said. "I never had any."

"How do you feel now, Matt?"

"How do I feel? I don't know how I feel. I'm an alcoholic, I never know how I feel."

"Ah."

"I feel sober. That's how I feel."

"I bet you do." He looked at me over the top of his glass. He said, "I'd say they deserved killing."

"Do you think so?"

"If anyone ever did."

"I guess we all deserve killing," I said. "Maybe that's why nobody ever gets out of here alive. I don't know where I get off deciding who deserves killing and who doesn't. We left four people dead back there and two of them I never even met. Did they deserve killing?"

"They had guns in their hands. Nobody drafted them, not for that war."

"But did they deserve it? If we all got what we deserved-"

"Oh, Jesus forbid it," he said. "Matt, I have to ask you this. Why did you shoot the woman?"

"Somebody had to."

"It needn't have been yourself."

"No." I took a moment and thought about it. "I'm not sure," I said at last. "There's only one thing I can think of."

"Let's hear it, man."

"Well, I don't know," I said, "but I think maybe I wanted to get some blood on my apron."

SUNDAY I had di

"Well, it's a hell of a story," he said. "And I guess you could say it has a happy ending, because you didn't drink and you aren't going to go to jail. Or are you?"

"No."

"It must be an interesting feeling, playing judge and jury, deciding who gets to live and who deserves to die. Like playing God, I guess you could say."

"You could say that."

"You think you'll make a habit of it?"

I shook my head. "I don't think I'll ever do it again. But I never thought I would do it at all. I've done unorthodox things over the years, both on and off the force. I've fabricated evidence, I've distorted situations."

"This was a little different."

"It was a lot different. See, I saw that tape during the summer and I never really did get it out of my mind. And then I ran into the son of a bitch by pure chance, recognized him from a gesture, the way he smoothed a boy's hair back on his head. Probably something his own father used to do."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because something or other turned him into a monster. Maybe his father abused him, maybe he was raped in childhood. That's one of the ways it works. It wouldn't have been all that hard to understand Stettner. To sympathize with him."

"That's something I noticed," he said. "When you were talking about him. I never got the feeling that you hated him."

"Why should I hate him? He was quite charming. His ma