Pagan Babies

Saying, "I want to thank you for helping me catch my breath the other night. I had all the wind knocked out of me."

"Yeah, you took a shot, didn't you?"

The Mutt could hear the little girls talking loud to their mom and dad, wanting something, their little voices saying please please please.

Shit. He didn't need that. The priest was finishing a sandwich, taking the last bite and wiping his mouth with a paper napkin.

This was when the phone rang. It rang twice and stopped in the middle of a ring, somebody in another room picking up a receiver.

The priest said, "You have something from Mr. Amilia? It wouldn't be a check by any chance."

"No, I don't have any check."

"Okay, then what's it about?"

The Mutt saw the priest looking past him and turned to see the porky brother in the doorway. He said, "It's for you."

"Debbie?"

"Your friend. He sounds like he's out of breath. Said he's been trying to get you but the line's been busy."

His friend, which gave the Mutt an idea who it was. He said, "Is that Joh

The porky brother said, "Yeah, you know him?"

"I met him a couple times."

The brother left and the Mutt turned to see the priest with the wall phone, standing there facing the cabinets listening, like he didn't dare look this way. Well, there wouldn't be any surprise now, the priest getting the word from that son of a bitch Joh

"No, uh-unh," putting on an act. The Mutt slipped his hand into his leather coat to take hold of the Glock. He wondered if the priest would piss his pants when he saw it. Now the Mutt glanced at the pictures the little girls had been looking at. He saw a bunch of little nigger kids playing on hard pack. Some others digging what looked like yams. They'd have to be the orphans over there, the ones the money was suppose to go to help.

He was hanging up the phone now, taking his time to look this way.

The Mutt said, "I'll tell you something I don't understand. You see pictures of skin'n bones starving nigger kids, they always have flies all over 'em. Not so much these, but what're flies doing there if there's nothing to eat?"

"Dead people," the priest said, "attract the flies."

He came over to where the pictures were, at one end of the high kitchen table, saying, "Let me show you," and reached into a canvas bag-the Mutt ready to draw the Glock and do it right then. But the priest's hand came out of the bag with a stack of pictures wrapped with green rubber bands he took off and then laid the pictures out on the table with the others, saying, "Over a half-million people were murdered while I was there." The Mutt looked and saw dead bodies, skeletons, some that looked like old dried-up pieces of leather, bits of cloth stuck to bones, all of 'em laid out flat on a concrete floor. He had never seen anything like this in his life, but for some reason it reminded him of prison, Southern Ohio Correctional. He heard the priest say, "I was there. I saw these people and about thirty more in the church that day. I saw them murdered, most of them hacked to death with machetes, like this one."

The Mutt looked up, saw the priest turn from the counter behind him holding a big goddamn machete, raising it and saying now, "This was used to kill some of them." He held it to one side like he was ready to slash with it and the Mutt wasn't sure he could get his gun out in time. Go to shoot somebody and get your goddamn head cut off. The priest surprised him then.

He said, "Tell me something. You're supposed to be a hit man-how many people have you killed?"

The Mutt, still holding on tight to the gun in his coat pocket, said,

"I've shot three.., no, four. And I shanked one."

"That must've been in prison."

"Yes, it was."

"Well, I shot four Hums with a Russian pistol," the priest said,

"one right after the other, like ducks at a shooting gallery."

"What're Hums?"

"The bad guys at that time," the priest said. "I wonder if I could've done it with this, hack them to death like they did these poor people in the church. You should've heard the screams."

"I bet."

The priest started hefting the weapon like he was feeling the weight of it, getting it balanced just right in his hand, ready to swing it.

The Mutt felt his shoulders hunch.

The priest said, "You know what? I believe I could use it if I had to."

"I'd have to be good and drunk," the Mutt said, "cut a man down like a tree. Why'd they do it?"

"The same old story," the priest said. "Poor people killed the ones that weren't as poor. They got juiced up on banana beer and went crazy."

"Banana beer'll do that, huh? Southern Ohio Correctional," the Mutt said, "we made shine'd give you the worst headache you ever had, turn you mean. There was a riot while I was there? V/hat you said reminded me. Six cons in L Block and a guard got killed, beaten to death. They set fire to anything'd burn and busted what didn't.

You wonder what gets into people, don't you?"

"They killed children, too," the priest said. "These orphans're some that are left." He looked up then, placing the machete on the table, and said, 'I'll tell you what happened, Mutt. I believe that's your name?"

"Yes, it is."

"I asked Tony Amilia if he'd help me feed these starving children.

Look at this one, picking through a garbage dump. Tony said yeah, he'd get the money from Randy. You probably know about that."

"You're right," the Mutt said, "and Randy didn't want to give it to him."

"But Tony made him, didn't he? Randy gave him two hundred and fifty thousand dollars that was supposed to be for these children, but Tony kept it for himself. I haven't seen one nickel of it."

It caused the Mutt to frown and squint.

"You understand what I'm saying?" "Yeah, but I already got paid."

"To get rid of Vincent Moraco, wasn't it? Joh

"No, I got half up front to hit Mr. Moraco. But it was him, Mr.

Moraco, paid me to hit you."

For a moment there the priest looked confused, but said, "To keep me from getting Randy's money, right?"

"Yeah…?"

"And I didn't. Tony's got it. You want to shoot somebody, go shoot Tony. You got no business with me." The priest turned to the pictures again. "Unless you want to give something to feed these poor orphans. Look at these little fellas here. Look at their eyes."

Fran and Mary Pat were on the sofa in the library watching television.

They both looked up as Terry came in, Terry wearing a white shirt now and jeans. "He's gone?" Fran said.

"Yeah, he left."

Fran said, "He has to be the weirdest-looking gangster I've ever seen. What'd he want?"

"He heard about the orphan fund," Terry said, "and stopped by to make a contribution." He saw Mary Pat giving him her cool appraising eye as he held up a wad of bills. "Five thousand dollars, cash."

"He had that much in his pocket?"

"I guess he just got paid," Terry said. "You never know where it's go

Mary Pat kept looking at him, but still didn't say anything, holding his gaze as he stood there.

Fran said, "Will you please sit down and talk to us?"

"When I get back," Terry said.

He went over and kissed Mary Pat on the cheek.

"I got to go see Debbie."