the Spy (2010) by Cussler Clive (early readers .txt) 📕

If you want to talk, you must walk. I have my rounds, and you will see that our people live in less bright places than their new church. Come along. He set off with a surprisingly springy step for a man his age, turned a corner, and plunged into a neighborhood that felt miles, not yards, from his brand-new church.

You've served here long, Father?

Since the Draft Riots.

That's forty-five years ago.

Some things have changed in the district, most have not. We are still poor.

The priest entered a tenement with an elaborate carved stone portal and started up a steep flight of rickety stairs. He was breathing hard by the third floor. At the sixth, he paused to catch his breath, and when the wheezing stopped he knocked on a door, and called, Good morning! It is Father Jack.

A girl with a baby in her arms opened the door. Thank you for coming, Father.

And how is your mother?

Not good, Father, not good at all.

He left Bell in the front room. A single window that looked onto a yard crisscrossed with clotheslines in the shade admitted the stench of a privy six stories below. Bell folded a wad of dollar bills in his hand and slipped it to the girl as they left.

At the bottom of the stairs, Father Jack caught his breath again. Who are you inquiring about?

Brian O'Shay and Billy Collins.

Brian's long gone from here.

Fifteen years, I've been told.

If God ever blessed this district, it was the day O'Shay disappeared. I would never say such a thing lightly, but Brian O'Shay was Satan's right-hand man.

I've heard he's back.

I've heard rumors, the priest said bleakly, and he led Bell back into the street.

I saw Billy Collins last night.

Father Jack stopped and looked at the tall detective with sudden respect. Did you really? Down in the hole?

You know he's there?

Billy has, shall we say, hit bottom. Where else would he go?

Who is his little girl?

His little girl?

He kept referring to his little girl. But he claimed he had no children.

That's a dubious claim considering the youth he led. In those years, it was rare I baptized a carroty-topped infant and didn't wonder if Billy was the father.

I wondered if his hair was red. It seemed mostly gray in the dim light.

Though I suppose, Father Jack added with a thin smile, Billy could claim with a certain degree of truth that he is not aware he had any children. It would have been an unusually brave girl who would have named him the father. Still, I see his point. Whoring and drunk since he was twelve years old, what would he remember?

He was adamant he had no children.

That would make the little girl his sister.

Of course. He weeps for her.

I'm sure he does.

What happened to her? Bell asked.

Wait for me here, the priest said. I'll only be a moment. He entered a building and came out shortly. As they continued along the block, Father Jack said, There are wicked men living in this community who live by stealing from poor, ignorant people. They'll steal their money, and if they have no money they will steal their drink. If they have no drink, they'll steal their children. Whatever the wicked can sell or use themselves. The child was kidnapped.

Billy's sister?

Snatched from the street-no more than five years old-and never seen again. Surely she courses through Billy's brain when he injects the morphine. Where was he when she was stolen? Where was he ever when the poor babe was needful? He looks back now and loves the idea of that wee child. More than he ever loved the child herself.

The old priest shook his head in anger and disgust. When I think of the nights I prayed for that child . . . and all the children like her.

Bell waited, sensing a natural ebullience in the old man that would rise to the surface. And it did after a while. His expression brightened.

In truth, it was Brian O'Shay who cared for that little girl.

Eyes O'Shay?

He looked after her when Billy and his shiftless parents were drunk. Father Jack lowered his voice. They say that O'Shay beat her father to death for sins against the child only the Devil could imagine. She was the only soul Brian O'Shay ever loved. It was a blessing that he never knew what happened to her.

Could Brian O'Shay have kidnapped her?

Never in this life! Even if he weren't long gone to Hell.

But what if he was not killed when he vanished? What if he came back? Could he have kidnapped her?

He would never hurt her, said the priest.

Evil men do evil, Father. You've told me how wicked he was.

Even the most wicked man has a streak of God in him. The priest took Bell's arm. If you remember that, you will be a better detective. And a better man. That wee child was Brian O'Shay's streak of God.

Was her name Katherine?

Father Jack looked at him curiously.

Why do you say that?

I don't really know. But I'm asking you, was it?

Father Jack started to answer. A pistol shot cracked from a tenement roof. The priest tumbled to the pavement. A second shot drilled the space Bell had occupied an instant before. He was already rolling across the sidewalk, drawing his Browning, snapping to his knees, raising his weapon to fire.

But all he could see were women and children screaming from their windows that their priest was murdered.

I WANT A DIRECT telephone connection to the chief of the Baltimore office now! Isaac Bell shouted as he stalked into Van Dorn headquarters. Tell him to have his Katherine Dee file on his desk.

It took an hour for Baltimore to telephone back. Bell? Sorry I took so long. Raining like hell again, half the city's flooded. You'll get yours, it's another nor'easter.

I want to know exactly who Katherine Dee is and I want to