The Prudence of the Flesh (4 page)

“Take this with you,” Zubiri called after him. He was waving the curled and commented-on pages of Ned's story. Then a response came, arising out of the basement of Ned Bunting's soul, where bric-a-brac from his army days jostled with crude messages from rest-room walls. He flung it back at Zubiri, whose only reaction was to stuff the manuscript into the wastebasket beside him rather than into his ear.

Ned thought of complaining to the conference organizers. He listened to two authors who had known success in a tenth of the time Ned had devoted to failure. Persistence. Keep at it. Their advice came down to that. Ned could have wept. When the young woman of the pair spoke of her eternal gratitude to Max Zubiri, her editor, Ned left the talk, checked out of the hotel, and drove home to Fox River, a journey of which he retained no memory at all. It was like coming home drunk, only what he was was sober. It took him a week before he convinced himself that Zubiri's word
could not be the last. In his search for a way of proving himself, he hit on the idea of writing a brief column for the Sunday parish bulletin.

“Not as long as yours, of course,” he told the pastor, Monsignor Sledz. “Maybe a hundred, a hundred and fifty words.”

“How long would you say mine is?”

“Five hundred words.”

“I never count them.”

“It's pretty good.”

Monsignor Sledz had one of those Polish baby faces. His cheeks turned a little pink, but Ned did not like the gleam in the monsignor's blue eyes.

“And you want to write a column.”

“I could show you some samples.”

“A few words from the usher?”

“Oh, I wouldn't refer to what I do in the parish.”

“You find seats for people at Mass. You take up the collection.” There was an edge to the pastor's voice.

“That's what an usher does, yes.”

“You could call it ‘The Fall of the House of Usher.'

“The monsignorial smile was mean. Ned might have been facing Zubiri again. “Sure, send me a sample. Why don't you ask the other ushers to do the same?”

Ned quit as an usher. He would have liked to submit his resignation, but the truth was, it was a voluntary position. Sometimes they just invited people out of the pews to help take up the collection. Quitting meant not going back to St. Bavo's. Maybe he would quit going to Mass altogether. Who was tormenting him here, Zubiri and Sledz, or God himself? Why had he been plagued by his ambition to be a writer only to open himself to
such crushing humiliation? It was during those dark days that he met Gloria.

She was behind him in the checkout line at the supermarket and twice ran her cart against his ankles. The second time, she circled the cart and squeezed his arm when she said she was sorry.

“Think nothing of it.”

“You like it? I'll do it again.”

And she did, gently, and they both laughed. He waited while she paid for her own things.

“Watch it,” she said. “I still have my cart.”

He took over from her, offering to push her cart to her car.

“Once an usher, always an usher,” she replied. He stopped and stared at her, ready for anything after Zubiri and Sledz, but her smile was not cruel. “Sundays you look so goody-goody. I bet you're a terror on weekdays.”

“Word gets around.”

At her car, she took bags from the cart and handed them to him so he could put them in the trunk. It doubled the work, but he was sorry when the cart was empty.

“Now show me to my pew.”

“Did I ever do that?”

“I'm not that kind of girl.”

What was she—fifty, late forties? No, fifty at least. He felt he would have remembered her face if he had noticed her before: pretty, surrounded by ringlets because she pulled her winter cap tight on her head, but it was the lips Ned noticed, and the eyes.

“What kind are you?”

“Give me a ring and find out.” She jabbed him in the side with her mittened hand. “I mean a phone call.”

“I don't have your number.”

“Don't be so sure.” She scrawled it on one of the grocery bags and tore it off, sending oranges running around in her trunk. They made teamwork of correcting that, too. “I even know your name. I asked another girl who that good-looking usher at ten o'clock was.”

“What's your name?”

“Gloria. Bye-bye.”

It was ridiculous. She drove away before Ned realized he had emptied his groceries into her trunk as well. Would he ever have called her if it weren't for that?

Marie Murkin couldn't believe it the first time she saw Ned Bunting at Mass in St. Hilary's. She was so surprised that she didn't confront him and ask when he had stopped going to St. Bavo's. A few months ago, Marie had filled in at St. Bavo's while the housekeeper was on vacation, adding that task to her work at St. Hilary's.

“Can't they cook for themselves for a week? Or eat out?” Father Dowling asked.

“If you don't want me to . . .”

“There are three priests there, you know. Polish parishes haven't been hit as hard.”

“Well, they'll have to eat American if I cook for them. I explained that to Barbara.”

“They'll try to hire you away from me.”

Marie was frowning lest a silly smile break out. It was nice to know she was appreciated. She meant it, too: One more remark and she would call Barbara and tell her Father Dowling had vetoed the idea. She couldn't let her old friend down like that, though. For an anxious moment, she wondered if Father Dowling was teasing her. He was always teasing her.

“Oh, go. I suppose it's far more likely that some man will sweep you off your feet and take you away.”

If any man could have, and of course the idea was ridiculous, it was someone like Ned Bunting, the chief usher at St. Bavo's. Not that they had ranks, but anyone seeing Ned at work would know he was in charge. Barbara had mentioned him to Marie before leaving on her Warsaw trip, a gift from the pastor. Of course, Barbara was her age; well, close—in any case, older than Ned Bunting. Imagine Marie's reaction when she herself began to go gaga over Ned. She didn't have to imagine the teasing Father Dowling would give her if he suspected she was smitten by a man, and by such a young man.

The second time he came to Mass at St. Hilary's there was a woman with him.

Marie called Barbara at St. Bavo's and asked her to come for tea on her next afternoon off. They had a wonderful time at the kitchen table. Barbara was full of stories about Monsignor Sledz and did not expect Marie to reply in kind.

“Why are your ushers now coming to Mass here?”

Barbara sat back and puffed out her cheeks. “You mean Ned Bunting. Sledz drove him away. He had them all laughing at Ned Bunting's idea that he write a weekly column for the parish bulletin. I haven't seen him in church since I heard the story.”

“He and his wife were here a week ago.”

“Wife? He's not married.”

“Oh, really.”

“Such a fine figure of a man. He's half Polish, you know.”

“I wonder who she is.”

“When you find out, let me know.”

So much for that avenue. Barbara did not seem reluctant to let the subject drop. Two days later, though, she called.

“The woman you saw with Ned Bunting? Her name is Gloria Daley. Our organist knows her.”

There was a scary moment when Marie feared that Barbara would say something about her curiosity, but that, too, passed. Marie resolved to drive the thought from her mind. What on earth difference did it make to her where Ned Bunting went to church and with whom? Then she saw the two of them in the supermarket and managed to keep several aisles between them and herself. Even so, she could hear the woman's trilling laughter. Why do some women make such a fuss over a man?

Tuttle of Tuttle & Tuttle did not recognize the name of the man who came to him, but then he had no time to listen to the radio. When does anyone listen to the radio except in his car? As often as not, the car Tuttle was in was driven by Peanuts Pianone, who was on the lowest rung in the Fox River police but nonetheless a valuable source of information for the battling attorney. If Tuttle waited for legal business to come to him, he would have given up long ago. So it was a good day when Hazel informed him that a potential client would be in the office at ten the following morning.

“That's a little early, isn't it?”

“Not for the birds. Be here.”

How entrenched Hazel had become since he had first brought her aboard as a temporary. Before her week was out, she had established herself in the outer office. Already you would have thought that he worked for her. Peanuts refused to visit the office now, even when tempted with a promise of a feast of sent-for Chinese food. Now they only enjoyed Chinese food together at
the Great Wall restaurant or as now, in Peanuts's unmarked car. Hazel had reached Tuttle through his cell phone and barked instructions about the next morning's appointment.

“That her?” Peanuts asked, delicately holding the chopsticks with which he was transferring sweet and sour chicken to his mouth, meeting it halfway.

Tuttle nodded. There was no way he could fool Peanuts when it came to Hazel, but it had been a long time since he had even permitted himself to wonder what it would be like without Hazel in the office. Her manner did not intimidate clients as it did Tuttle, one of those little mysteries of life. Another was why she stayed with him. She could have browbeaten a whole firm and made a real name for herself.

Peanuts already had the name—”Bitch”—but then Peanuts was overtly the male chauvinist that Tuttle was only
in petto
. Odd that the dumbo Peanuts understood the phrase. Of course, he was Italian. Hazel wasn't even his least favorite. His real grievance was Agnes Lamb, the black cop who had easily soared beyond him. When racism could be added to misogyny, you had Peanuts.

The man gave his name as William Arancia. Tuttle knew from the start he was lying. What else are lawyers for?

“I don't really approve of what I am asking you to do. I want a person looked into.”

“Purpose?”

“Can we just call it curiosity?”

“Okay. What's her name?”

“Madeline Murphy.”

“Wife? Fiancée? Just friend?”

“None of the above. She may represent a threat to me and my family.”

“Ah. Blackmail?”

“You could call it that.”

“I could call it anything. What do you call it?”

“Blackmail.”

Tuttle took down what particulars William Arancia could give him on Madeline Murphy. Finally he stopped him. “What do you need me for?”

“That's what I hope you will find out.”

Tuttle already knew his first job would be to find out the real name of his client. The man had no hesitation in paying Tuttle a hundred dollars to seal their relation as lawyer and client. In cash. Good. Why confuse the IRS with recorded payments?

When Tuttle had shown his new client out, warning him that the elevator was temporarily out of commission, he turned to a beaming Hazel. “Tuttle, that man has class,” she said.

“I wonder what his name is.”

“I told you his name. Don't you remember anything?”

Standing over Hazel's desk, he called Peanuts and asked what
arancia
meant.

“Orange. But your secretary's a
limone
.”

Having hung up, Tuttle asked Hazel, “Would you have believed him if he said he was William of Orange?”

“Is that his real name?”

“You don't know the name of the man all Irishmen hate?”

“Tuttle?”

Never apologize, never explain. Arguments with Hazel were
pointless. Either she won, and was obnoxious for days, or lost, and was worse.

Later, in his own car, Tuttle turned on the radio and heard the unmistakable voice of his new client. He pulled over and listened to a pretty impenetrable talk on Ronald Firbank. “The title of one of his novels poses the same problem nowadays as the title of one of Conrad's.
Prancing Nigger
, like
The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus'
. . .” Tuttle was glad Peanuts wasn't with him. Not until the end of the program did the speaker identify himself. “This is Gregory Barrett, with
End Notes.
I'll be back again next week. Meanwhile . . .”