Dark Maze

lunged forward and shouted, “Flaming fire shall taketh vengeance on them that knoweth not our Lord Jesus Christ!”
    One of the uniforms tapped Logue’s shoulder when he saw me come steaming in. Logue turned and waved.
    I was sweaty and breathless after running four blocks from the subway station at Sixth and Forty-second. Now the sight behind the altar—and the stink—was making me dizzy. Logue knew just what to do.
    “Here you go, Hock—you’re going to need one of these babies,” he said. He pulled a Dutch Masters panatella from the breast pocket of his suit coat and then lit it for me with a Zippo. “That poor sod hanging on the big stick there, he went and crapped himself up pretty good when he got the business.”
    The guy in the chair had himself another outburst. This time it was, “The sword of our almighty Lord shall striketh down all apostates!”
    Logue looked down at him and snarled, “Jesus H. Christ, can’t you never shut the hell up?” Then he flicked some hot cigar ash on his wrist.
    “Ouch!” the guy hollered, rubbing himself. “Ouch, God damn it!”
    Logue said to me, “Sounds like the Rev is finally coming around, don’t it? When we first come in, he was talking in tongues.”
    The cigar was making me feel better. I could have used another taste of Prescott’s Scotch, though.
    I looked at Logue, then at the Rev rubbing himself, then at the blasphemy. I crossed myself and asked Logue, “How do you think this one plays?”
    “You tell me, Hock. We ain’t touched nothing hers yet, on account of my orders are to wait for you to join the party.” Logue leaned over and jabbed the young guy’s collarbone. “What do you say, Rev? This what you’d call a case of all hell breaking loose?”
    Logue laughed at this and so did a couple of the uniforms standing near us. The butt of the joke only rocked back and forth in his chair, poker-faced.
    I looked at him fondling his white bible, then I asked Logue, “Who is he?”
    “Say hello to the Most Reverend Billy-Boy Miracle, Hock. Believe it or not, that’s what it says on his driver’s license from Arkansas.” Then Logue said to Miracle, “Rev, this here is Detective Neil Hockaday. He’s the one I told you about with the rubber hose.”
    “Thanks,” I said to Logue, who shrugged. Then, to the reverend, “Reverend Miracle?”
    He looked up at me with his sallow poker face and said solemnly, “Are you written in the book of life, Detective Hockaday?”
    “Quit busting our chops, padre,” Logue said. “Detective Hockaday and me, we’re a couple of regular shamrock Catholics, okay? We belong to the biggest show in town. So we won’t be needing your little tent.”
    I took Logue by the arm and pulled him off to the side of the altar. A uniform moved in close to the Most Reverend Miracle.
    “So what do you have, Logue?”
    “A perp is what.”
    “That cracker?”
    “Look, he’ll do. You got Slattery at the Post and everybody else up your back. Maybe a nice loony perp from Arkansas can take some pressure off?”
    “How about you just tell me what happened?”
    “Fifteen minutes ago, we get here. The door’s open and we figure somebody’s inside, so we slip in quiet. Right away we seen what you see, and smell what you smell. Also, there’s Billy-Boy standing right about where we’re standing, beholding this sick thing. He turns around and notices all us cops. Then Billy-Boy gets the very bright idea to flop down on the floor and have himself one lovely holy-rolling spastic screaming fit. Too bad you missed out on that, Hock.“
    “Did you read him yet?”
    “Well, we put him in the chair and we tried. But he don’t say he understands his rights, he don’t say he wants a lawyer. All he does is start spieling the scriptures, which you heard yourself.”
    I looked over at the glassy-eyed Miracle. I puffed my cigar. “Maybe he looks good,” I said, “but I don’t think that’s our maniac.”
    “To tell you the truth, me neither.” Logue shrugged.
    “He might’ve been innocently standing here drooling over a bare-assed dead guy, then in waltzes a gang of cops and Billy-Boy is suddenly mortified so he goes into his act,” Logue said. “He wouldn’t be the first Jesus jumper who’s a homo and a pervo, right? Besides which, there’s eight million stories in the naked city.”
    “You’ve got a very prurient imagination, Logue.”
    “I think it’s on account of all the freaking opera my old lady plays on