Dark Maze

the radio.”
    “Could be,” I said. “Come on, let’s take a look up there.”
    Logue followed me to the altar, then around behind it to where the naked corpse was lashed at the wrists, waist and ankles to a tall wooden crucifix.
    Dark brown blood streaked his face. There was a knife stuck in the left breast, the blade sunk into his heart. The smell was overpowering now.
    I scraped a patch of blood that had dripped down from his chest to his toes. “It’s not sticky anymore,” I said.
    “Yeah, he’s been hanging a while,” Logue said.
    I would not have recognized him by looking at his face. Not with all that blood and the agony that had twisted the features.
    But I knew.
    And there was no mistaking the meaning behind the words penned on a plain white envelope stuffed between the dead man’s blood-caked ankles: WHAT HAPPENS TO HALOS.
    Logue was looking at me. He said, “A penny for your thoughts.”
    I was about to answer when I heard Inspector Neglio call my name. He stood in the aisle, holding a handkerchief to his nose. A uniform gave him a cigar.
    “Save your money,” I said to Logue.
    I walked down from the altar and stepped over to Billy-Boy Miracle. I looked at his pale clean hands folded on top of his bible and said, “Son, I know you didn’t have anything to do with this. Your hands are spotless.”
    Miracle looked up at me. His eyes were red and wet.
    “Reverend Miracle, can you help me on this? Anything you might know?”
    He lunged forward in his chair and shouted, “Whosoever obeyeth not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ shall be punished with everlasting damnation! Whosoever is not found written in the book of life shall be cast into the boiling lake of fire!”
    I left him shouting in his chair and walked over to where Neglio stood. I said, “Let’s get some air.”
    “Yeah, Hock, let’s.”
    I left Logue to supervise the scene. Neglio and I went out to the street where his black Chrysler waited, along with a couple of television camera crews—so far—and the ever-dependable Slattery yelling after us about a statement.
    A half-dozen uniforms formed a walking circle around Neglio and me, leading us toward the Chrysler. The air on the street was hot with strobe lights. We slid into the backseat of the Chrysler; the driver gunned the engine. And the car sped west across the sealed-off block of Forty-first Street, then turned downtown onto Ninth Avenue.
    I leaned forward and told the driver, “Go to Thirty-fourth, pal, then take a right. Right again on Tenth and crawl slow along the east side of the avenue, real slow so I can check the side streets.”
    When I sat back, Neglio said quietly, “Question time, Hock.”
    “Ask away. You’ve got until I get to my stop.”
    “Let’s start with the corncob in the chair back there at the church,” Neglio said. “Who is he and why was he yelling from the bible?”
    “I guess he’s the pastor of the cracker box,” I said. “He discovered the murder you saw and smelled. I think he’s a young, frightened thumper and that’s about it. If he’s got any ulterior motive for the theatrics, it’s only publicity.“
    “Publicity for what?”
    “Logue’s holding him as a perp. Talk it over with him.
    Logue seems to think maybe we’d all get a little more breathing space if the press bought it that we had a major break in the case.”
    “What’s the thumper’s name?”
    “Get this: the Most Reverend Billy-Boy Miracle, direct from Arkansas.”
    “Beautiful,” Neglio said. He thought for a second, and we stopped for the light at Thirty-fourth Street. “But you’re thinking it’s only a cheap turnaround collar?”
    “Yeah, I am. I don’t see guys like Slattery buying the Reverend Miracle as our real McCoy maniac. So, I don’t see the percentage of even holding Billy-Boy. Besides, if he is spouting off just to get his name in the papers, what do you suppose happens?”
    “What else?” Neglio said. “Billy-Boy winds up with more sheep to fleece, which means he gets richer.”
    “It’s sweet if you look at it his way.”
    Neglio nodded and the light changed. Then he said, “Next question: who’s the dead guy on that cross?”
    “Johnny Halo.”
    “What?”
    “The one and only,” I said. “What did you dig up on him so far?”
    Neglio groaned. “He’s connected, all right. But sometimes that’s all they need to know.”
    "They?"
    “Know-nothing reporters who think every guinea in New York who maybe once got a