The Book of Air and Shadows

grinding sound came from the machine shop below, where they repaired bicycles. He waited until it stopped and said, “Yes, I do. As you know. Like the man said, God who made us without our help will not save us without our consent. Either you’ll cry mercy and forgive and be forgiven, or die the death.”
    “Yes, Father,” I said, looking piously upward.
    He sighed, tired of the pathetic old game I make him play. I was tired of it too but could not keep my clawed fingers away from the unendurable, unsalvable itch. He said, “Yes, you’ve manipulated me into preaching and you have therefore won yet again. Congratulations. Meanwhile, what are we going to do about this problem of yours?”
    “I don’t know. That’s why I came to see you.”
    “You think this Russian, Shvanov, is involved?”
    “As muscle, yes. But I can’t figure out who’s behind it.”
    “Why bother? The manuscript is gone, and this woman disappearing seems like a matter for the cops.”
    “I was told not to involve the cops. She said they’d kill her.”
    “And you feel it’s your responsibility to rescue her.”
    “I said I’d protect her and I didn’t; so, yes I do.”
    “You want to continue the affair. You’re in love.”
    “What the hell does that matter? She’s a human being in mortal danger.”
    He steepled his hands against his chin and gave me an uncomfortably penetrating stare, which is what he does now instead of kicking my ass. Then he said, “Well, of course I’ll help in any way I can. I have a couple of contacts down at Police Plaza. I’ll make some calls, get some background on this guy Shvanov, and also get the word out that this is serious-”
    “No, don’t do that! Don’t involve the cops at all. You have other kinds of contacts.”
    “I do. All right, I’ll see what the street has to say.”
    “Thank you. The main thing I’m worried about is Amalie and the kids. If they want to put more pressure on me…”
    “I’ll take care of that too,” he replied, after a brief considerate pause. This, of course, is what I had come for. Paul knows a lot of tough kids, what they call original gangsters, in that neighborhood, and he has an odd relationship with them. He thinks they’re exactly like the Germanic or Slavic barbarians that the missionaries who were sent out in the dark centuries met and converted-proud, violent, hungry for they know not what. In the early days of the mission Paul had to literally fight people on the street to demonstrate that he was tougher than they were, which he was. That he had a rep, that he was known to have stabbed people in prison, didn’t hurt. That he had personally killed more people than all of them put together, and looked it, was another plus.
    Also, Paul claimed that compared with the montagnards, New York gangbangers weren’t very tough. None of them had ever missed a meal and if imprisoned had been housed in what would have seemed luxurious spas to the average Hmong. He said his guys over there could have eaten all the Crips, Bloods, and Gangster Disciples for breakfast. And their pathetic bravado inspired compassion in him rather than the terror common among the better classes. (Paul is not afraid of anything mortal, nor was he at ten.) But he took them seriously as tribes, and like the Jesuits of old he targeted their leaders, the most violent of the violent, and over time had come to a concordat of sorts with them, which was that there was to be no dope sold and no whores run within a certain pale around Paul’s buildings, and that people fleeing the vengeance of the street could find sanctuary within. Some few of the street lords have actually been converted. A larger number sent their children or their younger brothers and sisters to be educated at his school. It was a very Dark Ages arrangement and perfectly natural to a man like my brother.
    Now I could see that Paul, having made his decision to help, couldn’t wait to get me out of there. Not a comfortable man, my brother, sort of like Jesus in Matthew, always at the run, impatient with the apostles, conscious of the shortness of the time, the need to get the successors up and ready for when the founder must leave the scene. He just turned away and started talking to some boys, and so I collected Omar and made my grateful exit.

    In the car we headed west and south until the Columbia campus hove into view. I generally have a pretty good idea of Mickey Haas’s schedule and so I knew that Thursdays