The Fancy Dancer

Brown Palace.”
    The point about the Shoups’ affluence was not lost on penny-scraping Father Vance. “Why didn’t Vidal stay at his sister’s place?”
    “You should see it. A room and a half. One of the kids sleeps on the sofa.”
    There was a suspicion of a fiendish grin coming at the comers of Father Vance’s mouth. I was telling him exactly what he wanted to hear. In his wrath against the meddling Mrs. Shoup, he would probably believe anything I told him, and not double-check it.
    “Now, this priest friend of yours,” said Father Vance, reaching for his rolling papers and tobacco. “Mrs. Shoup did a little sleuthing on him too, because she saw you and him together a lot. She says that your friend consorts openly with . . .” Father Vance hesitated, then spoke the horrible word. . . with homosexuals in Denver.”
    I kept shaking my head and grinning. That grin seemed fixed on my face like the grin of death on a skull.
    “Mrs. Shoup gets things all mixed up,” I said. “Doric is. doing some homosexual counseling on the campus. He’s doing it with the knowledge and blessing of his Bishop. It’s no big deal, really. Denver just passed a homosexual-rights law, so there are a lot of homosexual students coming out on the campus there. The diocese there is concerned about it, as you can imagine.”
    Father Vance had rolled his cigarette and was smiling happily. He was probably rehearsing mentally the things he would say to Mrs. Shoup the next time he saw her.
    “If Mrs. Shoup was Henry Kissinger,” he said, “I sure-as hell wouldn’t send her to see the Chinese commies.”
    I started to relax just a little. Long ago, in the matter of Meeker vs. Shoup, my pastor had made up his mind that he was on my side. After all, I belonged to the brotherhood of Melchisedech, and she didn’t. By attacking me, she was attacking something close to Father Vance’s heart. Once having made this commitment to defend me, he could hardly back down now, or he would lose credibility with his parishioners.
    “How come you flew down, anyway?” he growled. “I didn’t think you’d be caught dead away from that fancy car of yours.”
    “I was too tired to drive down.”
    “Well,” said Father Vance, “what do we do about St Mary’s female Torquemada? I’m asking you, Father, because it’s your hide she’s after.”
    “Well, I don’t know. I’d have to give it a good think.”
    My mind was racing. If Mrs. Shoup had been frustrated in getting Father Vance to listen to her story, she wouldn’t stop at telling other people in town.
    Father Vance must have picked up my thought.
    “I told her,” he said savagely, “if she spread this vicious gossip around town, I would deny her the sacraments until she made a public retraction. And I’ve got half a notion to kick her off the parish council.”
    The burning sensation had spread all over my head and torso. It felt as if somebody had doused me with gasoline and set me on fire.
    “If we do that” I said, “it’ll make her feel very self-righteous. More than she does now.”
    Father Vance rubbed his bristly chin in his hands. “You’re probably right. Better not make her a martyr. But how are you going to feel, having her there at the meetings every week?”
    “Hell, I’m not afraid of her,” I said.
    That was the first barefaced lie since walking into the office.
    “Well, maybe the warning will keep her in line,” 205
    said Father Vance. “It’d better. Why, she even said she would take the matter to Bishop Carney if I didn’t act.”
    “Oh?” I said.
    Somebody dumped my blood out of the airplane all over again.
    “I told her,” he growled, “if she went to the Bishop I would make a personal trip to Helena to call her a liar. And I haven’t been to Helena for fifteen years.”
    » » »
    Just before nine that evening, I drove downtown on the excuse I needed something from the drugstore. I wanted to talk to Vidal, but I didn’t dare go see him. I didn’t even dare call him from my office phone. If Mrs. Shoup was willing to drive all the way to Denver to see what kind of things I did away from home, then she might be willing to have my phone tapped.
    There was a pay phone in the drugstore. I dialed Vidal’s number. No one answered. Maybe he was eating supper at Trina’s.
    “Oh yes, el hermoso biker, he is here,” said Trina. “Jus’ a minute, I call him.”
    In another minute, Vidal’s voice said hello. In the background, the jukebox was