The Risk Pool

for that. He would shrug his shoulders and say, “How’s a kid supposed to learn?”
    “Monsignor wants to see you,” I told him.
    “Sure,” he said, blinking, trying to look wide awake. “What the hell. Why not.” He would bring the hand shears along as a prop.
    “I didn’t see the stone in time,” I said when we rounded the corner of the church and the rectory came into view.
    “Stone?”
    I wished I had it to show him. The window was still too far away and the hole too small to see from where we stood, and Skinny had stopped in his tracks when it became clear the situation was more complicated than he had imagined. It took me several minutes to make him understand what had happened, because he could see where the mower was sitting and he doubted it was possible. (At least somebody had a proper appreciation of the miraculous.) “What would a stone be doing there?” he kept asking, probably to waste time. He did not want to face the Monsignor.
    He not only did not want to, he flat refused to do it. For a while he paced up and down in the shade, then gave up and went back to where he had been sleeping and began to clip the border with the hand shears. He stayed right there until it was time for lunch, and then he made me fetch his lunch pail.
    Mrs. Ambrosino met me on the back porch. Clearly, she had been sent to see if the groundskeeper was in sight. She approved of Skinny even less than she approved of me, refusing even to let him into the kitchen for a glass of water. She’d known Skinny Donovan forever and he’d known her, too. As far as Mrs. Ambrosino was concerned, Skinny wasn’t too good to drink out of the hose if he got thirsty. “Where’s he hiding?” she said.
    I pretended ignorance.
    At the table in the dark dining room, the two priests were already seated. The younger was saying grace, though he looked up when I came in. The Monsignor always studied his own foldedhands until they made the sign of the cross. I slipped quietly into my chair, hoping that when the prayer was concluded the Monsignor would not notice I was there. Most days he didn’t.
    The table was full, as usual. In the center was a large white soup tureen in the shape of a dove, leaking steam. Nearby, a large platter of cold cuts, including rare roast beef, spiced ham and salami, was surrounded by bowls of salads, condiments and two loaves of bread, one light, one dark, on separate silver platters. The Monsignor lifted the lid from the tureen and peered inside suspiciously. Mrs. Ambrosino hovered nearby, anxious to assist. “What is that floating?” he wanted to know.
    “It is a wedding soup,” the good woman explained, without precisely answering his question. Having discovered that “The Father” often ate little more than a shallow bowl of broth at the noon meal, she had taken recently to serving “heartier” soups. “The meatballs are made with the finest veal,” she added.
    The Monsignor frowned when the ladle came up full of meatballs, pasta, assorted vegetables. “No one at this table is contemplating matrimony that I am aware of,” he said, and proceeded to ladle carefully just the stock into his bowl until a shallow puddle formed there. When a meatball plopped in by mistake he speared it with the outside tine of his fork and plunked it back into the tureen before sending the whole apparatus to the younger priest, who at that moment looked unusually pale and failed to notice its approach. The Monsignor accepted a single slice of dark bread from near the heel and massaged a small dab of butter into it methodically.
    “Mr. Donovan is unavailable for consultation?” he said without looking up.
    Mrs. Ambrosino was staring at me maliciously, as if she would have liked to prevent the soup tureen’s arrival until the matter of my worthiness to receive it had been decided. Where soup was concerned, my method was the Monsignor’s in geometric reverse. I would shamelessly search out her finest veal meatballs like rare jewels. Or at least I would have on a normal day. At the moment I was a little too nervous to conduct my customary feed.
    “He might be clipping over on the other side of the church,” I said. It was sort of a compromise statement, true but phrased without the conviction that would initiate an immediate search.
    “He no doubt imagines that his services cannot be terminated if he himself cannot be found,” said the Monsignor, which struck me as pretty sharp. It was Skinny’s flawed plan