Thrown-away Child

back here, try to find some hiding place for myself. I come up this stairway, but I sure don’t expect to find you right off like I did. This safe for me up here?”
    “Safe as the clouds I guess. Least for today, Perry-After that, I don’t know.”
    “I know this, girl. We going to fix it so Zeb Tilton ain’t going to lay even one pudgy finger on you ever again.”
    “How you going to swing that?”
    “Oh, I been thinking. What else I got to do but think?”
    “Run?
    “Things work out, I ain’t going to be the one running . That’s with your help and God willing.”
    “I’m willing, I know that.”
    “Good, ’cause like we say, all hell going to bust loose."
    “You making me scared, Perry.” Sister got up off the daybed. “If I ain’t downstairs Zeb liable to come
    here looking for me.”
    “Don’t be scared, girl.”
    “All right,” Sister said, heading down the stairs. But she was scared. She went into Minister Tilton’s office and telephoned someone to tell him so.
     

THIRTY-FOUR

     
    I could not take my eyes from the one face among all the dark, dead faces. This one’s eyes were rolled up into his head, unseeing. I had no clear idea how much time had passed since I entered, making the turn from the small hallway entrance to pass into the open, square room. I had no idea how much time was passing as I stared. No more than I knew exactly where I was—New Orleans or New York or moonlit Vietnam, or the River Styx.
    I saw that he was a boy. They all were.
    But I knew only one of their names—Maybe Richard.
    I said aloud my devotionals to the Virgin Mary and Glory Be to the Father.
    I heard something. A voice—what? I spun the light around the room. Nobody but me and fifteen corpses.
    “You a priest, Mister?”
    The voice came from the blooded floor. It was Maybe Richard’s voice, what was left of it. The sound of him was less than a whisper, the sound of tissue paper being softly torn. Three other cops, at least, had been in this room. Had no one but me heard a voice hanging on for dear life?
    “Hang on, kid,” I said, kneeling.
    “Long enough for my last rites, Mister Man. That’s all the time I got in this world... You a priest, right?”
    Mister Man. He could not see. How did he know I was white?
    “You a damn priest, man, you ought to get on with saying what I got to hear. Oh, man—please...?”
    Those would be the last words out of Maybe Richard. This I knew because of the rattle that had now crept into his tissue paper voice. I have heard that sound before, too many times—the sound that comes at the end.
    On bended knee I moved in close. The right half of his body was torn open to the bone, from his naked shoulder down to his kneecap. The left side of his railed chest, over his heart, was seared by the brand: MOMS. His New York Yankees caps—my cap—lay beneath his spattered head.
    I reached down to lift his head, and replace his Yankees cap. Then I pulled off my gloves.
    I touched a thumb to the wet floor, then to Maybe Richard’s heart. I made a cross over the ugly brand burned into his chest. I touched my thumb to the floor again, then to Maybe Richard’s forehead. I made another cross on his cold, dying skin.
    And once more I lied to beat the band.
    “You feel the balm of holy water, my son,” I said. ‘You are prepared for extreme unction? Say nothing and I shall take your silence as assent.”
    Maybe Richard moved his head for the last time, saying nothing.
    I said, “Through this holy annointing and His most loving mercy, may the Lord assist you by the grace of the Holy Spirit so that, freed from your sins, He may save you—and in His Goodness raise you up.”
    When people ask me moral questions, I tell them the truth—I am a cop, not a priest. Once, somebody threw that back in my face by saying, “Either way, living and dying and sinning and saving, that’s your bread and butter.”
    As a sham priest, had I truly lied? It did not matter. Surely for this sin I would know forgiveness.
     

THIRTY-FIVE

     
    Ava LaRue—dressed in a daytime ensemble of silk brocade sandals, silver and turquoise bracelet, a yellow silk jumpsuit with black tiger stripes that cost two months of a maid’s salary at a shop on Rodeo Drive in Hollywood, California—and Ophelia Dabon in her black dress, white apron, and support hose walked into Violet’s kitchen. Her back was to them, but Violet knew. The sound of Ophelia’s big flat feet on Violet’s freshly waxed tile