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“My mom told me an Irish priest subbed for the local pastor a couple of weeks back.”
The Tailor felt it then. A primordial tingling down his spine as warmth spread in his belly. He always thought of the sensation as how a shark must feel on detecting the first traces of blood in the water. Fresh meat this way. The happy foreshadowing of victory.
The Bennett contract was a whale, all right. Three million. He knew what he was going to buy with it, too. A flat in Paris. Travel was one of his few passions.
“That right?” the Tailor said as he lawfully put on his clicker and made a perfect K-turn.
Joe nodded, pulling on his beard.
“The old biddies couldn’t get over it. Imagine, that’s what passes for news here in Susanville, USA.”
“Where’s the Catholic church?” the Tailor asked.
“Where’s my money?” Joe said.
“In the glove box.”
Joe took it out and gazed on it, smiling. The Great Recession really must be hurting these hicks out here, the Tailor thought. He’d never actually seen someone happy to be setting up a hit on a family for five hundred bucks in twenty-dollar bills.
“Make a left up ahead,” Joe said. “The church is there on your right.”
CHAPTER 80
MARY CATHERINE’S BEDROOM WAS on the third floor, in the quaint, rickety Victorian farmhouse’s converted attic. It was little bigger than a closet, but its dormer window, with its clear, unbroken view of the flat grasslands and the grand Sierra Nevada beyond, actually made it her favorite spot in the entire house.
A bright moon was hanging just above the awe-inspiring peaks when Mary Catherine suddenly came awake a little after one a.m. She flipped her pillow over and lay there staring out the window, listening intently, wondering what had woken her.
After another minute, she decided that it was nothing, probably just the two glasses of the wine that Leo had brought over for dinner. She hardly drank at all these days, but Leo had seemed concerned about whether the wine he’d brought matched up properly with the roast chicken she’d served. Indulging in a couple of glasses of pinot grigio seemed the least she could do to assuage his fears.
Dinner with Leo is swiftly becoming part of the regular routine now, isn’t it? she thought, smiling. Even the boys who had given her so much trouble had decided to stop the silent treatment when Leo quietly started talking baseball with them. Leo had that effect on people. There was something still inside him, an openness, a … gentleness. You couldn’t help but like him.
She didn’t know how Leo would fit into the picture once Mike came back, but she’d decided to cross that bridge when she came to it. She wasn’t one for making people jealous, but she was actually looking forward to Mike’s reaction. At least a little. It would be quite interesting to see how much Mike liked watching another man pay her some attention for a change.
She was looking out at the dark land, the mountains glowing in the starlight, and groggily thinking about Leo and Mike when she thought she heard something downstairs. Then she heard
it again. A soft thumping, followed by the creak of weight on wood.
How now, brown cow? she thought, frowning, as she put her bare feet to the rough floorboards and found her slippers. Out her door and down the stairs, she stopped and looked over the banister of the second-floor landing. A suspicious, flickering glow of blue light was coming from what seemed to be the main level’s family room.
She padded down the stairs and quietly around the corner of the kitchen. Just as she suspected, here they were. The things that go bump in the night, in the living flesh.
In the family room, with their backs to her, Eddie and Ricky were splayed out on the couch, thumbs and fingers clicking madly as they played the NBA Street Homecourt PlayStation game that Leo had brought them that evening.
“And one! Woop, woop! That’s right. I’m good,” Eddie said, raising his controller over his head as he did a little dance. “I’m gonna dunk on you like that all day long.”
“Don’t you mean all night long, you little sneak thieves?” Mary Catherine said, and watched the kids jump.
Eddie dropped his controller and lay facedown in front of the TV, pretending to sleep, as Ricky turned around, smiling bravely.
“Mary Catherine. Hi. Um, you want to play winner?” he tried.
“Don’t get cheeky with me. It’s almost two in the God-loving morning. Heads on your pillows this instant, or I’ll dunk the both of you in your rooms for a week. I’ve half a mind to talk to Mr. Cody and get you two night owls some milking work tomorrow. Maybe a week of watching the world go by from the underside of a cow will help you learn the meaning of a good night’s sleep.”
“Cow punishment? No! You can’t! The horror!” Eddie yelled, jumping up and racing his brother out of the room, heading for the stairs.
She’d turned off the set and was going back through the kitchen when she saw the full coffeepot. Leo, on duty now out on the porch, must have just made himself some. She primped in the mirror of the powder room and put her barn jacket over her pj’s before she poured a cup.
She was going to kiss him, she decided with a smile as she went down the front hall with the mug. She’d been waiting for the right time for them to get closer, and tonight was the night.
