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9781555836603

The Evil That Boys Do

by
  • ISBN13:

    9781555836603

  • ISBN10:

    1555836607

  • Edition: 1st
  • Format: Paperback
  • Copyright: 2003-04-01
  • Publisher: Alyson Pubns
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Summary

The improbably paired detective team from St. Agatha's Breast, Father Brocard Curtis and Zinka, the towering, transsexual art historian, are back for a second round with murderous art thieves and other sordid shenanigans of the high and mighty. The two friends are hot on the trail of a missing Caravaggio and a conspiracy of corruption that runs from the rural prison, where Father Brocard has taken a position as chaplain, to the center of Mafia power. T.C. Van Adler is the pseudonym of an author who knows a great deal more than he is telling.

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Excerpts

In prison, the crudest objects sometimes become precious beyond belief. Take, for example, the little steel-framed mirror that hung in Father Brocard's office. When he took over the position of Catholic chaplain at Brotherly Love Penitentiary, just after the untimely and suspicious death of his predecessor, the mirror was simply part of the unfortunate clutter in his sad little cinder-block room. Not that Brocard had been used to luxurious digs. The cell that had all but collapsed around him in the Monastery of San Redempto in Rome, where he had spent more years of his life than most inmates have sentences, had been on the bleak side as well. But at least it had had a window that afforded a glimpse of the outside world. Brotherly Love Pen, modern as it was, promised no such luxuries. Granted, a large window of bulletproof glass had been built into one wall of his office. That grim orifice looked out onto the narrow corridor leading into the chapel so that the guards might occasionally check in on the light-deprived chaplain. It was a sadistic design touch that offered neither privacy nor security. In no way could it be considered a real window. However, Father Brocard did have that mirror.

How the mirror got there no one knew. Glass was forbidden behind bars. Inmates who chose to have them were given ersatz mirrors, polished bits of metal that gave carnival reflections in exchange for a gaze. For some reason, the officers of Custody, who were on Brocard's case about every other little matter, were unconcerned about the mirror. Their unconcern persisted even as inmates began to gravitate to it. Even on slow days, Father Brocard counted on inmates to pop into his office on their way to the gym or to the hospital for a brief hello and a long look at themselves in the mirror. "Looking tight"-prison-speak for "good"-was always the verdict because, curiously, the general population of Brotherly Love Pen was uncommonly self-involved and inordinately fond of itself. The men were incapable of seeing anything clearly, even their own reflections.

Being a rather formal fellow, Brocard referred to his precious mirror as "the chaplain's looking glass." The allusion to Lewis Carroll's Alice was deliberate. It had not taken him long to realize that going to prison was for him every bit as life-altering as a trip to the world behind the looking glass, where nothing was as it seemed to be.

How he came to be at Brotherly Love still puzzled him. And why he felt so very at home in that decidedly perverse place was an even greater mystery. He had moved back to the States after his years in Rome not only because the monastery where he lived had literally collapsed-reason enough for a change of scenery, to be sure. His move was also a consequence of his involvement in the retrieval and authentication of the great Poussin painting of Saint Agatha that now hung in the Louvre. That case and its toll on the emotions would have taken a great deal out of anyone-not least a monk. And, despite the unfortunate demise of his monastery and his enforced separation from the few remaining members of his community, Brocard still considered himself to be just that: a monk.

Shortly after he took the position as prison chaplain, Brocard sent an E-mail to his old friend Father Avertanus Deblaer, once a distinguished professor of mystical theology, now retired to the order's nursing home in Nijmegen, in the far east of Holland. Dotty and antiquated as Avertanus might seem, he had flung himself into cyberspace to escape into the real world. In truth, his eccentricity disguised a mind as clever as it was keen.

Caro Avertanus,

By time you read this I will be in jail. Don't worry for me though, my old friend-it is a self-imposed sentence. And one which, I must admit, secretly excites me. As you know, I have been going rather batty at Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Not that Bryn Mawr isn't restful beyond belief. It is order itself, and you know how compulsive I can be. Nor even that the pastor, the ever-distant Monsignor Duhmbelle, is getting on my nerves. He says Mass, signs a few checks, and does a quick nine holes before vanishing for the day completely. Nothing too taxing there, for him or me. No, if truth be known, I miss the excitement of the hunt: our strange art-historian friend Zinka and her boundless energy, the unsolved problems and the obstacles thrown up at every turn, and the unadulterated evil of the worlds of money and art. In a word, caro Avertanus, I was nearly becoming bored.

Then, mirabile dictu , I received a call from a priest at the chancery, which for some unknown reason has changed its name to pastoral center. Don't ask and don't get me started. Anyway, this Father Something-or-Other was trolling around looking for a priest (any priest obviously, as I was surely at the very end of the diocesan list) to say Mass in a prison. Not just any prison it seems. This one happened to be the high-profile private prison opened just a few years ago in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country. My sister tells me there was quite a flap about it at the time. But the company that owns the facility calmed the preservationists by designing the exterior buildings to look like large barns, hiding much of the razor wire behind hedges, and dotting the fields around it with sheep and cows. More perversely still, they gave it the name of Brotherly Love Correctional Facility.

Anyway, off I went to jail the week before last. Initially, there was no more to it than checking in for an international flight-the metal detector, questions, and cursory check of documents and tote bag. But when the first and then second gates of metal opened and closed behind me, a chill went through me and I knew for certain that, mercifully, I wasn't in Bryn Mawr anymore. What impressed me when I was escorted into the chapel area was how well organized it was. I had brought my portable Mass kit with me, but it was not needed. The first chaplain, who had served until his untimely death a couple of months ago, had purchased everything that was needed. Not of the quality we were used to at San Redempto, to be sure, but fully serviceable objects. It seems the plan at Brotherly Love Pen is to offer the young men-our average age is 25, by the way-opportunities to better themselves educationally and spiritually. Not just, as the corrections people have it, to warehouse them. That excited me enormously. So, too, did the opportunity to build a community of faith for a collection of convicted felons. Staffing my office with rapists and murderers also brings a certain thrill.

Every day, my old friend, is a new adventure in here. In truth, I don't yet have any idea what is expected of me and whether I will be effective in this ministry. But what a strange new world it is. Happily, they have allowed me a computer so that I can write the many reports that have to be presented weekly, prepare authorized absences for inmates who wish to see me (although between us they seem to get around just fine without any authorization), and to receive daily E-mails from the CEO of Prison World, Inc., the private company that owns and operates Brotherly Love Pen. I cannot leave the computer unattended, as my clerk, when I hire him, will have access to it. But Rome was good training for me. I know how to keep my eyes open. The good news is that you can now contact me here directly and, should some new crime-solving project come our way-and how could it not in such an auspicious place?-I will be able to contact you immediately.

That is all for now, dear Avertanus. I hope the rattles of death around you don't keep you up at night and that your research, in whatever direction it is now going, proceeds smoothly. My love to any of our friends you might meet in cyberspace.

Father Brocard did not realize how prophetic his words were. Nor could he know that the harrowing adventure that awaited him at this prison in the farmlands of Pennsylvania would present even greater challenges than the recovery of Poussin's St. Agatha's Breast .

Chapter Two

He tried hard to act as if he were in control. But the truth was, he simply wasn't. What's more, they knew it.

It had started off harmlessly enough. Shortly after he had opened his office for the day-after gliding through the metal detector in the lobby, through three sets of gates and a host of guards-an inmate asked to use the chapel for prayer. The fact that he had not seen this inmate at services, Bible study, or any of the programs offered by chaplaincy didn't concern Brocard greatly. There were nearly a thousand inmates at Brotherly Love Pen, all dressed in gray. And Brocard was the first to confess he had difficulty with names and faces at best of times.

The chapel was a cavernous hole of a place, old beyond its years. Its pews were already scarred with graffiti, and their kneelers were falling off (the hardware made excellent weapons or shanks ). Half the feeble ceiling lights were burnt out. After numerous calls to the maintenance department, it became clear to Brocard that nothing would happen until total darkness prevailed. The chapel's only decoration was the cross hanging ponderously over the stage area that served as a sanctuary. The cross's most distinctive feature was a pop-off corpus that enabled Protestants and Catholics alike to worship without insult. Also in the chapel were a portable altar (which Brocard came to refer to as Meals-On-Wheels) and a mobile baptismal pool which everyone referred to as the Jacuzzi since, well, it was often used in that way.

No sooner had he returned to his office to turn on his computer than a second, a third, then four or five more inmates sneaked past his office into the chapel. Brocard had been told that, except for major services, inmates were supposed to be on a list authorizing them to be off their cell tiers. But here were at least a dozen, linking hands in the sanctuary and chanting something that, reassuringly, seemed to be about Jesus.

Loosen up, Brocard , he cautioned himself. Life is not as orderly as you would like it to be. What is wrong with a little hollering to God occasionally? A little spontaneous expression of faith? Still, he had his suspicions as he moved closer to inspect the group.

The praying inmates had compressed themselves into a huddle-more of a scrum really-so tightly configured that no one else could enter. Ever curious, Brocard climbed up on the front pew to see what, if anything, was happening in there. He was, after all, responsible for his space-that was part of his job description-and someone might just ask him what on earth was going on. There was something inside. From what he could see, neck craned and body raised as high as he could manage, there was a small inmate kneeling with hands upraised in the center of the group. Tears streamed down his face. Was this poor fellow being trampled to death? Or, ludicrously, was he the object of their worship? There was simply no way of telling.

At first Brocard thought the assembled group was composed entirely of black inmates. Only when he drew close to them and listened to their prayers did he realize they were dark-complexioned Dominicanos and Cubanos. These inmates were fiercely Hispanic, as were the prayers they offered. There were enough similarities between Italian-Brocard's language of choice-and Spanish to give him some idea of just how disturbing their incantations were.

In spontaneous, overlapping exclamations, first one inmate then another cried out for San Ramón Nonato to be with him, or Santa Clara or Santa Teresita. Several chanted together, "Ruega por nosotros" -"Pray for us." Others called upon the help of the Virgen de la Candelaria. In itself this was nothing. A litany of sorts, chaotic to be sure, but not unlike the frequent litanies that peppered services at San Redempto. It was when they started to command the saints-there is no other word for it-to bring down their curse on the institution, to wage battle with the demon prowling in their midst, that Brocard became concerned. Wasn't there something in the officers' handbook-the spine of which he hadn't cracked-about conspiracy to incite a riot?

Of course, Brocard knew himself well enough to think he might be overreacting. Still, as the words "trae tu maldición" -"bring down your curse"-rang out (and as the little figure crushed in the midst of the pious scrum cried out, "El Demonio! El Demonio!" ), he felt he had to act. But what exactly was he to do?

Fortunately, just as he was about to take some perilous and inappropriate action, he caught sight of Andy, his clerk, at the chapel door. In the dispassionate and cocky way of all inmates, Andy signaled him to retreat to the office, where he filled in Brocard on what was happening.

"It's only Jesucito and his apostles," Andy said in the most exasperatingly casual way.

"And who exactly might this Baby Jesus be?" Brocard asked, trying his best as he took his seat behind his desk to appear equally unconcerned.

"Not sure really. The priest before you, Father Norm, couldn't really get to the bottom of it. They descend on the chapel occasionally, usually just before some disaster strikes. They scream a lot and then flop around like fish."

"When might I expect that?"

"Oh, you won't have to wait long. They're in and out within 10 or 15. No use stopping them. A pretty nasty bunch. But harmless enough in their own way." Then, reaching under the desk for his heating coil, Andy prepared to boil some water for his Earl Grey. Contraband, of course, but for Andy such things were no problem. "Tea?"

"Not a bad idea." Brocard was eager to put this episode behind him. But, as the incantations reached fever pitch, he knew that more than a cup of tea was in order.

At least Andy had helped him get a handle on what was happening. This wasn't the first time-and far from the last-Andy had translated the arcane language of prison-speak to spare Brocard from painfully embarrassing mistakes. Curious person, Andy: Irish to the bone, a well-spoken boy. Almost human. Except that he'd had a prosperous business that had been corrupt to the core by all accounts. And he was a cold-blooded murderer who waxed almost rhapsodic about the carnage he had wrought.

"Fascinating to see brains splattered on a wall," he had told Brocard in one of their first talks. "Particles everywhere, highlighted with specks of red. And one piece of shattered skull lodged into the wall, white on white outdoing anything Pollock could have imagined. I almost did the kid a favor. He was never so beautiful in life."

Continues...

Excerpted from THE EVIL THAT BOYS DO by T.C. Van Adler Copyright © 2003 by T.C. Van Adler
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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