must go.â
âOne more thing. I wouldnât say this to anyone else in the world, and maybe itâs because Iâm sixty-three, and every time my heart skips a beat, I think that this is it. Iâm not much damn good. I think I love my wife, but tonight, when my friend Muffy was leaving, I tried to make a date to see her in New Yorkââ
Donovan interrupted him: âNo, Mr. Castle! I canât have you confessing to me.â
Castleâs smile was unexpected. âYouâre right. You know what Groucho Marx said, âI wouldnât join a club that would have me as a member.ââ
âI donât mean it that way,â the monsignor said softly.
âNo, of course not. Do me one favor, let me write out a check for your church.â
Donovan looked at him searchingly. âWhy?â
Castle shrugged. âI feel Iâm in deep shit up to my neck. Something happened to me tonight. I never talked like this before. I dumped on you; I donât dump on people. On Wall Street, Iâm one crafty, nasty son of a bitch. Thatâs what I am and Iâm no damn different now, but Iâm tired. Iâm just so fuckinâ tired.â
âWill it help if you write me a check?â
âYes.â
âAll right. Iâd like to help. Make it out to St. Matthewâs Church.â
Castle went to his desk, took out a checkbook, and wrote the check. He handed it to the monsignor.
âThis is for ten thousand dollars,â Donovan said.
âI wonât miss it.â
âThank you.â
âFor Christâs sake, donât thank me.â
âI must, Castle. It will do a lot of good.â
âIâve spent a lifetime hating do-gooders. I still do. I havenât changed.â
T he monsignor and Sister Brody left. Sister Brody kissed Sally and said she would see her again. The monsignor thanked Castle for a good evening. When he and the nun were in the car, driving back to the neighborhood where their church was located, Sister Brody said, âI suppose you have no intention of telling me what went on between you and Castle?â
âThatâs an excellent supposition.â
âI have the right to be curious, considering what Iâve heard about the man.â
âEveryone has the right to be curious. We can thank God for that.â Then, after a moment, he added, âCastle gave me a check, made out to St. Matthewâs, for ten thousand dollars.â
âWhat! I donât believe you.â
âSister, Sister.â
âTen thousand dollarsâthatâs wonderful.â
âI argued against it. I didnât want to take it.â
âYou argued against it? For heavenâs sake, do you know how much we need that money, how much we can do with it, how many hungry mouths can be fed, how much food and medicine we can send to El Salvador and Guatemalaââ
âSister, please donât lecture me! I happen to know exactly what we can do with it.â
Thirteen
H arold Sellig drove away from the dinner party to join his wife at the hospital. He was full of good food, two glasses of wine, the lingering taste of the Cuban cigar, and a heavy load of guilt. He felt that he should have been with his wife at the hospital, that she was facing perhaps the most serious crisis of her life and that he had allowed her to go and keep a vigil alone because he selfishly desired to make a clinical study of a very rich man and his trophy wife. He had gone with her urging and with Dr. Fergusonâs assurance that the operation was a âlead-pipe cinch.â Harold said he had no idea of what a lead-pipe cinch was, and Dr. Ferguson had carefully explained that in ancient timesâsome fifty or sixty years agoâunderground utility connections were sealed with hot lead. Harold had grown up with a father who never understood him, and when he married Ruth, Dr. Ferguson had adopted him as the son he
C. J. Cherryh
Learning to Kill: Stories
John O'Riley
Brenda Sinclair
Christopher George
Stephen Lloyd Jones
Karl Iagnemma
Celya Bowers
Jill Gregory
Aria Cunningham