A Graveyard for Lunatics (Crumley Mysteries 2)

He was framed in moonlight. He stood like a mortuary statue reared to celebrate himself, under his carved name. For one moment he seemed like the ghost of some English lord posed on the sill of his ancient country gatehouse, primed to be trapped on film and immersed in darkroom acid waters to rise phantom-like as the film developed in mists, one hand on the door hinge to his right, the other upraised as if to hurl Doom across the cold marble gameyard. Above the cold marble door I once again saw:

ARBUTHNOT.

I must have half cried aloud that name.

At that he fell forward as if someone had fired a starter’s gun. His cry spun me to flounder toward the gate. I caromed off a dozen gravestones, scattered floral displays, and ran, yelling, on a double track. Half of me saw this as manhunt, the other as Keystone farce. One image was broken floodgate tides lapping a lone runner. The other was elephants stampeding Charlie Chase. With no choosing between maniac laughters and despairs, I made it down brick paths between graves to find:

No Crumley. An empty boulevard.

Across the street, St. Sebastian’s was open, lights on, the doors wide.

J. C., I thought, if only you were there!

I leaped. Tasting blood, I ran.

I heard the great clumsy thud of shoes behind, and the gasping breath of a half-blind terrible man.

I reached the door.

Sanctuary!

But the church was empty.

Candles were lit on the golden altar. Candles burned in the grottos where Christ hid so as to give Mary center stage amidst the bright drippings of love.

The doors to the confessional stood wide.

There was a thunder of footfalls.

I leaped into the confessional, slammed the door, and sank, hideously shivering, in the dark well.

The thunder of footsteps—

Paused like a storm. Like a storm, they grew calm and then, with a weather change, approached.

I felt the Beast paw at the door. It was not locked.

But I was the priest, was I not?

Whoever was locked in here was most holy, to be reckoned with, spoken to, and stay … safe?

I heard this ungodly groan of exhaustion and self-doom from outside. I shuddered. I broke my teeth with prayer for the merest things. One more hour with Peg. To leave a child. Trifles. Things larger than midnight, or as great as some possible dawn …

The sweet smell of life must have escaped my nostrils. It came forth with my prayers.

There was a last groan and—

God!

The Beast stumbled into the other half of the booth!

His cramming and forcing his lost rage in shuddered me more, as if I feared that his terrible breath might burn through the lattice to blind me. But his huge bulk plunged to settle like a great furnace bellows sighing down on its creases and valves.

And I knew the strange pursuit was over, and a final time begun.

I heard the Beast suck breath once, twice, three times, as if daring himself to speak, or fearful to speak, still wanting to kill, but tired, oh God, at last tired.

And at last he whispered an immense whisper, like a vast sigh down a chimney: “Bless me, father, for I have