“I won’t,” she said.
And led by Crumley, I beggared my way to the door.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I couldn’t nap, I couldn’t stay awake, I couldn’t write, I couldn’t think. At last, confused and maddened, very late I called St. Vibiana’s again.
When at last Betty Kelly answered she sounded like she was in a cave of torments.
“I can’t talk!”
“Quickly!” I begged. “You remember all she said in the confessional? Anything else important, consequential, different?”
“Dear God,” said Betty Kelly. “Words and words and words. But wait. She kept saying you must forgive all of us! All of us, every one! There was no one in the booth but her. All of us, she said. You still there?”
At last I said, “I’m here.”
“Is there more you want?”
“Not now.”
I hung up.
“All of us,” I whispered. “Forgive all of us!”
I called Crumley.
“Don’t say it.” He guessed. “No sleep tonight? And you want me to meet you at Rattigan’s in an hour. You going to search the place?”
“Just a friendly rummage.”
“Rummage! What is it, theory or hunch?”
“Pure reason.”
“Sell that in a sack for night soil!”
Crumley was gone.
“He hang up on you?” I asked my mirror.
“Hung up on you,” my mirror said.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The phone rang. I picked it up as if it were red-hot.
“Is that the Martian?” a voice said.
“Henry!” I cried.
“That’s me,” the voice said. “It’s crazy, but I miss you, son. Kinda dumb, a colored saying that to an ethnic flying-saucer pilot.”
“I’ve never heard better,” I said, choking up.
“Hell,” said Henry, “if you start crying, I’m gone.”
“Don’t,” I sniffled. “Oh God, Henry, how fine it is to hear your voice!”