Read Online Keller 05 - Hit Me by Lawrence Block - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Lawrence Block
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cordials.”
“Cordials?”
“Bénédictine? Chartreuse?”
“Monks make those? I thought that was Seagram’s.”
“Monks started it. Maybe they sold the business. I think basically they pray, and maybe work in the garden.”
“The garden-variety monks work in the garden,” she suggested. “The laundry-variety monks keep themselves occupied with money and kidneys. See, the abbot was in cahoots with all the politicians.”
“Felonious monks,” Keller said. “Dot? You don’t think that was funny?”
“I chuckled a little,” she said, “the first time I heard it.”
“I just made it up.”
“You and every newscaster in the country.”
“Oh.”
“Long story short,” she said, “here’s the long and the short of it. The abbot’s the guy who knows where all the kidneys are buried. If he talks, nobody walks. Keller? You beginning to get a sense of what your role’s going to be?”
To Keller, the word monastery called up an image of a walled medieval building, set off somewhere in a secluded rural location, its design combining elements of a Romanesque cathedral and a fortified castle. There’d be those narrow windows, to shoot arrows out of, and there’d be places to sit on the battlements, whatever exactly battlements were, while you poured boiling oil on people. And there’d be a dungeon, and there’d be little individual cells where the little individual monks slept. And there’d be grains of rice, to kneel on during prayer.
And singing, there’d be lots of singing. Gregorian chants, mostly, but maybe some sea chanteys, too, because Keller tended to mix up chants and chanteys in his mind. He knew the difference, but he mixed them up anyhow.
You wouldn’t look for a monastery on a quiet residential block in the East 30s. You wouldn’t expect to find a monastic order housed in a five-story limestone-front row house in Murray Hill.
Yet there it was.
It stood on the downtown side of East 36th Street between Park and Madison, flanked on either side by similar structures. A small brass plaque identified one of them as the Embassy of the Republic of Chad, while the other looked to be what all of these houses had once been—an elegant private residence. Between them, the building whose plaque read simply THESSALONIAN HOUSE looked no more monastic than either of its neighbors.
Dot had referred to Paul Vincent O’Herlihy, abbot of the Thessalonians, as a fine figure of a man, giving the words a touch of stage-Irish lilt. Keller knew why when he checked him out via Google Images. The abbot was tall and broad-shouldered, heavily built but not fat, with a leonine head and a full mane of white hair. He had one of those open faces that tend to inspire trust, often unwarranted, and Keller could see right away how, if this man were to become a monk, he might very well wind up as the man in charge. With the same looks and bearing, he could as readily have become some city’s commissioner of police, or chairman of the board of a Wall Street firm, or an insurance company CEO. Or, back when Tammany Hall ran New York, he might have been mayor.
Likes his food, Keller had thought, noting O’Herlihy’s bulk, the fit of his jacket, and in his head he heard the voice of a middle-aged Irishwoman: “Ah, but doesn’t he carry it well?” Likes a drink, Keller added, taking note of the florid complexion, the network of broken blood vessels in the cheeks and nose. “Ah, shure, and don’t they call that a strong man’s weakness?”
He was in there now, this fine figure of a man. He’d been there when a crew of federal agents came to the door and rang the bell. (If there was one; Keller noted a great brass door knocker mounted in the middle of the door, and perhaps that had been what the Feds used to make their presence known.)
Keller liked the idea of them using the knocker. When they rounded up drug dealers, they generally used a battering ram and knocked the door down. That was how they did it
“Cordials?”
“Bénédictine? Chartreuse?”
“Monks make those? I thought that was Seagram’s.”
“Monks started it. Maybe they sold the business. I think basically they pray, and maybe work in the garden.”
“The garden-variety monks work in the garden,” she suggested. “The laundry-variety monks keep themselves occupied with money and kidneys. See, the abbot was in cahoots with all the politicians.”
“Felonious monks,” Keller said. “Dot? You don’t think that was funny?”
“I chuckled a little,” she said, “the first time I heard it.”
“I just made it up.”
“You and every newscaster in the country.”
“Oh.”
“Long story short,” she said, “here’s the long and the short of it. The abbot’s the guy who knows where all the kidneys are buried. If he talks, nobody walks. Keller? You beginning to get a sense of what your role’s going to be?”
To Keller, the word monastery called up an image of a walled medieval building, set off somewhere in a secluded rural location, its design combining elements of a Romanesque cathedral and a fortified castle. There’d be those narrow windows, to shoot arrows out of, and there’d be places to sit on the battlements, whatever exactly battlements were, while you poured boiling oil on people. And there’d be a dungeon, and there’d be little individual cells where the little individual monks slept. And there’d be grains of rice, to kneel on during prayer.
And singing, there’d be lots of singing. Gregorian chants, mostly, but maybe some sea chanteys, too, because Keller tended to mix up chants and chanteys in his mind. He knew the difference, but he mixed them up anyhow.
You wouldn’t look for a monastery on a quiet residential block in the East 30s. You wouldn’t expect to find a monastic order housed in a five-story limestone-front row house in Murray Hill.
Yet there it was.
It stood on the downtown side of East 36th Street between Park and Madison, flanked on either side by similar structures. A small brass plaque identified one of them as the Embassy of the Republic of Chad, while the other looked to be what all of these houses had once been—an elegant private residence. Between them, the building whose plaque read simply THESSALONIAN HOUSE looked no more monastic than either of its neighbors.
Dot had referred to Paul Vincent O’Herlihy, abbot of the Thessalonians, as a fine figure of a man, giving the words a touch of stage-Irish lilt. Keller knew why when he checked him out via Google Images. The abbot was tall and broad-shouldered, heavily built but not fat, with a leonine head and a full mane of white hair. He had one of those open faces that tend to inspire trust, often unwarranted, and Keller could see right away how, if this man were to become a monk, he might very well wind up as the man in charge. With the same looks and bearing, he could as readily have become some city’s commissioner of police, or chairman of the board of a Wall Street firm, or an insurance company CEO. Or, back when Tammany Hall ran New York, he might have been mayor.
Likes his food, Keller had thought, noting O’Herlihy’s bulk, the fit of his jacket, and in his head he heard the voice of a middle-aged Irishwoman: “Ah, but doesn’t he carry it well?” Likes a drink, Keller added, taking note of the florid complexion, the network of broken blood vessels in the cheeks and nose. “Ah, shure, and don’t they call that a strong man’s weakness?”
He was in there now, this fine figure of a man. He’d been there when a crew of federal agents came to the door and rang the bell. (If there was one; Keller noted a great brass door knocker mounted in the middle of the door, and perhaps that had been what the Feds used to make their presence known.)
Keller liked the idea of them using the knocker. When they rounded up drug dealers, they generally used a battering ram and knocked the door down. That was how they did it
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