EIGHTEEN

In the early evening Father Dowling went to the hotel. He had borrowed ten dollars from Father Jolly. As he went along the street the feeling of early spring weather softening the night air delighted him and made him walk faster.

When he rapped on the white door, as he had so often done, and waited, with no one answering, he could really feel the emptiness in the room on the other side of the door, feel the darkness there, too, and that the time he had so often dreaded had come at last, when he would keep on knocking and waiting and knocking with no hope of an answer. He tried the knob, the door swung open and he stepped into the room. A little moonlight, coming through the window, shone on the trampled and mussed-up carpet, on the dresser where there was no comb, nor looking-glass, nor small vase, nor brush, nor powder puff. He did not turn on the light because he knew with certitude that there was no one there and yet he called out, “Midge, Ronnie, Midge, Ronnie,” and he walked over to the window and then back again, as if his presence alone might make the room seem not so empty.

Gripping the banister, he went downstairs, thinking, “Something has happened to them. They would not go like that. Something dreadful must have happened,” and he looked over eagerly at the desk. No one was there. He called out, “Hello, hello, hello there,” and he pounded the desk with his fist.

“Just a minute,” Mr. Baer called. Coming out, he stared at Father Dowling through his glasses without speaking, staring as if it would never be necessary to see the priest again, and then he snapped, “You get the hell out of here, you fornicatin’ friar, and never come back. I’ve got a hunch you’re the cause of a lot of trouble.”

“Shut up. Don’t talk so much. Where are the two girls?”

“I told you to get on your horse. Didn’t you hear me?”

“Where are those girls? Have you put them out?”

“I’m putting you out, Lovin’ Sam, you understand? You been sneaking in and out of here grinning like a baboon and drawing a crowd. We might just as well of hired a band as let you in. Now I’m going to let the whole neighborhood know how you’ve been whacking away at those girls. How will you like that, Lovin’ Sam?”

For the first time Mr. Baer was sneering openly at the priest, his lower lip hanging thickly after he spat with vicious contempt. Father Dowling felt and remembered all those times when he had tried to hide his collar; he felt all the secret smirking that had followed him every time he came into the hotel, all those times when he had gone upstairs with his back to the desk, with the man’s eyes following and an ugly grin on his face. That leering contempt which had remained hidden in Mr. Baer was made plain now when he spat contemptuously.

“I asked you where the girls were,” Father Dowling shouted, and he shot his hand across the desk and grabbed Mr. Baer by the collar. Father Dowling was a big, powerful man. His face now was hard and brick red, the lips sucked in so there was only a colorless line at his mouth. He kept shaking Mr. Baer by the neck, holding him even while the eyes bulged. “What happened to those girls, you foul-mouthed swine?” he was saying.

“Let me tell you,” Mr. Baer gasped.

“Hurry.”

“Take your hand off my throat, Father.”

“There. Hurry up now, or I’ll knock some respect into you, you lizard.”

“The kids were pinched last night. The cops raided the place. They pinched me, too. They pinched Lou, Father.”

“Where are the girls now? Why are you here?”

“The kids had to get out of town or go to jail, and they fined me two hundred and fifty bucks and I haven’t made a cent for three years, and God knows what I’ll do now.”

“You don’t know where the girls went?”

“I’d tell you if I did, Father. I don’t know where they’ve gone and they were fine kids, too, no trouble at all.”

Out on the street, Father Dowling suddenly felt that there was no place for him to go. He looked up and down the street. A little piece of paper by the curb, caught in a gust of wind, went spinning and eddying along the road till it was out of sight. “Where will they go? What will become of them?” he was thinking.

When he went home, he met Father Jolly. The little, thin-faced priest with the glasses started to laugh as soon as he saw him and he said, “Things are coming your way at last. I’m being moved out of town. I’ll give you my room by a last will and testament. The room with the nice shelves for your books. The room you always coveted with a lustful eye.”

“Thanks, Father. Sorry you’re going.”

“What’s the matter with you? Aren’t you glad about the room?”

“It’s a fine room. I’ll be glad to get it.”

“Is something bothering with you? I thought you’d be chuckling with joy.”

But Father Dowling did not hear him. He went up to his own room. He took off his shoes and put them together on the floor and stared at them thoughtfully. “I’ll go to the city hall to-morrow. I’ll find out something.” He got undressed and lay wide awake in bed. “They needed me very much. Who will help them now? What is there for them to do?” he was thinking.