Great Day for the Deadly Read Online Free PDF Page B

door—unnecessary, because the door was open; very necessary, because, as Michael had learned, these people were passionately polite—and Michael said “come in” to Hernandito Guerrez. Hernandito was the boy Michael was sponsoring for Georgetown, pre-med, in the hopes of seeing him go off to medical school in time. He should have been in school, but Michael had had sense enough not to tell him so today. Leonardo Evangelista, Michael’s prime candidate for the priesthood, was here now, too. They would both stay until they were sure their mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles and cousins and neighbors were no longer in any kind of immediate trouble. It was the kind of thing Michael made himself remember in the dark hours of Saturday night, when he had patched up four knife wounds to ship to the county hospital and fielded three calls from the medical examiner’s office, all asking him to do courtesy autopsies on possible drug ODs.
    Hernandito came in, looked around pityingly—the office always looked like an explosion in a paper factory—and said, “I think you better come downstairs now, Father. Señora Diaz is very bad.”
    “You mean Señora Diaz is getting hysterical,” Michael said. “I’ll come down, Hernandito, but you know as well as I do that she’s just scared to death. I can’t do anything about that.”
    “Maybe the baby is coming early.”
    “The baby isn’t due for two months and she isn’t contracting. I know. I checked not more than ten minutes ago. Is Sister with her?”
    Hernandito’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Sister is perhaps not the best choice. Someone who is more competent might be a better idea. Someone like that might give Señora Diaz more confidence.”
    There was a green enameled pen on Michael’s desk with “ MY BOSS IS A JEWISH CARPENTER ” written down the side of it in gold. Michael picked it up and resisted the urge to bite into it. “Sister” was Sister Mary Gabriel from the Sisters of Divine Grace up the hill, and she was perfectly competent. She was a first-rate obstetrical nurse and a qualified midwife. The problem was that she was also relatively young and very pretty. None of these people believed that young and pretty women could do much of anything besides have sex and tantrums.
    “Look,” Michael said, “forget Señora Diaz for a moment. I’ve made a call into town about the rain.”
    “Yes, Father?”
    “Mostly it was like asking a politician for his position on the budget, but I did manage to get something done. We’re going to move this operation to higher ground for the moment. Up to Iggy Loy.”
    Hernandito looked momentarily confused. Then the connections were made, and he smiled slightly. He would never have called St. Andrew’s “St. Andy’s.” He would have considered it insulting.
    “If we’re going to move the clinic to higher ground, Father, maybe we should move everything. Everybody, I mean. Of course, most of the women are in our basement anyway—”
    “Most of the children are down there, too. What’s left on the street? A few old men?”
    “Also the Estevan family that owns the market.”
    “All right. You could get some of the boys together and go door to door. We’ve got the van—bless Sam Harrigan—and we can get another one from St. Mary’s. I’ve talked to Reverend Mother General.”
    “Reverend Mother General is a competent woman,” Hernandito said.
    Reverend Mother General was seventy-eight years old and a cross between Queen Elizabeth I and Medusa. Michael had no idea what she looked like, because he’d never dared look her in the face. Like everybody else, he was afraid of her on principle.
    “I got hold of somebody else,” he said. “Glinda.”
    “Ah,” Hernandito said.
    “It’s a good thing I did get hold of her. She’d overslept her alarm clock. Anyway, she has to go in to work, but she’ll meet us at Iggy Loy around three o’clock with blankets and food and a few other things. Sometimes