Legion Read Online Free PDF Page B

Atkins missed him.
    He got up from his chair and moved to the window. He looked out at the city’s white marble monuments washed in sunlight, warm and real. He listened to the traffic. He felt uneasy. Some darkness was stirring that he could not comprehend; yet he sensed its movement. What was it? Kinderman had felt it. He could tell.
    Atkins shook it off. He believed in the world and men and pitied both. Hoping for the best, he turned away and went to work.

 
    2
     

     
    JOSEPH DYER, A JESUIT PRIEST, IRISH, forty–five years of age and a teacher of religion at Georgetown University, had started his Sunday with the Mass of Christ, refreshing his faith and renewing its mystery, celebrating hope in the life to come and praying for mercy on all mankind. After Mass he’d walked down to the Jesuit cemetery in the hollow of the campus grounds where he’d placed a few flowers in front of a tombstone marked DAMIEN KARRAS, S.J . Then he’d breakfasted heartily in the refectory, consuming gargantuan portions of everything: pancakes, pork chops, corn bread, sausages, bacon and eggs. He’d been sitting with the university president, Father Riley, a friend of many years.
    “Joe, where do you put it?” marveled Riley, watching the diminutive, freckled redhead building a pork chop and pancake sandwich. Dyer turned his fey blue eyes on the president and said without expression, “Clean living, mon pere .” Then he reached for the milk and poured another glass.
    Father Riley shook his head and sipped coffee, forgetting where he’d been in their discussion of Donne as a poet and a priest. “Any plans today, Joe? You’ll be around?”
    “You want to show me your necktie collection or what?”
    “I’ve got this speech for the American Bar Association next week. I’d like to kick it around.”
    Riley watched with fascination as Dyer poured a lake of maple syrup on his plate.
    “Yeah, I’ll be here until a quarter of two, and then I’ve got to see a movie with a friend. Lieutenant Kinderman. You’ve met him.”
    “With the face like a beagle? The cop?”
    Dyer nodded, stuffing his mouth.
    “He’s an interesting guy,” observed the president.
    “Every year on this day he gets down and depressed, so I have to cheer him up. He loves movies.”
    “It’s today?”
    Dyer nodded, his mouth full again.
    The president sipped at his coffee. “I’d forgotten.”

    Dyer and Kinderman met at the Biograph Cinema on M Street and saw almost half of The Maltese Falcon, a pleasure interrupted when a man in the audience sat down next to Kinderman, made some perceptive and appreciative comments concerning the film, which Kinderman welcomed, and then stared at the screen while placing a hand on Kinderman’s thigh, at which point Kinderman had turned to him, incredulous, breathing out, “Honest to God, I don’t believe you,” while snapping a handcuff around the man’s wrist. There ensued a slight commotion while Kinderman led the man to the lobby, called for a squad car and then packed him inside it.
    “Just give him a scare and then let him go,” the lieutenant instructed the policeman driver.
    The man poked his head through the back–seat window. “I’m a personal friend of Senator Klureman.”
    “I’m sure he’ll be terribly sorry to hear that on the six o’clock news,” the detective responded. And then to the driver, “ Avanti ! Go!”
    The squad car moved off. A small crowd had gathered. Kinderman looked around for Dyer and finally spotted him pressed in a doorway. He was looking up the street, and his hand held his coat lapels together at the throat so that the round Roman collar could not be seen. Kinderman approached him. “What are you doing, founding an order called ‘Lurking Fathers’?”
    “I was trying to make myself invisible.”
    “You failed,” said Kinderman ingenuously. He reached out his hand and touched Dyer. “Look at that. There’s your arm.”
    “Gee, it’s sure a lot of fun going out