Free Dopplegangster by Laura Resnick Page A

course.” I smiled at him again. He was a hunk, this priest.
    He went up to the altar to get something, then exited the church through the same side door he had used to enter. Going back to his study, I supposed, or whatever kind of room priests used to get ready for Mass. Vestry? Crypt? Dressing room?
    Maybe I’d ask the Catholic guy I was dating.
    If he was still dating me, that was.
    “Flirting with a priest,” Lucky muttered. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
    “I wasn’t flirting,” I said.
    “Oh, then what was that great big smile you gave him?”
    “Well, maybe I was flirting a little, ” I admitted. “That’s one cute priest.”
    Lucky looked shocked. “There’ll be none of that here, young lady. Besides, ain’t you got a boyfriend? A possessive one, as I recall?”
    “Do I?” I wondered morosely. “I hope so.”
    “Well, he ain’t gonna like hearing you flirted with a priest,” Lucky warned.
    “Then he’d better not hear it,” I replied.
    “Hmph. Come on. Let’s sit down. We’re wasting time.”
    Lucky walked me to the center aisle of the church, genuflected next to a pew that was about five rows from the front, and gestured for me to take a seat.
    Then he sat down next to me and said in a low voice, “The word from the top is, we can’t have someone feeling free to whack a made guy without permission or warning. Especially not a good earner like Charlie.”
    “So Charlie was telling the truth about being a good earner?” I mused.
    I chose not to dwell on whether Charlie had also been telling the truth about being great in bed. It seemed too improbable, and the images invoked by such pondering wouldn’t be good for my mental health.
    “So I gotta find who hit Charlie, and I gotta whack him,” Lucky said matter-of-factly.
    “I don’t think we should be talking about whacking in church,” I said uneasily.
    “What do you care? You ain’t even Catholic.”
    “Even so, it doesn’t seem appropriate.”
    “Hey, this is the place where we confess our sins,” Lucky said. “So we might as well plan ’em here, too.”
    “There’s a certain warped logic to that,” I admitted. “But I don’t want to be involved in planning a retaliatory homicide.”
    “Huh?”
    “Er, I don’t want to help you whack someone.”
    “You think I’d take a girl along on business?” Lucky said dismissively. “You’re just gonna help me figure out who done it, so I can make sure he don’t do it again.”
    “I think we should leave this to the cops,” I said firmly.
    “Until when? Until you get whacked out?”
    I flinched. “What makes you think I’ll get whacked out?”
    “Cops think you saw something, don’t they?”
    “But I didn’t!” I insisted.
    “ You know you didn’t. But if the cops keep saying you did, how long do you figure it’ll take the hitter to decide he should tidy up his loose ends, just in case?” Lucky said.
    “Tidy up . . . You mean, kill me ?”
    “A lot of these young guys . . .” Lucky shook his head. “No patience. No self-control. It’s disgusting, the things they’ll do when they get a little nervous.”
    I started rethinking my position on protective custody.
    Lucky said, “So it’s best if you tell me whatever you can, kid. Did Charlie say anything to you before he got whacked?”
    I nodded. This, at least, was a subject that I didn’t think would make me a potential accessory to homicide. “In fact, he said a lot.”
    “He had problems? He knew something was up?”
    “He knew he was going to die.” I added, “But Charlie sounded crazy, Lucky.”
    “It wouldn’t be the first time,” Lucky said. “What did he say to you?”
    “He said he’d been cursed, he’d been marked for death.”
    “Hmm. Marked for death?” Lucky nodded. “Go on.”
    “He talked about la morte —”
    “He talked Italian?” Lucky stiffened, as if the use of Italian made the situation doubly serious.
    “A little. La morte was the only part I