Three by Cain: Serenade, Love's Lovely Counterfeit, the Butterfly by James M. Cain Read Free Book Online Page B

happened, but I knew something had to crack. It did. There came a snap , and I was on the brake. If those doors opened outward I didn’t want to tear out their hinges.
    I backed up the width of the last step, pegged her there with the brake and got out. The bolt socket had torn out. I pulled the doors open, shoved Juana in, went back and started to work on the mats again. Then I thought, what’s the matter with you? Don’t be a fool. I ran back and pulled the doors as wide open as they would go. Then I ran in and began to drag pews around, working by the car lights, until there was an open space right up the center aisle. Then I went back and drove the car right in there. I went back and pulled the doors shut. The headlights were blazing right at the Blessed Sacrament, and shewas on her knees at the altar rail, begging forgiveness for the sacrilegio .
    I sat down in one of the pews where it was turned sidewise, just to sit. I began to worry about the car lights. At the time it seemed I was thinking about the battery, but it may have been the Blessed Sacrament, boring into the side of my head, I don’t know. I got up and cut them. Right away the roar of the rain was five times as loud. In with it you could hear the rumble of thunder, but you couldn’t see any lightning. It was pitch dark in there, except for one red spot. The sacristy light was burning. From up near it came a moan. I had to have light. I cut the switch on again.
    Off to one side of the altar was what looked like a vestry room. I went back there. The water squirted out of my shoes when I walked. I took them off. Then I took off my pants. I looked around. There was a cassock hanging there, and some surplices. I took off everything, wet undershirt, wet drawers, wet socks, and put on the cassock. Then I took a lighter that was standing in a corner and started out to the sacristy lamp. I knew my matches wouldn’t work. Walking on a tile floor barefoot you don’t make much noise, and when she saw me with the lighter, in the cassock, I don’t know what she thought, or if she thought. She fell on her face in front of me and began to gibber, calling me padre and begging for absolución . “I’m not the padre , Juana. Look at me. It’s me.”
    “Ah, Dios!”
    “I’m lighting the candles so we can see.”
    But I mumbled it low. I pulled down the lamp, lit the lighter and slipped it up again. Then I went around through the vestry room and up on the altar and lit three candles on one side, crossed over and lit three on the other. I cut the lighter, went back to the vestry room, put it in its place again. Then I went back and cut the car lights.
    One funny thing about that that I didn’t realize until I snapped that switch. Each time I crossed that altar I went downon one knee. I stood there, looking at the six candles I had lit, and thought that over. It had been twenty years, ever since I had been a boy soprano around Chicago, since I had thought of myself as a Catholic. But they knock it into you. Some of it’s there to stay.
    I lifted eggs and about fifteen other things from the rumble, until I could get out her hatbox. It was pretty wet but not as wet as the rest of the stuff. I took it back to the vestry room, set it down, then went out and touched her on the shoulder. “Your things are back there. You better get out of that wet dress.”
    She didn’t move.
    By that time it must have been about half past eight, and it dawned on me that why I felt so lousy was that I was hungry. I got a candle off the altar, lit it, went back and stuck it to the rear fender of the car, and took stock. I lifted out most of that stuff from the rumble seat, and unlashed what was riding the running board, and all I could see that was doing us any good was the eggs. I unwrapped one and took out my knife to puncture the end so I could suck it, and then I noticed the charcoal. That gave me an idea. There were some loose tiles in the floor and I clawed up a couple of them and