Doppelgangster

"You and your bright ideas," Buonarotti said to the priest. "I can"t see a f.u.c.king thing."

"Then neither can Lucky," Gabriel said. "We"ll slip past him."

And then a familiar voice at the far end of the church shouted, "Police! Weapons down! Police! Weapons down! Police! Drop your weapons! Drop your weapons! I"m a cop!" I"m a cop!"

Lopez! Every cell in my body got a flood of renewed energy as I recognized the voice. Every cell in my body got a flood of renewed energy as I recognized the voice.

"Hey, I"m not armed!" Lucky shouted. "Don"t shoot! I am not armed!"

"That liar liar," Buonarotti muttered.

"Lopez!" I cried.

"Esther! Stay down!" He didn"t even sound surprised to hear my voice. "Lucky, is that you?" he called.

"Yeah. Watch out! Buonarotti"s the killer! He"s so off his rocker, he"ll whack a cop!"

"Where is he?" Lopez"s voice was coming from a new position. He was getting closer to us.

"I think he"s up in the gallery," Lucky called.

The doppelgangster drew in a sharp breath through its nostrils, thinking this meant itself.

"What"s wrong with the lights?" Lopez shouted.

"Not sure," Lucky replied.

"s.h.i.t! I don"t have a flashlight." I don"t have a flashlight."

"Listen, cop!" the doppelgangster shouted, its mouth so close to my ear that I flinched. "I"ve got your girlfriend!"

"Who the f.u.c.k is that? that?" said Buonarotti in the darkness.

In the dormitory hallway behind us, on the other side of the door we had come through, I heard a man shout, "Police! Weapons down! NYPD! Drop your weapons! This is the police!" Weapons down! NYPD! Drop your weapons! This is the police!"

The doppelgangster shouted down to Lopez, his voice carrying through the darkness, "I"ve got her right here, and I"ll blow her head off!"

"He"s lying! His gun"s empty!" Lucky said.

To clarify the situation, the doppelgangster fired a shot.

"Holy s.h.i.t!" said Lucky.

"Who the f.u.c.k is is that?" said Buonarotti. that?" said Buonarotti.

"Lucky," I shouted, "there"s a dopp-agh!" The hand on my throat tightened.

"Esther?" Lopez shouted. "Esther!"

At our backs, on the other side of the door, the cop again called, "Police! Drop your weapons now! now!"

"Esther!" Lopez shouted, his voice coming closer. Something crashed to the floor. "G.o.dd.a.m.n it! Don"t any any of these lights work?" of these lights work?"

The doppelgangster ordered, "Throw down your gun and get on the floor facedown, cop! I"m getting out of here! I"ve got your woman! You get in my way, and I swear to G.o.d, I will will kill her!" kill her!"

"Esther!" Lopez shouted. Lopez shouted.

"Answer him," the doppelgangster said. "Tell him to let us pa.s.s."

I was coughing, unable to speak. In the hallway behind me, I heard a scuffle, a faint thud, and then a groan. The door behind us opened.

"Esther! G.o.dd.a.m.n it, where are you? Esther! Esther!" And then Lopez screamed, "I want LIGHTS!" "I want LIGHTS!"

The lights came on, blazing throughout the church. The sudden brightness made my captor and me both flinch. I squeezed my eyes shut as they stung and watered. The creature dragged me closer to the door behind us, ensuring that we remained shielded from Lopez"s sight by the dramatic velvet curtains that framed the broad balcony.

"Freeze!" Lopez shouted, presumably at Buonarotti, who now stood exposed on the balcony with light blazing gloriously down upon him. Lopez shouted, presumably at Buonarotti, who now stood exposed on the balcony with light blazing gloriously down upon him.

"What the f.u.c.k . . . f.u.c.k . . ." Buonarotti said.

As my eyes adjusted, I saw the mobster staring at me with an expression of appalled amazement. Then I realized he wasn"t staring at me me.

The doppelgangster sucked in its breath. "What the f.u.c.k . . . f.u.c.k . . ."

Buonarotti"s gaze flashed to the disheveled priest who stood blinking and shielding his eyes, only an arm"s length away from him. The snarl of murderous hatred on Buonarotti"s face revealed that he knew his partner had betrayed him. He screamed-an inarticulate bellow of rage-and started beating Gabriel.

"Freeze!" Lopez shouted somewhere below the two men on the balcony. "Freeze!" "Freeze!"

The gangster knocked down Father Gabriel, then reached for the candelabra I had knocked over earlier tonight.

"I"ll shoot!" Lopez warned. Lopez warned.

"I"ll kill you, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d!"

"Don"t do it!" Lopez shouted.

Buonarotti picked up the candelabra and screamed at the cowering priest. "I"ll kill you!" "I"ll kill you!"

A gunshot went off.

Buonarotti cried out and staggered back, and blood rolled down his arm. I didn"t understand what was happening for a moment. Then I realized that Lopez had shot him.

Undeterred by his bullet wound, Buonarotti stumbled back toward the priest, screaming, "I"ll kill you, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d! I"ll kill you!"

"Stop!" Lopez warned. "Don"t make me shoot you twice!" Lopez warned. "Don"t make me shoot you twice!"

The priest turned to run this way, apparently forgetting there was a doppelgangster in his path. Not to mention a woman who had just beaten the s.h.i.t out of him.

He stopped suddenly in his tracks, staring in sorrowful defeat. But he wasn"t looking at us. He was looking past us.

"I was good, wasn"t I?" he said, his voice flat.

I stared at him blankly.

Then from behind me, Max answered, "You were very talented."

The priest turned and dove over the balcony railing.

I choked on a startled scream and lunged forward reflexively as the body crashed into the wooden pews below the balcony. The doppelgangster was startled enough to release its grip on me.

I got to the railing and looked down. It was a long drop, but survivable. The priest, however, had thrown himself head first into a bank of pews. He lay at a horrid angle, his neck evidently broken and blood pouring from his shattered skull.

Lopez ran to the body and then leaned over to press his fingers against the neck, checking for a pulse.

"Is he dead?" Lucky called from the other side of the church.

"Yes," Lopez said after a moment. "Dead." His voice was grim.

I made a choked sound. Lopez looked up and saw me.

"Esther! Get out of there!" He quickly raised his gun to aim it at something on my left.

I realized that the wounded Buonarotti, standing to my left, was also looking over the railing and that I was much closer to him than was wise. I turned to flee, then stumbled and halted. The doppelgangster was in my path. But only for a moment. Max swung the b.l.o.o.d.y hand ax-the one that Gabriel had used this evening to kill a chicken-and decapitated it.

Buonarotti starting laughing as if the funniest thing in the world had just occurred to him. Within moments, he fell clumsily to the floor and just sat there, rocking back and forth, laughing, and saying over and over, "I"m a dead man! I"m a dead man!" His bleeding arm didn"t seem to bother him.

Behind Max, I saw an unconscious cop in uniform.

Max followed my gaze, then said, "I was afraid the doppelgangster would harm him. It seemed best to remove him from the equation."

Nelli stood over the cop, holding her injured foot gingerly in the air. She snuffled the fallen man with concern. When the policeman groaned, her tail wagged with relief.

Lopez"s running footsteps carried him up to the choir gallery via the long spiral staircase we had climbed in the dark earlier tonight. When he reached us, instead of covering the hysterically laughing Buonarotti with his gun, he pointed it at Max.

"Put the ax down down, Max," he said.

"Pardon? Oh!" Realizing that his holding a b.l.o.o.d.y ax had been misinterpreted as a hostile gesture, Max set it down. "I hope I didn"t alarm you."

"What the h.e.l.l happened to McDevitt?" Lopez snapped.

"Who?" I said.

"The cop lying on the floor behind Max!"

"Oh! That"s my fault entirely, I"m afraid," Max said. "I hit him with the ax handle."

"Why, Max?"

"I believed him to be Don Michael. Who was threatening to kill Esther." Max added helpfully, "It was very dark, you know."

"Yes, I know," Lopez said. "And the blood blood on the ax would be from what, exactly?" on the ax would be from what, exactly?"

"A chicken," I blurted.

"A what?"

"A chicken. Um, I guess that"s where all these feathers came from." I kicked a pile of doppelgangster detritus with my foot. "The chicken."

"Father Gabriel killed it with the ax." Max shook his head sadly. "He also threatened us us with the ax. I"m afraid he was involved in some most unsavory activities. The Church wouldn"t approve at all." with the ax. I"m afraid he was involved in some most unsavory activities. The Church wouldn"t approve at all."

"He was in league with Buonarotti!" I said.

"I know." Lopez glanced at the wounded mobster. The arm had only been nicked; it was bleeding, but didn"t look serious.

I said, "Buonarotti"s been committing these murders!"

"I know," Lopez said.

"You do? do?"

"Are you all right?" Lopez asked me.

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"What are you doing here?" he asked me.

"Don"t you know?"

"How would I know?" he said in exasperation.

"Well, what are you you doing here then?" doing here then?"

"I asked the local patrolman to keep an eye on the church and let me know if anything unusual happened. So when he saw a woman, two men, and a huge dog entering furtively around midnight tonight, he called me. And since I had a feeling I knew who he was describing, I told him to stand by, and I came here. By the time I arrived, he thought he"d heard shots fired."

"Oh." I frowned. "Wait a minute. It"s just the two of you?"

"At the moment, thanks to Max a.s.saulting a police officer," Lopez said, "it"s just the one of me."

"Who turned on the lights?"

"What?"

"Who got the lights working again?" I asked.

Lopez shrugged and looked at me and Max. We looked at each other.