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I started down the steps after hi the Giovanetti book in thealcove where I’d left it “Do you serve a parish here in Avignon, Father Halloran?”

“You can callelse, except Father Halloran”

“I’ll go with Father Mike,” I said “Friendly, but respectful”

“Once I’ve had a drop or two, you can drop the ‘Father,’ if you’re wanting to respect me a bit less”

I laughed I was surprised to feel so relaxed with a priest; ever since ion or its foot soldiers “I suspect you’re good at your work, Father Mike”

“Devilishly”

He held the exit door for ’s courtyard “Oh, you never answered Do you serve a parish here in Avignon?”

“No, but it ,” he said “I’m just here on holliers”

“Excuse me?”

“Holliers Holiday Seeing how the other half lived, seven hundred years ago”

“Half? More like the other one-millionth of one percent”

“Arith I can call you besides ‘lad’?”

“Oh, sorry Of course I’m Bill Bill Brockton”

“A fine, honest-sounding nanon, Bill Brockton?” He nodded at the impressive façade of the former cardinal’s palace “And to this hue? Are you on holliers, too?”

“Not exactly I’ist I’m here to look at some bones”

“Bones? What sort of bones?”

“Just some old bones found at the Palace of the Popes”

“A pope’s bones?”

“I don’t think so”

“A papal hty fond of — that’s what he called her in public, at least Or possibly a pope’s bastard son”

“You do look on the bright side, don’t you, Father Mike?” He laughed “I don’t knoho it is Realistically, probably never will All I know for sure is that the bones are very old, and the guy died a very painful death”

“Must’ve had his finger in the till, then The popes didn’t take kindly to that” He pointed up the street “So, Bill Brockton, I just happen to know that there’s a pub two blocks yonder way Shall end our way thither, for e?”

“Ah, me, that’s a shame,” he said, when I told him about Rocky

“I feel at least partly responsible,” I added, explaining ure out some way to help his wife and kids”

“Heavens, can it be? Are you an honorable man, Bill Brockton? I don’t see many of your ilk these days My parish has seven honorable men in it” He frowned “No, make that six”

“It’s a small parish?”

“Oh, goodness no We have two hundred people at Sunday- Mass But only a handful of those are honorable men One in fifteen or twenty: It’s the universal wheat-to-chaff ratio for her I’d say as many as one woman in three is honorable”