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Bell said, “I aency I would like to ask you some questions about people who used to live in your parish”

“If you want to talk, you must walk I have ht places than their new church Coy step for a hborhood that felt miles, not yards, from his brand-new church

“You’ve served here long, Father?”

“Since the Draft Riots”

“That’s forty-five years ago”

“Soed in the district, most have not We are still poor”

The priest entered a tenement with an elaborate carved stone portal and started up a steep flight of rickety stairs He was breathing hard by the third floor At the sixth, he paused to catch his breath, and when the wheezing stopped he knocked on a door, and called, “Good ! It is Father Jack”

A girl with a baby in her ar, Father”

“And how is your mother?”

“Not good, Father, not good at all”

He left Bell in the front roolethat looked onto a yard crisscrossed with clotheslines in the shade admitted the stench of a privy six stories below Bell folded a wad of dollar bills in his hand and slipped it to the girl as they left

At the bottoain “Who are you inquiring about?”

“Brian O’Shay and Billy Collins”

“Brian’s long gone from here”

“Fifteen years, I’ve been told”