Shepherd of Wolves

By Birrell Walsh

Genocides who would destroy half the world with a GMO weapon plot in Scandinavia.

Interpol thinks they put together the strange team to hunt them down - a Danish detective falling in love with an American doctor, a sad priest and a lesbian bar-owner from San Francisco, a Filipina cop from the mean streets of the Mission District, and an agent of Germany's shadowy watchdog agency.

But the real team is stranger still, as ghosts and half-human guardians struggle to prevent the ghastly Cleanup Virus; and history itself shimmers and reshapes.


This is the fourth novel in the Tantra in the West series.

Sister Clare's Lover
Illuminating Four Cities
and Philanthropic Horse is Haunted by Gravity

are also available, in paperback at lulu.com and from all ebook outlets.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9781678124205

Book preview

Shepherd of Wolves:

A Mystery of Catholic Tantra

By Birrell Walsh

Copyright 2013 by Birrell Walsh

All rights are reserved.

§

Thanks to Nancy Grant, first and always; and to Tim Lavalli, Jennifer Overbury, and 'Early Man.'  They read this book and made suggestions for which I am very grateful.  Thanks as well to the people and cities of San Francisco in the US, Århus in Denmark, and Lauingen-an-der-Donau in Germany.

§

What has gone before…

The earlier books of the TANTRA IN THE WEST Series are:

Sister Clare’s Lover.  What happens when a very intellectual priest is asked to find out about a tantric practice in the convents of the city.  He finds it, and he finds it is orthodox.  The nuns send him to discover this form of devotion for himself, and he falls in love with the remarkable Sagesse Anandasagara.  Now they must choose between love and duty.

Illuminating Four Cities, in which Father Shalgry seeks the widely planted roots of his connection with Sagesse.  He travels through four worlds and four stories of love and energy before returning to tell his friend Marta of his journey. 

What is this horse thing, anyway? asked Walter Zweifel.  Philanthropic Horse is Haunted by Gravity is about a young horse who leaves his pasture to climb the mountains of the dead, and bring the light down – to Swabia near Lauingen. 

Book ordering information is at the end of the book.

Birrell Walsh can be reached at:

[e-mail]

The First Stone

The brick was small but very, very hurtful.

It sailed across the Mission District sidewalk and through the window of the New Canton Restaurant.  Go home, go home Chinaman!  The crowd of Latino teenagers laughed.  Go home, Go home!

Another brick, with a newspaper wrapped around it, followed the first.  The newspaper fluttered to the floor.  The brick bounced off a formica tabletop and swept bottles of soy sauce and hot chili to the floor.  The red chili-and-garlic spread across the floor, mixing with the brown of the soy. 

Mrs. Shen dove for cover.  This again was like Indonesia, the crowds, the mobs, the broken windows and the Chinese blood on the walls.  Ba Guaiii! she shouted, but from way back in the kitchen.  They weren’t just white ghosts. These were brown kids, again like the Indonesians that had terrorized her parents and killed her uncle… who drove them from Djakarta where they had lived for generations, here to Gold Mountain.

Her husband gripped the cleaver.  If they come in… he said in Chinese. Sweat stood out on his face, and his eyes were wide.  He meant, If they come in, maybe I can protect you and maybe I can’t; but I will try.  And he would.  He was a good man, and a brave man; but he was not a warrior.  Like her he was a shopkeeper, the descendant of generations of small business people who had never been allowed to become part of Indonesia.  She had thought that it would be different here in America.  It was not.

In the wind through the broken window the newspaper unfolded.  The headline said Boxers Decimate Foreigners in Hong Kong.  What had that to do with them?  They had come here to avoid mobs like those that were sweeping through the streets of Heung Gong, the Fragrant Harbor.  How had the Communists allowed this to happen?  How had their stone cold grip on China slipped so far?  The Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists had come back from 110 years of extinction and swept through Hong Kong.  Maybe it was the implosion of the Chinese economy, the Western Provinces Rebellion, the corruption of the Communist Party.  But all of it meant genocide against Europeans and Japanese and Indians in Hong Kong.  And in the west, bricks through the windows of Chinese businesses.

Another brick sailed across the room, to the laughter and cheers of the people outside.  This one bounced off the bottom of Kuan Yu’s shrine.  Better not do that, brown kids, said Mrs. Shen.  Kuan Yu is a warrior god. Use your big sharp spear – we have given you enough incense and oranges.  Save us, or we are going to cut you off.

A scream came from the back of the restaurant and a door banged.  Aiyaa, my crazy daughter is home.  She will get herself killed.  Mrs. Shen heard the pounding of footsteps rushing up the back stairs, up to Susana’s room, into that awful collection of things she kept there.  Then the rumble of feet coming down the stairs with a voice swearing in every language that Susana knew - a lot of them - and there was her daughter.  She was all in the colors of death.  It was her daughter with a gun.

No, Susana, no! shouted her husband.  He had lived in Indonesia long enough to know if a Chinese shot someone defending themselves, they would still go to jail.  No.

But Susana was American born, born in this crazy country where everyone had a right to carry guns and she loved her guns, almost as much as she loved her languages and her germs.  There was something so fierce in her daughter’s makeup that for a moment Mrs. Shen was as afraid of her as she was of the crowd outside.  Someone was going to die today.

Wait.  What was that voice, that voice that didn’t sound like a young voice? Mrs. Shen and her husband ventured to raise their heads above the counter and look out the shattered window.  Who was that madman standing in front of their store, with his hands out to the crowd, speaking to them in a mixture of English and Spanish? He was as crazy as their daughter.

Susana was at the window, gun in her hand, pointing at the black-clad back of the man outside.  He was telling them to leave.  Leave now.  That God said to leave, that God said not to do this.  Who was he?  What was he?  Because the crowd was growing quiet.  They were, dared she believe it, they were turning away.  The man stood there until the last one, the leader, with a threatening look back, walked away. 

Then he turned to the broken window.  He found himself staring into the raised barrel of Susana’s favorite pistol.  He lifted his hands into the air.  Whoa, he said.  I’m on your side.

Mrs. Shen could see that this man was a Christian priest.  A white ghost for sure, but he had driven the mob of young thugs away.  Maybe they were Christians too.  Susana, she said with desperation.  Susana, please.  He saved us.

Long Shadow

Hilda was a bartender at Marta Vasquez’ lesbian bar.  She was good at her job, steady and sober.  She rarely dreamed.  Tonight she did.

There were so few soldiers left in the unit that he could no longer mount a defense.  The Great Wind tanks were all around them. 

The strange and half-human pentad were all that remained on the left flank.  They continued to fire until all their ammunition was gone.  The shells were defective, left over from old NATO stores.  One of them had exploded and the brass casing had torn a wound into one of the quintet.  The blood had come to the surface, and stopped. It was like a tattoo.

Vietnamese gliders began to land all around.  There were so many of them, heirs of the Vietnamese Light Infantry that had stopped the Americans long ago.  Now, they were of course not human.  These were the Dogs of War.  A year before, they had not existed.

All over Berlin they could smell fires burning.  The end had come.  Berlin had fallen.  The West had fallen,  København in ruins, Paris and London gone.  Life was draining out.

The officer turned to the fivers.  There is nothing to do. It is despair for us.

We are not permitted to despair, said one.  He could not tell which one.  It was not the scarred one.  Then run away, he said.  They were gone.  He twisted to look for them.  A bullet from the People's Army took him before he finished the turn.

The Solitary Practice

Father Matthew Shalgry finished Mass in his tiny apartment.  Middle-aged, a bit thick about the waist and greying, he folded his vestments and put them into the drawer, smoothing the silk as he did so. He returned the chalice and paten to the Mass kit, beside the tiny bottles of wine and water.  He closed the briefcase. 

His parish ministry was long gone, removed when he wrote a controversial book about Spiritualism.  He still stood in for vacationing priests and heard confessions in the city’s convents. 

He was and would always remain a priest, said his heart, in the lineage that went back to Jesus and the Apostles.  Whether he could keep his heart together, Ah, that was another question, in this lonely bitter crazy cruel time.  When the only person who brought life into me I will never see again.  And when the Chinese were being attacked in San Francisco. Lord, he said, half aloud, could you send your angels and protectors to stop this crap? Maybe last night I was one of those protectors.

He sat in the easy chair beside his bed, and looked out the small window.  It was a fine day on Gough Street, cold and foggy.  Grey light filtered in the window.  He allowed his awareness to settle back into the central channel. 

Channels, channels.  His immigrant ancestors had dug tunnels in New York.  They were sandhogs, building the underground pathways for subways and sewers.  Now he was a tantric, letting energy move through his own channels. 

His awareness of the central channel was of a flow of light and warmth through an open space.  In that he was a tantric.  But the flavor of that light was of one particular person.  His heart turned to that one.  Like a wind moaning up a canyon, the mixture of light and personal attachment sounded inside of him.  An outsider would have seen a priest sitting quietly with his hands in his lap.  To his own eye, he was still a man in love, which he shouldn’t be but was. 

The door.  Someone is at the door.  He sighed, raggedly, and opened his eyes again.  The light and company in his central channel fell into the background.  He rose and went to the door and opened it.

Marta.  Come in. Marta’s dark red hair surrounded a sharp face.  It was more than Marta, he saw.  He found himself looking as well at the shining eyes of Sister Agnes, the doyen of San Francisco’s convents.  Hello, Sister.  Please … He stepped aside, holding the door.

Sister Agnes glanced down the hall and then entered the apartment, following Marta.  May I get you some tea, Sisters?  Marta sat unselfconsciously on his bed.  Sister Agnes, in her traditional habit as always, sat in the easy chair.  Shalgry put on the kettle and found some of the smoke-flavored tea that he had come to value in the past year. Then he pulled a kitchen chair from the table. 

We brought presents, Matthew, said Marta.  She opened a paper bag and pulled out several macaroons.  You like these, I understand.

He got a plate, and cut open a macaroon.  The coconut flavor filled his mouth, and Matthew smiled. 

I detect a purpose, Sisters.  You are always welcome here, but it doesn’t seem like a social visit…?

Sister Agnes smiled, then pursed her lips.  Matthew, you are right.  Yes.  We are here because we heard about what you did in the Mission the other night.  It was very brave, very good.  But Matthew – I know you.  I know you did it in part because you don’t care if you live or die.  We are worried about you.

Marta nodded, the colored highlights in her hair reflecting in the light from the window.  … and as far as any of us know, you are not spending time with any other person.  You are being crazy brave on the street, and then just locking yourself up here with a memory.

And a practice, said Matthew.

Right, said Sister Agnes.  And a practice.  But I called Augusta Karlsdottir, the one who gave you the practice.  She has not been seeing you either.  She is worried too.

Shalgry felt a little trapped, but he could hardly flee his two good friends and his own apartment.  He looked to the teakettle to give him something to do, but it was not ready.

OK, he said. I have been a little…

… would you accept ‘pensive’? asked Marta so gently that Matthew could not believe it was his rowdy friend of so many years.

Yes.  I guess that is true.  I’m still there, still up that mountain.

He turned to the kettle as it began to whistle.  He poured water into each teacup, and the smell of dark Scottish tea filled the apartment.  He offered it to Sister Agnes, and then to Marta, in the silence of good friends.  He took his own, and sat again.

But I don’t want to close my heart, you know.  Silently, from inside, came the voice of Jesus: Good choice, Matthew.  Matthew said nothing more out loud. 

So… said Sister Agnes.  Silence came again.

Marta dipped her red-haired head. So… In addition to your rescuing that family last night, something arrived today at the bar, and it made us think of you.  Marta owned the Pink Triangle, a San Francisco lesbian bar, which she had created after leaving the convent herself. I hope you will forgive us.  She stood, opened the door of Shalgry’s apartment, and stepped into the hall.  Matthew looked at Sister Agnes, who kept a poker face. 

Marta returned.  She was carrying a box with a closed lid.  She set it on the floor in front of Shalgry.  Father, she said, gesturing at the box.  Shalgry looked at the two women.  It’s not a puppy, is it?  he asked.

Nope, said Marta. 

Shalgry leaned forward, and lifted the lid of the box.  A pair of eyes looked up at him.  I thought you said… he began.

It’s not a puppy.

Shalgry was taking a deep breath when a head emerged from the box.  Rowr, it said.

Oh Good Lord, said Shalgry.  Looks like you can keep your heart open, Matthew, said the voice of Jesus from inside him.

The immense cat turned and looked at the two women, then back to Shalgry. Mrowr-ffft it said with satisfaction.

Not the Sort of People

They were not the sort of people Mark Cheung wanted in the Pai Gow parlor.  For one thing they were not Chinese.  In this time, thought Cheung, he would prefer to see only his countrymen here.  Anyone else might be suddenly, pointlessly violent.  This week alone he had thrown out three screaming rednecks.  They were, he had noticed, only loud and filled with race hate after they lost money.

But this lot looked as if they were all relatives.  They were tall, they were strangely tall, and they had the longest hands he had ever seen.  Long hands, as the Buddha has, very long.  But they did not have the soft hands of a Buddha.  They looked rather strong.

Each one, he noticed, had gone to a different table.  Each one sat without speaking.  And he had the strangest sensation that he might want to watch these tall fellows.  Fellows, he thought.  Because to him they seemed hermaphroditic as well as tall.  He would not want to bet (he smiled to himself) that they were men in fact. 

All around bets were placed on the table, then there came the clicking of tiles as players shuffled the piles of dominoes used in the game.  The dealer placed four tiles in front of each player.  Each player turned the tiles to face themselves alone, and with some pushing back and forth – click, click - placed them in two hands of two.  Everyone showed their hands at the same time, and laughter and frustration followed.

The tall strange men, Cheung noticed, started out playing badly.  As if they didn’t know the game.  And that was fine, a lot of people came into a Pai Gow parlor and didn’t know what it was all about.  Not just white people – a lot of Chinese didn’t know the game.  If they stuck around, they learned. 

But these men, these strange men, got better very fast.  They were getting it eerily fast.  Cheung couldn’t say that they had a system, exactly; but they were winning more often than beginners.

If that kept up… 

There are many things you have to do for a business.  This time it was the Fire Department.  It was the second time this month.  For innumerable years there were occasional inspections.  Now, since Hong Kong, the Fire Department was suddenly interested in their safety.  Not an impolite word, not even hostile body language except maybe some stiffness and a lot of Mr. Cheung.   But still Mark Cheung felt it was important not to give them any cause, any excuse, to find a fire hazard in the card room.  That took most of an hour, and two plates of dim sum.

As he escorted the two uniformed firefighters out, he saw from the corner of his eye his floor manager glancing at him.  He knew that look – it was the way she signaled that actual money was going out the door.  She was a serious businesswoman, and she had a spreadsheet where most people have a heart; and if she was giving him that look it was time for him to get to the floor.  A final smile and nod to the receding blue backs, and he turned and hurried back.

As he arrived, as if on cue, the odd quintet rose at once.  Not at once – they arose in a phalanx.  Like trained performers.  And then they all gave their chips to one of them and he – was it a he? – took the chips to the cash window.

Then, again more like a platoon, they started for the door.  And stopped.  And one of them, not the one who went to get the cash, came over to Mark Cheung.  Might you tell me where we could find a bus into San Francisco, the Mission District?

Across the street.  The bus stops there, Cheung said.

The stranger extended his hand.  Mhgoi sai, he said in accentless Cantonese.  It was strange in every way it could be: no white person ever learned Cantonese without an accent.  It had nine tones.  Maybe they could learn Gwok Yuh, the national speech that Americans called Mandarin – it had only four tones.  But this strange person had just said thank you in better Cantonese than most American Chinese would ever have.  Cheung felt the hair rising on his neck.  Mhsai mhgoi, he stammered out.  No need to say thank you.  Later he would be thinking about how much money these strangers had won.  But right now, he was just grateful to see them go. 

They left.  Cheung walked over to his floor manager.  What’s the damage? he asked her in Chinese.  A lot, she answered.  But… you saw… they knew when to go.  Like that song the country people sing, ‘Know when to hold…’

’Know when to fold, know when to walk away, know when to run.’ Yeah.  Cheung walked to the door and looked out.

They were gone.  "’Know when to walk away,’ he repeated.  He was glad they were gone.  He turned and returned to his casino. 

Lyon is a Beautiful City

Lyon, thought Hans David Levinssen, is a beautiful city. It is still not Denmark.  But it is where Interpol has its headquarters, so it is where he must be at this moment.

He looked at the two men in front of him.  Rupert Chan, a detective chief inspector from New Scotland Yard, was head of this task force.  His suit was impeccable, grey and expensive.  On his office wall was a poster from the New Boxers in Hong Kong.  Purify! it said in characters.  But they were not gathered here because of the anti-foreigner movement in southern China.  They were here because of the reaction to it, something that felt like even more than a reaction: the persecution of the Chinese in the Western World.

Evan Leary, from the FBI in Chicago, was here because some of the worst outbreaks had happened in the United States.  Fires in Los Angeles and New York.  Gangs attacking stores on the streets of San Francisco.  Leary spoke with the flat voice of the American midwest, with very little affect.  One could think he was cold about the issue.  Levinssen knew it was not true.  Leary had a Hawaiian Chinese wife and his children were hapa-haole, half-Asian and half white.  He cared deeply.  His family was in danger. 

At least he still has a family, thought Levinssen.  He wrested his mind away from the twisted wreckage by the side of a Jutland highway.

And I, his thoughts went on, am here to my shame because ...

All the intelligence points to Denmark.  You have checked all the known Danish fascists, you say.  I agree, you have.  And none of them seem to be involved.  Chan raised his pencil to his lips.  Yet...

Yet, responded Levinssen, the document seems to come from Jutland.  From my city, he thought.  From Århus, the university city.  The internet record said so – it came through a laptop connected to a wireless network at an Århus café.  It burned in him, because it was from Århus that his grandparents had fled to Sweden during the war.  It had been a good city.  It still was. 

Sometimes his hand itched for his Heckler and Koch 9 mm.  Sometimes he felt he should be an American cop: shoot first, talk later.  He would like to, in this case.

Chan took the pencil from his lips and tapped a document in front of him.  And there's our only evidence.  With the eraser he pushed the paper to Levinssen. 

Leary rose to stand behind him as Levinssen took the paper.  Americans have no sense of personal space, he thought, even though they invented the term.  The paper was titled simply, directly and chillingly Genetic Technology for the Preservation of the European Peoples.

The language suggested that the authors were experienced and knowledgeable scientists.  They spoke of the development of viruses that based themselves in the genetic differences among the races.  It was desperately clear that the intent was genocide, technological genocide.

Leary looked up at Chan.  You think this came from Danes, he said.  Why?  But Levinssen knew exactly why.  It was in English, but the turns of phrase indicate the authors had spoken Danish first.

Levinssen had no idea how Chan kept such an unmoving face.  He had just shown Hans a document that someone was thinking of, no, planning a genocide that would strike at him and his family and all the people related to him.  It was more than Levinssen could bear to walk into the Occupation Museum, where they kept memories of the war in the old police headquarters by the bay in Århus.  Levinssen’s stomach clenched.  Again, he thought, it is happening again.

Hans, said Chan.  Just how seriously he was taking this showed in his dropping the titles of office.  Hans, you have organized strike forces before.  Levinssen’s mind flashed to raids and firefights in the night, events he had commanded reluctantly and well. "We are going to ask you to go home and look for these people.  They will be hidden, because most Danes would despise them.  You are good at developing teams.  We'll ask you to build a team that can deal with this.

But first, so you know what you are looking for, would you make a side trip?  There are some people who may be able to guess just what this genetic bomb is.  They are developing everything else in genetics right now.  Would you go and talk to them?

Levinssen looked again at the paper in front of him.  Yes, he said, pain in his eyes. Yes I will.  Where are they?

At the University of California, replied Chan, in San Francisco.

He Taught Her Everything

Officer Mariel Caylao maneuvered through Valencia Street traffic.  The Muni was rerouting buses off Sixteenth Street again, and there was congestion on top of congestion.

Ethiopian, suggested her partner, James Flanagan.  White, male, near retirement, a traditional Irish cop.  To Mariel’s surprise, he was the best partner she could imagine.  He taught her everything he knew about being a cop.  Who knew if he approved of a Filipina lesbian being on the force at all?  But that was not the issue now - lunch was.

Mama Caylao did not raise her little girl to eat with her hands, responded Mariel. She missed her mother’s cooking, which had given her the strong body she wore proudly under her uniform. Though maybe, burritos?

Too heavy, too much, replied Flanagan. I have to lose weight, the doctor said.  And Mary says.

Right, said Mariel.  Mary was glad that her husband’s partner was a lesbian.  Mariel smiled a wry smile.  Forty years they had been married and Mary was still jealous of him. 

Thai? Thai is good.  But we did Thai yesterday.

How about Chinese?

Not since they trashed the New Canton. said Flanagan. 

Oh, that is so true.  If we catch them, they will be sorry, added Mariel. Do not come between a cop and her favorite lunch.

Speaking of which, Flanagan went on, "isn’t that the Shen’s girl Susana?

Caylao peered through the crowds, who seemed to be giving the slight young woman a wide berth.  She wore white slacks and a white sweater, and a wide belt.  Armed, it seems.  She sighed.  Let us go talk with her.

Mariel pulled the black and white into a bus stop.  Flanagan rolled down his window and stuck his head out. 

Ms. Shen!  What a pleasure to see you.  Taking our gun for a walk, are we?

Susana looked into the police car, seeing first two uniforms and then softening a bit as she recognized her family’s regular customers.  It’s unloaded.  She lifted the automatic from her holster with two fingers and revealed it had no clip in it.  And two clips stored on the other side of the belt? Flanagan rejoined.  How convenient.

Mariel leaned across her partner.  You know, she said, since we can’t get a decent meal in the neighborhood, we thought we would go look for the people who wrecked your restaurant.  Want to ride along?

Susana backed up a half step. 

Since you can identify them, which we can’t; and we can arrest them, which you can’t... Caylao managed to make it sound as if Susana would be doing them a favor.  In fact, she would.

Flanagan reached over and pushed the release to open the rear door.  Susana seemed to think for a moment, then decided.  She stepped to the car and opened the rear door.

Oh, and Susana, said Flanagan, extending his hand. There are no guns in the back of a patrol car.  Department regulations, don’t you know?  It was calculated.  Caylao held her breath.

Susana looked at them both for a moment.  You’ll give them back?

Of course, said Flanagan, his voice dripping with sudden brogue.  Second Amendment and all that.

Shen sighed and unbuckled her gunbelt and placed it in his hand.  She got into the back seat of the patrol car and pulled the door shut behind her.  Mariel Caylao let out her breath, and pulled the car into traffic.  Flanagan wrapped the belt around the gun and set it on the seat beside him. 

Any idea who they were? she asked Susana. 

Latinos, Shen responded.  They sounded Guatemalan, second generation.  She sat tight-lipped for a moment. I had never seen them before.  I don’t even think they knew us.  They were just throwing bricks at the Chinks.

OK, said Mariel.  We’ll drive around, you scan.  If you see anyone that looks familiar, let us know.  She turned right on 16th Street and headed for Mission.  First stop was going to be San Miguel Restaurant at 29th and Mission.  Maybe pick up some pupusas if they didn’t spot any perps.

Susana and Flanagan looked out the windows, seeking the mostly mestizo look of Guatemalans among the crowd.  Mariel wondered to herself how cops were supposed to avoid racial profiling when everyone gave racial descriptions.  Excuse me Mr. Pappadopoulos, did you happen to be in the Guatemalan teenage gang that threw bricks through the windows of the New Canton?

She kept her thoughts to herself.  She had wondered, when she was first partnered with Jim Flanagan, why he said so little.  Now she knew - anything you said could be held against you.  She shook her head.  She wanted to be a cop, and now she was one.

They cruised south on Mission Street, moving slowly enough for the Shen girl to watch both sides of the street.  She saw nothing.  When they got to the San Miguel, it was Flanagan who suggested they get lunch.  He invited Susana to join them. 

They found a table near the back of the blue-awninged restaurant.  Do you come here a lot? Susana asked, visibly nervous.  Yes, said Mariel.  Food’s good.

"And cheap.  Try the chuchitos with the salsa to dip them in."  He pointed to a neighboring table where people were sharing a dipping bowl and a plate with what looked like tamales.

Susana’s upbringing in a restaurant was overcoming her fear of the ethnicity of the people around her.  She looked into the menu.  "What’s Chipilin?" she asked.

It’s a kind of vegetable, leafy...  Jesus, Jim, what’s wrong?  Mariel reached across the table to her partner, who had gone dead pale and did not seem to be able to speak.  Finally, he got out one word, Help.

Susana, give me a hand, said Mariel. We have to get him to the hospital, now.  He has a bad heart.

The two women managed to lift Flanagan and take him out to the patrol car.  One-handed, Caylao got the rear door opened and they got her partner in.  Tell Mary... he half-croaked.

Tell her yourself, Jim.  Please, please, tell her yourself.

Susana climbed into the shotgun seat beside her.  Mariel slammed on the siren and they screamed through the Mission night toward General Hospital.

The Company of Brother Thomas

It was strange for Matthew Shalgry to have a companion in his small space.  He named him Thomas, then changed it to Brother Thomas.

The cat was big, very big, the size of a dog when he walked around.  When he went to sleep he seemed more like a piece of furniture.

Often Shalgry would be settling into his habitual sadness, remembering the shining black hair of the woman he had fallen in love with.  His eyes downcast, he stared at the floor.  Then spots came into his field of vision, spots and a black nose and shiny eyes that brought the lost lamented to mind.  Only for a moment, though: the face would split open and 30 fangs would show in a great pink mouth.  Shalgry found himself wondering how any being could yawn so widely.  His emotional train of thought was quite gone.  Matthew found he could not help smiling. 

In the corner was a huge catbox, certified for the many-cat home.  He cleaned it daily, and put in baking soda to sweeten it; and every week he changed the litter.  For all that, the house now had a smell that was as much cat as human.  He had made a space for this companion.

When he sat and did his prayers, the cat looked up at him with the strangest look.  Shalgry did not so much say his prayers, as use the repetitive words to welcome what Spirit might bring to him, as if he were making a landing place.  The cat would stop what he was doing and come and stare at him, watching him as he might watch a fish-tank, with total absorption, and then settle in front of him in a sphinx-pose.  You know, good fellow, thought Matthew, I’d swear you see everything I pray about.  Every single thing.

Brother Thomas looked up at him with yellow eyes, then purred.  His eyes closed and he disappeared wherever cats go when they meditate.  Suddenly his eyes opened and he was looking out the window, and was gone in a moment down the fire escape.  Shalgry closed his eyes then – some creature was going to be caught now. 

Then once again Thomas was at the window and in, this time with just a small mouse in his fangs.  The mouse struggled, trying to get away.  Thomas set him down, and then as the small being tried to escape, he caught him with one great paw on his tail.  The cat reached forward and with a single crunch ended the mouse’s life.  He settled on his elbows and began to eat.

Bloodthirsty, isn’t he? said the voice of Jesus, Shalgry’s constant companion.  He sure is, replied Shalgry. And shook his head.  A bane to mice and rats, Jesus’s voice went on. And a pest-control for humans.  He is both.

Brother Thomas had finished the mouse, tail and all, and was giving himself a bath.  He was the picture of a contented hunter doing the work he was born for.

Yes, said Shalgry, both.  A shudder went through him.

Yet later, the cat climbed on his lap and purred a steady motorboat purr.  A gift I am being given, Matthew realized, the gift of this cat’s contentment and life.  He found himself not revolted, but slowly and deeply revivified. 

Admiration of Flanagan’s Network

Mariel Caylao found herself at loose ends.  With her partner in the hospital, recovering but facing a long convalescence, she was between assignments.  From time to time she filled in when someone’s partner called in sick.  But police teams were more than a random pairing.  Partners knew each other’s reactions and needs.  They had a silent collaboration that made them effective in sudden danger.  She missed her own partner.

She pulled up to the hospital and went up to Flanagan's bedside. She found him drowsing; but when she entered, his eyes opened.  For some months when they were first paired, she thought he was a sleepy old man.  Then, one night on patrol he had said with his eyes still closed, That’s Kirby.  There, across Mission by the BART stairs.  He’s in parole violation.  Didn’t check in.  She started to turn the patrol car to the curb, and his voice went on, "…but we don’t want to pick him up.  He leads us to lots of interesting people.  Like, see that Samoan guy walking towards him?  If he stops, it’s a drug sale.  Then we’re interested." All this without opening his eyes.

He called this kind of observation-and-consideration reliable information.  He didn't trust hearsay, and he taught her not to either.

One night when they were cornering an armed robber, he went behind a set of heavy trashbins and barricaded himself.  Jesus, Jim, what do we do?  He’s armed.  He’s at the end of a long alley.  There is no way we are going to get him out of there.  Flanagan looked down the alley.  A shot greeted him.  He pulled his head back. She expected him to do something brilliant and solitary and memorable.  Instead he said, We radio for help.  They called for backup.  The car that came had two of the most racist, sexist men in the whole San Francisco Police Department.  If there was a contest, they would have won it.  Caylao knew they despised her, and held Flanagan in contempt for working with her.  She looked in Flanagan’s eyes.  In their depths, she could see that he thought they were scum, the sort of cops who gave the whole department a bad name.  He cleared his throat on that dark Mission street.  When you call for backup, he said, you take the backup that comes.

Now, it broke her heart to see him in this bed.  Flanagan, she began, When are you going to be out of here and back on the street with me?

Flanagan’s face was lugubrious.  Not right away, Caylao.  He scratched at his chest, and her heart suddenly hurt.  This old man meant a lot to her, more than she was supposed to admit as a dyke and a police officer.  Not soon.

He raised his eyes to her.  But I hear they may have a special job for you.  You willing to be out of uniform for a little while?

Mariel was mystified.  How did this man know everything that was going on in the Police Department, while he was immobile in a cardiac unit?

What do you have in mind?

Me, I have in mind watching soap operas at home.  But people come by to say hello, you know?  He drank from the glass at his bedside, the awkward straw leading him almost to spill water on himself.  I hear there is some overseas police bigwig coming to town, someone that is going to need a babysitter.  And if you decided to li-aise for him, Flanagan mocked the jargon with his voice, then you might still be available as a partner if they let me back on the street.  He lowered his huge eyebrows and looked aside.  And I would like that.

Christ, thought Mariel, the man is more manipulative than my mother.  She didn’t want to say that she had been worried about just that, reassignment with a new partner.  I suppose I could drive this character around.  What do I have to do?

Nothing, said Flanagan, except not tell anyone I told you.  I wasn’t supposed to.  He looked at her with a carefully blank expression.  And come visit maybe another day.  I have to use the bedpan.

§

Mariel barely made the front door of the ward before her cell rang.  Caylao, said the familiar voice of her lieutenant, would you stop in and see me when you get to the station?

Yessir, she said.  I was just visiting Jim.  He’s talking and manipulating things like his old self.

But he won’t be back anytime soon, I’m afraid, said the lieutenant. You know, he asked if you could be his partner again when he gets the OK, and I have an idea.  Something from the chief’s office.

Really? said Caylao, her voice neutral.  I’d like that. I’ll be right in.  She folded her cell and shook her head in admiration of Flanagan’s network. 

As she walked down the hospital corridor, she saw Father Shalgry making his chaplain rounds.  Hello, Father, she said.  How’s the priest business?

Not bad, said Shalgry.  Caylao could swear that he was walking beside a dog, a funny-looking dog.  But when she looked directly at him, she saw nothing except Shalgry.  He was the same priest who ran out to give rites to a kid shot on Polk Street, and he was alone as always.

I thought I would stop in and see Flanagan, Shalgry said. 

If anyone needs confessing, it is Jim, Caylao agreed.

He can’t die, said Shalgry.  The man owes me some poker debts.  We need to keep him around a while.

Good idea, said Caylao.  She had learned, from Flanagan, that if you look a bit off center from something, sometimes you can see what you can’t see when you look directly at it.  She looked down the hall.  Sure enough, Shalgry had a spotted beast sitting beside him.  She couldn’t see what kind, but it was not tiny.

So I will stop in and anoint Flanagan, Shalgry went on.  He headed down the hall.  The odd looking animal seemed to follow him, switching its tail.

Beside the Å

The Asian man and the white woman walked beside the Å, the stream that gave Århus its name.  Leif Pallesen watched them with a carefully blank face.  This, he thought, is not what God and Nature intend.  They should not be lovers, they should not be companions.  They should each have their own place, their own place in the natural hierarchy.

Soon, thought Leif, they will know. The sun did not warm him.  His heart was cold.  He watched them walk by the Å's canal, almost touching.  Another Asian woman came by them.  What are these slime doing in my country, he wondered.  Why could they not just swarm in their own land?

For a while.  Just for a while.  Then it would be no issue at all.

He was dressed for work.  It was the non-descript coverall of a manual worker.  A cloth cap on his head kept the dust of his job out of his hair.  Anyone who looked at him would see a middle-aged man who just pushed a broom in the sprawling university at Århus.

It was true, too.  He was that.  He had chosen long ago not to try to struggle through the madness of the academic system.  He watched a lot of good men go down because they had not jumped through the right hoop.  They were just broken, crumbled.  They sat in the bars along the Å and drank.  Maybe they even had a job at the university.  But there was always someone who got promoted over them because they were a woman, or belonged to some minority.  He watched an Eskimo – what did they call themselves?  He watched an Eskimo get a teaching position that a good white Dane should have filled.  He watched the man who lost the position implode.  That man had not even felt he could speak up.  Someone might call him racist.  Why not be a racist, when they promoted someone else just because he was a blubber-chewer?  The ancestors had not driven the long boats across cold seas so the people they conquered could take their hearts out.

Leif sighed.  He watched the people walking in the bright light beside the canal that contained the Å.  They had had the good sense to dig the Å back out of its underground sewer so it could run in the open sunlight.  Soon he would do the same for the Danish people.  Soon enough.

And maybe someday he would let them know who had saved them.

He rose from the streamside chair.  Damn, he thought.  Who has been throwing trash in the river again?  He wanted to think it was it was the foreign scum but – he smiled wryly to himself – likely it was a good Danish student. 

He gathered up his bag and began the trek up to the university.  Soon the labs would be his to clean.  As the evening wore on, person after person would leave.  Then in the end, as it had been for years, it would be his to study in, and to learn, and to experiment.

He was invisible there.  He is the one person who would never know anything - no need to put away that notebook.  No need to close down that computer.  It is just Leif. Just the janitor,