Good Behavior Read Online Free
Author: Donald E. Westlake
sides of the desk, until Sister Mary Capable stuck her head in the office door and rested her cheek on her pressed-together hands, eyes closed: Our guest is still asleep .
Mother Mary Forcible looked at the old Regulator clock on the wall; nearly seven. The sun was long since up, breakfast finished, Mass attended, floors scrubbed. Shaking her head, she looked at Sister Mary Capable and snapped her fingers forcefully: Get the lazy lout up . Sister Mary Capable smiled and nodded and left.
Meantime, Sister Mary Serene had clearly decided on a new tactic. Scrabbling through the scumble of used notes, she smoothed out one of her very first and pushed it across at Mother Mary Forcible:
We want Sister Mary Grace back!
Mother Mary Forcible wrote: Of course we do. Prayer and contemplation will lead us to the way .
Instead of writing further, however, Sister Mary Serene merely pushed the first note over again: We want Sister Mary Grace back!
I never denied that!
We want Sister Mary Grace back!
Please donât be boring, Sister Mary Serene .
We want Sister Mary Grace back!
Do you wish to encourage crime?
We want Sister Mary Grace back!
Youâre as bad as I am!
Sister Mary Serene looked so cherubic and round-cheeked when she smiled. Nodding, she pointed yet again at that same unrelenting message. Mother Mary Forcible sat back, bony fingertips absentmindedly patting the surface of her desk, and brooded.
It was true the entire convent, every member of the Silent Sisterhood of St. Filumena, had been praying night and day for guidance and aid with this Sister Mary Grace problem, and it was equally true the convent had never before in its history had a burglar in the chapel rafters; but could the one actually have much to do with the other? Sister Mary Serene, having been the first to discover the fellow and therefore having an understandable feeling of proprietorship toward him, quite naturally argued that here at last was Godâs instrument, but Mother Mary Forcible remained a skeptic. While certainly many of Godâs messengers and instrumentalities over the ages had been unlikely sorts, it was even more certain that most crooks were merely crooks, without much of good or God about them.
On the other hand, the customs of a lifetime are hard to resist. Through almost her entire adult life, Mother Mary Forcible had kept her back firmly turned toward the outer world, had limited her temporal existence to this building, this group of women and this rule of silence, which the sisters were permitted to break only for two hours every Thursday. Her attention and desires had been exclusively directed Upward, relying upon the efficacy of prayer and the mercy of the Creator to answer every need. But with a problem as worldly as that posed by Sister Mary Grace, was it possible that a solution equally worldly was the answer?
Movement in the doorway distracted Mother Mary Forcible from her thoughts and, speak of the devil, here was the miscreant himself, left foot swathed in white bandages, Sister Mary Chasteâs cane in his left hand and a mug of Sister Mary Lucidâs coffee in his right. His hangdog expression was as it had been, and being unshaven had not at all increased the aspect of reliability in his countenance. âIâm supposed to come to the office,â he muttered, exactly like some Peckâs bad boy caught smoking in the lavatory.
If Mother Mary Forcible had wanted to teach grammar school, there were plenty of orders she could have joined. With an exasperated look at Sister Mary Serene, who was beaming at the fellow as proudly as though sheâd invented him, she gestured briskly for him to sit in the chair to the left of the desk, which he did, putting one dirty-nailed hand on the desktop as he made a kind of Humphrey Bogart twitch around the mouth and said, âI can explain, uh, about last night.â
Mother Mary Forcible was already dashing off her first note, and pushing it across to him:
Mother Mary Forcible looked at the old Regulator clock on the wall; nearly seven. The sun was long since up, breakfast finished, Mass attended, floors scrubbed. Shaking her head, she looked at Sister Mary Capable and snapped her fingers forcefully: Get the lazy lout up . Sister Mary Capable smiled and nodded and left.
Meantime, Sister Mary Serene had clearly decided on a new tactic. Scrabbling through the scumble of used notes, she smoothed out one of her very first and pushed it across at Mother Mary Forcible:
We want Sister Mary Grace back!
Mother Mary Forcible wrote: Of course we do. Prayer and contemplation will lead us to the way .
Instead of writing further, however, Sister Mary Serene merely pushed the first note over again: We want Sister Mary Grace back!
I never denied that!
We want Sister Mary Grace back!
Please donât be boring, Sister Mary Serene .
We want Sister Mary Grace back!
Do you wish to encourage crime?
We want Sister Mary Grace back!
Youâre as bad as I am!
Sister Mary Serene looked so cherubic and round-cheeked when she smiled. Nodding, she pointed yet again at that same unrelenting message. Mother Mary Forcible sat back, bony fingertips absentmindedly patting the surface of her desk, and brooded.
It was true the entire convent, every member of the Silent Sisterhood of St. Filumena, had been praying night and day for guidance and aid with this Sister Mary Grace problem, and it was equally true the convent had never before in its history had a burglar in the chapel rafters; but could the one actually have much to do with the other? Sister Mary Serene, having been the first to discover the fellow and therefore having an understandable feeling of proprietorship toward him, quite naturally argued that here at last was Godâs instrument, but Mother Mary Forcible remained a skeptic. While certainly many of Godâs messengers and instrumentalities over the ages had been unlikely sorts, it was even more certain that most crooks were merely crooks, without much of good or God about them.
On the other hand, the customs of a lifetime are hard to resist. Through almost her entire adult life, Mother Mary Forcible had kept her back firmly turned toward the outer world, had limited her temporal existence to this building, this group of women and this rule of silence, which the sisters were permitted to break only for two hours every Thursday. Her attention and desires had been exclusively directed Upward, relying upon the efficacy of prayer and the mercy of the Creator to answer every need. But with a problem as worldly as that posed by Sister Mary Grace, was it possible that a solution equally worldly was the answer?
Movement in the doorway distracted Mother Mary Forcible from her thoughts and, speak of the devil, here was the miscreant himself, left foot swathed in white bandages, Sister Mary Chasteâs cane in his left hand and a mug of Sister Mary Lucidâs coffee in his right. His hangdog expression was as it had been, and being unshaven had not at all increased the aspect of reliability in his countenance. âIâm supposed to come to the office,â he muttered, exactly like some Peckâs bad boy caught smoking in the lavatory.
If Mother Mary Forcible had wanted to teach grammar school, there were plenty of orders she could have joined. With an exasperated look at Sister Mary Serene, who was beaming at the fellow as proudly as though sheâd invented him, she gestured briskly for him to sit in the chair to the left of the desk, which he did, putting one dirty-nailed hand on the desktop as he made a kind of Humphrey Bogart twitch around the mouth and said, âI can explain, uh, about last night.â
Mother Mary Forcible was already dashing off her first note, and pushing it across to him: