"K. D. Wentworth - Tis The Season" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wentworth K D)

"Oh, that!" Sister Prudence dimpled. "Sister Charity steals us a new tag every
day."

Sister Charity, she of the pink hair, winked. "Hey, the Big Guy helps those who
help themselves." She shook out a white circle of cloth with a hole cut in the
middle. "Here, put your head through this.

"I ducked back out of reach. "What is it?"

"It's your surplice, stupid," she said airily. "All altar boys wear them."

"I ain't no goddamned --"

"Well, what have we here, sisters?" a scratchy male voice on the leading edge of
puberty inquired. "A sinner in need of redemption?"

"You betcha, Father," the two nuns said in unison. They thrust their hands
inside their wide sleeves and inclined their heads to this pimplefaced dude
dressed all in black, complete with a high black collar and the biggest crucifix
I'd ever seen resting on his concave chest. He had to be all of fifteen.

Sister Prudence grimaced. "I knows he's pretty ancient, but --"

"Ancient?" Sister Charity rolled her heavily outlined blue eyes. "He's
practically morgue-fodder!"

"But-- !" Sister Prudence glared. " -- those freaking Whittier Baptists from
over on Archer Street ran Franky down with their hearse this afternoon. There's
not hardly nothing left of him but a black and white smear in the center of the
road." She gave me a smoldering look. "This joker's the best we could do on
short notice."

"Poor Franky." The priest, for that was what he had to be, frowned. "May the
Lord have big-time mercy on his soul." He zipped the sign of the cross in the
air, then smiled wide enough I could see his braces, decorated with tiny crosses
where the wires intersected. "Never mind, sisters. Our lost brother Franky has
gone to a for-sure Better Place, and this poor bastard looks in sore need of
redemption. We'd better do the baptismthing before Midnight Mass rolls around."

They grabbed my arms and hauled me upright. My head began to throb again. The
warehouse wavered and my stomach wasn't sure what action it wanted to take. I
swallowed hard. "Now, wait just a goddamned minute." I jerked out of their hands
and stood there wobbling on my own. "Kidnapping is a felony! You three turkeys
are looking at ten to twenty --"
"Jeez, sounds like we're in serious need of a vow of silence." Father Lennie
whipped out a smudged handkerchief.

I staggered backwards against the forklift, prepared to defend myself, but
Sister Prudence slipped up behind and threw a choke hold on my neck that would