So I popped in to the school two days later, on Thursday, when a client failed to show up for my last appointment of the afternoon. I headed down the hall and turned left, on my way to find Brennan or Michael, or perhaps the famous and now reclusive Schellenberg. Someone had set up a table and chessboard in a little alcove off the corridor, where two men were engaged in silent combat. They appeared to be in their late fifties. One had very pale blue eyes and greying blonde hair in a short military-looking cut. His opponent was a priest with fluffy white hair and rimless spectacles reflecting the light from the window at the end of the hall. The priest gave me a pleasant, if absent, nod as I stopped momentarily to observe the match. The man with the military appearance looked up, kept me in his gaze for a few seconds, then returned to the game without any change of expression. I felt I had been scanned, comprehended, and committed to memory.I continued on my way and found Father Burke leading a seminar billed simply as “The Great Latin Hymns.”
