It had begun with Cullen meeting Lucy and making casual conversation with a former nun, saying he’d thought about entering the seminary when he was fourteen, the one up on Carrollton Avenue, and Jack saying he did enter it; they were living across the street and he went over there with his mother and sister during a hurricane alert when he was two years old. Then Cullen had come right out and asked her, “Why would a good-looking girl like you…”

“You know that before he acquired that gentle Saint Francis image, with the birds flocking around him, he was from a fairly wealthy family and ran with the swingers. But when he gave it up he went all the way. Stripped himself naked in the town square, in Assisi, and gave all his clothes to beggars. Everyone thought he was crazy; they called him pazzo, madman, and threw rocks at him. But he got their attention. Maybe he was in a state of metaphysical delirium, divine intoxication, I don’t think it matters. He preached unconditional love, love of God through love of man, love without limits, without the language of theology, and he touched people… He kissed the sores on a leper’s face.”

Cullen said, “Jesus Christ.”

“That’s right, in his name,” Lucy said and looked at Jack and, for a moment, seemed to smile. “He took money out of his dad’s business, you might even say he stole it, because a voice said to him, ‘Francis, repair my house.’ He offered the money to a priest, to rebuild his church that was falling down, but the priest wouldn’t take it. Maybe because he was afraid of the dad. So Francis returned the money. But the church, San Damiano, became the first convent of the Poor Clares.”

Cullen said, “He really kissed a leper?”

“He bathed a leper who cursed God, blamed him for his condition, and the man was healed.”

Jack said, “You believe that?”

Lucy looked at him. “Why not? He said he couldn’t stand the sight of lepers, but that God led him among them. ‘And what had seemed bitter turned to sweetness. ‘ “ She paused. “ ‘And then, soon after, I left the world.’ ”

There was a silence in the room.

Jack felt the back of his neck tingle. He watched her cross her legs and saw the sandal hanging loose on her toe. She didn’t seem to be the least bit self-conscious. She could sit here in her mother’s house and talk about a mystical experience, about going back eight centuries and feeling herself there, knowing what it was like… He saw her look at Cullen.

“He washed a leper. But do you know what the Saint Francis experts argue about? Whether he did it before or after he received the stigmata. It would seem to have happened after. But if it did, how could he wash the leper and pick clean the man’s scabs with his bloody hands bandaged?”

Cullen said, “You lost me.”

“That’s what happens,” Lucy said. “We lose sight of the act of love in what he did and get carried away questioning details. They say he had the stigmata, the wounds of Christ, that he bled from his hands, his feet and his side. But whether he had the stigmata or not, would it change who he was? He didn’t need his hands to touch people.”

Cullen said, “He touched you and you joined the nuns.”

“I got out of myself, the role I was playing as the little rich girl, to find myself. It comes with being touched and then touching others.”

Jack said, “That’s good,” narrowing his eyes and nodding, wanting her to know he understood. Maybe he did. There was this Jack Delaney and there was Jack Delaney the fashion model, the poser… He stopped there, surprised by the clarity of this inward look, and brought up something he’d been thinking about. “You mentioned the other day he did time.”

That straightened Cullen. “He did?”

“When he was still in his teens,” Lucy said, “Assisi was at war with another city. There was a battle-well, a skirmish, and Francis was taken prisoner and spent a year in a dungeon.”

“The hole,” Jack said. “I’ve seen more than one come out in their white coveralls saved, born again.”

“So not much has changed,” Lucy said. “He was ill the rest of his life. Tuberculosis of the bone, malaria, conjunctivitis, dropsy. They don’t call it that anymore. What is it?… But his poor health didn’t seem to matter because he was never in himself.”

She paused and Jack could see her concentrating, wanting to tell about this man who’d changed her life in a way they would understand.

“He was childlike. He attracted young people especially because he was never pretentious, theologically preachy. He accepted people the way they were, even the rich, and never criticized… which is something I have to work on. What he was saying is, if you need nothing, you have everything…”

Cullen stirred, moved his hand over his face.

“The first step in finding yourself is not to be hung up on things. And when I was nineteen it all seemed very simple.”

Cullen said, “Excuse me, but you have a powder room I could use?”

Jack said, “Back in the real world after twenty-seven years.” He waited while Lucy walked Cullen to the hall and pointed the way. When she came back he said, “What about Clare? Did he ever see her again?”

“She would invite him to San Damiano, but he always refused to go, until near the end.”

“Didn’t trust himself.”

“He told his Franciscans if they were ever tempted by carnal desires, find an ice-cold stream and jump in.”

“What’d they do in the summer?”

Lucy smiled. “I don’t know… I used to picture a bunch of guys in brown robes running through the snow, diving into a river…”

Jack said, “Clare went all the way, became a saint. But you decided not to go for it, huh?”

She said, “If you’re aware of going for it, Jack, you don’t have a chance.”

“I was kidding.”

She said, “Were you?” and kept looking at him.

Now he didn’t know what to say and had to think of something. “You were in, what, nine years?”

“Eleven, altogether.”

That would make her thirty. “Well, you must’ve decided something. You came out.”

“Into the world. It’s changed a lot.”

“Yeah, but you stepped right back in. You know what the ladies are wearing better than most ladies.”

“That part’s easy, you get it out of a magazine. But it’s only a cover, Jack, while I change into something else.”

“You don’t mean clothes.”

“No, it’s more like changing your skin, your identity.”

“Are we talking about another mystical experience?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you think you’re going to turn into?”

“I don’t know that either.”

She kept looking at him, looking at him in a strange way. Or else it was the mood, the quiet, the rain, faint daylight showing in the windows of the room. But he could feel something.

“You’re different every time I see you.”

She said, “So are you.”

“Why did you leave?”

“I was burnt out.”

“What does that mean?”

“I was touching without feeling.”

“You were taking care of people that need you.”

“There are always people who need you. They’re everywhere you look.”

“I thought you left because of Amelita.”

“That was a reason to leave when I did. But the time was coming… I finished one life when I became a Sister of Saint Francis and I finished that one when I left Nicaragua.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. “I need to be used.”

He never knew what she was going to say.

“I need to lose myself in something.”

“You don’t think this deal we’re into, walk off with five million, is gonna require any concentration?”

“Yes, but what’s my part? I’m not doing anything.”

“You’re the brains.”

Her reaction came slowly, a look of mild surprise. “You see this as a game.”

“It isn’t like going to the office.”

“You sort of shrug at the idea. But you’re willing to do it. Why?”

“Money.”

“No, you were willing right away, before you knew we were going to keep it. Remember? You said we’d be doing something for mankind. Were you serious?”