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smiled.
    “Yes, Mr. Rhode. It would be a good disguise. Old priests aren’t very threatening, except maybe to your sex life.” His accent was slight, and sounded Slavic. “I wasn’t following you very long. You were very good.  I saw you checking out the crowd, and let you go when you went into the men’s room. I might have gotten away with following you in there, but to what end?  Priests have a bad enough reputation as it is. I left when I saw the security guard enter. I hope you weren’t harassed. I know you were in there so long just to see who might follow you in. I had learned enough about you.”
    “And what was that?”
    “You have excellent instincts. You are obviously a cautious man, well skilled in your craft.  You had no reason to feel threatened, and yet you felt so. Had I not had so perfect a disguise, which, after all is no disguise, I believe you would have made me.”
    “Forgive me, I mean, excuse me, Father Zapotoski, but you don’t talk like a priest.”
    He smiled at my Catechismal slip of the tongue.
    “Please call me Father Zapo. All the kids in the parish do. I’m Polish and my first name is so long you would have to buy a vowel to feel comfortable. You know the joke about the Pole who goes to the optometrist who asks him to read a line on the eye chart? ‘Read it,’ the fellow exclaims, ‘hell, I know that guy!’”
    “When I heard it, it involved a Czechoslovakian patient,” I said.
    “Yes. That would work, too,” the priest said. “Anyway, I have a weakness for detective and spy mysteries. I know all the lingo, as you call it.” He paused. “And I was in the Polish army before becoming a priest. Military Intelligence. Please no ethnic jokes. We were very good at our jobs. We had to keep the Russians and both the East and West Germans properly confused, and for the most part we did.”
    “Your English is excellent. Barely a trace of an accent.”
    “I began my ministry working with American missionaries in Africa and have been in your country, mine now, for many years. My English was very good to start with. It was the second language of the intelligence service.”
    “All this is fascinating,” I said. “But why were you following me?”
    “A momentary lapse on my part. Weakness, really. I’ve tried to leave my old life behind but I just wanted to see if I still had the tradecraft. I have been meaning to speak to you but I didn’t follow you to the mall. I just happened to see you there.”
    “How did you know who I was?”
    “I Googled you when I did my research. Your photo had been in the newspapers. I must say, some of your cases have been notorious. You lead an interesting life.”
    “You have no idea, Father.”
    “My first inclination was to approach you at the mall, but the way you were flitting around from store to store I thought you might be looking for someone and I would be compromising a surveillance.”
    I laughed.
    “I was flitting around, as you said, because I couldn’t make up my mind. It’s been a long time since I’ve shopped in a mall. Now, what did you want to see me about?”
    He began untying the string of the manila envelope.
    “I believe there is someone who is killing men in my parish.”

CHAPTER 4 – OLD, COLD WARRIORS
     
    “Killing, as in murdering?”
    I knew it was a lame thing to say. He smiled patiently. I had the impression that I was not the first person he had approached with that declaration.
    “Yes, Mr. Rhode. Three murders, to be exact. Or. I should say, to be inexact, since I fear there may have been more.” He tapped the envelope he was holding and started to open it.  “I have the information in here. It’s a bit sketchy, I’m afraid, but it should be enough to start.”
    Start what?
    “Hold it, Father. Before we get ahead of ourselves, why did you come to me? What about the police? This sounds like a job for them.”
    “Yes, it should be,” Father Zapo said. “But they don’t believe me. Neither does