The Archbishop's face did not exactly go pale, but he was rocked. He lifted his eyes from the folder. 'Three million dollars?'

The lawyer nodded. 'Trang's got nothing else to do, Jim. The Church has deep pockets so he went looking.'

Flaherty was trying to read and listen at the same time. 'Not very far, it seems.'

'No.'

'Slocum was sleeping with the daughter, too?'

'Veronica, now nineteen. That's Trang's story. To say nothing of several other immigrants whose names he didn't provide. He may be bluffing.'

Flaherty closed the folder abruptly. 'I know Slocum. It's possible Trang's not bluffing. This is nowhere near the first allegation.'

This was not welcome news. Dooher leaned forward. 'If you knew some of this, why'd you make him a Monsignor?'

A crooked smile. 'I didn't know it. They were allegations we'd heard. We thought we'd remove him from the temptation, put him where he didn't have the same freedom of movement, give him more responsibility.'

A shake of the head. 'And thereby change his nature?'

'I know, Mark, I know. My nature's the problem. I believe people. I trust them.'

'Well,' Dooher slapped his palms on his knees, 'that's why you've hired a top gun like myself. I trust no one.' He pointed down at the folder, still on Flaherty's lap. 'You get to the end of that?'

'No. I stopped at the three million.'

Dooher took it. 'Okay, I can give you the short version. It gets worse.' He went on to explain what Trang had told him last week on the phone. The young upstart would be initiating to conduct a series of investigations with other immigrants in San Francisco to determine with what kind of frequency these clerical abuses were occurring. He expected to discover that the Archdiocese systematically condoned this kind of behavior from their priests. 'He's calling it a policy of tolerance, Jim. He's going to amend the complaint to name you personally.'