The Archbishop was back at his window, looking down at the children. 'Can we have Slocum killed?' Quickly, he turned, hand out. 'I'm joking, of course.'

'Of course.'

'But all kidding aside, Mark, what are we going to do?'

Flaherty wasn't having his best year.

Six months earlier, after an extensive two-year study by the Archdiocesan Pastoral Planning Commission had confirmed their predicted results – he'd finally bitten the bullet and announced the closure of the ten least financially viable parishes in the city. He knew that the Archdiocese would not survive into the twenty-first century if it didn't take steps now. The city had taken a hard line after the World Series earthquake and passed an ordinance that assessed the Archdiocese $120 million for retrofitting their unreinforced masonry churches. (Dooher had worked his magic to lower the bill down to $70 million, but it might as well have been $3 zillion for all the Church could afford to pay even that.)

The plain fact – and it broke Flaherty's good heart – was that the Archdiocese couldn't afford to keep the smaller parishes operating with attendance down at Masses throughout the city – Holy Family Church out in North Beach, for example, averaged only seventy-five people, total, for four Masses on Sundays. And there were really no significant private donations to offset the appallingly low Sunday offerings. But after the closures were announced, a firestorm of protest had developed. Flaherty had even heard from Rome.

The problem that Flaherty had not foreseen (and Dooher had) was that perennial San Francisco two-headed serpent, ethnicity and money. Most of the parishes that had been closed were those in the poorest areas – Hunters Point, the lower Mission District, the Western Addition, the outer Sunset, Balboa Park. So Flaherty was widely vilified for abandoning the poor and what had been a purely financial move had been totally misinterpreted.