Echoes Through the Vatican: A Paranormal Mystery (The Echoes Quartet Book 2) (4 page)

Califano located the package. It was awaiting a signature for pickup. He stashed it away. The prisoner said, “This woman came in. Una bella fica. She asked for the package. Nobody could find it. Two men came in, said something to her and she ran out to get into their car. One man was tall, the other short. Both in black suits with guns under their jackets.”

“And that is all you know?”
Julian thought. Califano nodded once. He felt Julian’s message.
“Two mistakes. Both bad.

“Your first mistake is that isn’t quite all, am I right? I said I wanted the whole story and I don’t have time to waste. Your second error? ‘Una bella fica’ – a nice piece of ass? See, I know some Italian, but not much. Doesn’t matter; it was a bad thing to say. In most circumstances it might have proved very bad, but you may yet save yourself. That is, after you receive a reminder.”

Julian smiled indulgently as the prisoner fell from his chair, howling, while he clutched his groin. Neither police officer paid attention to their prisoner’s suffering, although Enrico winced slightly. Both the inspector and the sergeant were more interested in how this was happening.

Califano crawled back onto his chair panting heavily and his story began to spill out faster.

The waiting car had diplomatic plates. Vatican license plates, Califano thought, but he couldn’t be sure. The man who arranged Califano’s participation was driving the car. They nodded to each other. When asked, the prisoner begrudgingly supplied the driver’s name.

The story continued. That same night, the driver appeared at Califano’s door and gave him a thousand euros for the package and another eight hundred to forget what he saw. The man left in a different car but also with diplomatic plates. The prisoner supplied the plate number.

“Enrico,” the inspector said in a mild voice, “please call dispatch to send a car to take this fool away.” Her assistant nodded, handcuffing Califano again.

The man’s struggles were useless. He looked at the inspector. “You bitch! You said you didn’t care about the burglaries and that thing with the cop!”

The inspector was inspecting Julian, before she shifted her gaze to Califano. “I lied. I do that sometimes.” She smiled and wrinkled her nose. “But thank you for your information and for cooperating with the police like a good citizen.”

“Daughter of a thousand bitches!” the prisoner spat. Enrico pushed him out the door and they were gone.

The room was quiet for a moment. “What the hell was that!” the inspector screamed at Julian. “I don’t even know how or where to begin with you. What was that? Who are you? What were you doing? How do you do what you did?”

The inspector was nose to nose with Julian and he could feel her breath on his face. “Listen to me. I don’t have any amulets or charms to protect me from the evil eye,” she said while making the corna, the sign of the horns, at Julian with her hand. “But if you try any of that shit with me, I swear by the Madonna, I will shoot you in your stupid face! Blessing, I am waiting, so you better start telling me what I want to know.”

“My friends call me Julian. I was thinking we might be friends,” he said and smiled his hopefulness. The smile never reached beyond the corners of his mouth.

Inspector Belladonna Saviano threw her head back and bellowed, “ENRICO!”

Her assistant entered the room looking as taciturn and unhurried as usual. “Enrico,” his inspector said in rapid fire Italian, “is witchcraft a crime? I know it’s a sin and that’s good enough, so please, kill this man. The Church will forgive and protect you. We’ll put his body in a barrel and I know you have cousins who know people who will take the barrel out to sea. Please, Enrico, do this one little thing for me,” she pleaded.

With a nearly imperceptible shake of his head, her assistant looked at Julian and made the sign of the horns. Julian smiled having no idea his disposal was under discussion.

The inspector hung her head and switched back to English, “Why is there never an inquisition going on when you need one? Blessing, I’m sure the church would be delighted to burn you as a witch, wizard, sorcerer, magician or whatever the hell you are. I’ll even bring the matches.”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about, but none of that matters,” Julian said. “We have a lead. So, now we go find this driver. The hell with the package but this could lead to the doctor, right?”

The inspector’s brow furrowed, as she looked at Julian as if he was mad. “We are not going anywhere. Nothing Enrico and I are going to do in any way includes you. You are to go back to your hotel, or go sightseeing, or go to a nice restaurant or, oh, wait, I know, you could leave the country. That would make me very happy. Ultimately, it would make the Italian government happy. They do not know that yet because they have not had the pleasure of your company.

“Under no circumstances are you to get involved in this investigation. Capisci, signore Blessing?”

“You can call me Julian.” Julian despised playing the fool. This time doing so got him what he wanted. He sat and smiled foolishly.

***

Inspector Saviano and her partner put Julian into a taxi and instructed the driver to deliver him to his hotel and nowhere else. The inspector was emphatic each of the three times she repeated, “Nowhere else.”

Julian waved goodbye through the taxi’s rear window. His grin left the inspector and her assistant on the curb shaking their heads.

He turned around in his seat and the too-broad grin devolved into a thin, tight line and there was fury behind his eyes. The change did not go unnoticed. The driver had looked in his rearview mirror and what he saw chilled his bones.

Half a mile away, Julian pushed a crisp, orange fifty euro note into the front seat and quietly said, “Città del Vaticano, per favore.” At the next intersection the driver had a decision to make - risk the ire of the police or follow the dictates of free enterprise.

A second crisp, orange fifty euro note floated into the front seat to join its brother. The driver looked again into his rearview mirror. In the years to come, he would tell of the time he had a fare who could see right into your soul.

Some decisions are easier to make than others. The driver turned his taxi toward Vatican City and drove.

The taxi delivered Julian to the mouth of St. Peter’s Square. Ten euros more and Julian had exact directions to the Vatican garage and carpool. He started off on foot to find the St. Anne Gate, the working entrance to the Vatican.

***

The Corpo della Gendarmeria, who manned this entrance, were the picture of vigilance, checking and rechecking employees as they entered and turning away Hawaiian shirted tourists who demanded to see the Pope.

The entrance stood next to the Gendarmeria barracks. The area was alive with fit young men in dark blue uniforms with foreign legion caps in blue. Julian read the signatures of many of the men. To him, each had mastered the art of looking relaxed while being perpetually alert and mindful of where they worked and why.

Julian approached the checkpoint prepared to be either denied entrance outright, or, at the worst, arrested. Still, he had to try and trying the easy way first was always preferable to the other option.

He had experienced the phenomenon of stepping out of linear time to appear elsewhere. This was a new talent he had tried only a few times. He had told his teacher, Moira Hagan, he was ‘inexpert’ in his use of it. Her response had been a less than reassuring, ‘What a load of bollocks. You’re awful, ya eejet.’

These semantic disagreements were a frequent part of their student/teacher relationship.

He took a breath and calmed his thoughts. His paranormal talents were newly discovered, raw, and occasionally he wielded them badly. He had asked his mentor what his gifts were for, what greater agenda he was advancing.

The professor’s wife, Bridget Bragonier, responded, “What we do is shine a light into the darkness. We scatter the shadows. If we do it correctly, we are able to make the seemingly impossible happen.” That seemed like so long ago to him. He had seen and learned and done so much since those early days.

“Well, let’s make the impossible happen,” he whispered to himself. At his approach, the two officers eyed him carefully, then looked away. He walked past them and was thunderstruck. Bridget had been right.

Following his taxi driver’s directions, Julian followed Via Rusticucci, inside Vatican City, as the street jogged to the right. He passed the plain, brown sandstone Vatican post office, turned right and could see the Apostolic Library on his left. The driver said the garage and motor pool would be on his right.

He had gotten by the Vatican police. On reflection, that had not been so much impossible as improbable. Two hundred feet ahead of him stood the impossible.

The slightly built and highly volatile Inspector Belladonna Saviano was talking with two men in dark suits. Explaining himself to the inspector would be unwise, he knew. Julian felt his best course would be to station himself nearby and wait for the inspector to leave.

Turning away from the impossible, Julian walked directly into the immovable – the inspector’s sergeant.

“Signore Marino,” Julian said and tried to look pleased. “What a surprise.” He meant every word of that. The man said nothing. He looked at Julian without blinking or moving.

“How long have you been following…” There was no reason to complete his sentence. Suddenly the truth became exposed to glaring daylight. Julian made it past the Vatican police because the sergeant, who had been following him, waved them away.

“Well, gosh, nice chatting with you. It seems I must be going.”

“Going so soon, signore Blessing?” Julian closed his eyes and turned. He had been intent on getting away from Marino and never felt the inspector walk up behind him. This, he swore to himself, he would work on. Unless the inspector killed him.

“I gave you a set of instructions, signore, did I not?” Her tone was pleasantly derisive.

“My thoughts exactly, Inspector. You told me to do some sightseeing, and as you can see, I am. You told me to leave Italy and I have removed myself – by the way, to a place where you have no jurisdict...” Julian could sense the signature of two men who were now standing behind him with Marino. Both the newcomers had a keen interest in him and both had plenty of jurisdiction.

“I’m sorry, I believe you were about to say something about my authority within Vatican City?” the inspector said. Her eyebrows were raised, her brown eyes opened large and she looked expectant.

“Me?” Julian attempted. He sensed two more men joining the group that was now forming behind him. He didn’t enjoying being the center of attention.

***

Julian sat handcuffed and seated in the back of the inspector’s car. She sat beside him and her sergeant drove. “What am I to do with you, signore?” the inspector asked. “You have caused Enrico and me far more trouble than you are worth. I agree, that was not difficult because you have proved to be worth almost nothing.

“We try to assist you and for our efforts, you obstruct our every move, you lie to us, you meddle where you are not wanted, and now you defy me by refusing to follow my instructions. Please, answer me, signore Blessing. I am absolutely dying to hear what new bundle of lies you have manufactured for Enrico and me.” Julian opened his mouth, but closed it when she continued.

“I say this only because you have, as yet, failed to tell even one truth to us, although I am enthralled by many of your half-truths. Am I wrong? Please tell me, signore.” She looked at Julian as though he might answer with something truthful or even plausible.

He sat in silence and examined the buttons on his shirt as Rome flew past the car’s windows.

“Oh, you have no answers for me. I am crushed. Tonight, I shall go home and cry into my pillow,” the inspector said in a voice that dripped condescension. “Enrico, can you not see that I am crushed?” Her assistant looked briefly into the rear view mirror, then nodded his head.

Belladonna Saviano turned to her prisoner and leaned in close. Again, Julian could feel her breath on his face. This woman was not a respecter of personal space.

She didn’t speak above a whisper, but her voice was pure acid. “Listen to me carefully, wizard or magician or whatever you are. If you disobey me once more, you will be on the next airplane out of Italy. I am not a witch, signore, but I am a bitch and if you cross me again, I will make you suffer as few have ever suffered.

“Enrico,” the inspector snapped, looking over her shoulder. “Am I not a bitch? Tell signore Blessing. I do not want him to be confused on this point.”

Her assistant drove, looked neither right nor left and said nothing. The inspector stared at Julian and waited a full minute before she said, “Enrico, you are a very wise man and Julian Blessing is a sciocco!”

Enrico Marino looked pained and began to shake his head slowly when he heard the fool, Julian Blessing, say, “What’s a sciocco?”

***

Marino drove up Via Nazionale and double parked in front of the Hotel Quirinale Roma to a symphony of car horns and shouted curses. The two police officers marched a handcuffed Julian Blessing through the lobby, removing his handcuffs only when they were in Julian’s room.

Inspector Saviano’s order left Julian no room to maneuver. “Remain in your room,” she said. “If you are hungry, call for room service. If you are bored, look out the window. If you are lonely, read a book. If you are horny, read a book. If you are tired, go to sleep, but do not go out of this room until we come to get you. Capisci? And none of your sorcery, signore stregone!”

“What’s a stregone?” Julian, the wizard, asked.

***

“Dominic, if it weren’t for people, the world would be a far better place, no?” Cardinal Luciano said to his assistant. The young priest suppressed a smile and answered, “Yes, Eminence.”

“I can hear the cogs in your head at work. You believe I am making a small joke. I assure you, Dominic, I most assuredly am not,” the cardinal said.

“Eminence, without people the world would be lonely for you. Without people, what would be the point of winning? There would be no need to struggle except to survive,” Fr. Dominic Giglio said.

The cardinal smiled. “A finance expert and a philosopher? How is it I am so blessed? You are right of course, but still, allow me to hope and dream of a world without people.”

***

As the inspector and her assistant walked down the thickly carpeted hallway toward the hotel elevator, Enrico asked, “Bella, what do you think?”

The inspector stitched her eyebrows together and considered for a moment before saying, “Enrico, I honestly don’t know. You know what they say, ‘When the game is over, the king and the pawn go into the same box,’ no? This Blessing is not the king, but he is not a pawn. And there are others. I can feel it. We have not yet identified all the pieces. Il amore mio, we must find out where he, and the rest, fit on the chessboard and do it well before the game is over.”

Enrico asked, “Do you think he is a stregone, a wizard or sorcerer or whatever?”

His inspector only shrugged. “He is something. We will discover what before we are done,” she said.

***

Unpleasant, unattractive, and unhappy, Bogdan Sokolov ruminated on things that made him even more unpleasant, unattractive and unhappy. In his office on Via del Pellegrino, in the Campo de' Fiori district of Rome, the focus of his displeasure was Julian Blessing.

Sokolov had been following the out-of-sight-out-of-mind policy regarding Julian. Now, he was in plain sight and so never far from Sokolov’s thoughts. Julian had cost Sokolov a lot of money in New York. Mobsters, Russian and otherwise, do not like this.

“Now, this Amerikanskaya is in Rome. Following me?” Sokolov thought. “Nobody could be that big a beelyat!” Bogdan Sokolov had not yet gauged Julian’s nearly unlimited ability to be an accidental idiot. The Russian would live to regret underestimating accidental idiots. They had a habit of being unpredictable and therefore dangerous.

***

Rome, at midday, was fully alive. Sounds, sights and smells mingled and merged into a chaotic orchestral arrangement.

A black car with heavily tinted windows sped through Rome’s hyperactive thoroughfares, turned up cobbled streets and down broad avenues. Once inside the gates of Vatican City, the vehicle negotiated the narrow streets and glided gently to a stop in front of a building whose only designation was I.O.R. above the unimpressive entrance. Istituto per le Opere di Religione.

A young priest hurried down the front steps and opened the vehicle’s back door. Julian stepped out as the priest welcomed him to the Vatican Bank.

Once inside, Julian was ushered into a large, richly appointed office. The priest said, “Eminence, Mr. Blessing has arrived.”

A portly man in his late sixties with sharp features, green eyes and a head of slate gray hair turned from his office window, smiled, and with a slight gesture, dismissed Julian’s guide.

“Please come in, Mr. Blessing, and thank you for agreeing to meet with me today.” The Irish accent was not thick, but it was unmistakable. “I am sorry I was unable to provide you with more notice.

“I hope you’ve not eaten. I’ve arranged for lunch to be served in half an hour.” The cardinal smiled his welcome and his voice was jovial with just a touch of irony.

The cardinal extended his hand and said, “Terrance Cardinal Patrick Manning. When I say it like that it makes me sound grand – something a poor boy from county Mayo could never be.”

Julian knew it all for the lie is was and the cardinal knew he knew. The man’s accent was like Ailís’, clearly well educated Dublin, not Mayo. Julian had been in Ireland too long not to recognize that the man was from the upper reaches of Irish society. He felt the cardinal might have read about poverty, but that was as close as he got. He was not so much pretentious as powerful beyond words and Julian could sense it easily.

“Your Eminence, it is a pleasure to meet you. How can I be of assistance?”

The cardinal took Julian by the arm and led him to a seating area that overlooked the Papal gardens. “Son, it isn’t what you can do for me, but what I can do for you. Please, sit here. It’s a lovely view and one that few get to see from this angle.”

Julian had learned from the Irish. Cardinal Manning would get to the point of the interview in his own time and in his own way. The path would be littered with clues and hints. What was said, and what was subtly not said, and what was pointedly avoided would each have value. There was nothing for it but to listen with care and wait.

***

Cardinal Manning and Julian sat and admired the papal gardens. Both men chatted amiably about Ireland and Julian’s impressions of rural Irish life. They discussed the pros and cons of life in New York and New York’s similarities to Rome.

As the cardinal spoke, Julian pursued his own internal dialogue.

To Julian, the cardinal’s signature presented a pleasant, crafty, and unbelievably complex man whose agendas had agendas of their own. The man’s intellect and experience were the basis of his personal power and his sense of humor allowed him to appear charming without necessarily being so. Still, for Julian, there was something out of place. This cardinal had something askew, something off.

Julian felt he was talking with the cardinal, but there was an echo to the man’s personality. A fraction of a second after the cardinal spoke, Julian heard a resonance. Something shadowed Cardinal Manning and Julian didn’t know what. He told himself he would revisit that later. Now was the time to listen with great care.

A bell rang once somewhere in the cardinal’s suite of offices. The older man took a deep breath, savored the sight of the gardens before him, and sighed. He rose from his chair and led Julian into an adjacent dining room.

The dining room was small enough to be intimate and was tastefully understated to impress. The table was laid for what promised to be a lunch that would eliminate the need for dinner.

“Please, Mr. Blessing, sit and prepare to be amazed. My chef is a wizard.” The cardinal winked and smiled more broadly than was warranted. “Before our meal arrives though, let us take a private moment, shall we, to reflect and be grateful. Sure it is that you have many things for which to be grateful.” Again, the cardinal smiled and again, Julian heard the echo.