Shout in the Dark (27 page)

"
You and Laura are seeing a lot of each other," Riccardo
said, pouring them all a generous glass of Frascati and savoring a
long sip. "Good choice of wine. I think I can trust a Catholic
priest to behave himself with a beautiful woman, though I don't
know if Bruno would agree. He's Jewish." He laughed loudly, making
diners at other tables pause in their eating.

Riccardo was of the good-looking breed of
Italian. Marco studied him idly. Was he being too cynical in
believing it was all show? The tanned skin, passionate eyes and
carefully controlled hair were straight from a clothing catalogue,
intended to excite women into believing that their clothes could
transform a drab husband or boyfriend into a Roman god.

Marco kept his thoughts to himself as he
returned Riccardo's smile. He would try not to show his growing
dislike of the man. Perhaps he was a little jealous. The sharp
smell of Riccardo's cologne contrasted annoyingly with
Laura's
L'Air du Temps
.
With some pleasure he noted the beginnings of a receding
hairline.

He said, "Laura had her car stolen
today."

Laura added, "Bruno gave us a lift
back."

Riccardo was not particularly interested.
"You were lucky we were there, my friend. It's a long way back from
Monte Sisto."

The comment appeared so casual. We? If
Riccardo had been at Monte Sisto, why hadn't he been in Bruno's
car? At that moment Riccardo stood up and waved across the crowded
restaurant. "Here he is!"

As with Laura, Bruno Bastiani's humor had
improved with the coming of evening. Bruno shook hands with Marco.
"
Ciao
, it's
splendid to see you again so soon. I'm sorry to be late, but I had
to go out of town to finish off a job."

Riccardo embraced Bruno. "Hot work, I
expect," said Riccardo, and both men roared with
laughter.

Marco waited for an explanation, but Bruno
sat down and studied the menu, still laughing. He pulled his chair
closer to the table and turned to Marco. "I've heard a whisper that
a group of fascists want to put on some sort of display." He looked
over the top of the menu he was holding in his hands. "Is this
something to do with your relic?"

Marco hesitated and Laura interrupted.
"He's sworn to secrecy!"

"
I've heard something." Marco was not going to be answered
for. "The Vatican certainly wants its relic back, before the
neo-Nazis find it."

"
You mean the head of Christ?" Riccardo had already started
on his
antipasto
. "Two
weeks ago your people thought they had it. They were pushing it on
television. Now they're denying they've ever seen it. It's a funny
old world isn't it? The Vatican can't seem to make up its
mind."

The waiter brought a second bottle of
Frascati. Marco twisted the bottle around to read the label. Not a
good year. The year that Anna was chased to her death below the Via
Sistina for being an Italian woman.

"
Don't be too hard on the Vatican," Marco said abruptly,
dropping the bottle back onto the table. "Laura's grandfather gave
it to her father in the war in Saint Peter's. We think her father
switched it for a modern fake in the early nineteen eighties and
tried to sell it."

"
He wasn't doing anything wrong, Marco." Laura sounded
defensive. "Millions of Jews suffered in the war. Their families
still need help today. You ask Bruno about it."

"
I gather you're Jewish," said Marco, leaning back in his
chair and looking at Bruno.

Bruno pulled a face. "Only by birth. My
mother never mentioned God in our household. Sure, I'll tell you
about the Nazis and the Jews, Marco, but not tonight. If you knew
half of what the three of us know, you'd want to give the Canon a
medal. Laura's father was a good man."

"
I'm all for helping the poor," agreed Marco, "but don't you
think we should forget the war?"

Laura's eyes blazed. "
Forget the
war?
" It was almost a
shout. As heads turned at the surrounding tables she lowered her
voice. "Don't keep taking such a bloody moral attitude, Marco. The
Nazis did terrible things to the Jews."

"
Not just Jews," interrupted Riccardo; rather bravely, Marco
thought. "The SS tortured my grandmother and
she
wasn't Jewish. They questioned her about an attack
by partisans on the barracks near her home. They didn't ask about
her religion. They dragged her outside into the street and made her
watch while they shot my grandfather. And then they took her uncle
and aunt away for deportation. Her teenage son didn't come home
that evening. She never found out what had happened to him. She
went mad. She didn't know anything about the partisans so she
couldn't tell anything. I still have bad memories of my parents
spending all their time trying to cope with her while leaving me
alone. It was Nonna must have this, and Nonna must have that --
every moment of the day and night. What sort of childhood was that
for me?"

"
Yes, okay, not just Jews," said Laura, pushing her plate
away. "There are plenty of other people who want
revenge."

"
Laura, you're not suggesting your
father
wanted retribution?" The prospect appalled Marco.
"He was a canon in the church."

Laura relaxed a little. "No, but he wanted
money from the neo-Nazis. He was planning to give it to the
families who suffered because of the war. That's not revenge --
that's my idea of justice."

Marco felt uneasy at this statement. "It
didn't work, though. He got killed for his troubles."

Laura shook her head. "You're not going to
tell me you see it as some kind of divine retribution, are
you?"

Marco looked around with a certain amount
of embarrassment. Faces glanced up from time to time, eyes glinting
in the light from the candles. They were attracting too much
attention. "Whatever the reason, someone murdered him."

Bruno put down his glass and leaned
forward. "We think one of the men who did it is back in Rome. More
wine?" He poured some for himself but Marco declined. "We've been
keeping an eye on a couple of Germans. They want the relic for some
sort of Nazi religion nonsense, if you can believe it. You'd know
more about it than I would, you being a priest." Bruno raised his
eyebrows but no one smiled.

"
I think they want to show that Jesus wasn't Jewish," said
Marco. "But he was, of course."

"
That's not what some Christians have said for the past two
thousand years," snapped Laura. "You say that the Jews killed
Jesus, and use it as an excuse for persecuting them. What do you
think Jesus was, for God's sake? Some sort of blond
Aryan?"

"
Of course I don't think that," retorted Marco. "I totally
condemn the persecution of Jews. I'm just as much to blame for
Jesus' death as anybody who was there at the time. He's the Savior
of the whole world, and that includes me personally,
and
the Jews. You must have heard
the story of the scapegoat, the innocent animal that took the blame
for the sins of the Old Testament Israelites. That was a sort of
picture language to make a point. Christians believe that Jesus
took our sins.
He
was the
sacrifice. What right have we to give the Jews a hard
time?"

"
Leave it, Marco." Bruno raised his hands. "You'll be
standing on the table and preaching a sermon in a minute. I'm going
to show you some photographs of our main suspect. Perhaps you can
recognize him. We think he's one of two men who killed Laura's
father."

Marco regretted declining the second glass
of Frascati. He reached for the bottle. Being with these
journalists, on the inside so to speak, was exciting. "They might
jog a memory," he agreed. "I'll do anything to get those men into
court. They deserve to be hanged." He could feel the return of his
bitterness, but was excited by it.

"
You've left it too late to find one of the two Germans who
killed Canon Levi," said Bruno. "His name was Rudi Bretz. He died a
few years ago. A brain tumor. And don't tell anyone I've shown you
these pictures."

The first two color photographs showed a
large youth, a skinhead, standing by an older man with either white
or very fair hair. The high glass panels in the background looked
like the studios of TV Roma. Another showed the same two men
standing with a third outside a hotel. Marco paused, halfway
through his first mouthful of chicken. Surveillance photographs.
All these questions.

"
Of course I know who the first two are. I saw them before
the raid. You're not journalists. You're either the
carabinieri
-- or the secret
service!"

The laughter sounded authentic as well as
loud. Several diners looked up from their meals again, turning in
their direction.

Bruno stopped laughing and shook his head.
"We're journalists all right. Look, Marco, I have my press card
here."

A press card would be easy for the
security people to come by, but the laughter convinced him. "All
right, you're journalists." He jumped to his feet. "I'm taking
these pictures to the
carabinieri
."

"
Sit down." Bruno snatched the photographs from his hand.
"You promised you'd keep this to yourself. If you want justice to
be done, don't talk to the
carabinieri
. Half of them are fascists."

"
Only half?" asked Marco, in mock disbelief.

"
Yes, well, don't take that literally. But there are enough
fascists in the
carabinieri
to
make trouble for us." Bruno was becoming increasingly agitated.
"You could blow the whole thing. You have to trust us over
this."

Marco sat down reluctantly.

"
Believe me, these two men in the photographs will be
caught. They're like filthy flies. And they're coming to a spider
in his large sticky web." Bruno lowered his voice and Marco had to
lean forward to hear him above the noise of the restaurant. "The
flies are now paying for their evil."

He had no idea what Bruno meant but it
sounded splendid. Was this the effect of too much wine? He wiped
the condensation from the date on the bottle and poured himself
another glass. The events of the last few days were releasing
something that had been dormant until the death of Old Savio in
the
Piazza
Venezia
. His mind was in
turmoil. Punishment for the guilty. Yes, it was good to meet
Laura's friends.

MO WAS UNABLE to sleep. The effort of the
day had been too much
,
and his contorted body was now full of pain. He lay on the sacking
at the edge of the cellar floor beneath the monastery and groaned.
The noise echoed back off the cool stone walls.

Bad people had been in here today.
"
Cattivo!
" The
word, gasped and groaned aloud, filled the room.

"
Cattivo!
" They were all bad.

He had been glad of the farm food today.
The weather was too hot to go down there every day. His legs were
weak. They hurt now. Hurt badly. His legs were
cattivo
. His whole body was
cattivo
. He tried to say the word aloud,
listening to the sound coming back from his
surroundings.

The man in the red station wagon was bad.
The bad man was not here now. All bad men must go away.

"
Man bad. Bad man dead now." The words were in his mind but
could never be formed on his lips. Just one word came out, the
sound welling up from his chest, before passing through the twisted
teeth of his open mouth.

"
Morto!
"

The bad man in the red station wagon was
dead.

The bad man had burned in hell.

Chapter
24

The Vatican

THE PRIVATE SECRETARY coughed
discreetly.
"Holiness,
Josef Reinhardt is here."

Reinhardt caught sight of the Holy Father
and immediately slipped past Vittorio into the private sitting room
where the Pontiff was standing. This room was new territory. The
Holy Father waved him towards an upright chair, one of a pair
obviously prepared to receive his visitor on equal grounds.

"
My little retreat," said the Pope, as though explanations
were required. "I'm glad you could come, Josef. You're seeing the
young priest Sartini later this morning, I believe."

"
For a progress report, Holiness."

"
Then maybe our meeting here is somewhat premature. I had
hoped for news."

"
You know of Laura Rossetti?"

"
Rossetti...?"