The Assassini (78 page)

“No more questions. I’ve got to think. It may take a while. Let me know if you change your mind.”

She was gone before I knew what was happening. I stood there in my pajamas, staring after her.

What had I just let myself in for?

It was simply incredible, that was ail.

A nun.

T
here must have been a thousand candles flickering in the foyer, the ballroom, down the shadowy corridors of the Villa Indelicato, built in the sixteenth century and ever since the family seat of that noble family. Cardinals, statesmen, scientists, bankers, rogues, poets, lovers, generals, thieves—the Indelicato blood had produced all of them as the centuries had passed by in parade and the villa had seen the last bunch, the last four centuries’ worth. It was immaculately cared for, staffed by thirty full-time attendants, and now home to Manfredi Cardinal Indelicato, who stood, in the eyes of Roman handicappers, a very good chance of becoming the first Indelicato pope.

Everything about the setting was absolutely right. The candlelight flickering on the peach marble, the strains of Vivaldi from the chamber orchestra, the gold thread tracing through the tapestries, the scent of pines from the open portals, the multitude of clerics in full regalia, women in elegant designer gowns with acres of creamy cleavage on display, silver-haired men who could afford such women, film stars, cabinet ministers, the hum of conversation blending with the music, the heightened sense of drama that came with the knowledge that a pope might be dying in a secluded Vatican chamber, the tension that is so often sexual when a dressy and powerful crowd is on view.

Sister Elizabeth, Father Dunn, and I arrived by limousine, thoughtfully provided by Cardinal D’Ambrizzi. We climbed the long, gentle flight of stairs and were
quickly absorbed by the flow of the party. Elizabeth was immediately approached by people she knew, Dunn was stopped by clerical acquaintances, so I wandered on alone. Champagne, elaborate food on long tables and from trays whisked about by waiters in evening dress. The light of the candles, only subtly enhanced by electricity, had a dreamy rose-lit quality.

The villa was a dwelling; on nights such as this it was a showplace; it was also a private museum. The walls forty feet high were hung with tapestries and paintings by the great masters, all of which were surely worth incalculable sums. Through the centuries the Indelicato family had produced many determined collectors, the fruits of whose labors were on view. Raphael, Caravaggio, Reni, Rubens, Van Dyke, Baciccio. Murillo, Rembrandt, Bosch, Hals, on and on. It was almost surreal, so much art, so much wealth concentrated in a single private dwelling. I walked slowly, caught in the crush, through one gallery after another, sipping champagne, half forgetting at times why I was there.

None of us knew what to expect. Why had we been invited in the first place? Dunn, who had said nothing by way of explaining his suddenly revealed relationship with D’Ambrizzi, said he believed we were there because Indelicato had, along with D’Ambrizzi, been entrusted by Callistus with finding Val’s murderer. Since we’d been on the same search, Indelicato wanted to meet us. Why had D’Ambrizzi been so insistent on our attending? That elicited nothing but a shrug from Father Dunn. But obviously D’Ambrizzi was working to his own timetable: he’d said that it would all be over by the end of this evening. Something was going to happen. We just didn’t know what or when or to whom. Every time I took a sip of champagne it stopped and dug in its heels about halfway to my stomach.

Sister Elizabeth was exquisite in a black velvet dress with a square-cut neckline, a cameo choker she said Val had given her, her hair tied back with a black ribbon. She smiled at me when we met at the Hassler, a smile I’d never seen before. It was as if there were no conflict between us anymore, as if the air had in fact been
cleared. Our eyes met, and she took my hand as I helped her into the limousine. We had reached our truce in that brief middle-of-the-night conversation in my room. Now I, too, felt calm. We were at last on the same page, regardless of how our minds might be working, what resolutions we might be hoping for.

We found ourselves on a sweeping staircase, looking down on the ceaselessly surging crowd. She looked up at me. “Which story do you believe?” She had told me of her conversation with Sandanato, his claim that D’Ambrizzi himself was behind all that had happened. That D’Ambrizzi was reaching for control of the Church and would destroy it with his reaction against everything he himself had stood for. “D’Ambrizzi is either the good guy or the bad guy. The question is, how will we know?”

“I don’t know. They’re all bad guys. Okay—he fits all the criteria for the bad guy. We have only his own word he’s the good guy.”

“We also have Father Dunn’s word,” she said.

“How reassuring. What’s it worth? I have no idea.”

“But what does your gut tell you?”

“That I still want to spend some time alone with Herr Horstmann. Then I’ll worry about who sent him to do the killing. It stands to reason it’s Simon, the
real
Simon … D’Ambrizzi.”

“But there’s Val—he’d never have ordered Val’s murder—”

“What about your murder? My murder? He could have ordered those?”

She looked away, said nothing.

A middle-aged priest with a smug, humorless face approached us from the stairs above. “Sister Elizabeth,” he said, “and Mr. Driskill. His Eminence Cardinal Indelicato would like to meet you. Please follow me.”

We followed him up the stairs, along a landing, then down a corridor lined with green and gold brocade occasional chairs and dozens of framed drawings and tables of green and gold with vases of cut flowers. He stopped at a doorway and pointed us inside. The room was long and narrow with high windows, heavy floor-length draperies, a carpet a thousand years old, an elegant escritoire,
a large painting by Masaccio dominating one wall. I had no idea there were such works in private homes, villas however grand.

The room was empty.
“Momento,”
the priest murmured, and disappeared through an ornately carved door behind the desk.

I nodded. My eye was caught by a small painting hung beside a window above an ultrasonic humidifier that was doing its best to keep things from crumbling to dust. In the painting a ghostly robed figure seemed to float in the middle distance, a long arm extended, pointing at the viewer, or the painter. On closer examination the figure’s face was revealed to be a skull, blanched and smudged. There were leafless trees in the bleak background, black birds turning in a faint red sky as if the fires of hell burned beyond the horizon. I was struck by the picture because the pointing robed figure might so easily have been a depiction of my dream-mother, reaching for me, about to speak the incomprehensible words. I heard a rustle of heavy garments and turned in time to see Cardinal Indelicato shimmer into the room.

His face was long and sallow. His dark hair might have been shellacked against his skull which was long and narrow. He shook hands with Sister Elizabeth, then came to me and repeated the gesture, very nearly clicking his heels. A heavy silver cross hung from a thick silver chain draped around his neck. It was studded with what appeared to be emeralds and rubies. He saw the way it caught my attention.

“Not part of my normal costume, Mr. Driskill. A family heirloom—good for warding off the nimble vampire, I’m told—which like this ostentatious attire I wear only on ostentatious occasions. Of which this, I’m afraid, is one. The Church pays heed to the modern medium of television. We’re previewing an American television program which will reveal ‘how the Vatican really works.’ How very American, eh? The inside story—I find that Americans are fascinated with what passes for the inside story. And they will believe—pardon my saying so—almost anything they’re told. But I am rambling, forgive me. I wanted to offer my personal condolences regarding
your sister … I did not know her well, but her reputation made her known to everyone throughout the Church and the world beyond. And my dear Sister Elizabeth, what a horrifying experience you’ve had.” He shook the sleek head, lifted a thin, long-fingered hand, an eloquent gesture. “But we are nearly finished with our investigation. I can assure you there will be no more killings. The Church is back on the road to salvation.” A smile so thin it must already have slipped between a million cracks.

“That’s a comfort,” I said. “The word seems to be getting around that we’re all just about home free. Which is certainly going to do my sister Val a lot of good. And Robbie Heywood and Brother Leo and all the others who have died at the hands of Herr Horstmann—”

“Yes, yes, I understand how you feel.” He turned from my rather bellicose outburst to Sister Elizabeth, who watched him from behind a veil of calm objectivity. She looked as if she were studying a particularly interesting specimen of
Cardinalus Romanus
, looking perhaps for signs of panic—of anything that would reveal guilt or innocence, the truth or falsity of Sandanato’s version.

“But,” he went on, “you must remember that this is a Church matter. It is not only that it is best handled from within the Church … it can
only
be handled within the Church. Very soon Horstmann and his master will be revealed and dealt with as only the Church is capable of doing. Until then, I must ask you both to refrain from pursuing this matter any further. The Holy Father has involved himself at last … you two must remove yourselves, whatever your personal feelings. May I assume I have your pledge?”

“You may,” I said, “assume anything you damn please.”

“You only make it more difficult,” he said. “You are precisely what I’ve been warned you’d be. But you are a free agent. And there is nothing you can do to affect the outcome now. Thank you for coming.” He smiled again in a distant and pitiless manner. “Please, enjoy the evening. And don’t miss the screening of the film. You may indeed learn something of how the Vatican really
works. I believe it is portrayed as a disarmingly simple and cheerful place.” He inclined his narrow head.

“So you say it’s D’Ambrizzi,” I said to him, standing my ground as he tried to move us toward the door. “You must think you can prove it … but to whose satisfaction, I wonder? Not to the Roman police. Not to the Princeton police. You want to keep it inside the Church. The pope is dying and may not even know what you’re talking about anymore. So where is it you go with your case?”

Cardinal Indelicato shrugged, the tiniest elevation of his shoulders. “Enjoy the evening. Now, you must excuse me.” He went around me, then stopped in the doorway, turned back to stare at me. He said nothing, rather to my surprise, and left.

The
papabili
were out in force. They were everywhere. There were also some other faces I recognized, men who were not in the running for the papacy.

Standing on a balcony, I saw them moving in the crowd below.

Cardinal Klammer was there, all the way from New York. Cardinal Poletti, the curia spin-doctor, and Cardinal Fangio, said by some to be an innocent in a viper pit, said by others to wear the mantle of innocence as camouflage so perfect it was nearly believable. There was Cardinal Vezza and Cardinal Garibaldi and hunchbacked Cardinal Ottaviani and Cardinal Antonelli with his long, still-blond hair. There were others whose names eluded me but whom I recognized: a Dutchman who walked with two canes, dragging his feet; a German with a famous trademark crew cut, a black man who must have been nearly seven feet tall, all faces familiar to the viewers of television or readers of newspapers. I also spotted Drew Summerhays and at his side the little man I’d seen with him in Avignon, the little man with the mangled throat. In an archway, with shadows playing across his face, was a surprise, a face I knew but hadn’t expected: Klaus Richter in a dark business suit, sipping champagne, speaking to a priest. It was all still in place: the Nazis, the art, the Church. Richter. The old golf-playing Nazi, one of the men in the photograph Val had
stolen from his office. I wondered, was he in Rome on the old master business, the blackmail business? He had to be.

Father Dunn drew up beside me, murmured something, and as I turned toward him I thought I saw from the corner of my eye a sleek silver head, round spectacles catching the candlelight, a man flickering past in the crowd below. I jerked my head quickly but the man was gone. Dunn followed my glance. “What?”

“I’m having delusions,” I said. “I thought I saw Horstmann.”

“Why should that be a delusion?” He smiled wryly. “Are you telling me you still have it in you to be surprised?
That
surprises
me
.”

“I never seem to learn a damned thing.”

“Of course you do. You seem positively lighthearted given the circumstances. Let me guess. Détente with Sister Elizabeth?”

I nodded.

“Just remember,” he said, “she’ll never make it easy for you. Even when she tries, it won’t be easy.”

I nodded, wondering if I could possibly have seen Horstmann. Maybe he was waiting for fresh orders from Simon. So far as I knew, he hadn’t killed anybody in a week.

“Look,” Dunn said, pointing toward a flurry of activity at the far end of the hall below.

Cardinal Indelicato was greeting Cardinal D’Ambrizzi. Tall and thin and suave; short, fat, smiling. They might have been best friends. Other cardinals seemed drawn to them as if they were powerful magnets which, of course, they were.

“What a game it all is,” Dunn said. “Tonight Indelicato stakes his claim for all the initiated to see. He’s saying in their secret code,
I will be Pope!
And everyone here—almost—is trying to make sure they’re on his good side. You just have to love it.”

An hour later the crowd was being slowly herded into the ballroom, where the television program would be previewed for this select audience. Cardinal Indelicato was going to say a few words. He introduced the famous
American anchorman who was the narrator; he would accept the praise once the lights went up. He was being swept along on the wave of the heady moment. It was not the sort of excess he often permitted himself.