The Eighth Day (19 page)

“I’ll just have a word with the
poliziotto,
shall I? See if we can wiggle by or if they’re going to make us detour. You’d better go back to the car.”

“This could take forever,” the woman complained.

“Not to worry,” Alastair assured her, and shouldered his way into the crowd.

Danny didn’t know what to do. Filled with dread, he found that he couldn’t move. Finally, Alastair reemerged, and Danny put out a hand to stop him. “Was there an accident?”

The Englishman regarded the American with mild surprise, then shook his silver head. “Jumper,” he said. “One of the padres. Launched himself from Casa Clera.” Seeing Danny’s sudden unhappiness and mistaking it for irritation, Alastair leaned in and muttered, “No thought for others, of course.”

Danny wanted to bolt, but the barricades drew him forward, bringing him closer and closer to the scene. There were two police cars that he could see, an ambulance, and a couple of cops trying to keep the voyeurs at bay. Behind the barricades, a photographer went about his business, his flash pulsing on and off like heat lightning.

Pushing his way to the front, Danny was finally able to see. Dressed in a blue shirt and dark pants, Inzaghi lay on the pavement, dead still. He was on his side with his arm flung out, his right hand bent all the way back at the wrist. One leg was twisted beneath the other, as if the knee had been anchored in a vise and the leg rotated 180 degrees. The photographer’s flash went off again and again in a weird imitation of a fashion shoot. In the cold light of the camera’s flare, Danny saw that the priest’s head was no longer symmetrical. The left side was grotesquely flattened and oozing.

Danny himself was nearly as still as the priest, unable to tear his eyes from the halo of blood around Inzaghi’s head.
Everyone’s gonna think it’s a suicide,
Danny thought. Inzaghi’s friends and family, the people who loved him—their grief would be deepened by a sense of guilt, a feeling that they hadn’t been there when he’d needed them.

A gurney bumped over the cobblestones, pushed by a paramedic. Part of the barricade was pulled back to admit him, and a second man arrived with a body bag. After a brief conversation with a plainclothes detective, the paramedics donned surgical gloves and gently lifted the priest’s body into the bag. Then they zipped it shut.

The crowd began to melt away. A sigh went up and, one by one, people began to wander off. Behind the barricades, Danny saw a figure that seemed familiar. A big guy, scanning the crowd, looking for someone.
Gaetano?
Danny couldn’t be sure, but it was a real possibility. Zebek would have guessed that he’d come here. The wonder was that they hadn’t been patient and simply waited for him in the apartment. Or maybe they had—and Inzaghi had forced their hand. Maybe—

Maybe I should think about this somewhere else,
Danny thought, and, turning, began to walk away. It took all of his nerve not to look back. Once or twice, he idled in front of a store window, seeming to window-shop, while in reality studying the reflection of the street behind him. The rain was falling lighter now, the drizzle turned to mist. And then it was gone entirely and the heat seemed to suck the moisture right out of the air.

He couldn’t tell if he was being followed. There were too many people on the street, and the truth was, he didn’t know who to look for—Gaetano, certainly, but the Big Guy wasn’t Zebek’s only retainer.

Turning a corner, he quickened his pace until he heard a roar, then passed beneath an arch into a large square. An artist, he knew in an instant where he was. Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers was a torrent in the heart of the plaza—which meant that he was in the Piazza Navona.

Late as it was, the place was filled with people. And it was a real marketplace. He strode past a clutch of caricaturists who worked at the perimeter of the square, taking advantage of the light from the street lamps. There were tables of souvenirs and people selling roses and scarves and God knew what else, their wares covered by protective sheets of plastic. He passed a knot of teenage boys teasing a knot of teenage girls, then found himself in the midst of some battery-driven cats. These were being flogged by an African man who seemed to take enormous joy in the cats’ activities. With green and glowing eyes, the robots teetered from paw to paw, spitting out tiny meows.

Walking over to the fountain, Danny scooped some water into his palm and dribbled it over the back of his neck.
What now?
His eyes rested on the titanic statuary, floodlit in the water and surrounded by a nimbus of swirling gnats.
Now what?

He felt stranded, as much in time as place. Until he’d seen Inzaghi’s body—the crushed head and gouts of blood—his own predicament had been more theoretical than real. He’d read reports of Terio’s death, seen coverage of Patel’s murder, and listened to Zebek say that he was going to kill Inzaghi. But now, everything was different. There was blood on the floor. Had he wanted to, he could have put his finger—hell, he could have put his whole hand—in the priest’s wounds.

Seeing an empty table at a café across the square, he wandered over to it and sat down. All around him, the air was alive with chatter, glasses clinking and Vespas roaring on a nearby street. He ordered a beer from a passing waiter and tried to remember the last time he’d eaten. That morning, he thought, or the night before. Not that it mattered.

A few feet away, an Oriental woman was going from table to table in an effort to unload a basket of small bronze cherubs. To hoots and howls she demonstrated the cherub’s secret: when she pressed the back of its head, a beam of red light shot out from the little guy’s penis. At any other time, Danny might have been amused by the sight or by the irony of its taking place in the shadow of Bernini’s masterpiece. But the color of the light was so close to what he’d seen on the pavement of the Via della Scrofa that the whole pantomime struck him as sinister and obscene.

It occurred to him that maybe he should go to the American embassy and ask for help. But what could the embassy do? They’d just send him to the police—and what could he say to
them
? That Zebek had sent his goons to kill a priest? Danny could imagine the reaction. The detective would point out the obvious—that Zebek was an important man. He’d cross his arms, cock his head, and fix Danny with a skeptical stare:
What evidence do you have?

Well . . . none, actually . . . just . . . I guess it’s my word against his.

And Signore Zebek’s motive?

He was after some computer files.

Aha! And what was in these files?

I don’t know.

I see. . . .

Maybe if he’d still had the diskette of Terio’s files, going to the police would have been a real option. He didn’t know what was on the files—he’d probably
never
know now—but whatever it was, it was evidence of something important. Important enough to get Inzaghi killed. But, of course, the diskette was in his duffle bag, and his duffle bag, left at the hotel desk in Siena, had been picked up by Zebek’s men. So he had nothing. Nothing but his story. And that seemed a little thin.

And what if the police asked about Danny’s own relation to the priest? They’d probably find out that he’d pretended to be a cop. That would get their attention, all right, but not in a way that Danny would like. And if Danny should then invoke the mur-ders of Terio and Patel, what then? Either the cops would throw up their hands (jurisdiction meant something, after all) or they’d lock him up—though whether in jail or an asylum was anyone’s guess.

So the cops were out.

Which left Plan B. Flaps up. Danny goes home. This was what he longed to do: go home to Caleigh and his work at the studio. Unfortunately, going home was no more viable an option than going to the police. Because Zebek would
expect
that. He’d
look
for Danny at home, was probably
waiting
for him at home. Still . . . he would be on his own turf. And whatever happened would happen in English. So at least he’d understand what was going on.

Then again, the home-field advantage hadn’t been a lot of help to Chris Terio or Jason Patel. And then there was Caleigh. If he went home now, he’d put her directly in the line of fire, if she wasn’t there already. The possibility made him sit up in his chair. How much did Zebek know about him—really
know
? Danny thought about it for while and concluded:
A lot.
He knew about the first-in-show at the Torpedo Factory, and he’d seen the brushed aluminum sculpture at Les Yeux de Monde. So he probably knew about Caleigh, too. And maybe a lot more.

He had to get to a phone.

Sliding a ten-thousand-lire note under the empty bottle of Peroni, Danny got to his feet and went out in search of one. It took him a while to figure out how to use the pay phone. When he got through, the connection was remarkably clean. But all he heard was his own voice.
Hi, you’ve reached Caleigh and Dan. We can’t come to the phone just now.
. . .

It was just past midnight in Rome, which made it six
P.M
. in D.C.—so there was no telling where she could be. Still at work. On the Metro. Coming up the stairs to the apartment. He tried her at the office and got voice mail once again. But this time it was
her
voice and the sound of it sent him into a spin of longing. He began to leave a message, saying he was in trouble,
real
trouble, but it was the kind of trouble that was hard to explain. He was about to tell her maybe she ought to stay a couple of days with her friend Michelle or with Magda—

But no. A message like that would accomplish nothing. It would only scare her . . . for him. She’d stay where she was and wait for him to call back. So what he said was: “Hey, babe. Sorry I missed you. It’s kinda crazy over here, but . . . I’ll try again tomorrow. Just don’t forget to, uhh, lock the doors, okay?”

Now what? The truth was, he was too tired to think. He needed a hotel. Most of them in the area around the Piazza Navona seemed to have three or four stars next to their names, and he needed something cheaper. No stars would be ideal. A meteorite or a crescent moon would be fine, thanks.

Before long, he found himself in the small and bustling Piazza di Rotonda, where a fat American was raving in a Long Island accent, “I’m talkin’ about the
Pantheon
! D’you have any idea what that
means
?” His companions’ replies were muted with embarrassment. “I’m talkin’ Julius fuckin’ Caesar. Romans! Walking around in togas. Can you believe it? Right where I’m standin’—two thousand years ago!”

There were half a dozen hotels on the square, one of which was the Abruzze, a two-star establishment directly across from the brooding cupcake of the Pantheon. Danny filled out a registration card and, at the clerk’s suggestion, paid in cash.

“No bagaglio?”

You didn’t have to speak Italian to know what he meant. “The airline lost it,” Danny explained.

The clerk rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and chuckled sadly. Then he grabbed a key from the mailboxes behind him and led Danny up the stairs to the second floor, where he opened the door to a small room with high ceilings.
“Caldo,”
the clerk remarked as he went to the windows and threw open the shutters.

A soft breeze pushed at the curtains. The clerk smiled and nodded encouragingly. Then he smiled some more. Tired as he was, it took a while for Danny to understand what the guy was getting at. Finally, the light dawned and, fumbling in his pockets for change, he gave the clerk a dollar bill.

“Grazie, e buona notte,”
the man said, and, with a deferential nod, let himself out.

Alone at last, Danny sat down on the bed, fell back, and closed his eyes. Beyond the windows, a saxophone moaned sweetly. A fountain splashed. Italian, French, and English rose and fell amid bursts of laughter. What was it the guy was playing? He didn’t remember the name of the song—and then he did. “My Funny Valentine.”

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

And he didn’t remember falling asleep, either, but then, who ever did? One moment he was lying on the bed, and the next . . .

He felt the sun on his face and heard the first strains of what soon became an industrial symphony of garbage trucks and motor scooters. Blinking awake, he glanced at his watch and saw that it was just after six in the morning.

He ought to sleep a little more, he thought. But no. He needed to talk with Caleigh, and the sooner he called the better. There was a six-hour time difference between Washington and Rome, which made it just after midnight in the States—so he knew she’d be home.

His room didn’t have a phone, so he pulled on his clothes and went out looking for one. She answered on the second ring, her voice thick with sleep and kind of subdued—as if she missed him. The tentative “Hello?” really got to him and, for a second, he thought about proposing to her, there and then, but decided against it. A proposal wasn’t something you phoned in.

“Hey, babe. . . .” The connection was so clear that when she said nothing in reply the silence crackled. “Uhhh, Caleigh?”

“Fuck you.” And she was gone.

For a second, he thought he must have the wrong number. But that was wishful thinking. Of course, it was her.
Not good,
he thought.
And not what I need right now—not at all.

He redialed. This time he got their voice mail, which meant one of two things. Either she was talking to someone else (not likely) or her phone was off the hook (very likely). When he heard the beep, he said, “Listen, Caleigh, I’m in a little trouble over here, so . . .”
So what?
“I’m at the Abruzze Hotel in Rome. Call me.” He dug the hotel’s card out of his pocket and left the number.

Then he stood there for most of a minute, thinking about the tone in her voice. Angry, hurt, angry—more one than the other, but he couldn’t tell which. Not from two words. It puzzled him, and not just that: it pissed him off. He had enough to worry about without Caleigh going off the deep end because he hadn’t called every night. What was her problem, anyway?