I Am God

by Giorgio Faletti

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave you now. We’ll talk about the other things later. They’re minor in comparison with what I’ve just said.’

  ‘Yes, John, you can go. I’ll be with you soon.’

  ‘Okay, then. I’ll wait for you downstairs.’

  Father McKean watched as his right-hand man left the room and gently closed the door behind him. He didn’t like the fact that John felt so bad about the situation, but what really hurt him was the feeling that he, Michel McKean, had disappointed him.

  I am God …

  He wasn’t God. He had no wish to be. He was only a man conscious of his earthly limits. Up until now he had been content to serve God as best he could, accepting everything that was offered him and everything that was asked of him.

  But now …

  He picked up the cellphone from the desk and after a brief search in the address book dialled the number of the archdiocese of New York. He waited impatiently as the phone at the other end rang a few times. When at last a voice answered, he identified himself to the switchboard operator.

  ‘I’m Father Michael McKean from the parish of Saint Benedict in the Bronx. I’m also the director of Joy, a community that takes in teenagers with drug problems. I’d like to talk to the archbishop’s office.’

  Usually his introductions were much more concise, but he had preferred to emphasize his status to make sure his call was put through immediately.

  ‘One moment, Father McKean.’

  The switchboard operator put him on hold. A few moments later another voice came on. A young, polite voice.

  ‘Hello, Father. I’m Samuel Bellamy, one of Cardinal Logan’s colleagues. How can I help you?’

  ‘I need to speak to His Eminence as soon as possible. In person. It’s a matter of life and death.’

  He must have conveyed his own distress very effectively, because there was genuine regret in the tone of the answer, as well as a hint of anxiety.

  ‘Unfortunately, the cardinal left this morning for a short stay in Rome. He’ll be meeting with the Holy Father, and won’t be back before Sunday.’

  All at once, Michael McKean felt lost. A week. He’d hoped to be able to share his burden with the archbishop, to get some advice or instruction. A dispensation was far too much of a miracle to even think about, but the consolation of a superior’s opinion was vital to him right now.

  ‘Can I do anything, Father?’

  ‘Unfortunately not. The one thing I can ask is that you make sure I get an appointment with His Eminence as soon as possible.’

  ‘As far as it’s in my power to do so, I guarantee I will. And I’ll contact you personally at your parish to let you know.’

  ‘I’m very grateful.’

  Father McKean hung up and sat down on the edge of the bed, feeling the mattress yield under the weight of his body. For the first time since he had decided to take his vows, he felt alone. And as someone who had always taught love and forgiveness, for the first time he felt like asking God, the only true one, why He had abandoned him.

  CHAPTER 20

  Vivien left the precinct house and walked towards her car. The temperature had dipped. The sun, which had seemed unassailable in the morning, was now battling it out with a west wind that had appeared without warning. Clouds and shadows struggled for possession of the sky and the earth. That seemed to be the preordained fate of this city.

  She found Russell Wade exactly where they had arranged to meet.

  Vivien still didn’t have a clear idea of the man. Every time she had him pinned down, some new, unexpected aspect of him surfaced to muddy the picture she was building in her mind.

  And that bothered her.

  As she approached him, she went over the whole crazy story in her mind.

  When, at the end of the meeting in the captain’s office, the three of them had realized that there was nothing more to say, Vivien had turned to Wade and said, ‘Could you wait for me a moment outside, please?’

  The unfortunate winner of an undeserved Pulitzer Prize had stood up and walked to the door.

  ‘No problem. Goodbye, captain, and thank you.’

  There was a formal politeness in Bellew’s reply belied by the tone in which the words were said.

  ‘Don’t mention it. If this thing leads to what we’re hoping for, there’ll be many people who’ll want to say thank you to you.’

  Including the editor of some newspaper …

  Vivien thought.

  The man went out, gently closing the door behind him, and leaving her alone with her chief. Her first impulse was to ask him if he’d gone crazy, promising what he’d just promised to a guy like Russell Wade.

  ‘What do you think, Alan? This story of the bombs, I mean.’

  ‘I think it sounds crazy. I think it sounds impossible. But since 9/11 I’ve realized that the limits of what’s crazy and what’s possible have gotten a whole lot wider.’

  Tacitly agreeing with him, Vivien tackled another subject. The one that worried her the most. The weak link in the chain.

  ‘And what do you think of Wade?’

  The captain shrugged. Which could mean everything or nothing.

  ‘For the moment he’s given us the only lead we have. And we’re lucky to have one, whatever the source. In normal circumstances I’d have kicked that daddy’s boy out of here. But these aren’t normal circumstances. Nearly a hundred people have died, and there are other people out there who don’t know the risk they’re running right now of meeting the same fate. As I said during the meeting, we have a duty to explore every avenue. Besides, that business of the photograph is strange. It turns what looked like a routine case is something of vital importance. And it seems genuine. Only reality could be fantastic enough to create a coincidence like that.’

  Vivien had often thought the same thing. A thought her experience seemed to endorse a little more every day.

  ‘Do we keep this information to ourselves?’

  Bellew scratched his ear, as he often did when he was thinking. ‘For now, yes. I don’t want to run the risk of spreading panic or having every local politician and every police department in the country laughing behind my back. It’s always possible the whole thing could burst like a soap bubble, though I don’t think it will.’

  ‘Do you trust Wade on that? It’s as clear as daylight that he’s looking for a scoop.’

  ‘He already has one. And that’s why he won’t talk. Because it’s not in his interest. We won’t either, for the same reason.’

  Vivien asked for a confirmation of what she already knew. ‘Does that mean I have to take him with me from now on?’

  The captain spread his arms as if acknowledging the inevitable. ‘I gave him my word. And I usually keep it.’

  As if everything had been said on that matter, it was the captain who changed the subject this time.

  ‘I’m phoning the 67th immediately to have them send you the file on the investigation into this Ziggy. If you think it’s worth it, you can also search his apartment. How about the guy in the wall, who seems to be a major player in this all of a sudden? Do you have any ideas?’

  ‘Yes. I have a lead. Not a big one, but it’s a start anyway.’

  ‘Good. Let’s get down to work. And whatever you need, you only have to let me know. For the moment, I should be able to give you what you want without having to spill the beans to anyone else.’

  Vivien didn’t find that hard to believe. She knew that Captain Alan Bellew boasted an old friendship with the Police Commissioner, and unlike Elisabeth Brokens wife of Charles Brokens, he wasn’t just boasting.

  ‘Okay. I’m going.’

  Vivien turned to leave the office. When she was at the door, about to leave, Bellew called her back.

  ‘Vivien, one last thing.’

  With a sly smile, he had looked her in the eyes.

  ‘As far as Russell Wade is concerned, remember this, if you need to. I gave him my word of honour.’

  A pause
for emphasis.

  ‘You didn’t’

  Vivien left the room with the same smile on her lips. She found Russell Wade standing with his hands in his pockets in the little room where he had waited some time earlier.

  ‘Here I am.’

  ‘Tell me what to do, detective.’

  ‘If we have to spend a little time together, you can call me Vivien.’

  ‘Okay, Vivien. What happens now?’

  ‘Give me your cellphone.’

  Russell took his phone from his pocket. Vivien was surprised it wasn’t an iPhone. In New York, every VIP had one. Maybe Wade didn’t consider himself a VIP or maybe he’d used his as a chip in a poker game.

  Vivien took the phone and dialled her own number. When she heard it ring, down below on her desk, she hung up and gave the phone back to its owner.

  ‘There. My number’s in the memory. Just outside this building, on your left, is a silver grey Volvo. That’s my car. Go to it and wait for me.’ She loaded the following sentence with sarcasm. ‘I have things to do and I don’t know how long I’ll take. I’m sorry, you’ll just have to be patient.’

  Russell looked at her. A film of sadness passed over his eyes, the same sadness Vivien had caught in them a few days earlier.

  ‘I’ve been waiting more than ten years. I can wait a little while longer.’

  He turned his back on her and left. Standing at the top of the stairs for a few moments, feeling slightly perplexed by him, Vivien watched him descend and disappear on the floor below. Then she descended the stairs in her turn and went back to her desk. Along with her excitement at the importance of the task that had fallen into her hands, the impact of the words she had read in that letter had not gone away. Crazy words carried on the wind like poisonous seeds, which had somehow found the right soil in which to grow. Vivien wondered what kind of suffering the man who had left that message had endured and what kind of sickness afflicted the man who had received it, if he had decided to accept his inheritance and carry out his father’s posthumous revenge.

  The limits of what’s crazy have grown wider …

  Maybe in a case like this, it would have been more correct to say that the limits had been completely abolished.

  She sat down at her desk and connected to the police database. She typed in the words ‘the only flag’ and waited for the results. Almost immediately, a photograph of a man’s bare back appeared on the screen, bearing a tattoo exactly like the one found on the dead body. It was the emblem of a group of bikers based in Coney Island who called themselves the Skullbusters. There were other photographs: members of the group who had been in trouble with the law. Next to the name of each one, their offences were listed, large and small. The photographs seemed quite old and Vivien wondered if any of them was the person who had rested for years in the foundations of a building on 23rd Street. It would be the greatest of ironies. But she wouldn’t have been too surprised. As the captain had pointed out earlier, their work relied a lot on coincidence. The fact that photographs of the same young man and the same cat had been found in two places so distant in time and space was tangible proof of that.

  As she was noting down the address of the bikers’ meeting place, the file on the Ziggy Stardust case arrived by email from the 67th precinct. Bellew had wasted no time. Vivien now had all the available material on her computer: the ME’s initial findings, the report drawn up by the detective in charge of the case, and the photographs taken at the scene of the crime. She zoomed all the way in on one photograph taken from the angle that interested her. There, clearly visible, was a red mark on one of the buttons of the printer, a red mark, as if someone had pressed the button with a bloodstained finger. Something else to support Russell Wade’s story.

  The other photographs showed the body of a slightly built man lying on the floor covered in blood. Vivien looked at them for a long time without feeling the slightest pity: the bastard had got what he deserved. For what he had done to her niece and God knew how many other kids. Not for the first time, she was forced to realize how much personal involvement changed your perspective on things.

  Vivien took the remote control from her pocket and opened the car doors automatically. By the time Vivien got in, Russell Wade was busy putting on his seatbelt. As she observed him, she caught herself thinking that he was a handsome man. She immediately called herself a fool. None of this was putting her in a good mood.

  He looked at her expectantly. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Coney Island.’

  ‘To do what?’

  ‘See people.’

  ‘What people?’

  ‘Wait and see.’

  As the car slipped into the flow of traffic, Russell sat back in his seat and stared at the street in front of him. ‘Are you in some kind of state of grace today,’ he asked, ‘or are you always this talkative?’

  ‘Only with important guests.’

  Russell Wade turned to her. ‘You don’t like me, do you?’

  The words sounded more like a statement of fact than a genuine question. Vivien was pleased with such a direct approach. For the sake of their present and future relations, she expressed her opinion without beating about the bush.

  ‘In normal circumstances, I wouldn’t give a damn about you. People can do whatever they like with their own lives. Even throw them away, as long as they don’t harm anybody. There are a lot of people around who need help because they’ve got into trouble through no fault of their own. Anyone who’s adult and conscious and goes looking for trouble, as far as I’m concerned, can look after themselves. That isn’t apathy, it’s common sense.’

  Russell Wade nodded eloquently. ‘OK. At least we know where we stand.’

  Vivien swerved and pulled up at the kerb, provoking a reaction from the motorists behind her. She let go of the wheel and turned to Russell.

  ‘Let’s get one thing straight,’ she said. ‘You may have charmed the captain with that story about your redemption, but I’m not such a pushover.’

  Russell sat looking at her in silence. His dark, apparently defenceless eyes made her think she was being made fun of. When she next spoke, it was with a harshness that was uncharacteristic of her.

  ‘People don’t change, Wade. We are what we are, and we all have our own place. However much we stray, we always come back to it in the end. And I don’t think you’re any exception.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘You came to the precinct with a photocopy in your pocket of the sheet of paper Ziggy gave you. That means you still have the original, the one that’s stained with his blood. And in case we didn’t believe you and threw you out, you’d have used it to show to the FBI or the NSA or whoever.’

  Vivien continued the onslaught.

  ‘If for any reason we’d asked you to empty your pockets we’d have found only the photocopy of a page you could have passed off as something you’d dreamed up. Passing off one thing for another seems like a speciality of yours.’

  Her words did not seem to have fazed Russell. This was a sign either that he had amazing self-control or that he was used to it. In spite of her anger, Vivien leaned more towards the second of these hypotheses.

  She grabbed the wheel, pulled away from the kerb, and resumed her journey to Coney Island. Russell’s next question took her by surprise. Maybe he, too, was trying to form an opinion of his travelling companion.

  ‘Detectives usually have partners. How come you don’t have one?’

  ‘Right now, I have you. And your being here reminds me why I usually work alone.’

  After that curt reply, silence fell in the car. During the conversation, Vivien had driven the car downtown and was now crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. When they had left Manhattan behind them, Vivien tuned the radio to Kiss 98.7, a black music station. She drove the Volvo along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and then onto Gowanus.

  Russell was looking out the window on his side. When a particularly rhythmical song came on, he started, perhaps w
ithout realizing it, to beat time with his foot. Vivien realized that this whole thing had fallen on her shoulders at a particularly difficult time. Sundance’s situation and Father McKean’s curious behaviour had affected her ability to think clearly and calmly. Or at least made her too harsh in her judgement.

  As she parked the car on Surf Avenue in Coney Island she felt a slight pang of guilt.

  ‘Russell, I’m sorry for what I said earlier. Whatever your motives, you’re helping us a lot and we’re grateful to you for that. The other stuff, it’s not for me to judge. It’s no excuse, but I have a few personal problems right now, and I guess I’m not acting normally.’

  Russell smiled, apparently impressed by her sudden openness. ‘It’s OK. I should understand better than anyone the way personal problems can influence our choices.’

  They got out of the car and walked to the address that Vivien had pulled out of the file on the Skullbusters. It turned out to be a large Harley Davidson dealership, with a workshop for repairing and personalizing motorbikes. The place looked clean, efficient and businesslike, a long way from Vivien’s experience of bikers’ hangouts in the Bronx or Queens.

  They went in. To their left was a long line of bikes, different models but all Harleys. To the right, a display of gear and accessories, from helmets to coveralls to mufflers. Facing them was a counter, from behind which a tall, sturdy man in a pair of jeans and a black sleeveless T-shirt emerged and came towards them. He had a black bandana, sideburns and a drooping moustache. As he approached, she realized the moustache was dyed, the bandana was probably there to cover a bald patch, and beneath his tan he must be well over seventy. On his right shoulder he had a tattoo of a Jolly Roger with the same words they’d found on the body walled up fifteen years earlier.

  ‘Hello. My name’s Vivien Light.’

  The man smiled, amused. ‘Like in the movie?’

  ‘No, like in the police,’ she replied curtly and took out her shield. The fact that her name was similar to Vivien Leigh had bugged her all her life.

  The man didn’t skip a beat.