“It’s possible, not probable.” His tone switched to cool logic. “The inhabitants had grown accustomed to tremors in the region. Evidence indicates they ignored the early warnings for some four days. Some sixteen thousand people perished.” He sipped Cinzano vermouth on the rocks. “They were caught flat-footed before—”
Behind him, Cindy approached arm in arm with her Prince Charming husband.
“—and past excavations recovered not just scrolls left behind but valuable statuary and personal—”
Cindy waved. She waved back.
“—and that’s why I think the scrolls are still buried.”
Some people had all the luck. What to say to her after all this time? Excusing herself, Garvey rose to embrace the bride. “I’m really happy for you,” she said, hugging Cindy and trying to mean every word. They pulled away, the ever-gorgeous Cindy, a little tipsy, looking tan and radiant.
Cindy eyed Fisher and steadied herself. “Who’s the hunk?”
The face of Cindy’s tuxedoed husband betrayed a ripple of displeasure before clouding over with the practiced cordiality of a politician on the make. Mortified, Garvey dug her fingernails into her palms. Fisher joked away the tension by pretending to look for a hunk. She released her fingernails. They would hit it off just fine working together.
His presence helped her feel less inadequate with Cindy. Cindy introduced her husband as the head of a parliamentary committee investigating subversive organizations and dangerous cults. After exchanging pleasantries, the husband excused himself to greet guests a few yards in front of his wife.
Just then, a motorcycle putt-putted into the piazza, like a snorting mechanical bull, forcing its way through the scattering crowd. It jerked to a halt in front of the husband. A motorcycle passenger dressed like a tuxedoed bridegroom pulled something shiny from his pocket. He wore a flat hat with facial netting. Similar anti-insect headgear had been used on archaeological digs in Mexico.
Cindy’s husband bent over to retrieve a purse dropped by a woman seconds before the motorcycle passenger fired a pistol.
Fisher pushed Garvey to the ground and covered her with his body.
She raised her head.
Cindy lay prone, returning a fish-eyed gaze. Her blood snaked over the pavement.
Cursing his veiled accomplice, the motorcycle driver roared out of the piazza.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Near midnight, Inspector Riccardo Renaldi waited on the subway platform of Line B at the Colosseo metro stop in Rome. He looked up and down the platform. A drunk wobbled out toward the exit on the bumpy yellow warning stripes along the tracks.
Where are they? Renaldi thought, slamming a rolled newspaper into his palm. They better not have stood him up.
They all took him for granted. They might forget teasing him about his short height, but his memory was long. He had no regrets about stealing the Festus parchment. They deserved it. And after all he did for Leone, even digging up dirt on Otto Fischer, that Jewish atheist-communist still treated him like trash. At least he omitted Fischer’s membership in a Nazi SS unit stationed in Rome. He would show them all how much they underestimated him.
All in black, Carlos Stroheim entered the platform with a bodybuilder type wearing tinted glasses and looking ripped enough to be on steroids. As the prefect approached, the bodybuilder remained at attention with arms folded like intertwined baby hams. The prefect and the inspector pretended to be strangers waiting for a train side by side on the platform, each obscuring his face with an opened newspaper. “You kept me waiting.”
“Bit of a stickler, aren’t you?” Stroheim looked at his watch. “I’m only ten minutes late.”
“Don’t let it happen again.”
“Easy there.” The prefect glanced sideways at the inspector. “Rest assured we value your services. Our leader is grateful for delivery of the Festus parchment.”
“I want to meet the Pater Patrum personally.”
“How did you know his title?”
“Don’t underestimate a sleuth like me.” Renaldi tapped the prefect’s arm. “I put two and two together about you and this cabal called Roma Rinata.”
“His identity remains secret for now.” The prefect lowered his newspaper and looked around. “If you disobey orders . . .” He pointed to the bodybuilder. “You’ll wind up a dead man.”
“Don’t try to intimidate me.” Renaldi raised a fist. Stroheim’s companion ran up and put the inspector in an arm lock. A train rattled toward the platform. He threatened to throw the inspector onto the tracks.
They were going to kill him.
“Let him go.”
The bodybuilder followed orders.
“I just need to be appreciated.” Renaldi rubbed an arm. “At one time or another I joined the Republican Fascist Party, the Tricolor Flame party, the National Front, the New Force, the Social Action group, the Italian Social Movement, not to mention the National Vanguard . . . The bumblers all ignored me.”
Before continuing, he pretended to read his newspaper as two passengers left a train and headed for the exit.
“The buzz on the street is something big is about to happen, a return to the glory days. In this national crisis, I want to throw myself into a cause worthy of me.” Renaldi stood as tall as he could in his elevator shoes. “Am I accepted into Roma Rinata or not?”
“We need people like you.” The prefect revealed a gold-toothed smile. “The Pater Patrum agrees to probationary status. But you must understand, everything is on a needs-to-know basis.”
“Sure, sure.” Renaldi shrugged. “Just tell him I need to see him personally.”
“If you insist.”
“I do.” Renaldi puffed his chest out. He had stood up for himself. “Let’s shake on the deal.”
“No offense.” Stroheim withdrew his hand from Renaldi’s attempted grasp. “Too many germs.”
While waiting the agreed twenty minutes before leaving, Inspector Renaldi felt triumphant. He had found a cause that gave him meaning. Its strength would be his. He would no longer be small.
Chapter Twenty-Four
In his darkened apartment, Marco Leone lay on a sofa, his head resting on a pillow under the glow of a lone floor lamp. The nightmare replay of his brush with death on the way to Amalfi had startled him awake. Tail wagging, Mondocane shambled from a corner of the living room to lie down on the floor beside him. Perhaps some late-night reading would lull him back to sleep. When they removed his leg cast next week, he’d have a better chance at untroubled sleep. He rubbed Mondocane’s back before taking the police report off the end table. Too comfortable to hop on his crutches for his reading glasses, he squinted at the text.
The Amalfi police suspected the bridegroom’s ex-lover had hired professional assassins to kill the Cindy woman at her wedding for revenge. The hypothesis would work for a Verdi opera plot, but it didn’t quite persuade him.
More likely someone wanted the bridegroom dead. Cardinal Furbone’s nephew, after all, chaired a committee of the Italian parliament investigating the rise of political extremism and antisocial cults posing a threat to public morals. The nephew’s aggressiveness in carrying out his mission had earned him death threats from both the far left and the far right of the political spectrum.
Witnesses reported the victim’s new husband had bent down to pick up something right before the shooting. The shooter could have been aiming at the husband and mistakenly hit the bride standing directly behind him. Strangest of all, the witnesses unanimously agreed the shooter dressed like the bridegroom except for the added apparel of a hat with facial netting.
Unable to jump onto the sofa, Mondocane curled up next to it.
Leone crooked his forearm over his forehead and yawned before returning to the puzzle.
If the netting had concealment as its purpose, why not a ski cap or something less exotic?
The driver of the motorcycle wore a ski cap.
The licking of his hand by Mondocane kept him from drowsing off.
And then there was the business of the flare-up between the driver and the passenger on the motorcycle. He turned back to page ten to make sure. He was right. Again, all the witnesses reported some kind of argument between the assailants right after the shooting, but before they escaped.
The Amalfi investigator thought the driver could have been upset because the getaway was taking too long. But the driver had control of the motorcycle. Something went wrong with the plan. The murder of the wrong person would explain the argument between the killers. An innocent women instead of a parliamentarian too zealous for his own good.
His mind whirled around with medication and supposition.
His cell vibrated on the coffee table. Leone grabbed for it under the unpaid bills and old newspapers.
“Sorry for the late call, Commissario. I just received the results.”
“Go on.”
“They found the lion mask in roadside underbrush near the incinerated vehicle. Made of crystal manufactured on Murano island. Sold to an artisan who crafted glass carnival masks depicting animals, including lions. Limited number sold to only two retailers, one now out of business and the other, Sfaccia Sfumata, in Venice.”
“Excellent work.” He rubbed sleep from his eyes. “Make cooperative arrangements with the Venice police. As soon as my cast is off, I’m going to Venice.” The Amalfi nightmare flashed into his mind. “What about my would-be assassins?”
“The two impersonating road workers escaped without a trace. The guy in the Audi plummeted off the mountain road into the valley. The Audi exploded. He looked like fried calamari when they found him.”
“Finally we have something.” The goddess Fortuna had smiled . . . even if it was an upside-down frown.
“One other thing, Commissario.” A throat cleared on the other end of the line. “We’ve just received an anonymous warning. The Egyptian Phoenix threatens to destroy another church.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Disguised as the Pater Patrum, Lucio Piso stood on the ruined foundation of a Roman bathhouse in the Maremma countryside of Tuscany clad in the alabaster mask of the god Mithras, ghostly white in the noonday sun. In his right hand, he held a gold-plated crosier studded with precious stones. To cool his head, he removed a miter matching the scarlet color of his velvet slippers. The breeze billowed his pantaloons of ancient Persian design. Cicadas strumming in the swelter fell silent at the sound of a vehicle chugging closer over the clayish soil.
He replaced his miter and drew up to full height, planting the crosier in front to lay claim to destiny. The way to national salvation ran through his genius. Had not that fortune-telling crone in the hills foretold his future greatness? Kneeling in the dust, she had kissed his hands and raised her cataract-clouded eyes to his, hailing him as rescuer of the nation, as she pocketed the wad of cash an aide had slipped into her hand. Mussolini had only drained the malaria-infested swamps of the Maremma. How much more Piso would do in power. He would restore the native faith driven out by the apostles of fanaticism from the Mideast. The Maremma bull, and not the cross, was the symbol of this land.
As a diversionary tactic, he would frame the Egyptian Phoenix for attacks on Catholic churches. His genius demanded he wait until Roma Rinata was strong enough to come out of the shadows and seize power. Then he could take credit for the attacks and the social revolution accompanying his political one.
A battered van rounded the boulder and stuttered to a stop. Two men in lion masks led Riccardo Renaldi out. They removed his blindfold and earplugs. He blinked and placed the edge of his hand over his eyebrows. “Who are you? A bishop?” He rubbed his eyes. “Where am I?”
“My dear Renaldi, I am the Pater Patrum you demanded to meet.” He raised his crosier. “I am the representative of Mithras on earth.”
“Why don’t you reveal yourself?”
“My time has not yet come.”
“When will you initiate me into Roma Rinata?” His voice grew confident. “I kept my promise to Carlos Stroheim. Without me you wouldn’t have the Festus parchment.”
“You have been paid.”
“I didn’t do it for the money. I want to belong.”
“The Pater Patrum thanks you, but we must be certain of your loyalty. Too much is at stake.” He pounded the crosier to assert his authority. “You were a police officer after all.”
“I was an outstanding one until Leone engineered my suspension.” Renaldi cursed and raised his fist. “I’ll make him taste my vengeance.”
“Not unless and until I say so . . . if you want to join us. Is that clear?”
“I understand.” He doffed his cap and wrung it in his hands. “Thank you for the job as chief security officer at the Villa of the Papyri. I need the work.”
“You will be my eyes and ears at the villa.”
“Do you have an in with Lucio Piso, the superintendent?” Renaldi inquired.
“I know him all right. He’s my inferior and does my bidding.”
The deception was delicious. Renaldi did not know the Pater Patrum inhabited the body of Lucio Piso. Secrecy gave him control, and control made him the master of puppets like Renaldi. Soon he could pull enough puppet strings to take over.
“My own godfather, Questore Pietro Malatesta, didn’t even lift a finger to save me.”
“To be betrayed by one’s godfather is a terrible thing indeed. But if you pass your probation, you will have Roma Rinata to protect you.”
“There’s another reason I wanted to see you today.” Renaldi wiped the sweat off his brow with his sleeve. “There’s a problem at the Villa of the Papyri.”
“What?”
The Pater Patrum listened with towering rage as Renaldi related the problem with the don of the most vicious camorra clan in Naples. The clan boss threatened to hold up any further excavations until something was done to “wet his beak.” Some in the government already looked for any excuse to stop the excavation. The camorra complication would kill the excavation project by calling work stoppages if it did not receive kickback and bribe money. The country was on the verge of complete paralysis.
Unthinkable.
An anachronistic group of criminal maggots feasting on the decay of ancient Rome would not stand in the way of destiny.
His genius had the answer. It never failed.
“Have no fear. The problem is solved.” The Pater Patrum cackled behind the alabaster mask. “The don will wet many beaks.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Wearing a matador’s cape, Lucio Piso waved on the Italian cowboys called butteri. On horseback they circled the white bull twisting its horns toward one tormentor and then the other, each jamming a lance into its back. Sheets of blood matted the bull’s flanks. He admired this native bull stock, solid as marble, the descendent of prehistoric bulls fossilized all over the Maremma territory. The bull charged the cape with decorated darts quivering in its back like bloodsuckers.
Sun rays slithered through the cracks of the ruined Roman amphitheater onto Piso’s cape as it swirled away like a magician’s trick revealing a twisted and screaming body lashed to a post. The naked torso bore the full brunt of the charge and fell silent forever, a companion piece to another broken and bloodied corpse tethered to a post six meters away. A buttero shot the bull in the head.
The animal knelt on its forelegs.
It moaned and keeled over in the sand.
“Clean up this mess . . . now.” Piso’s command echoed around the amphitheater ruins. “I’m expecting a visitor.” Henchmen seated for the performance in stone box seats reserved for dignitaries millennia ago jumped to obedience.
He spat in the faces of the two corpses lashed to posts. The buffoons had killed the wrong victim. Their failure allowed the chairperson
of a powerful parliamentary committee to live and continue his crusade against subversive organizations and criminal cults.
***
After cleaning himself up, Lucio Piso passed time waiting for his visitor under a grape arbor at the hilltop entrance of his farmhouse made of flaking and fissured travertine stone near the ancient Roman town of Rusellae. His high-priced team of lawyers had concealed the purchase of the hideaway headquarters in tangled layers of newfangled imported American trust law.
A spider pounced on a mosquito entwined in a web among the grape leaves.
Down in the lowland, two menials led Cardinal Gustavo Furbone up the winding path to the farmhouse. Lugging a satchel, the cardinal stopped to rest against a boulder, a blob of human suet under a black cassock and scarlet sash.
Inside his peasant abode, Piso scrutinized Furbone’s puff-pastry face across a table of log-hewn wood. His puppet body yearned to reach across the table and squeeze the pig’s fleshy throat with both hands.
Detached and above the fray, the real Lucio hidden inside the puppet body knew better. His inner genius recognized the gift of time in which to prepare a dish best served cold . . . vengeance. The predator pedophile still did not recognize the victim after all the passing years, but the victim never forgot. His real self could objectively view the puppet’s life, as though played out on a screen.
A boy named Lucio had once lived on the streets of Rome after World War II with hunger and death his playmates. The boy’s father died on the Russian front, fighting for the Axis. The mother abandoned him in a church and died soon after of tuberculosis. The boy’s American savior soldier named Colonel Soames, flush with chewing gum, Hershey bars, and cigarettes, fed and clothed him. He placed the boy in an orphanage run by a young priest. The priest, oh so kind and solicitous, had taken a special interest in the boy, even tutoring the waif.
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