The Mithras Conspiracy

by M. J. Polelle

  The priest’s hand on the boy’s knee led to visits by the priest to the boy’s bedroom under cover of night.

  “Call me Gustavo,” the young priest had said, sliding into bed and probing and kissing where the boy should not have been probed and kissed.

  Should he tell anyone, the young priest had said, he would be thrown out into the streets again and suffer the pains of eternal hell for disobeying a priest of God.

  But all this had happened to Lucio the puppet and not the real Lucio inside the puppet, who’d escaped through the puppet’s eyes and hid inside a crack in the ceiling. As long as the puppet boy kept his stare fixed on the crack, the real Lucio felt nothing, suffered nothing, feared nothing, loved nothing.

  Confusion and depression had become the boy’s twin playmates in a whirlwind of sexual abuse that ripped his boyhood up by the roots. He grew up, fighting shame and self-loathing, only one step ahead of suicide, until he completely walled off the misery, coming to the full revelation he was like a god, two persons in one, an outer puppet and an inner superhuman hovering above vulnerability.

  The superhuman genius had taught the puppet Lucio either to dominate or be dominated. Better one day as a lion than a thousand as a sheep. Clawing and punching his way to the top of the business world, he gained supreme confidence in his ability to dominate. Neither lesser mortals nor lavish expense deterred him from proving to himself that through the Piso name of his father, he had inherited the DNA of greatness, reaching back to the elite clan of the ancient Pisos. Nothing else could explain his meteoric ascent in society to the brink of total supremacy.

  “Is something wrong?” the cardinal asked.

  “Not anymore.”

  “Here.” The cardinal hoisted the satchel onto the table. “The retainer for your efforts is inside.” He unlocked the satchel and pushed it toward Piso. “You won’t offend me by verifying the amount. The balance will be paid upon completion of the retrieval.”

  “My search for the Festus parchment is not about the money, Your Eminence.” The bile in his belly churned at the title of respect.

  “I do this for my faith” . . . Faith that you and those like you will be swept away.

  “Your piety becomes you.” The cardinal pulled at his ear. “I don’t mean to be impatient, but it’s been a while . . . Have you made any progress in your search?”

  “We toil day and night.”

  Furbone’s ignorance that Renaldi had already given the Festus parchment to the Pater Patrum made Piso want to giggle at the secret double-cross of the predator cardinal.

  “And, my dear Cardinal Furbone, do you not forget something?”

  “The statue of Mithras with the cross in the forehead?”

  “That was part of the deal. Was it not?”

  “The pagan idol should’ve been left in the earth . . . or destroyed.”

  “I want it for my collection of antiquities.”

  “Agreed. I’ll make sure it is delivered.” The cardinal stood up to go. “Notify me as soon as you recover the parchment. It belongs to the Church.”

  It belongs to me, the descendent of the Pisos.

  “It’s important.” Furbone touched his ear. “Don’t forget.”

  “How could I ever forget?”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  From the second story of an abandoned Venetian palazzo, Marco Leone stared across a backwater canal into a store window highlighting carnival masks. Spinal pain made him question his judgment in coming to Venice against medical advice and having to endure the stakeout of Sfaccia Sfumata. The Venetian inspector leading the operation seemed more intent on cracking a prostitution ring inside the store than helping to solve the attempt on his Roman colleague’s life.

  Unable to see into the interior of the store, Leone walked over to the humming electronic surveillance equipment operated by technicians in headphones. The monitor screen burst into a flash of light and wavy lines. The interior of the first floor across the stagnant canal came into focus. The monitor fed by hidden cameras inside the store showed only display cases and wall racks filled with animal masks of every variety and color. The technicians switched monitor surveillance to an upper floor of Sfaccia Sfumata.

  The camera caught old men and girls cavorting virtually naked except for their Venetian Carnival masks. When they tired of the orgiastic foreplay, couples drifted off hand in hand from the bacchanalian revelry to back storerooms. The technicians and Venetian police overseeing the surveillance hooted and whistled.

  “Why are you wasting my time on this porno show?” Leone lit up a mooched Marlboro. “Your prostitution case won’t stand up.”

  “I think it will. Minor girls are involved.” The Venetian inspector put his fingertips together and smirked. “Look, Commissario, be patient. You are in Venice now. Do as the Venetian police do.”

  “What about the attempt on my life in Amalfi?” Leone blew out a smoke stream. “Cardinal Furbone’s brother sells lion masks like the one worn by the guy who tried to force me off the road. That’s why I’m here. Have you forgotten?”

  “We know. You’ve told us often enough.” The Venetian waved the cigarette haze away. “No smoking here. This is work space.”

  “Get serious. This chilly dump is closed and the company bankrupt.”

  “Fire hazard. Combustible liquids on this floor.”

  This wasn’t his turf. He had to back off.

  “Will you at least get the customer list you promised?” Leone ground out his cigarette on the concrete floor.

  After the Venetian inspector left to get the list, Leone took another look at the monitor screen. Fully dressed, only one figure remained in the room. He still sat immobile on a throne chair. Under a flat black hat, the figure wore a black satin robe embroidered with stars and a white ruff at the neck. He hid his face behind the classic carnival mask of the plague doctor with the exaggerated white beak thought to protect against infection.

  Who was this voyeur?

  The Venetian inspector returned with the names of the store’s customers. Leone scanned the list of over a hundred people. The shop had sold many kinds of masks of popular animals, including those of ravens and lions. Forty-six customers had at one time or another purchased either raven or lion masks. The list did not distinguish between lion masks made of crystal, like the one his would-be assassin had worn, and the more usual ones of papier-mâché. Ten customers had purchased both lion and raven masks. An international corporation called Piso Global Enterprises caught his eye because of Lucio Piso, its billionaire founder.

  The Venetian looked away from the monitor. “We make our move now,” he said to Leone.

  Undercover cops disguised as construction workers crossed the bridge over the canal toward Sfaccia Sfumata on the other side. Waiting for them, a cop dressed as a tourist guide teamed up with two colleagues playing the role of utility workers. The faux nuns passing by the store shed their habits and morphed into female police officers. They all converged at the front door of Sfaccia Sfumata and forced their way in. Shaking his head in admiration, Leone smiled. The coordinated and intricate images of undercover police on the move were worth a spot in the Venice film festival.

  An undercover cop in hard hat and safety vest burst into the room. “This guy says you want to see him.” The cop looked at Leone. “Do you know him?”

  “Shlomo Adorno.” What did the shiftless offspring of Miriam’s first husband want? The son had changed from bad to worse. He had grown into a ferret-faced thief and petty con man sporting long hair and an unkempt beard the color and texture of chicks’ down. “What are you doing here?” Leone said. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  “That’s it, you two.” The exasperated inspector lapsed into Venetian dialect. “We have work to do.” He pointed up. “Settle your business in the office upstairs.”

  Before the two left the room, the monitor
screen showed the disheveled revelers stumbling down the stairs into the arms of the police. Two officers escorted the masked plague doctor fully dressed in his midnight attire out of monitor range.

  “Bring the plague doctor over here,” the Venetian inspector ordered over his cell phone. “I want to peek under the mask he refuses to remove.”

  ***

  “I need to get back downstairs.” Leone fidgeted on the other side of a battered conference table in the office of the bankrupt construction company. “I told your mother I’d try to find you something after I return to Rome.”

  Shlomo sat in shadows. Such light as existed slid through a begrimed window shielded by shutters with broken slats. The former owners had the foresight to spirit away the Murano chandelier, but not the cut-rate office furniture adorned with watermarks and scratches.

  “It’s not about you and me pleasing my mother anymore.” Shlomo slumped in a chair missing an armrest. “I’m broke and desperate for work. I came to Venice to collect a debt, but the deadbeat pulled a fast one and skipped town.”

  Pulling a fast one on Shlomo? Not likely. He was a master con.

  “The rumor is you and Rocco are thick as this and doing well for yourselves.” He tapped the sides of his two index fingers together. “If I can prove you two are pickpocketing on buses again, I’ll bust you personally, your mother notwithstanding.”

  “Rocco’s gone underground.” Shlomo folded his hands on the table and rubbed his thumbs together. “He acted strange. Talked vaguely about joining some secret organization, more powerful than the Mafia.”

  Full of interest, Leone leaned forward over the table. Before he came to Venice, the gradual disappearance of the common thugs and underworld muscle making up his day had disturbed him. Every so often, one or the other surfaced before ducking below the radar again. The calm on the streets felt ominous, even though crime had taken a dive. No one knew anything, which meant someone knew something. Maybe Shlomo was that someone. “Tell me everything you know.”

  A bar of sunlight streamed through the shutters across Shlomo’s face like an interrogation lamp. He shielded his eyes.

  “That’s just it.” Shlomo moved the chair out of the sun. “I don’t know much. But maybe I can help you.”

  “You? Help me?” Leone raised his eyebrows. “How?”

  “Rocco said I should consider joining. Everything is organized into cells, the left hand not knowing what the right hand does. There’s some kind of initiation period, and you know how good I am at—”

  “Conning people? I sure do.” Leone rubbed his chin. Something big was in the air, and it had to involve the terrorist acts in Rome. Shlomo might be able to pull it off. “You want to work undercover for me, is that it?”

  Shlomo nodded. “If we can work something out.”

  “We can. See me when I get back to Rome.”

  “Good.” Shlomo cleared his throat. “One other thing. My stepfather, Rabbi Elia Sforno, has an urgent favor to ask of you.”

  Miriam’s husband was a man of superior airs who boasted of an alleged kinship to Ovadia Sforno, the illustrious sixteenth-century rabbi. Elia Sforno had a history of beseeching the Polizia di Stato for dubious favors whenever he needed to affect the course of justice. It was not his style to do so directly but only through fixers and flunkies. Yet, for Miriam’s former lover to reveal this about her well-reputed husband would smack of sour grapes. “What does he want?”

  “The Mormons are at it again. Using the genealogies of—”

  The office door slammed open. The undercover Venetian cop in the disguise of a construction worker entered. “Come downstairs, Commissario.” He beckoned with his hand. “We’ve removed the mask of the plague doctor. Our inspector says you’re in for a surprise.”

  Leone bolted out the door to learn the identity of the voyeur in black.

  ***

  Back downstairs on the second floor, the inspector and the unmasked plague doctor remained silent as Leone entered the room.

  “Mamma mia.” Leone folded his hands in front of his chest. “If it isn’t Cardinal Gustavo Furbone . . . the ringmaster of orgies.”

  “It’s not what you think.” The cardinal crushed the mask of the plague doctor in his hands.

  “I’m sure it’s much worse.”

  “I had nothing to do with my brother’s debauchery.” Furbone shifted on his feet, tugging at his ear. “You’re trying to ruin my career.”

  “Don’t tell me what I’m trying to do.” Leone faced the cardinal eye to eye. “You’ve been evading me. What do you know about crystal lion masks sold in Sfaccia Sfumata?”

  “A little respect, if you please. He is a cardinal after all.” The Venetian inspector raised his hand. “I’m allowing you to ask questions as a courtesy. Watch yourself.”

  “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The cardinal’s face grew smug. “Ask my brother about the lion masks he sells.”

  Leone bristled but held his tongue. The cardinal apparently drew strength from the inspector’s obsequiousness.

  “We just did, Your Eminence.” The inspector shrugged. “He won’t talk.”

  “And I know nothing about my brother’s business.” The cardinal moved to put on his coat. “I must be about my own business for His Holiness, Celestine the Sixth.”

  “Not so fast.” Leone stepped before the cardinal. “If you please,” he added after detecting a disapproving glint in the inspector’s eyes. “A witness says you threatened Abramo Basso shortly before his death.”

  “It was Stroheim who tattled on me, wasn’t it?” The cardinal shrugged. “Sure, I was angry about Basso’s theft, but I didn’t kill him.”

  “Thanks for confirming Stroheim’s accusation.” Leone smiled, thinking of Miriam’s account in his office. “By the way, I also have someone else who confirms the threat.”

  “Will you take long?” The inspector sighed. “I have to get back to the station.”

  “Probably not.” He expected the cardinal to confess any minute. “Weren’t you in charge of the Roman artifacts exhibition sponsored by the Vatican?” Leone asked. “The one displaying the knife used to murder Basso?”

  “In name only.” The cardinal folded the coat over his arm. “As cardinal librarian and archivist, I was the most important person in the Vatican Library. But staff took care of details not worthy of my attention.”

  “But you had access to the knife.”

  “Not unless you can prove I smashed the case and stole it shortly before the murder.” The cardinal put on his coat. “Your expression says you know nothing of the theft report filed with the Vatican Gendarmerie Corps. Anyone could have stolen it. Our police never found the culprit.” The cardinal put on his hat. “You really should work more closely with Vatican law enforcement.”

  “Time’s up.” The inspector tapped his watch. “I’m letting His Eminence go.”

  “You’re what?” Leone glared at the inspector. “You can hold him on the prostitution charge. You yourself said minors were involved.”

  “His Eminence informed me he came to Venice on papal business and just happened to be visiting his brother. The obscene activities took him by surprise.”

  “Surprise?” Leone slapped his forehead with his palm. “Naked girls a surprise?”

  “Exactly so.” The cardinal buttoned his coat. “My black-sheep brother trapped me. He had the doors locked. His conduct has shocked me profoundly.”

  “My men verified the locked doors. Even the upstairs one.”

  “No mystery there,” Leone said. “They wanted to keep intruders out and their activities secret.” He blocked the door to prevent the cardinal from leaving. “What’s the brother say?”

  “He backs up the cardinal’s version of events.”

  “The brother is covering up for the cardinal, can’t you see?” Leone pointed to the surveillance
equipment. “The camera doesn’t lie. We all saw him in the costume of the plague doctor. No one forced him into the costume. He sat there and watched.”

  “As I told the inspector,” Furbone said, rubbing his ear, “at my brother’s suggestion, I tried on the costume as a joke in the dressing room with the door closed. I heard people come up the stairs. When I exited, I was shocked to see people undressing. Dumbfounded would be a better word. I just had to sit down, paralyzed at how depraved my brother had become. He tricked me.”

  “Do you expect us to believe that fairy tale?” Leone folded his arms and turned to the inspector. “Do your duty and arrest him.”

  “That does it.” The inspector ordered Leone away from the door. “As you said, the camera doesn’t lie. We have no proof whatsoever he touched anyone, let alone engaged in . . . well, you know. Watching is not prostitution. Let the cardinal go.”

  “Just let me ask one more question . . . a professional courtesy.”

  “No, no.” The inspector wagged his forefinger sideways. “You don’t know when to stop. No more telling me what to do. No more questions.”

  “That’s all right.” The cardinal made no attempt to hide his smirk. “Let him ask.”

  “Where were you, a little after midnight on Christmas day, when Basso was murdered?”

  “You’ve got me there, Commissario Leone.” The cardinal held his hands up as though he were surrendering. “I was helping Pope Celestine the Sixth celebrate Midnight Mass in St. Peter’s.”

  “Do . . . do you have”—Leone recovered his composure—“any witnesses to support that claim?”

  “You don’t have to answer, Your Eminence.”

  “I have just a few witnesses of questionable character.” The cardinal put on his hat and smiled from ear to ear. “About a hundred priests and bishops who celebrated the Mass alongside us.”

  Avoiding eye contact, Leone let the cardinal pass.