CHAPTER TEN
ANDREA DI GRAZIA, pacing in his office at the police station, was frustrated and angry. He took pride in his work and considered himself a better-than-average detective, and yet this Phillips boy's kidnapping defied his powers of deduction. How many sleepless hours or days had he been on this case? He'd lost track.
Furthermore, he couldn't reach anyone at the mother's house, and no one seemed to know where she was. And Father Bartolomeo's phone had been busy for half an hour. Andrea felt in his bones that somehow the cardinal could shed some light on the situation. Why had the mother not contacted the Roman police? Obviously the kidnappers had told her not to, or they would kill the boy. To whom, then, would she turn for help and advice? Who else but her old family friend, the eminent churchman?
He could have had the operator cut in on the-cardinal's conversation, but he felt he might do better in person.
"Lori, I hate to do this to you," he said to his aide, an older sergeant, "but can you stick around tonight? I might be needing some help.”
"Sure, Lieutenant," said Lori.
"How's that girl of yours?" Andrea asked as he put on his hat.
"Incantevole," the sergeant grinned. "Fantastic!"
"Tell you what. Take tomorrow off and spend it with her."
"Grazie, Andrea. Grazie."
Andrea came out of the brightly lit police station and stepped out into grimy Banducci Street.
A police car was parked there with two officers in it, its motor running.
A police car was parked there with two officers in it, its motor running.
"Want a lift, Lieutenant, sir?" asked the driver.
For a moment Andrea thought of taking a squad car, but why? He was only going to call on Father Bartolomeo, who was, although the lieutenant knew him only slightly, a good man, an honest man. No danger. Still, Rome
"No, thanks, Leonardo, you'd be wasting your time."
"Ah, a girl, sir?"
"A girl?" Andrea thought for a second of Maria Freitas, a Brazilian student at the university whom he'd been seeing lately. They were a date away from la grande, "the biggy" as she referred to it, when they would go to bed together. But both were shy and holding off because both knew, without even coming close to saying it, that this could be the real thing— engagement, marriage, babies, all the rest. He'd told her he’ d
see her tonight—and, by God he would, after talking to Father Bartolomeo.
"How did you guess?" he said with his good, boyish grin. "Buonasera!"
He walked to his gray Alfa Romeo, which was parked down the block, and got in. He drove quickly through the winding streets to Father Bartolomeo's apartment, and went to the door. Father Antonio, the young secretary, spoke to him over the intercom:
"Lieutenant, I'm sorry, the archbishop is not in right now. I just arrived here a few moments ago to pick up some papers and found a note saying he'd gone to Cardinal Patricio's."
"And where is that?"
After he got the address on
Del Sarto Street , Andrea sped across town. As he pulled up to the apartment house, he saw two men coming hurriedly out of the front door. They were both dressed in mufti, but even in this dim light, Andrea recognized the leonine mane and slight limp. That would be Father Bartolomeo. The other...he didn't know... probably Cardinal Patricio. Where were they headed in such urgency?
Del Sarto Street , Andrea sped across town. As he pulled up to the apartment house, he saw two men coming hurriedly out of the front door. They were both dressed in mufti, but even in this dim light, Andrea recognized the leonine mane and slight limp. That would be Father Bartolomeo. The other...he didn't know... probably Cardinal Patricio. Where were they headed in such urgency?
As they crossed the street, he thought of calling out to stop them, to question them. But his policeman's instinct was telling him ‘follow them. You'll get the answers... maybe better answers.’
The cypress trees were like two rows of huge greenish-black soldiers marching up to the villa in the moonlight. The big rundown house in Calese, white in the moonlight, had twenty rooms, and from the road, all of them appeared to be darkened.
The two cars approached slowly, with their lights off. Patrick parked a hundred yards away, and Bartolomeo glided his Fiat into a copse and stopped fifty feet from the other car. Silently they got out, leaving the doors open to avoid making any noise. Then they took advantage of the moon's drifting partially behind some clouds to run down the long dirt driveway, hugging the muted moon shadows cast by the cypresses.
As they drew nearer to the house, they could see one dimly lit room. Crouching, they crept up to the French doors. Bartolomeo peered in and saw two men seated on a couch in front of a flickering television set. Each had a glass of wine in his hand; and a fat bottle of Chianti was on the table. They appeared heavy-lidded, and one stretched and yawned. Patrick looked in at them over Bartolomeo's shoulder and whispered, "Guards posing as servants!"
"How do you know?"
'They must be. He only has one servant, the Sicilian housekeeper, Nina. There are only three bedrooms, all on the second floor—Nina's, Tobin's, and the guest room."
"Would Tobin be here tonight?"
Patrick shook his head. "His car's not here."
"So the boy would be in the guest room?"
"Probably. Follow me."
They crouched and, hugging the walls of the house, made their way through the flowerbeds to a low window fifty feet away from where the guards were. Patrick pointed to the window. Bartolomeo, the sleeve of his sweater pulled down over his knuckles, gave one sharp rap on the glass. The pane broke and they waited, holding their breaths. No sound after the tinkling glass. Bartolomeo reached his hand in, turned the catch, and pushed the window in. He stepped over the sill, and Patrick followed. They were in some sort of a pantry, and Patrick pushed open a swinging door into what, in the gloom, looked like the dining room with a refectory table in the center. Patrick went stealthily to the staircase. They could see the living room now, and though the guards were out of view, they could see the dancing white light of the television set, and a hand reaching out for the wine bottle.
Up the winding staircase they crept. It was solid mahogany and carpeted, and made no sound under their careful footsteps. But upstairs, the bare parquetry of the old floor creaked and squeaked as they stepped out on it.
Instantly the door at the end of the hall was unbolted and thrown open. A large figure stepped out and snapped on a flashlight. Patrick and Bartolomeo squeezed beside a huge, ornate chest of drawers, crouched down, and pressed against the wall. The ray of light pierced the dark and flickered here and there. The footsteps came slowly down the hall as the intensity of the light increased.
Suddenly a black and white cat leaped down from the chest of drawers where it had been sleeping. The cat stood for a moment directly in front of Patrick and Bartolomeo as the light focused upon it and a powerful-looking woman bent down to pick it up. She wore a white blouse over her husky breasts and light glinted off a heavy silver chain and crucifix as it dangled in front of the cat while she was bending over—less than three feet from the priests. She murmured gutturally to the cat in Sicilian dialect as she stroked it and carried it back to the room.
After he heard the door being bolted, Bartolomeo let out a long sigh of relief.
"That room is adjacent to the guest room," breathed Patrick, "and connected to it."
"I noticed that the window to that next room is slightly open. I'll try to get to it. You go back down and keep an eye on those guards."
Bartolomeo saw that the door to the room on the other side of the one they suspected Jonny to be in was standing slightly open. That could be Tobin's. Carefully he lowered his body to the floor. Diving his weight between his hands and his knees, he crawled across the distance and made it with only one slight creak.
Inside the bedroom, he stood up and went across the carpet to the window. It was open and he looked down. About five feet below the sill ran a foot-wide ledge and metal rain gutter. He stepped out of the window and positioned his feet on the ledge, holding on to the sill.
He held his breath and felt a tightening in his gut as he forced himself not to look down. The ledge felt shaky under his feet, but it held. About seven feet away was another window. Hanging on to the shutter with his left hand, he shuffled his feet down the ledge, his belly pressed tight and scraping across the plaster wall of the house, his right arm extended toward the next window. There was a bad moment when he had to let go of one shutter for several shuffling steps until he felt his fingers grasp the next one. He repeated the maneuver on the second window and then he came to the one he wanted.
It was partially opened. He stared into the gloom inside.
"Jonny?" he whispered. "Jonny Phillips?"
He heard someone sit up in bed, but he couldn't see far enough into the room to tell whom it was.
"Who is it?" came a sleepy young voice.
"Bartolomeo... Father Bartolomeo. Don't make a sound."
Pushing with his toes on the ledge, he eased the window up. He grasped the sill and was about to boost himself up and into the room when suddenly the beam of a flashlight burst into his eyes. Dimly he saw the great ugly face of the woman before him, smelled her fetid body odor, and heard her Sicilian oath. At the same time he felt the ledge and drain give way under his feet. He clung to the windowsill with desperate fingers, but now the woman was beating on his hands with the flashlight. He let go with his right hand, shot it up, and grabbed her heavy silver necklace by the crucifix and jerked her head down pinning it to the sill. Then, holding her more or less immobile, he managed to sling one of his legs over the sill. She dropped the flashlight and her hands grabbed him by the neck and tried to push him back out the window. He struck her once, hard, on the temple, and then again, and at last she fell back into the room, unconscious. He hauled himself in through the window and sprawled on the floor, panting.
His breath came in short gasps and his mind was in upheaval; more violence, and they still weren't near safety! He tried to get up.
"Are you all right, Father?” Asked Jonny. By the beam of the flashlight on the floor next to the hulk of the woman, Bartolomeo could see, standing over him, the handsome features of the tousle-headed boy in pajamas. He held his hand out to the priest to help him up.
“I'm fine” whispered Bartolomeo. But he could hear the clumping footsteps of the two guards already coming up the stairs. He struggled to his feet.
Where to go? He went to the window and looked down. It was too long a drop. But then he saw a remarkable sight: a table moving along the side of the house—the refectory table from the dining room. Under it, turtle like, was Patrick Furst. He stopped under the window, positioned the table, and then scrambled up on its top.
Andrea di Grazia sat in his car and watched the two cardinals run down the driveway in the moonlight like a pair of thieves. Although it wasn't an official police car, Andrea had indulged in the luxury of two-way radio equipment, and he called back to the police station.
"Lori... slightly interesting situation here. I'd like you to check out who owns a big villa here in Calese." He went on to give the location.
"Might take a little while,” Lori said.
"Like about five minutes, I trust.”
It was five minutes when Lori called back.
"Belongs to a cardinal. Cardinal Tobin. It's his summer residence."
“Try calling the good cardinal in Rome
In a few minutes, Lori came on the radio. "Yes, he was there. I felt like a fool. I said, ‘This is the telephone company,' and he said, 'This is Cardinal Tobin,' and I said, ‘Just checking, sir,' and he said, 'Fine,' and that was about it.''
“Okay, Lori thanks. I ‘m going in the villa for a little look.”
"Keep in touch."
"Sure. I'll write you regularly.”
"Seriously, sir, I could dispatch a squad car.”
"What's to fear? A couple of cardinals?"
"You were a cardinal, sir, when you nailed that hijacker on the plane."
"Right, Lori, but that was a disguise. Leave this baby to me—it could be nothing more than a routine matter."
"Right you are, sir. You're the big fish."
Andrea chuckled under his breath. A piece of cake compared to the hijacking job."
"Quick, Jonny!" cried Bartolomeo. "Sit on the ledge!"
The guards were pounding on the locked door.
"Nina! Nina! What's happening? Open the door!" They began throwing their weight against it.
The cardinal took Jonny's hand in his and lowered the child down to Patrick's arms. Then he swung his legs over the sill, hung by his fingers until he felt Patrick's strong hands. Then he let go and dropped to the table.
"You take the boy," said Patrick. "I'll lead them off the trail!"
Andrea suddenly heard a commotion from the house as he approached the front door. He saw three figures—the two cardinals and a boy—running quietly across the flowerbeds and down the driveway, and he heard shouts from inside. The front door burst open and two men ran out.
"Stop! I'm police!" shouted Andrea. But the barrel-chested man in the lead ran straight at Andrea with his fist clenched. The policeman crouched, and when the man started to swing, Andrea ducked to the side and lashed out with his foot and caught the man in the groin with a powerful kick. The guard howled and dropped to the ground, clutching himself. The second man drew his pistol, but before he could aim, Andrea was on him with a slashing chop with the side of his hand to the other man's arm. The gun flew to the ground, and with an oath, the man clutched his wrist.
"Hold it there!" Andrea commanded drawing his own weapon. He was crouching down to pick up the other pistol, and didn't see the husky Sicilian woman come up behind him fast with an ax. She swung and hit him on the temple with the blunt end of it and he went down hard and without a sound.
"Hang on, Jonny!" whispered Bartolomeo, holding the boy by the hand. They raced away from the house, down the moonlit driveway between the cypresses. When they came to the end of it, they could already hear the guards' car being started.
"Barto," panted Patrick, “I’ll be the fox. Give me five minutes' start. I'll give them a chase they'll never forget!"
"You always were the best driver in Brooklyn , Georgie!"
"Wait here with the boy for just a few minutes. They won't see your car. Then you can take him on into Rome
Impulsively, Bartolomeo threw his arms around his friend.
"Patrick—Georgie—forgive me!"
"For what, Archbishop Bartolomeo?"
"For doubting your faith and your love, Cardinal Patricio." — Patrick's smile could be see in the moonlight, and he said, "We'd better get going, Barto," for they could hear the car coming. Patrick sprinted to the right; Bartolomeo and Jonny ran to the left.
A car skidded out of the driveway and Bartolomeo hit the ground on the side of the road, pulling Jonny down with him. They lay motionless in the soft grass, watching as Patrick switched on his headlights and shot off with a squeal of tires. The guards' car swerved after it, careening around the corner.
It worked! God bless Georgie! God keep Georgie!
He looked over at the boy. The child was calm. What a fine boy this son of Taylor Phillips was.
"It's okay now, Jonny," said Father Bartolomeo as he stood up and they walked to the car and got in. While they sat for a few minutes to give Patrick the start he'd requested, Bartolomeo said, "We'll be heading for Rome
As Father Bartolomeo turned on the lights and started the car, he saw the woman running straight toward them.
“Father!” yelled Jonny. “It’s her!”
And then it was as though a grenade had gone off.
But it was not a grenade. The explosion was an ax blade crashing through the windshield between Bartolomeo and Jonny, showering them with hundreds of diamonds of glass.
The jagged hole framed the enraged face of the Sicilian woman, her features twisted with fury, blood at the coolers of her mouth from the cardinal's punches.
"Diavolo!" she screamed as she pulled the ax back to aim another blow. Instinctively the priest pushed the accelerator pedal down to the floor. The car shot forward and the woman sprawled over the hood of the car. Then, as it kept moving forward, she slid off with a great scream. Bartolomeo jerked the steering wheel to the right to avoid her, but when he felt the sickening bump of the left tire, he knew he was too late.
Braking to a sudden stop, he started to get out, but no, he could not. The boy's life was in danger. He should administer last rites, but the boy was more important. He looked in the mirror at the woman's lifeless body, a crumpled mound in the moonlight, then gunned the car down the road.
Oh, God! Oh, good God! A life! Another life! his mind wailed.
He was a mile down the road when he found his hands shaking so much, he had to pull over. He turned off the motor and opened the door and vomited onto the asphalt. Then he wiped his mouth on his sleeve and dropped his face into his fingers.
There was a moment of silence, then the boy's voice, quavering, said, "Father Bartolomeo, you couldn't help it! She was trying to kill us!"
The cardinal looked at the child and put his arm around him and hugged him. He shook his head and stared out into the night as he said, "A man of the cloth, killing someone! What would Christ have done in the same situation?"
"I don't know," whispered Jonny. "Can't you ask Him?"
Bartolomeo managed a weak smile. "Not a bad idea, Jonny."
He turned the key in the ignition. "We'd better get you back before those maniacs realize they've been fooled."
1
Cardinal Patricio, a dreamer and idealist, perhaps overly zealous in his dedication to the Church, was a superb driver. And he knew every turn, curve, and bend of these roads in this beautiful, moonlit countryside.
He started fast and could easily have lost the guards in their older, sluggish Fiat. It was tempting to gun it, get to Rome
He saw the pursuing car now in his rear mirror. He slowed up a bit. He stayed tantalizingly close for a while, then sped up, leading them farther and farther off the course that Bartolomeo would be taking back to Rome
Suddenly there came the muted pop-of a pistol shot. Patrick felt it thump into the rear of the car. He jammed his foot on the accelerator. Another shot, and he knew by the way the car slumped a bit to the left that the bullet had hit a rear tire. He kept going, but the other car was gaining on him. Then, something else got his attention. It was a police car, its light on top twirling. He skidded to a stop and jammed his hand down on the horn. But the car kept going, obviously on some other mission.
The police car was soon out of sight, and Patrick started off again with a jerk, but the guards' car was on him. One of the men leaned out the window and fired three shots at a front tire. The car slued from side to side. Patrick fought to keep it straight, expertly turning the wheel as the vehicle wobbled along at high speed. Then came another shot and the car skidded off the road, spun once, and slammed into a tree.
Patrick yanked the door open, jumped out, and lurched off toward the woods, holding his left arm with his right hand. Both guards got out of the car and followed him with drawn pistols.
"Lord," breathed Patrick as he ran, "let me make it to that clump of trees."
As he reached the trees, he quickly crouched down behind a fallen log. The men approached warily.
"Keep coming, you devils, keep coming" he breathed. Once they got far enough past him, he would race for their car—he prayed that they'd left the keys in the ignition.
He picked up a rock, waited until the dark shadows of the men were deep in the trees, and then hurled it fifty feet from them. When the men heard the crash of the rock in the bushes, they fired, the spits of flame showing bright in the darkness.
And Patrick was up and running back toward the road and the car. He heard one of the men cry out, "There he is!". He heard a shot, but he didn't look around; he just kept running flat out. There was another shot near his feet, but the car was only two yards away now. He lunged and his hand was on the door handle when he felt the bullet strike his back. His hand slid down the car door. He sagged forward and hugged the ground dizzily as more shots came and the world went black.
The guards ran to the fallen figure, turned him over, and pointed a flashlight at his face.
"Oh, my God!" breathed one when he saw who the dying man was.
Cardinal Tobin, dressed in his expensive silk pajamas, was awakened by the phone. He listened silently, but his eyes narrowed. When the caller had finished, the cardinal merely spat out, "Fools! How did you manage to let this happen?"
He could guess who the other man in the rescue mission had been, and he was worried.
"Give me time to finish, Your Eminence!"
"I have no time for fools."
"We have another problem, Your Eminence. We have here a policeman."
"What?"
"We have a policeman here. He's down in the cellar, tied up. What shall we—"
A policeman! At the villa! Obviously that could be connected to that phony call he'd received from the "telephone company".
"What did he see?"
"I guess...well..."
"He saw something?"
"Well, Your Eminence*—"
"Our guest? Did he see him?"
"Perhaps."
"Perhaps? You know he did!"
"Perhaps, Your Eminence."
"Who is he?"
"Di Grazia, Your Eminence."
Andrea di Grazia! That was the one who'd achieved a measure of fame through impersonating a cardinal in the hijacking case. Bad enough, any policeman—but di Grazia! '
"Is he injured?"
"Yes, Your Eminence."
"Is he conscious?"
"Barely, Your Eminence."
"Has he said anything?"
"Only moans, Sir."
"That's all?"
"That's all so far, Your Eminence. What are we... you know... what do we do with him?"
Everything would collapse if this policeman were to walk out of the villa.
Cardinal Tobin's voice was cool and steely. "I shall pray for this man."
Then he hung up the phone.
The guard understood. He went to the kitchen, opened a drawer, and took out a sharp knife.
Cardinal Tobin went to his small office in his apartment and flipped through his black notebook. Only a small tapestry marred the room's plainness, plus a large brass crucifix on his desk. He found the number and placed a call to Thessaloniki
An American voice answered.
"Melnick? Cardinal Tobin here. I think we may have a bit more responsibility for you to assume, but we know that you're most capable. Tell me, how are things there? Have you seen Mrs. Phillips?"
Melnick hesitated, then said, "Well, no, not really. She's been staying in her room, having her meals sent in."
Tobin said “That’s understandable. She wants to be near the phone to get word about—well actually that’s why you'll have more to do. You see, we've lost our bargaining position at this end."
"Lost the—"
"Lost our bargaining position!" Tobin pronounced the words carefully to remind Melnick to watch what he said.
"I get it."
"Melnick," Tobin went on, "you're sure she's still there? She hasn't left?"
"Positive. She hasn't come down from her room once. And we've checked the car every hour. Still there. It was still there five minutes ago."
"That's good. You're doing a fine job. Yes, by all means, keep an eye on the car.”
"License plate and all. Can't miss it."
"Good. And you understand, I will let you know exactly when. We have the usual arrangements with American Express for your payments. God bless you."
Tobin hung up and, looking up another number, dialed again.
"Signor Agnelli?" His tone was fawning and humble.
"Cardinal Tobin here. We know how generous you've been in the past, and it pains us to have to come again to you with our red hats in hand. But we have urgent need of thirty thousand dollars. Yes, sir, it is for a special disaster fund. Yes. In Brazil Brazil Saint Paul
Although he sounded serene and confident on the phone, Tobin was beginning to feel the knot of panic high in his stomach. Patrick, dead on a road not far from his home! There would be an investigation. He had lost the Phillips boy, but that was all right for the moment, since no one—or almost no one—knew where the boy's mother was. Unless...
Of course, she could have disobeyed orders and orders and telephoned Bartolomeo. Of course! That was what had happened! How else would Bartolomeo have known about the boy? It was Bartolomeo and he alone who had managed to mess up everything! And unfortunately, he was the Pope's darling and in a new position of power.
He sighed. Then he opened a lower drawer in his desk and extracted a pistol. From another drawer he took out a silencer and fitted it on the barrel. Then he turned off the light and went out.
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