A Season for the Dead

Twenty-Eight

The apartment they gave him was on the third floor of a poky residential building adjoining the Vatican Library. It was unfit for a junior clerk, let alone a cardinal. That it was available at all was significant. Accommodation did not just materialize out of thin air in the Vatican. This was a preordained punishment by the state, one that must have been planned weeks, if not months, before. The perfidy of Neri and Aitcheson was just part of the act. Perhaps Neri had worked together with someone on the political side. There was no way of knowing.

Only one plain fact consoled Michael Denney: They could never abandon him altogether. If he was handed over to the Italian police he could incriminate any number of men in Europe and America. Three Italian cabinet ministers were deeply in his debt. The European Commission was full of his placements. He counted Lloyds’s names and members of the New York Stock Exchange among those who had, in the good times, been the grateful recipients of any number of generous gestures, from the provision of company for the night to a well-placed inside tip. These were all items he would willingly have traded over the past few months as he attempted to buy safe passage out of the Vatican by any number of different means.

It was a disappointment that he had failed, but the power of these weapons remained undiminished. He was grateful too that he had declined Neri’s whispered hints that the mob could find a way out for him. With hindsight, placing himself in the hands of Neri’s friends could have proved the most dangerous option of all. Now they would all wait, hoping he would die of boredom perhaps, or take a gun and put it to his temple, solving the problem for everybody. It was a poor reward for a lifetime’s service.

Nevertheless, Denney was a practical man. He could appreciate their logic. Trying to rebuild a new Banca Lombardia from the ashes was a desperate venture and one which, in all honesty, was more designed to elicit his own freedom than enrich anyone he could persuade to come along for the ride.

Denney had known the risks and the costs from the beginning. Thirty years ago he had changed, from being a loyal and caring servant of the Church to an agent of the Vatican state, part diplomat, part financier. The three-cornered red biretta of his position soon began to gather dust in the closet. Someone had to do this, he reasoned.

The Church was a family, but the Vatican was a nation. Denney knew from the start that it needed to be defended. Over the years, as he became more worldly, he came to appreciate too that the city-state needed to safeguard its interests, to accrue wealth, and, in the final analysis, to deal with the Devil when necessary. He had come to believe that there was no room for sentiment or misplaced ethics. He never once asked himself whether the young Michael Denney would have thought otherwise. Secular matters transformed him into a secular man.

He was not reckless. When he guided Banca Lombardia by pulling Crespi’s strings, he had never directed money straight into the coffers of crooks. There was always a circuitous route, one which allowed him to feign ignorance of the ultimate destination. That, at least, was the idea. Now he knew better.

He had become a material man. He had taken up the reins of commerce and come to understand that there were, on occasion, gray areas between what was legitimate and what was not. He had discovered too another side to himself, that his spare, ascetic looks turned the heads of women who, from time to time, offered relief from the stresses of his chosen career.

If, in the end, the venture was a success, any peccadilloes would soon be forgotten. When the numbers turned wrong, when scapegoats were sought, it was different. Had three key investments—two in Latin America and one with Russian partners in Spain—delivered the profits he expected, Cardinal Michael Denney knew he would now be a fêted member of the Vatican hierarchy, expecting further promotion.

But the numbers were already looking sour on the day he watched, shell-shocked, as those two planes plummeted into the World Trade Center. The risks were cruelly balanced in the worst possible directions: technology, which was already suffering; some emerging East European economies; and the supposed safe haven of reinsurance.

The markets and the stuttering global economy cheated him of his prize. The small fish down the food chain began to complain.

Lombardia was forced to suspend trading. Then the police and, eventually, the FBI began to take an interest, started to peer through the complex entanglement of financial records—shell companies, obscure trust funds, phony bank accounts—that stretched around the world.

There were rumors about his personal life. No one regarded him as a priest anymore, but the office of cardinal still belonged to the Church. The hint of affairs and the certain knowledge that he loved wine and fine restaurants were matters which bore little weight in the good times. When excuses were sought, they became ammunition in his downfall. Once, he received invitations to some of the most elite dining rooms in Rome, where he was a welcome guest who would not always return to his own bed at the end of the evening. Once, he was on first-name terms with the finance ministers of several western nations. A nod from Denney, an expression of interest, could breathe life into a venture struggling to raise capital. He had power and influence and reputation.

Then, in a brief year it was gone, accompanied by a whirlwind of vile rumor. Now he was a friendless prisoner trapped inside the tiny, close community of the Vatican, knowing his life would be in jeopardy if he stepped beyond its walls. From this point on, it would be a struggle to get even the smallest favor—a meal sent in from a restaurant, a few cleaning trucks to sweep away the media mob from outside a friend’s door.

The apartment had a single bedroom, a tiny living room, and a bathroom with a rusty cubicle shower. An ancient gas hot plate stood in the corner of the main room, perched above a miniature fridge. The place overlooked a dead, gray courtyard full of trash bins. The airconditioning rattled and wheezed in the cruel August heat and still did little to ameliorate the temperature. Without asking, they had moved in some of his possessions: clothes, books, a handful of paintings. Perhaps Hanrahan hoped it would deaden the blow. The oil canvases seemed out of place inside these meager quarters. Denney, who had once loved art, thought he might never look at them again. He was sixty-two and in reasonable health, though mentally he increasingly found himself prone to fits of doubt and depression. He should have known what was coming. No one, that week, had addressed him as “Your Eminence,” an honor to which he was still entitled. No one but Brendan Hanrahan, and Denney found little comfort in that.

Denney knew the stocky Irishman only too well. Hanrahan belonged in prison as much as any of them. Somehow he possessed the skill and foresight to see the storm clouds gathering long before Denney had—and failed to pass the message on. Hanrahan was a survivor and, in a way, still loyal to an extent, perhaps for the most basic, selfish reasons. It was in his interest to see that Michael Denney remained out of the hands of the police. That doubtless explained his request for a private meeting.

“Maybe.” Denney was a slender, fit man with not an ounce of flab.

Now his once handsome face was lined by worry and age. He wore a gray suit with no ecclesiastical trappings. He had long ago given up hope of resuming a role in the Church in Italy. He would never wear the cloth again until he was free of Europe, anonymous, with a new name, somewhere near home in Boston perhaps, where a man might disappear for a while and learn how to make others forgive. There was no redemption for Denney in the Vatican. If he were to recover himself, that would have to occur elsewhere, in the close Catholic neighborhoods of his youth.

Denney looked at his watch. A few minutes later there was a knock on his door.

Punctual as ever, Hanrahan let himself in and bowed. “Your Eminence.”

“I don’t know why you bother with that, Brendan. No one else does anymore.”

“That says more about them than it does about you.”

“Well, Brendan. These are interesting times. Is there news?”

His visitor sat down in the chair opposite the sofa. From outside the window came the noise of drilling. One of the workmen had told Denney why. They were improving these modest apartments, one by one. The work, and the racket, would go on for months.

“The woman politician,” Hanrahan said. “Vaccarini. The one who voted for you on the committee. She’s been murdered.”

Denney’s face fell. He looked grief-stricken. “Good God, man. What are the police doing?”

“Looking for him. He tried to murder one of theirs. Then he killed her. At his home. The house we gave him, if you recall.”

The Cardinal was aghast. “Who?”

“Please,” Hanrahan said harshly. “If I’m to help, we must be frank with each other. There can be no mistake anymore. I warned you. I said—”

“I know what you said!”

Hanrahan waited for him to recover his composure.

“I’m sorry,” Denney groaned after a while. “You’re absolutely certain of this?”

“It has to be. The police are in the place. Fosse is gone. They’ve no idea where. Neither have I. Do you?”

Denney leaned forward and folded his hands on his lap, rocking rhythmically on his chair—a habit he had more and more these days and one which emphasized his age. “Of course not. Where can he be, for God’s sake? He’s not a man of the world, is he?”

Hanrahan considered his reply. “I wouldn’t say that. I took a very good look at Fosse’s file. He did many interesting things before he worked here. He was attached to the Italian Olympic squad for a while and seems to have been a proficient athlete. He was chaplain to the National Theater in Palermo and even persuaded them to let him appear in a Pirandello play while he was there. Not bad for a farm boy from Sicily.”

“So what?” Denney demanded.

“So he sounds pretty resourceful to me. Educated beyond his standing too. And he seems to have a very clear idea of what he wants, what his plan is.”

Denney knew where this was leading. “Which winds up with me? Is that what you’re saying?”

Hanrahan frowned. He looked around the apartment, as if he were noting how humble, how undesirable, it was. “I don’t know. It’s possible.”

“Why would he want to kill me, Brendan? Aren’t there enough people with that in mind already? Do you have any reason for Fosse’s interest in the matter?”

Hanrahan slid a pack of cigars out of his pocket and lit one, letting the stink waft over into Denney’s face. “Something to do with the Farnese woman, perhaps? I don’t expect you to give me details of your own personal life, but I see the logs. I know who comes and goes in this building. Fosse has a grudge. He is, I think, a little like a tinderbox. It takes very little to spark the flames and when they’re alight, well…”

Hanrahan waited for a response. None came.

“This is not, Your Eminence, a complete surprise now, is it? There was plenty of trouble before. He’s got quite a history. That matter here which necessitated his removal from your staff. What was it exactly? I was away at the time and the records are unclear.”

“Does it matter?”

“Perhaps.”

“He was overfond of the wrong kind of women. He was warned many times. He ignored those warnings. It’s not an uncommon fault.”

Hanrahan frowned. “So we rewarded him with a rather fine home and a new job. Even though he did, I believe, threaten you publicly at the time. Your dismissal of him was, I hear, rather fierce.”

Denney rocked from side to side. “I lost my temper. I’d put my trust in the young fool. He betrayed it. So he was upset at losing his post? He never mentioned Sara Farnese to me. Fosse was a troubled priest deserving of sympathy. I’ve no idea why he’s behaving like this now.”

Hanrahan stared at his fingernails in silence.

“Do you think he could get in here?” Denney asked. “Don’t we pay you people for protection to save us from that kind of trouble?”

“Of course you do. And you get it. But Fosse is… different somehow.

He’s not an ordinary priest. He’s not an ordinary murderer either.

He has reasons, motivations, I can’t begin to understand. Or rather, ones which I lack the information to clarify.”

Hanrahan paused to give his revelation some weight. He had only just rung off the phone with Falcone and even he was shocked by some of the detail. “He beheaded Alicia Vaccarini. Quite extraordinary. I know for a fact he’s seen files on everyone connected with your… ventures too. Names, addresses. Details of meetings. There were photographs in that place of his. Extraordinary photographs. You have to wonder about their purpose.”

Denney’s sallow face turned the color of granite. “Why are you telling me this? Do you think I scare that easily?”

“No. But I think you need to know what kind of game we’re in now. What we’re up against. You’ve fallen from grace, Michael, and what’s done is done. You can never go back. That charade you played yesterday can never be repeated.”

Denney cast him an accusing glare. “And you knew all along it wouldn’t work?”

“I hoped against hope. One does in these circumstances. I try to help, Michael.”

“Then get me safe passage out of here. Fix it and I’ll go.”

“To America? You think it’s safe there? The FBI would meet you at the plane.”

“I’ve friends,” Denney reminded him. “People in Washington who can keep those hoods in their place. The FBI won’t even call. Don’t forget who I am, Brendan.”

“Who you were, Michael. These are changing times. I wish I could help. I’ve tried. Believe me.”

“Try harder.”

The Irishman held his big hands open. “With what?”

Denney recognized the move. “What are you asking for?”

“Leverage. Something I can bargain with.”

“Such as what?”

“The complete file on Fosse. Some information on his background. People he might turn to in Rome. I have most of that already, though I’m sure there are some details you can add. He worked for you, after all. They will want to know why you fired him. And what happened after that.”

Denney grimaced. “You think that’s going to work? I’ve paid close to two million bucks out of my own pocket in bribes these last six months. I’ve sweetened politicians to get my way out of here, I’ve done things I never thought I’d even consider. Some of them make my skin crawl. None of it worked. You think they’ll do this for a file?”

Hanrahan’s blue eyes flashed in anger. “Do you have a better idea? I’m looking for solutions. No one else is.”

“Sure, sure,” Denney grunted, trying to calm himself down. He didn’t have many friends left. He needed this unfeeling, slippery Irishman.

“The truth is,” Hanrahan continued, “I don’t know of any other options right now. Let me make it clear too that even if this succeeds I doubt you’ll get this open one-way ticket you fancy. The best we can hope for is that they’ll turn aside just long enough to get you out to the airport. That’s all I need.”

Denney stared at him, astonished. “Are you serious? You think I can just hop into the nearest cab? You heard Neri. That psychopath would probably do the job himself. You know the kind of people out there. They make Gino Fosse look like an amateur. It’s impossible. Get me some quiet escort all the way to the States. I don’t intend to walk naked beyond those walls.”

Hanrahan acted offended. “We’d have people to look after you to the airport. We’re not complete incompetents.”

“I never suggested you were.”

“No? Well, anyway… If you want the police to be your bodyguards, then think again.” Hanrahan cast his eyes around the apartment again, pausing at the paintings, which seemed to amuse him. “Consider your position, Michael. Think about what you’ve become. For that kind of treatment you need friends. You’ve none. Except me.”

“Thanks,” the Cardinal said with bitterness.

“I am trying to put this into some perspective. Nothing more.”

“No friends? We’ll see about that. Get Falcone in. He’ll still talk to me.”

Hanrahan scowled. “No. I’ve already spoken to Falcone. He won’t deal anymore, not in person. He won’t come anywhere near you unless he has a set of handcuffs ready. All the favors have been called in. All the phone calls go unreturned. Everyone can smell failure on you, Michael. Maybe they can smell death. No one wants to be touched by that stink.”

“Don’t try to make me the scapegoat here, Brendan. Don’t let your masters try that trick either. I wasn’t in this alone. I wouldn’t be the only one to suffer if they throw me to the wolves.”

Hanrahan took a deep breath, then issued a disappointed sigh. “Now, that, Your Eminence, is the kind of stupid talk I don’t ever want to hear. That is the kind of talk that makes me think I’m wasting my time with you, Michael. That perhaps I’d be better off leaving you to rot in this dump, just waiting for the day you can’t stand it any longer. Then what do you do? Put on an 'I Love Rome’ T-shirt and hope you can mingle with the tourists until you get to Fiumicino? Is that really what you think? Because if it is, I have news. You’d be dead before you even got on the bus. Maybe it would be some of those people who think you owe them money. Maybe it would be Gino Fosse for whatever reasons he feels he has. Personally, I’d prefer the former.

It’s just a gun, that’s all. Gino… well, he’s skinned a man, he’s drowned a man, he’s beheaded this woman you thought was in your pocket. What’s Fosse got saved for you, Michael? Is he going to nail you to a cross? Or has he been in that church just down the road from his apartment? You know, the round one with all those wonderful martyrdoms on the wall? He must have been there. Where else would he get these ideas?“

“From living,” Denney grumbled. “From being a part of this nightmare.”

“Now, that I don’t believe,” Hanrahan replied quietly. “Or perhaps…” He considered the question carefully. “Perhaps that’s what Gino Fosse is trying to tell us. That by appreciating our mortality we inform these brief lives with a little perspective. It’s an interesting intellectual point, I agree, but I’d rather avoid a direct involvement in the rhetoric. Fosse makes his case in a such a forceful way. Besides”—he paused over his words, determined to express himself precisely—“rain or shine it’s always a season for the dead, isn’t it? Only a fool forgets that. I’ve no time for fools, Michael. Nor have you.”

In the stifling air of the tiny apartment, Denney shivered. He was scared, Hanrahan could see that. But what the Irishman didn’t know was that there were much bigger things to be frightened of. Denney was still a Catholic at heart. The faith had never deserted him entirely. There was a judgment coming, one in which his transgressions would no longer be hidden. He had to escape. In America it was possible he could find the courage to open his heart fully in the confessional. In America he could become another person.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Meet one of Falcone’s colleagues. A junior one, who thinks very highly of himself, with very little reason. Talk to him. Offer the files on Fosse. Then leave the rest to me. I will try to negotiate a price that gets you out of here. Then keep your head down and pray.”

Denney nodded. “If that’s what you want. I suppose I have no choice.”

“None,” Hanrahan agreed.

“Tell me, Brendan. How many more names are on his list?”

The question surprised Hanrahan. “A few, or so I’ve heard. Sara Farnese seems to have been an active woman, if that’s the right word. You won’t see her again, will you? That would make my life too difficult. I can’t protect you against yourself.”

“No,” he agreed softly. “I won’t.”

“Good. This is an opportunity. We mustn’t waste it. I don’t know if another will arise.”

Denney looked up at him, desperate. “The police have these names from her? They’ll warn them. The others. I don’t want any more deaths on my conscience.”

Hanrahan glowered at him from the chair opposite. He made no effort to disguise his contempt.

“I’ve warned the ones who want to listen myself. For what it’s worth.”

Denney felt like shrieking. “It has to be worth something, Brendan. For pity’s sake.”

Hanrahan got up, stretched lazily and cast him one last, backward glance. “Spare me your concern, please. We both know this is about you. If you run, Michael, it all comes to an end in any case. Can’t you see that’s what he’s doing? He’s sending you a message. He’s saying he’ll go on killing until you flee and give him a chance to kill you. If he finds you on the way, then that’s okay with him. If you manage to escape, then it’s finished anyway. He has no more reason to do what he’s doing. Either the police catch him or he saves up for the fare to Boston or wherever you plan to run and hide. End of story. And no more corpses in Rome.”

Denney closed his eyes, wishing he couldn’t hear any of this.

“Don’t talk to me about your conscience. Don’t even dare.”

Hanrahan’s voice rang off the walls of the meager apartment. There was a kind of judgment there, one which Denney found hard to bear.

“This is not about conscience. It’s about courage. It could be ended so easily. So would you care to take a walk with me now, Your Eminence? It’s a fair day, a hot one, true, but I wouldn’t be anywhere else except Rome on an August morning like this. There’re not so many tourists. There’s a breeze coming down the Tiber. We could get out from behind these walls. We could stand in the shadow of the castle. We could sit on the street and take coffee. I could buy you lunch in that old restaurant in Trastevere, the one where we used to sit in the garden, the one where the lamb’s so good you just pick it up and eat it with your fingers. Then we could walk, anywhere we felt like, and wait to see what happens.”

Denney heard the Irishman cross the room, felt his hand on his shoulder.

“Well, Michael,” Hanrahan demanded, “will you be coming out with me or won’t you?”

“Get the hell out of here,” Denney snarled.

“I’ll arrange for this kid to call at four.” He patted Denney on the head, hard. “I take it you have no conflicting appointments?”

Denney said nothing.

“Good. And I’ll call beforehand. You’ll say what I tell you to. Nothing more, nothing less. I’m putting in a lot of work on your behalf, Your Eminence. I’d hate to see it fucked up just because you can’t remember your lines.”