Day Of Confession

1

Los Angeles . Thursday, July 2, 9:00 p.m.

The voice on the answering machine had resonated with fear.

''Harry, it's your brother, Danny… I… don't mean to call you like this… after so much time… But… there's… no one else I can talk to… I'm scared, Harry… I don't know what to do… or… what will happen next. God help me. If you 're there, please pick up – Harry, are you there? - I guess not… I'll try to call you back.'

'Dammit.'

Harry Addison hung up the car phone, kept his hand on it, then picked it up again and pushed redial. He heard the digital tones as the numbers redialed automatically. Then there was silence, and then the measured 'buzz, buzz', 'buzz, buzz' of the Italian phone system as the call rang through.

'Come on, Danny, answer…'

After the twelfth ring Harry set the receiver back in its cradle and looked off, the lights of oncoming traffic dancing hypnotically over his face, making him lose track of where he was – in a limousine with his driver on a race to the airport to make the ten o'clock red-eye to New York.

It was nine at night in L.A., six in the morning in Rome. Where would a priest be at six in the morning? An early mass? Maybe that's where he was and why he wasn't answering.

'Harry, it's your brother, Danny… I'm scared… I don't know what to do… God help me.'

'Jesus Christ.' Harry felt helplessness and panic at the same time. Not a word or a note between them in years, and then there was Danny's voice on Harry's answering machine, jumping out suddenly among a string of others. And not just a voice, but someone in grave trouble.

Harry had heard a rustling as though Danny was starting to hang up, but then he had come back on the line and left his phone number, asking Harry to please call if he got in soon. For Harry, soon was moments ago, when he'd picked up the calls from his home machine. But Danny's call had come two hours earlier, at a little after seven California time, just after four in the morning in Rome – what the hell had soon meant to him at that time of day?

Picking up the phone again, Harry dialed his law office in Beverly Hills. There had been an important partners' meeting. People might still be there.

'Joyce, it's Harry. Is Byron-?'

'He just left, Mr Addison. You want me to try his car?'

'Please.'

Harry heard the static as Byron Willis's secretary tried to connect with his car phone.

'I'm sorry, he's not picking up. He said something about dinner. Should I leave word at the house?'

There was a blur of lights, and Harry felt the limo lean as the driver took the cloverleaf off the Ventura Freeway and accelerated into traffic on the San Diego, heading south toward LAX. Take it easy, he thought. Danny could be at mass or at work or out for a walk. Don't start driving yourself or other people crazy when you don't even know what's going on.

'No, never mind. I'm on my way to New York. I'll get him in the morning. Thanks.'

Clicking off, Harry hesitated, then tried Rome once more. He heard the same digital sounds, the same silence, and then the now-familiar 'buzz, buzz', 'buzz, buzz' as the phone rang through. There was still no answer.