Day Of Confession

65

'Chiasso…' Hercules said as they moved away from Milan and up the A9 Autostrada in heavy summer traffic, Harry at the wheel of the dark gray Fiat Adrianna had left parked across from the railroad terminal in Rome, the keys tossed under the left rear wheel as she'd promised.

Harry didn't respond. His eyes were on the road in front of him, his thoughts focused on getting to the city of Como, where he was to meet Adrianna; and then, somehow, across the lake to the town of Bellagio, where Danny presumably was.

'Chiasso,' he heard Hercules say again, and he looked over abruptly to see the dwarf staring at him.

'What the hell are you talking about?'

'Did I help you get this far, Mr Harry? Find your way out of Rome. Onto the Autostrada. Making you go north when you wanted to go south… Without Hercules you would be coming up on Sicily, not Como.'

'You were magnificent. I owe you everything I am today. But I still don't know what the hell you're talking about.'

Harry suddenly cut right and in behind a fast-moving Mercedes. The drive was taking much too long.

'Chiasso is on the Swiss border… I would like you to take me there. It's why I came.'

'So that I would drive you to Switzerland?' Harry was incredulous.

'I am wanted for murder, Mr Harry…'

'So am I.'

'But I cannot put on the clothes of a priest and pass for someone else. Nor does a dwarf travel by bus or train unnoticed.'

'But he could by private car.'

Hercules smiled conspiratorially. 'None had been available until now…'

Harry glared at him. 'Hercules, this is not exactly a pleasure tour. I'm not on vacation.'

'No, you are trying to get to your brother. And so are the police. On the other hand, Chiasso is hardly much farther than Como. I get out, you turn around and go back. Nothing to it.'

'What if I said no?'

Hercules rose up indignantly. 'Then you would be a man whose word cannot be trusted. When I gave you those clothes, I asked you to help me. You said, "I will do the best I can. I promise you."'

'I meant with the law and in Rome.'

'Under the circumstances I think it would be more sensible for me to take the help now, Mr Harry. An extra twenty minutes out of your life.'

'Twenty minutes…'

'Then we are even.'

'All right, then we're even.'

Very shortly afterward they passed the Como exit, and their agreement became moot. Three miles south of Chiasso the traffic slowed, narrowing ahead into one lane. Then it stopped. And Harry and Hercules stared into an endless succession of brake lights. Then, in the distance, they saw them. Flak-jacketed, Uzi-carrying policemen walking slowly toward them in the traffic, looking into each vehicle they passed.

'Turn around, Mr Harry. Quick!'

Harry backed up a few feet, then slammed the Fiat into drive and, with a sharp squeal of tires, swung it in a sharp U-turn, accelerating back the way they had come.

'What the hell was that?' Harry glanced in the mirror.

Hercules said nothing, instead punching on the car's radio. A scan of stations found a newscaster rattling in Italian. The border at Chiasso was a massive police checkpoint, Hercules translated. Every vehicle was being turned inside out in the hunt for the fugitive priest, Father Daniel Addison, who had somehow eluded the police at Bellagio and was thought to be attempting a border crossing into Switzerland.

'Eluded them?' Harry turned to look at Hercules. 'Does that mean somebody actually saw him?'

'They didn't say, Mr Harry…'