Tunnel Vision

11

Satan’s doorman lived in a large Tudor home on Greendale Road in Falmouth on Cape Cod. Roman Pace sat in his car on a small parallel street beside a vacant lot that allowed a clear view of the rear of the house.

Roman never met those who hired him—just anonymous telephone calls and cash delivered to a drop spot. It was a good arrangement, since anonymity kept things discreet and simple without the chance of compromise. Roman had no idea if the guy on the other side of the confessional booth was a priest, a bishop, or Friar Tuck. But he wasn’t Father Timothy Callahan. And after a week it made no difference, because a part of Roman began to believe that he was, in fact, in service to God. The same part that began to believe that God Himself had directed Roman to that confessional booth in the first place.

Your chance to reinstate your soul with God.

It was a promise that he latched on to.

The rear end of a detached garage had a window that allowed a view of the interior, not that he cared about the contents. The garage door was open, and twenty minutes ago the headlights of a white Lexus had lit up the window as the owner pulled in and then entered the house through the rear door. The neighbors looked to be away, maybe because it was Easter weekend.

After fifteen minutes, Roman exited his rental and walked to the front of the house. Lights burned on the first floor and in one bedroom room on the second. The entrance was flanked with leaded windows through which he could see a foyer, but no movement. He rang the doorbell, and an outside light went on. A moment later, an old guy opened the door. “Sorry to disturb you, but are you Dr. Thomas Pomeroy?”

“Yes.”

He was listed as seventy-one and looked it. His face was lean and pale, with loose flesh under the chin. He had dark, baggy eyes and receding gray hair. He was dressed in chinos and a long-sleeved T-shirt. His expression projected annoyance. “My name is Roman Pace, and I’ve got a message from Thomas Infantino.”

“Who?”

“Thomas Infantino.” And with his left hand, Roman handed Pomeroy a stiff manila envelope with his name printed in bold letters. As Pomeroy took the envelope, Roman pulled a pistol from his jacket and pressed it against Pomeroy’s middle. “I think we best discuss this inside.”

“W-what are you doing?”

“Inside, and not a peep.” Pomeroy’s face froze in shock and horror, but he backed into the foyer, and Roman closed the door behind him.

“What do you want? Who are you?”

“I’ll ask the questions.”

A red Oriental carpet filled the foyer, which was lit by a glass chandelier. A set of dark stairs ran up to the second landing, where a light burned in the room at the top right. “Is anyone else in the house?”

“No.”

“Your wife?”

“My wife is dead.”

This was true, and his daughter lived in Arizona, and he had no other children according to the spec sheet. “Other relatives? Live-in housekeeper?”

“N-no. I’m alone. Who are you? You want money? I can give you some.” He made a move toward the staircase.

But Roman stopped him. “I don’t want your money.” He nudged the man into the living room—a space with dark-wood bookshelves, a black baby grand piano, and a maroon leather sofa and matching chairs—and directed Pomeroy to the sofa.

Pomeroy did as he was told, his face ashen with terror. Roman sat on the leather chair facing him. “I want you to tell me stuff,” he said. “And if I like your answer, I’ll make this easy for you.”

Pomeroy looked into the stolid eye of the Beretta. “Okay, but please don’t—”

Roman raised his finger. “Shhh. Cooperate, and nobody’ll get hurt. Okay?”

“Okay, okay.”

“Are you a religious man, Dr. Pomeroy?”

“What?”

“I asked, are you a religious man?”

Pomeroy hesitated. “No.”

“Have you had any dealings with St. Pius Church in Providence, Rhode Island?”

“No, I’ve never even heard of that.”

“What about the name Timothy Callahan?”

“No.”

“Do you believe in God?”

“No.”

“Okay. Do you believe in Satan?”

Bafflement clouded Pomeroy’s face. “No.”

“Look, you’re a big-time physicist with awards up to here. So how come someone in the Catholic Church wants you dead?”

An involuntary squeal rose from his lungs. “I don’t know. Please don’t kill me. I’ll pay you anything you want.”

According to online sites, Pomeroy was celebrated for solving some problems involving magnetic resonance, resulting in hospital machines that improved the imaging of cancer cells. Apparently it was a big breakthrough, because several news releases announced articles he had coauthored in the Journal of Chemical Physics and elsewhere. Roman grasped the importance of Pomeroy’s work, though he couldn’t imagine why in the eyes of the Catholic Church it was an abomination.

The man continued to beg.

“You have cash in the house?”

“Yes, yes, in a small safe upstairs.”

Roman snapped on a pair of latex gloves. “Let’s go.” He kept the gun to the guy’s back as he followed him up to a bedroom, where he opened the door of a closet. On the floor sat a small safe, the kind you’d find in hotels. “If there’s an alarm trigger, consider yourself dead.”

“No, no alarm up here. Just the back door.”

Roman watched as Pomeroy twirled through the combination, opened the safe, and pulled out four packs of bound fifties and hundreds—$5,000.

Roman took them and put them into his jacket pocket. “Fine. You just bought the rest of your life. Downstairs.”

They walked down the stairs and back into the living room.

“We’re going to make this look like a break-in, so I need to tie you up. I’ll call 911 from the road. Capice?”

“Yes.”

He then bound Pomeroy’s legs together with plastic ties. The same with his wrists, but over his shirt to avoid marks. He put a washcloth across his eyes, then secured it with a small bungee cord. He then had him lie flat on the floor with a sofa pillow under his head.

According to the spec sheet, Pomeroy had a history of arrhythmia and was taking medication for high blood pressure and cholesterol. Actuarial statistics would give him a higher than 70 percent chance of dying by cardiac arrest. That narrowed the options to one.

And that came from a plant that grew four thousand miles south of Cape Cod in the rain forests of the Amazon—curare, a vine whose compound was used by local Indians to poison their arrows and blowgun darts. Also known as tubocurarine chloride, the substance upon injection caused paralysis of skeletal muscles, resulting in respiratory failure and death. With the standard autopsy, no trace of the compound would be detected, and the cause of death would be listed as cardiac arrest.

You’re a warrior of God, a voice whispered in Roman’s head. Like St. Michael. “Okay, lie still.” For a man of 170 pounds, it took about seven minutes. In that time, the victim would remain conscious but incapable of sucking in a breath of air. He would die of asphyxiation. To appear natural, the body could not have any marks of struggle. And because the toxin had to be injected, not even the prick of the needle could be visible on the autopsy table. Special circumstances demanded special strategies.

Roman moved into the next room and filled a syringe with 4cc curare. When he returned, he knelt beside Pomeroy on the couch. “Before I leave, I have a couple of questions. Is there anything in your research that would be a problem to the Catholic Church?”

“No, I told you that.”

“How about any government agency or whatever?”

“No.”

“Any personal enemies or associates?”

“Not that I can think of.”

He could see Pomeroy relax into the expectation that it would be over soon, that Roman would wrap up the break-in scene and leave. In his head, Roman rehearsed the next step. “One more thing…”

“What?”

“Shouldn’t have lost your faith.” In one smooth move, he threw himself full length onto Pomeroy’s body, jamming the needle deep into his left nostril and depressing the syringe with his thumb. Pomeroy’s body jolted under Roman as he let out a thin scream. Roman pulled the needle out of his face while trying to keep his body from bucking him onto the floor. The washcloth and bungee slid off Pomeroy’s face in the thrashing, and Roman did all he could to prevent the man from leaving any telltale bruises for the coroner to ponder.

Because the compound was rated six out of six in toxicity, in less than a minute Pomeroy’s torso and legs stiffened. His eyes bulged like cue balls and his mouth went slack, incapable of sucking in a breath. In seconds he had turned into a warm corpse, his legs giving an occasional twitch and his eyelids settling to slits of jelly.

Roman spread him out on the couch. He removed the tethers and adjusted Pomeroy’s clothing and feet until he looked like a man who had died from a heart attack while reading a magazine. He removed a copy of Time from the coffee table and positioned it on the floor. When he was finished, Roman looked back at the dead man. “So how come you’re Satan’s doorman?” Whatever. Roman did not feel closer to God, just twenty grand richer. He disarmed the rear door and slipped out into the night.

Half an hour later, he pulled into the scenic parking area along Route 6A.

During the day, dozens of fishermen would be perched on the rocks below, casting their lines for stripers. At ten at night, only one diehard kept at it. Motoring down the canal from the waters of Boston Harbor was a long, sleek sailing vessel. One of these days, he would buy himself a piece like that and set course for Bermuda. Roman pulled out the secure cell phone provided him by the guy in the confessional and punched in the number given to him.

A male voice answered with a simple, flat, “Yes?”

“Mission accomplished.”

“Good. And in the manner prescribed?”

The voice sounded like that of Father X. “Yes.”

“We’re very grateful for your service. And so is the Lord God. You’re cleansing your soul and moving closer to eternal life, my brother.”

Roman felt something quicken inside, and it wasn’t the priestly kind of talk that embarrassed him as a kid. “Mean we’re not done?”

“In a few days you’ll hear from us. Thank you, my son.” And the man clicked off.

For a moment, Roman stared at the dead cell phone in disbelief. Then he folded it and slipped it into his jacket pocket. So there was more.

Below, the fisherman reeled in a striper. Working in the lights of the parking lot, he held the line with one hand, netting it with the other and hauling it onto the rocks. It looked under regulation size, twenty-nine inches, but after removing the hook from its mouth, he tossed it into a cooler.

Roman took a swig of his bottled water. As he watched the yacht slide down the dark expanse of the canal, the thought of a second assignment set off a giddy sensation in his gut. Maybe another fifteen grand. And maybe another millennium in paradise.

He looked out over the water, the shore lights on the far bank reflecting off the black surface. He thought about how interesting life had become of late. He raised his eyes to the sky. Above the black eastern horizon, stars began to emerge in the dark as if blown in by the sea. He sucked in the crisp salt air and took in the night. Above the far horizon, he saw a shooting star.

Thank you, God.