Day of Confession (17 page)

42

Still Friday, July, 10. 4:15
P.M
.

ADRIANNA HALL SAT IN HER TINY OFFICE AT the Rome bureau of World News Network watching the Harry Addison video for something like the tenth time, trying to make some sense of it.

She’d spent less than three hours with him—granted, a very passionate and provocative three hours—but in that short time, after all the men she’d known, the one thing she knew about Harry Addison, if she knew nothing else, was that he was not someone who could kill a policeman. Yet the police believed he had, and had his fingerprints on the murder weapon to prove it. She also knew that a Spanish-made Llama pistol recovered from the scene of the Assisi bus explosion was missing from Pio’s car, and the police believed Harry took it as he fled after killing Pio.

Abruptly she put both hands flat on her desk and pushed back in her chair. She didn’t know what the hell to think. Then her phone rang, and for a moment she let it before picking up.

“Mr. Vasko,” her secretary said. He was calling for the third time in the last two hours. He hadn’t left a call-back number before because he was traveling but said he would call back again. And now he was on the phone.

Elmer Vasko was a former professional hockey player and Chicago Blackhawks teammate of her father’s who had later worked with him when he’d coached the Swiss team. In his halcyon days on the ice they’d called him “Moose.” Now he was a gentle giant, a kind of distant uncle she hadn’t seen for years. And here he was in Rome calling her at the worst of all possible times, when an enormous story was on fire and burning all around her.

Adrianna had come back from Croatia early that morning at her own request when news of the Harry Addison story first broke. Going straight to the Questura, she’d arrived at the tail end of Marcello Taglia’s impromptu interview. She’d tried to corner him afterward without success and then looked for Roscani, ending with the same result.

Going home for a shower and quick change of clothes, she’d been drying her hair when the Metro tunnel business happened. She’d gone there on the back of her cameraman’s motor scooter with her hair still wet. But the media, all media, were being kept out of the tunnels and away from the action. After an hour, she’d retreated to the studio to start putting the story together and to watch the Harry Addison video for the first time. And then she’d gone out, and when she came back, there were the Elmer Vasko messages. And now he was calling again. She had no choice but to take it.

“Elmer. Mr. Vasko. How are you?” She tried to sound up and gracious even if she wasn’t. “Mr. Vasko…?”

The phone was silent and she started to hang up when the voice came on.

“I need your help.”

“Oh fuck!” Adrianna felt the breath go out of her.

It was Harry Addison.

HARRY STOOD IN A PHONE BOOTH near a small café across the Piazza della Rotonda from the ancient circular structure that was the Pantheon. By now he had his hat, a black beret bought easily at a corner shop selling hats of all kinds and pulled down to cover the bandage at the top of his forehead. His still-bandaged left hand he kept in his jacket pocket.

“Where are you?” The surprise was gone from Adrianna’s voice.

“I…”

There’d been no way to know if she was back from Croatia, but he’d taken the chance she was. He’d called her because he’d added up his options and realized she was the only one he could call. The only one who would know what was going on and whom he dared trust. But now that he actually had her on the phone, he wasn’t sure if he could trust anyone. She knew the police, relied on her relationship with them for access to stories she might not otherwise have; would she agree to meet him somewhere and then bring the police with her?

“Harry, where
are
you?” Her voice came again, stronger than before.

Again he hesitated. Unsure. The dull ache still in the back of his head, reminding him he wasn’t as alert as he might have been.

“I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.”

A group of schoolgirls suddenly walked past, giggling and joking among themselves. They were loud, and he turned away trying to hear. As he did, he saw two mounted
carabinieri
on horseback slowly crossing the piazza toward him. They were in no hurry, simply on patrol. But still every policeman in the country was on the lookout for him, and he had to take every precaution he possibly could to avoid them. In this case it probably meant staying right where he was until they passed. Turning ever so slightly away from them, he spoke into the phone.

“I didn’t kill Pio.”

“Tell me where you are.”

“I’m scared to death the Italian police are going to kill me.”

“Harry,
where
are you?”

Silence.

“Harry,
you
called me. I assume because you trust me. You don’t know Rome, you don’t know Italian, and if I told you to meet me somewhere, you’d have to ask someone, and that could get you into trouble. If I know where you are, I can come to you. Reasonable?”

The
carabinieri
were closer now. Both young. Both on big white horses. Both with side arms. And they weren’t just on patrol, they were watching the people they passed carefully.

“Police on horseback coming toward me.”

“Harry, for Crissake, where are you?”

“I… don’t…” Turning, he glanced around, trying not to look at the police but to see a street sign, the name of a building, a café, anything that would tell him where he was. Then he saw it. A plaque on the side of a building twenty feet away.

“Something rotunda.”

“Piazza della Rotonda. At the Pantheon?”

“I guess.”

“Big circular building with columns.”

“Yes.”

The
carabinieri
were almost on top of him, their horses moving slowly, their eyes searching the crowd in the piazza, the people at the outdoor cafés surrounding it. Now one officer pulled up and both stopped, only feet away.

“Holy fuck,” Harry breathed.

“What is it?”

“They’re right here. I could touch the horse.”

“Harry, are they looking at you?”

“No.”

“Ignore them. They’ll move on in a minute. When they’re gone, cross the square to the right of the Pantheon. Take any side street and walk two blocks to the Piazza Navona. Near the fountain in the middle are benches. The piazza will be crowded. Pick a bench and I’ll find you there.”

“When?”

“Twenty minutes.”

Harry looked at his watch.

4:32

“Harry?”

“What?”

“Trust me.”

Adrianna clicked off. Harry stayed as he was, the phone in his hand. The police were still there. If he hung up and they saw him, he’d have to leave. If he didn’t hang up, with one end of the line dead, he took the chance the phone company might report it as a phone suddenly out of service, something the police, in their heightened state of awareness, might be looking for. He looked back. And his heart sank.

Two more
carabinieri
on horseback had ridden up and were talking with the others. Four policemen. Only feet away. Slowly he hung up. He couldn’t stay there without making another call, and there was no call to make. He had to do something before one of them looked over and saw him just standing there. And he did. Simply stepped out and walked past them. Moving across the square toward the Pantheon.

One of the
carabinieri
saw him go, even watched him for a moment, then his horse tugged at its bit, and he had to pull him back. When he looked back Harry was gone.

43

ROSCANI ABSENTLY CRUSHED A CIGARETTE into the ashtray in front of him as he read the Italian translation of a fax sent down from Taglia’s office. It was a notification from Special Agent David Harris in the FBI’s Los Angeles office that Byron Willis, a senior partner in Harry Addison’s Beverly Hills law firm, had been shot and killed outside his home the night before by an assailant or assailants unknown. The motive appeared to have been robbery. His wallet, wedding ring, and Rolex watch were missing. Los Angeles homicide detectives were working on the case. An autopsy was pending. Further information would be forthcoming.

Roscani ran a hand over his eyes. What the hell did this mean? Without more information he had no choice but to take the murder as a coincidence. But he couldn’t. It was too close to what was going on. Still, what would be the purpose of killing Harry Addison’s partner? Something he knew about Harry? Or Father Daniel?

Roscani typed a response memo on his computer and sent it to his secretary for translation and transmission to Harris/FBI/Los Angeles. In it he thanked the FBI for their cooperation and asked to be personally kept advised of new developments, suggesting—what he was certain the FBI was already doing—that they question close friends and business associates of Harry Addison to see if there was some universal thread, a common knowledge some or all might share; and then to put them on alert for their own personal safety.

His phone rang as he finished. It was Valentina Gori, the speech therapist and lip reader he had brought in to analyze the Harry Addison video. She had viewed it a number of times and was downstairs. Did he have time to join her?

HARRY’S FACE WAS FROZEN on the large video screen as Roscani entered, took Valentina’s hand, and kissed her on the cheek. Valentina Gori was fifty-two, red-haired, recently a grandmother, and still very attractive. She had a degree in speech therapy from the University of Leuven in Belgium, had studied mime in the French theater in the 1970s, and, afterward, worked as an actress dubbing foreign sound tracks for the Italian film industry while at the same time consulting on speech and speech patterns for both the
carabinieri
and the Italian police. She had also grown up in the same Roman neighborhood as Roscani and knew his entire family. Moreover, when she was twenty-two and he was fifteen, she had stolen his virginity just to show him he wasn’t as much in control as he thought he was. It was a relationship they carried to the present. Besides his wife, she was the one person in the world who could look him knowingly in the eye and make him laugh at himself.

“I think you’re right. It looks like he is about to say something, or is
trying
to say something just before the tape ends. But I’m not sure he wasn’t just looking up.”

Turning the remote toward the screen, she touched the
PAUSE
/
STILL
button. Harry’s mouth began to open as the tape inched forward, and Roscani heard his voice growl with the slow-motion sound. And then they reached his last words. He finished, started to relax, then his head made an awkward and abrupt upward move with his mouth open. That was when the taped ended.

“It almost looks like an
i
…”

There was a slow hissing sound, like wind being expelled by an inebriated giant.

“
I
what?” Roscani was locked on the screen and Harry’s frozen image.

“I’m not so sure he wasn’t just finished and tired and was simply going to let out a breath.”

“No, he was trying to say something. Again,” Roscani said, and Valentina played it over. In stop motion. Slow motion. At half speed and then normal. Each time Harry reached the same point, there was the brief hissing sound and then the tape was over.

Roscani looked at her. “What else?—How many thousand films have you seen? You must have other ideas about what’s going on up there on the screen.”

Valentina smiled. “A thousand ideas, Otello. A hundred scenarios. But I can only go from what I see. And hear. And from that, we have a tired man with a lump on his head who has done what has been required of him and would like to rest. Maybe even sleep.”

Roscani turned abruptly to look at her. “What do you mean
required
of him?”

“I don’t know. It’s just a feeling.” Valentina winked. “Occasionally we all do things required of us when our heart isn’t entirely in it.”

“We’re not talking about sex, Valentina,” Roscani said flatly.

“No—” This was no time for Valentina to break through his veneer, and she realized it. “Otello, I’m not a psychologist, just an old broad who’s been around a little. I look at the screen and see a tired man apparently speaking his mind but who sounds more like he’s doing what he thinks somebody wants. Like a child reluctantly clearing the dishes off the table so he can go out to play.”

“You think he made the tape against his will?”

“Don’t ask me to draw conclusions from the air, Otello. It’s far too difficult.” Valentina smiled and put a hand on his. “It’s not my job, anyway. It’s yours.”

44

HARRY WATCHED HER COME. WATCHED HER cross the Piazza Navona toward the fountain, sipping something from a plastic Coca-Cola cup, light blue skirt and white blouse, hair turned up in a bun, dark glasses, her walk unhurried. She could have been a secretary or tourist, perhaps wondering whether or not to meet a lover as promised; anything but a journalist about to rendezvous with the most wanted man in Italy. If she had brought the police, he didn’t see them.

Now he saw her circle the fountain, half looking, half not. Then, glancing at her watch, she settled on a stone bench twenty feet from a man painting a watercolor of the piazza. Harry waited, still uncertain. Finally he stood up, glancing at the painter as he did. Walking toward her in a wide arc, he came up from behind to sit casually a few feet to her left, facing in the opposite direction. To his surprise she did nothing more than glance his way, then looked off again. Either she was being very careful or his beard and costume worked better than he thought. As bad as things were, the idea she might not know who he was tickled him, and he tilted his head ever so slightly in her direction.

“Would the lady consider screwing a priest?”

She started and looked, and for the briefest instant he thought she was going to slap him. But instead she stared right at him and admonished him out loud.

“If a priest wants to talk dirty to a lady, he ought to do it where people can’t see or hear him.”

PIANO, OR FLAT, NUMBER 12, as it read on the worn key tag, was on the top floor of a five-story apartment building at 47 Via di Montoro, a ten-minute walk toward the Tiber from the Piazza Navona. It belonged to a friend who was out of town and would understand, Adrianna said. Then she stood abruptly and walked off, leaving the Coca-Cola cup behind. The key was inside it.

Harry had entered the lobby and taken the small elevator to the top, finding number 12 at the end of the hall.

Once inside, he locked the door behind him and looked around. The flat was small but comfortable, with a bedroom, living room, small kitchen, and bath. Men’s clothing hung in the closet—several sport coats, slacks, and two suits. A half dozen shirts, several sweaters, socks, and underwear were in a chest of drawers opposite the bed. In the living room was a telephone and small TV. A computer with separate printer sat on a desk in a cubbyhole near the window.

Moving to the window, Harry stood at the edge and looked down at the street. Nothing any different than when he came in. Passing cars, motor scooters, the occasional pedestrian.

Taking off his jacket, he set it on a chair and went into the kitchen. In a cupboard next to the sink he found a glass and started to fill it. Then he had to set it down. The room spun, and it was all he could do to get his breath. Emotion and exhaustion had caught up with him. That he was even alive was a miracle. That somehow he was off the street was a gift from the gods.

Finally he calmed enough to splash some water on his face and begin to breathe normally. How long had it been since he’d left Hercules and come here? Three hours, four? He didn’t know. All sense of time was gone. He looked at his watch. It was Friday, July 10. Ten after five in the afternoon. Ten after eight in the morning Los Angeles time. Another breath and his eyes went to the telephone.

No. Can’t. Don’t even consider it. By now the FBI would have every line to his home and office tapped. If he tried to call, they’d know where he was in a millisecond. The fact was that even if he reached someone without being caught, what could they do? In truth, what could anyone do, even Adrianna? He was caught in a horrendous dream that was no dream at all. Just stark, brutal reality.

And except for that few square feet of apartment where he was, there was absolutely nowhere he could go where he didn’t risk being caught and turned over to the police. Even here, how long was he safe? He couldn’t stay where he was forever.

Suddenly there was a sound in the other room. A key had been put into the lock. Heart pounding, he pressed back against the kitchen wall. Then came the sound of the door opening.

“Mr. Addison?” a male voice said sharply.

Harry could see the jacket he’d left on the chair in the front room. Whoever had come in would see it, too. Quickly he glanced around. The kitchen was little more than a closet. The only way out, the way he had come in.

“Mr. Addison?” the voice rang out again.

Dammit! Adrianna had set him up for the police. And he’d walked right into it. At his elbow was a butcher block with carving knives. No good. They’d kill him in a second if he came out with a knife in his hand.

“Mr. Addison—are you here?” Whoever it was spoke English and without an accent.

What to do? He had no answer because there was none. Better to just walk out facing them and hope that Adrianna or someone from the media was with them so they wouldn’t kill him on the spot.

“I’m here!” he said, loudly. “I’m coming out. I’m not armed. Don’t shoot!” Taking a deep breath, Harry raised his hands and stepped into the room.

WHAT HE SAW WAS NOT the police but a sandy-haired man alone, the door closed behind him.

“My name is James Eaton, Mr. Addison. I’m a friend of Adrianna Hall. She knew you needed a place to stay and—“

“Jesus God…”

Eaton was probably in his late forties or early fifties. Medium height and build. Dressed in a gray suit with striped shirt and gray tie. The most striking thing about him, other than that he was alone, was his plainness. He looked like the kind of guy who’d made it as far as he could in a bank, who still takes his family to Disneyland, and cuts his lawn on Saturdays.

“I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“This is your apartment…” Incredulous, Harry lowered his hands.

“Sort of…”

“What do you mean
sort of?
”

“It’s not in my name, and my wife doesn’t know about it.”

That was a surprise. “You and Adrianna.”

“Not anymore…”

Eaton hesitated, looking at Harry, then he crossed the room and opened a cabinet above the television. “Would you like a drink?”

Harry glanced at the front door. Who was this guy? FBI? Checking him out, making sure he was unarmed and alone?

“If I’d told the police where you were, I wouldn’t be standing here offering you a drink…. Vodka or scotch?”

“Where’s Adrianna?”

Eaton took out a bottle of vodka and poured them each two fingers.

“I work in the U.S. Embassy. First secretary to the counselor for Political Affairs…. No ice, sorry.” He handed Harry a glass and then walked over and sat down on the couch. “You’re in a lot of trouble, Mr. Addison. Adrianna thought it might be helpful if we talked.”

Harry fingered his glass. He was overwrought. Beat up. His nerves all over the place. But he had to pull himself back. Be aware enough of what was happening to protect himself. Eaton might be who he said he was and there trying to help him. Or he might not. He could be doing a diplomatic thing. Making sure no feathers got ruffled between the U.S. and Italy when they handed him over to the police.

“I didn’t kill the policeman.”

“You didn’t…”

“No.”

“What about the videotape?”

“I was tortured, then coerced into making it by the people who I assume did kill him…. They took me away afterward…. Then they shot me and left me for dead…” Harry lifted his bandaged hand. “Except I didn’t die.”

Eaton sat back. “Who were these people?”

“I don’t know. I never saw them.”

“Did they speak English?”

“Some…. Mostly Italian.”

“They killed a policeman and, in essence, kidnapped and tortured you.”

“Yes.”

Eaton took a pull at his drink. “Why? What did they want?”

“They wanted to know about my brother.”

“The priest.”

Harry nodded.

“What did they want to know about him?”

“Where he was…”

“And what did you tell them?”

“I said I didn’t know. Or if he was even alive.”

“Is that true?”

“Yes.”

Harry lifted his glass and took half the vodka in one swallow. Then he finished it and set the glass on the table in front of Eaton.

“Mr. Eaton, I am innocent. I believe my brother is innocent…. And I am scared to death of the Italian police. What can the embassy do to help? There
has
to be
something
.”

Eaton looked at Harry for a long moment, as if he were thinking. Finally he stood and picked up Harry’s glass. Crossing to the cabinet, he poured them each a second drink.

“By rights, Mr. Addison, I should have informed the consul general the moment Adrianna called. But then he would have been obliged to notify the Italian authorities. I would have betrayed a trust, and you would have been in the jail, or worse…. And that wouldn’t have done either of us much good.”

Harry looked at him, puzzled. “What does that mean?”

“We are in the information business, Mr. Addison, not law enforcement…. The job of the counselor for Political Affairs is to know the political climate of the country to which he or she is assigned. In our case that applies not only to Italy but the Vatican…. The killing of the cardinal vicar of Rome and the sabotage of the Assisi bus, which I know the police believe are somehow interconnected, involve both.

“As private secretary to Cardinal Marsciano, your brother was in a privileged position within the Church. If he did assassinate the cardinal vicar, it’s more than probable he wasn’t acting alone. If so, there’s every reason to believe that the murder was not an isolated incident but part of a larger intrigue taking place at the highest levels of the Holy See….” Eaton came back and handed Harry his glass. “That’s where our interest is, Mr. Addison, inside the Vatican.”

“What if my brother didn’t do it? What if he wasn’t involved at all?”

“I have to believe what the police do, that the Assisi bus was bombed for one reason, to kill your brother. Whoever did it thought he was dead, but now they doubt it and are very fearful of what he knows and what he can tell. And they will do anything to find him and shut him up.”

“What he knows. What he can tell…” Suddenly Harry understood. “You want to find him, too.”

“That’s right,” Eaton said quietly.

“No, I mean
you
. Not the embassy. Not even your boss. You, yourself. That’s why you’re here.”

“I’m fifty-one years old and still a secretary, Mr. Addison. I have been passed over for promotion more times than you would want to know…. I don’t want to retire as a secretary. Therefore I need to do something that will make it impossible for them not to raise my standing. Uncovering something going on deep inside the Vatican would do that very well.”

“And you want me to help you—” Harry was incredulous.

“Not just me, Mr. Addison. Yourself. What your brother knows—he’s the only one who can get you off the hook. You know that as well as I do.”

Harry said nothing, just stared.

“If he is alive and in fear of his life. How would he know the video is fake? All he knows is that you want him to come in—and when he gets desperate enough, he’s going to have to trust someone. Who better than you?”

“Maybe…. But it doesn’t matter. Because he doesn’t know where I am. And I don’t know where he is. Neither does anybody else.”

“Don’t you think the police are meticulously backtracking through the people who were onboard the bus—both the living and the dead—to see what happened? Find out where he made the switch or where someone made it for him?”

“What good does that do me?”

“Adrianna…”

“Adrianna?”

“She is the ultimate professional. She knew about you the first day you came to Rome.”

Harry’s gaze drifted off. It was why she’d picked him up at the hotel. He’d even accused her of it and tried to walk away. But she’d turned him inside out and back again. The whole time she was setting him up for the story. Not so much then, but for where it might lead. Yes, she was the ultimate professional, the same as he was. And he should have been aware of it all along, because it was the place where they both lived their lives. There, and almost nowhere else.

“Why do you think she called me as soon as she got off the phone with you? She knew what she wanted and what I needed and what I could do for you. She knew that if she played it right, it would work to all our advantages.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Harry ran a hand through his hair and walked away. Then he turned back.

“You’ve thought it all out. Except for one thing. Even if we did find out where he is, he can’t come to me, and I can’t go to him.”

Eaton took a sip of his drink. “You could as someone else…. New name. Passport. Driver’s license. If you were careful, you could go anywhere you wanted…”

“You can do that…”

“Yes.”

Harry stared at him. Angry, manipulated, amazed.

“If I were you, Mr. Addison, I would be jubilant. After everything, you actually have two people who want to help you. And can.”

Harry continued to stare. “Eaton, you are one goddamned son of a bitch.”

“No, Mr. Addison. I’m a goddamned civil servant.”