The Gemini Contenders (38 page)

What had happened? What in God’s name
had happened?!
What did Carol mean?
They killed him! Who
killed him. Jesus! Was he
dead?!

Jim Nevins dead?
Corruption, yes. Greed, of course. Mendacity, normal. But not
murder!

There was a traffic light at New Hampshire, and he thought he would go mad. Two more blocks!

The cab plunged forward the instant the light flickered. The driver accelerated, then halfway down the block came to a sudden stop. The street was jammed with traffic. There were circling lights up ahead; nothing was moving.

Adrian jumped out on the street and began threading his way as fast as possible between the cars. Across Florida Avenue police cars blocked the entrance. Patrolmen were blowing whistles, signaling with iridescent orange gloves, funneling the traffic west.

He ran into the blockade; two police officers several yards away at either side yelled at him.

“No one goes past here, mister!”

“Get back, buddy! You don’t want to go in there!”

But he did want to go; he had to go! He ducked between two patrol cars and raced toward the swirling lights near a mass of twisted metal and shattered glass that Adrian instantly recognized. It was Jim Nevins’s car. What was left of it.

An ambulance’s rear doors were open; a stretcher on which a body lay strapped, covered completely with a white hospital blanket, was being carried from the wreckage by two attendants. A third man, holding a black medical bag, walked alongside.

Adrian approached, pushing away a policeman who held out a prohibiting arm. “Get out of the way,” he said firmly, but with his voice trembling.

“Sorry, mister. I can’t let—”

“I’m an attorney! And that man, I
think
, is my friend.”

The doctor heard the desperation in his words and waved the officer away. Adrian reached down for the blanket; the doctor’s hand shot out and held his wrist.

“Is your friend Black?”

“Yes.”

“With identification that says his name is Nevins?”

“Yes.”

“He’s dead, take my word for it. You don’t want to look.”

“You don’t understand. I
have
to look.”

Adrian pulled back the blanket. Nausea swept over him; he was at once hypnotized and terrified at what he saw. Nevins’s face was half ripped off, blood and bone more apparent than flesh. The area of the throat was worse; half his neck was gone.

“Oh, Jesus. My
God!”

The doctor replaced the blanket and ordered the attendants to continue on. He was a young man with long blond hair and the face of a boy. “You better sit down,” he said to Adrian. “I tried to tell you. Come on, let me take you to a car.”

“No. No, thanks.” Adrian suppressed the sickness and tried to breathe. There wasn’t enough air! “What happened?”

“We don’t know all the details yet. Are you really a lawyer?”

“Yes. And he was my friend. What happened?”

“Seems he made a left turn to go into the apartment driveway and halfway across, some outsized rig rammed him at full speed.”

“Rig?”

“A trailer truck, the kind with steel gridwork. It barrelassed down like it was on a freeway.”

“Where is it?”

“We don’t know. It stopped for a couple of moments, its horn blasting like hell, then pulled out. A witness said it was a rental; it had one of those rent-a-truck signs on the side. You can bet the cops have APB’s out all over the place.”

Suddenly, Adrian remembered, amazed that he was able to do so. He grabbed the doctor’s sleeve. “Can you get me through the police to his car? It’s important.”

“I’m a doctor, not a cop.”

“Please. Will you try?”

The young doctor sucked air through his teeth, then nodded his head. “Okay. I’ll take you over. Don’t pull any shit, though.”

“I just want to see something. You said a witness saw the truck stop.”

“I
know
it stopped,” replied the blond-haired doctor enigmatically. “Come on!”

They walked over to the wreck. Nevins’s car was caved in on the left side, metal stripped everywhere, windows shattered. Foam had been sprayed around the gas tank; white globules had drifted through the smashed windows.

“Hey, Doc! What are
you
doing?” The policeman’s voice was tired and angry.

“Come on, kid, get back. You, too!” A second patrolman yelled.

The young doctor raised his black bag. “Forensic washout, fellas. Don’t argue with me, call the station!”

“What?”

“What forensic?”

“Pathology, for Christ’s sake!” He propelled Adrian forward. “Come on, lab man, take the samples and let’s get out of here. I’m beat.” Adrian looked into the car. “See anything?” asked the doctor pointedly.

Adrian did. Nevins’s briefcase was missing.

They walked back through the cordon of police to the ambulance.

“Did you really find anything?” asked the young doctor.

“Yes,” answered Adrian, numbed, not sure he was thinking clearly. “Something that should have been there, but wasn’t.”

“Okay. Good. Now I’ll tell you why I took you over.”

“What?”

“You saw your friend; I wouldn’t let his wife see him. His face and neck were blown apart with broken glass and metal fragments.”

“Yes … I know. I saw.” Adrian felt the wave of nausea spreading over him again.

“But it’s a pretty warm night. I think the window on the driver’s side was rolled down. I couldn’t swear to it—that car’s totaled—but your friend could have taken a short blast from a shotgun.”

Adrian raised his eyes. Something inside his head snapped; the words his brother said seven years ago in San Francisco seared into his brain.

“… 
There’s a war out there … the firepower’s real!”

Among the papers in Nevins’s briefcase was the deposition taken from an officer in Saigon. The indictment of Eye Corps.

And he had given his brother five days’ warning.

Oh, God! What had he done?

He took a cab to the precinct police station. His credentials as an attorney gained him a brief conversation with a sergeant.

“If there’s foul play involved, we’ll find it,” said the man, looking at Adrian with the distaste the police reserved for lawyers who followed up accidents.

“He was a friend of mine and I have reason to believe there was. Did you find the truck?”

“Nope. We know it’s not on any of the highways. The state troopers are watching for it.”

“It was a rental.”

“We know that, too. The rental agencies are being checked. Why don’t you go home, mister?”

Adrian bent over the sergeant’s desk, his hands on the edge. “I don’t think you’re taking me very seriously.”

“Fatality sheets come into this station a dozen an hour. Now, what the hell do you want me to do? Suspend everything else and put a whole goddamned platoon on one hit-and-run?”

“I’ll tell you what I want, sergeant. I want a pathology report on all cranial injuries sustained by the deceased. Is that clear?”

“What are you talking about?” replied the police officer disdainfully. “Cranial—”

“I want to know what blew that man apart.”

The train from Salonika had claimed its last sacrifice, thought Victor, as he lay in his bed, the morning sun streaming through the oceanside windows of the North Shore house. There was no reason on earth why any further life should be lost in its name. Enrici Gaetamo was the last victim, and there was no sorrow in that death.

He himself had very little time remaining. He could see it in Jane’s eyes, in the eyes of the doctors. It was to be expected; he had been granted too many reprieves.

He had dictated everything he could remember about that day in July a lifetime ago. He had probed forgotten recesses in his mind, refused the narcotics that would numb the pain because they would equally numb the memories.

The vault from Constantine had to be found, its contents evaluated by responsible men. What had to be prevented—however remote it might be—was a chance discovery, exposure without thought. He would charge his sons. Salonika was now theirs. The Geminis. They would do what he could not do: find the vault of Constantine.

But there was a piece of the puzzle that was missing. He had to find it before he spoke with his sons. What did Rome know? How much had the Vatican learned about Salonika? Which was why he had asked a man to visit him this morning. A priest named Land, the monsignor from New York’s archdiocese who had come to his hospital room months ago.

Fontine heard the footsteps outside the bedroom, and the quiet voices of Jane and the visitor. The priest had arrived.

The heavy door opened silently. Jane ushered in the monsignor, then went back into the hallway, closing the door behind her. The priest stood across the room, a leather book in his hand.

“Thank you for coming,” Victor said.

The priest smiled. He touched the leather cover of the book.
“Conquest with Mercy. In the Name of God
. The history of the Fontini-Cristis. I thought you might like this, Mr. Fontine. I found it in a bookshop in Rome years ago.”

The monsignor placed the book on the bedside table. They shook hands; each, Victor realized, was appraising the other.

Land was no more than fifty. He was of medium height, broad in the chest and shoulders. His features were sharp, Anglican; his eyes hazel beneath generous eyebrows that were darker than his short, graying hair. It was a pleasant face with intelligent eyes.

“A vanity publication, I’m afraid. A custom of dubious value at the turn of the century. It’s long been out of print. The language is Italian—”

“An obsolete northern idiom,” completed Land. “Court Victorian would be the English equivalent, I think. Somewhere between ‘you’ and ‘thee.’ ”

“You have the advantage over me. My knowledge of languages is not nearly so erudite.”

“It was sufficient for Loch Torridon,” said the priest.

“Yes, it was. Please sit down, Monsignor Land.” Victor gestured to the chair by the bed. The priest sat. The two men looked at each other. Fontine spoke.

“Several months ago you came to my hospital room. Why?”

“I wanted to meet the man whose life I had studied so thoroughly. Shall I speak frankly?”

“You wouldn’t have come here this morning if you meant to do otherwise.”

“I was told you might die. I was presumptuous enough to hope you’d allow me to administer last rites.”

“That
is
frank. And
was
presumptuous.”

“I realized that. It’s why I never returned. You’re a courteous man, Mr. Fontine, but you couldn’t conceal your feelings.”

Victor examined the priest’s face. There was the same sorrow he had remembered in the hospital. “Why did you study my life? Does the Vatican still investigate? Wasn’t Donatti’s cause rejected?”

“The Vatican is always engaged in study. In examination. It doesn’t stop. And Donatti was more than rejected.
He was excommunicated, his remains refused the sanctity of Catholic burial.”

“You answer my last two questions. Not the first. Why you?”

The monsignor crossed his legs, clasping his hands in front of him on his knees, his fingers entwined. “I’m a political and social historian. Which is another way of saying that I look for incompatible relationships between the church and its environs at given periods of time.” Land smiled, his eyes reflective. “The original reason for such work was to prove the virtue of the church and the error of any who opposed her. But virtue wasn’t always found. And it certainly wasn’t found in the countless lapses of judgment, or morality, as they were exposed.” Land’s smile had gone; his admission was clear.

“The execution of the Fontini-Cristis was a lapse? Of
judgment? Morality?”

“Please.” The priest spoke swiftly, his voice soft but emphatic. “You and I both know what it was. An act of murder. Impossible to sanction and unforgivable.”

Victor saw once again the sorrow in the man’s eyes. “I accept what you say. I don’t understand it, but I accept it. So I became an object of your social and political examinations?”

“Among many other questions of the time. I’m sure you’re aware of them. Although there was a great deal of good during those years, there was
much
that was unforgivable. You and your family were obviously in this category.”

“You became interested in me?”

“You became my obsession.” Land smiled again, awkwardly. “Remember, I’m American. I was studying in Rome, and the name Victor Fontine was well known to me. I had read of your work in postwar Europe; the newspapers were filled with it. I was aware of your influence in both the public and the private sectors. You can imagine my astonishment when, in studying the period, I found that Vittorio Fontini-Cristi and Victor Fontine were the same person.”

“Was there a great deal of information in your Vatican files?”

“About the Fontini-Cristis, yes.” Land gestured his head toward the leather-bound volume he had placed on the bedside table. “As that book, somewhat biased, I’m afraid.
Hardly as flattering, naturally. But of you, there was substantively nothing. Your existence was acknowledged: the first male child of Savarone, now an American citizen known as Victor Fontine. Nothing more. The files ended abruptly with the information that the remaining Fontini-Cristis had been executed by the Germans. It was an incomplete ending. Even the date was missing.”

“The less written down, the better.”

“Yes. So I studied the records of the court of Reparations. They were far more complete. What began as curiosity turned into shock. You made accusations to the tribunal of judges. Accusations I found unbelievable, intolerable, for you included the church. And you named a man of the Curia, Guillamo Donatti. That was the link that was missing. It was all I needed.”

“Are you telling me Donatti’s name was nowhere in the files of the Fontini-Cristis?”

“It is now. It wasn’t then. It was as if the archivists couldn’t bring themselves to acknowledge the connection. Donatti’s papers had been sealed, as usual with excommunicants. After his death, they had been found in possession of an aide—”