The Third Hour

by Richard Devin

  In a corner of the windscreen there was a small red sticker with the imprint of a shield with two crossed keys, two ribbons, two cords, and a tiara.

  Dominic recognized the symbol immediately, and it sent a slight chill up his spine.

  The keys in the symbol represented those given to the Apostle Peter by Christ; one silver and one gold. The cotter of the keys pointed upward and toward the sides of the shield. The grips pointed down. Two cords wrapped through the grips of each key, bonding them together. And at the top of the shield, a tiara with two ribbons flowing from it fell to each side. Each ribbon bore the imprint of a patent cross.

  It was the seal of the Holy See.

  The Vatican.

  And the driver was clearly waiting for Dominic.

  SIX

  “DON’T FOLLOW ME,” DOMINIC yelled down the hallway into the living room.

  “Why? Where are you going?” Tonita’s questions were answered by the sound of the door slamming. She hesitated, a moment’s indecision, and then picked up her coat and ran down the short hall to the front door. She pulled the door open to the screech of tires and acrid smell of burnt rubber, as the black Mercedes sped away, maneuvering easily down the narrow street. Tonita watched for a moment until the car, taking Dominic with it, was out of her sight. Exasperated, she slammed the door to Dominic’s apartment behind her and headed out onto the street in the opposite direction of the speeding car. She was tired, fed up, and she was going home.

  With anger, frustration, and concern fueling her stride, she made the few blocks to her apartment in quick time and had arrived at her door almost without realizing it.

  Once inside, she stripped off her clothes, letting them lay were they fell and headed to the bath. She turned on the water and was about to let the tub fill, when she decided she could wait no longer and pulled up the little knob on the water spout that converted her bath to a shower. She stepped in and let hot water, streaming from the showerhead, beat against her. Tonita leaned against the tiles of the shower, their cold slick feel contrasted with the heat of the water and it eased the pain of tension in her shoulders. Her arms and her back ached. She should never have tried to move the old man’s body or hold him down when he was convulsing, she thought. Hell. She should’ve never gone to Dom’s apartment in the first place. That was stupid. Helping him with the old man was stupid. Getting involved with the situation was stupid. Getting involved with him was unplanned and stupid. It was all stupid and she was unbelievably confused.

  She closed her eyes and let the sound of the water bouncing off of the shower curtain and splashing in the small tub, lull her to near sleep. She thought back to the first time she had seen Dom.

  He was standing by an ancient fig tree, near the old Roman baths in the hills surrounding the city. She walked by and although she did think he was very nice looking—she wasn’t really interested—she said hi, just to be nice.

  “My family was caretaker to most of the fig trees in ancient Rome.” Dominic was matter-of-fact speaking as though they had been carrying on a conversation that he was continuing.

  Tonita didn’t know how to respond, so she just said, “Really?” And then regretted saying it.

  “My uncle, a great uncle many times over was a senator in the early days of Rome and he oversaw the fig crops.”

  “Really?” she said it again without thinking and this time she wanted to slap herself.

  Dominic turned to her. “You don’t believe me?”

  “Why wouldn’t I believe you?”

  “I don’t know, but you keep saying ‘really,’ as though I’m making this up.”

  “No, I don’t think that,” Tonita said in her defense. “I believe your uncle was a Roman senator. Why wouldn’t I?”

  Dominic looked in her direction, brushed the hair from his forehead and smiled, “Good. You’ll find that I don’t make things up.”

  She turned the water off and stepped from the shower. Grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her.

  It started to rain, she recalled with a bit of smile forming on her face, that afternoon by the fig tree at the ancient Roman baths. Dominic didn’t have an umbrella, and neither did she. She wasn’t prepared for the rain. He didn’t seem to care if it rained. They pushed in close and huddled under the canopy of the fig tree as the rain intensified.

  “You visiting?” Dominic picked a small stone up from near the trunk of the tree and turned it over, examining it.

  “Sort-of. I was just visiting when I got here. But now I think I’m staying for a while.”

  “School?”

  “Pre-med,” she laughed. “Pre-everything.”

  “You don’t seem to know.”

  “You’re right.”

  “I understand,” Dominic said, dropping the stone back to the now muddy ground. “It’s the same for me.”

  “Really?” Oh God! She promised to kill herself if she said that stupid word again.

  Dominic smiled. “Really?”

  Tonita twisted the towel around her, folding one corner into the wrapped terrycloth securing it tightly in place. She picked up a brush and drew it through her hair. From the cabinet she took out a bottle of Avon Skin-So-Soft bath spray and applied it, pushing down on the pump top and letting the oily mist float down onto her. She loved the scent of the oil and the smoothness of it on her skin. She rubbed it over her and watched as the water beaded up on her arm.

  “You must be getting cold,” Dominic said peering out from under the ancient fig. The rain had slowed. “You’re getting goose bumps on your arm.”

  “I am a little,” Tonita said, rubbing her hands up and down her arms. “Should we chance it and make a run for a café?” She surprised herself a bit at being so forward with this man she had just met.

  Dominic put his hand out. “Dominic Renzi,” he said.

  “Tonita Clifford.”

  “Tonita Clifford? Dominic’s eyebrows arched.

  “My dad’s Irish. My mother’s black. And before you say it, I’ve heard it already.”

  “Say what?” Dominic laughed, letting a smile take shape on his face.

  Tonita’s gaze reflected on herself as she came out of the trance of memories and stared into her eyes in the medicine cabinet mirror. She contemplated what she had gotten herself into, thought about giving up, turning away and going back. She couldn’t. It was too late.

  She dropped the towel onto the bathroom floor, pulled on the pair of jeans she had thrown on earlier when Dominic had called in a panic, grabbed a clean T-shirt, and then pulled on a sweatshirt over that. She stuffed all the Euro she could find from inside the dresser drawers, purses, and on top of the dresser, into her pockets. She dug out her credit cards and passport, which were hidden under the corner of the carpet and headed out the door.

  SEVEN

  DOMINIC SAT BACK INTO the plush interior of the Mercedes Benz, not because he was enjoying the feel of the car or the thick smooth leather or the deep pile carpet, but because he was terrified. The driver of the automobile had not spoken one word since Dominic had jumped into the backseat of the vehicle, slammed the door and locked it, just in case Tonita had decided to follow.

  The driver took every turn as fast as he could. There were no stoplights worth stopping at, no pedestrian worth giving a right of way to, and no car that shouldn’t be passed, despite the narrow roads.

  Just moments ago, an early morning shopper had had to dodge the Mercedes which had been speeding around a corner. The bewildered shopper threw a basket of fruit at the car and screamed at the driver as he blurred by, pushing the auto onward. Dominic turned and looked out the back window, trying, in vain to apologize to the shopper. Instead, he had the ‘bird’ signaled to him and nearly got whiplash as the driver took another turn at an even faster speed than the previous corner.

  “For God’s sake, could you be more careful and slow down?” Dominic shouted. “I’m not going to jump out.”

  His answer came in the form of screeching brakes as the dr
iver narrowly missed a lamppost, skidding to a stop. Dominic looked out of the rear passenger window, considered jumping out, even though he had just said he wouldn’t, but discovered he had given it too much thought and not enough action as the driver threw the car in reverse, backed up a few feet, and then floored it into drive.

  “Are you trying to kill us? Is that the plan here?” Dominic shouted again, expecting no answer. He glanced out the side window at the nearly blurred scene as the driver pressed the car on faster. He wasn’t sure where they were, and although he had expected to be taken to the Vatican, he couldn’t say for certain that he would end up there. As far as he could figure, the driver had intentionally taken a secure route from the apartment in an effort to disguise where they were headed. Either that, or the driver was simply insane. He hoped for the former.

  The towering steeples of Saint Peter’s Basilica rose above the walls of the Vatican in the distance and Dominic began to breathe easier when the driver slowed the Mercedes as it approached the outer roads to the old gates. Even with The Vatican, or the Holy See as it was referred to among Catholic society, completely surrounded by the city of Rome and located deep within the country of Italy, it was a sovereign nation, maintaining its own government, security, and police force. The old wall that was built to protect the Holy See, was little more than decorative now, and the gates to the Vatican City were a formality rather than a true defense.

  Noting the Vatican seal on the front windshield, the guards passed the Mercedes through the gate without the slightest hesitation. Dominic half expected an escort from the Swiss Guard, the official police of the Vatican, as they passed the Cancello di Sant Anna—Saint Anne’s Gate, but there was none.

  Now, inside the gates of the Vatican, the driver became a different man. He drove carefully and slowly, allowing pedestrians to pass in front of him without the threat of death by motorcar. He became polite and courteous.

  “When did you become a boy scout?” Dominic’s barb went unnoticed.

  From Cancello di Sant Anna the driver moved up Via di Belvedere, making a quick right onto Via del Pellegrino, then past Via della Tipografia and Via della Posta. He stopped the Mercedes on Vio Pio X, turned off the ignition and opened the driver’s side door. He stepped out of the car and then leaned back in and handed Dominic an envelope. Then he closed the door and calmly walked away.

  Dominic flipped the envelope over. It had been sealed with black wax, which bore the imprint of the Vatican Seal. Other than the heaviness of the wax seal, the envelope felt empty. He held it up to the sunlight that filtered in through the closed windows of the Mercedes. Inside the envelope he could see the darker outline of a strip of paper. He carefully slipped the flap open and took out the small strip of paper. He flipped it over, held it up to the sun, and when it appeared to him to be nothing more than a piece of paper torn from a page of a telephone book, he read the few names that were complete:

  Renner, Michael

  Reno, Paulo

  Renta, Antoinette

  He turned the strip over and studied the other side. There in light pencil, the words Bramante’s Stairway had been written in block text over several more names.

  Dominic knew where the stairway was, just around the corner and to the right of where the driver had parked the Mercedes. That’s convenient. He had used the stairs many times crossing from the Vatican post office to the Vatican Museums. Like most, Dominic had little knowledge of Donato Bramante. He was shocked when he discovered, through the extensive Vatican library, that Donato Bramante was actually chosen before Michelangelo, by Pope Julius II, to design and build Saint Peter’s Basilica. Dominic just assumed that Michelangelo had always been the only master architect to work on Saint Peter’s. The original design called for a church in the form of a Greek cross, with all four arms the same length, topped by a great dome. When Bramante died and after several other architects contributed to Bramante’s work, Michelangelo took over. “It would be hard to imagine anyone other than Michelangelo completing Saint Peter’s,” he had explained to Tonita, the first day that they had met, at the old Roman Baths. The rain had stopped just long enough for them to make it to a café where they sat, and talked for hours. He told her how he felt the first time he made his way up the front steps of the building and walked through the massive doors. “The Basilica inspires, overwhelms, and makes one realize how insignificant we are,” he said to her.

  “Well, I’m sure glad Jesus never ventured in,” Tonita said in between sips of espresso. “What would have happened if he’d left feeling insignificant?” She waived the cup in the air. “No need for a basilica, then.”

  Tonita’s innocent observation weighed on Dominic’s thoughts for a long time. How true it was, he contemplated, that the church often makes those who are most important, the common man, feel like the least important. That observation by Tonita may have been the proverbial ‘straw that broke the camel’s back,’ and sealed his fate. After that he was certain that he would leave the church.

  Dominic opened the door and stepped out of the Mercedes, then closed the door quietly in an odd reverence for the city, and started off toward the stairway. He folded the envelope in half and pushed it into his back pocket, then studied the piece of paper torn from the phonebook. He let his eyes follow each of the letters spelling out Bramante’s Stairway. He searched the letters written in light pencil for some clue, some sign of...

  He stopped. Despite the sun’s warmth on his face and skin, a chill shot up his spine. He looked up from the scrap of paper and slowly turned his head to the side, then back in the other direction. Then he took in every window, doorway, and cranny of the old buildings surrounding the small square at the base of Bramante's Stairway. His senses reeled as sweat beaded on his lips and forehead. He stepped slowly onto the first of the stairs leading to the plaza above. He hesitated, then took another step, trying in vain to disguise his growing fear and the gnawing pain of panic.

  He was sure that someone was watching him and the hairs shot up on his neck as he read the words printed on that slip of paper from the phonebook.

  Names.

  Dominic read the names printed under the block letters that spelled out Bramante’s Stairway, saying each aloud as he took one step.

  Renteria, Rocco.

  He took another step.

  Renzetti, Mateo.

  And one more step.

  He stopped. Frozen in place.

  Renzi, Dominic.

  EIGHT

  ROME

  11:00 A.M.

  Brother Salvatore pushed the door to Dominic’s apartment open. It was unlocked.

  As he stepped inside he picked up the faint scent of disinfectant, vomit, and the coppery smell of blood all mixed together and lingering in the air. Brother Salvatore rubbed the bottom of his nose at the smell and held his hand there, covering his nostrils until his sense grew accustomed to the concoction of odors. He considered leaving the apartment door open and letting a bit of fresh air in from the street, but thought better of it and closed it quietly behind him.

  He had been standing on the opposite side of the street from the apartment.

  Waiting.

  Watching.

  No one arrived to enter, and no one exited. He had half expected that Dominic or Tonita would attempt to return. They did not.

  He had hidden himself in the shadows of a doorway—carved into a building—just across from Dominic’s apartment for several hours. Enough time had now passed and he felt it was safe for him to attempt to enter the apartment. He hadn’t counted on the door being unlocked. At first it was a relief that he would not have to break in, but could just walk in. A second thought, however, put him on guard. Had the door been left open on purpose? Was this a trap? He cautiously stepped in, listened, and when he felt secure that the apartment was empty, he pushed in the button on the hall light switch and the lights snapped on, then dimmed slightly. He hesitated a moment, then once sure that the lights would remain on, proceeded down the h
all.

  The coppery smell grew stronger as he turned the corner from the hallway nearing the kitchen. It was a smell he had grown accustomed to. It was blood, and even now, the odor brought back memories of his youth and summers spent working in a slaughterhouse. At first he’d hated every minute detail of his employment. He’d hated every person that worked in that horrific place. And he’d hated what they were doing. His hatred didn’t stop with the people that worked in the plant. He’d hated the animals for being so dumb and allowing their slaughter. But mostly, he had hated himself for taking part in these terrible acts of death. That was until he’d realized that the work he was performing in the slaughterhouse was his beginning, his apprenticeship. The slaughter of chickens, swine and cattle became practice for him. He had honed his craft by perfecting his art, experimenting with knives and cleavers, bolt shots and hammers, and bare hands. His experimentations and practice were a toil in perfection, so that one day, he would be able to perform the ultimate slaughter, flawlessly.

  Brother Salvatore let a small whimper escape from his throat as the thought of his pleasure was imagined before him. When Dominic returned, that time would come. He giggled with the thought.

  The floorboards by the kitchen, old and unsealed, were stained with blood that had streamed from the body of the old man, and had soaked into the rough wood, giving the planks a reddened varnish. This is where the protector had died, he thought as he knelt down, extending his fingers so that they touched the stained floor. He quickly brought his fingers to his forehead and said aloud, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” He concluded by making the sign of the cross two more times and silently repeating the movement of his hand from head to chest to shoulders. He brought his index and forefinger to his lips and kissed them. “Rest in peace, my brother,” Brother Salvatore whispered and lightly touched the blood soaked floorboards. “You did what you could, my brother,” he spoke aloud gazing upon the blood stained floor with reverence. “I am only sorry that your powers were too weak. Don’t worry, my brother. He will prevail.” Brother Salvatore stood up. “I’m sorry that you will not be here to bear witness.”