»Nice theory«, Antonio said and ruffled his whiskers. At that he seemed to be pretty upstage. I could read in his face that he believed my story to be wacky. But maybe there was a shriveled, envious chappy stirring inside him, because I had come up with the idea first. His thin face with the giant ears looked the most attractive with this put on skeptical pose.
»Somehow sounds like Dr. Frankenstein. But let’s assume the vestibular organ really is the object of desire. And let’s also assume that this really is the hooded guy’s miracle – Giovanni has told me about his – then the most important questions still remain unsolved: How is a human able to make use of it? What’s the use of a tenfold, for all I care even hundredfold more efficient sense of balance? And: Into which stupid device does he install something like that anyway?«
Now it was my turn to play the upstage, not to say the offended one, as my epochal thoughts were questioned, yes, secretly smiled at. And to be honest: I didn’t have a clue what I should reply to him. This really sounded like Dr. Frankenstein somehow.
»I once read that a self-steered missile needs a technical counterpart to a balance system, because it has to be to know if it’s rising or descending or chancing its speed at any time.« I lectured roughly. »This work is usually adopted by a gyrometer. But if one could short out the vestibular organ of our kind with an extremely high-duty computer, this thing like us would be able to, uhm, keep his head up and level, correct its body according to its head’s position and to land on all fours – even when it’s in free fall.«
I smiled innocently as if I had given him a song and dance. »As if«? I just had given him a song and dance!
»Well, well, a self-steered missile, which adjusts the body in accordance with the position of the head and then lands on four paws«, Antonio said, and this time he put on a very, very worried look. He probably frantically tried to remember the nuthouse’s phone number.
»Okay, maybe I slipped too much phantasy in it«, I tried to save the situation. »I mean, it was just an inspiration from a dream ...«
»Never mind. I just want to know one thing« he said and almost seemed upset at that. »Don’t such gyrometers already exist and do quite a sufficient job or not?«
»Yes«, I replied feebly. »Yes, I guess so.«
»Alright! Then it doesn’t need a feline vestibular organ. I very much apologize, il signor genie, this was just the humble opinion of a simple gay man from a simple gay people. So what do we do now?«
»I want to take a closer look on Samantha’s body. But how do we get to the palazzo most rapidly and dry-shod at this heavy rain? Even the Tiber lies in-between.«
»You have three guesses.« Antonio gave me a superior smile as he could finally shine with his expert knowledge. »What do you think where the center of all Roman catacombs is? They start in Vatican City, and they end in Vatican City. I suspect that the building of catacombs is a patented Vatican invention. Sorte, c'affrettiamo! We still have a long way to go.«
After we had run out of the chapel into the pouring rain, Antonio found a passage through the underworld within thirty seconds. It was an abandoned basalt conduit from the Middle Ages next to the city wall. Outbounding from an also abandoned, big fountain, the conduit angularly went a couple of feet into the ground and then turned into a tube. Antonio and I crawled through it, and soon afterwards we found ourselves in a moldy maze, which I already knew from my nocturnal expedition. And so we left Vatican City. Although I bored my way deeper into the State of God than even the most Catholic pilgrim could ever dream of, the inside of St. Peter’s Cathedral had been denied to me!
This time we had to pass on the light of burning torches. But why had the good Lord given us a pair of eyes, which easily turned the night, well not quite into day, but still into a fairly decent twilight? At the bottom, every part of us was a high-quality high-tech-product! While we moved through the tunnels at a smart pace, I filled Antonio’s knowledge gaps regarding my recent adventures. He was already well informed by hearsay, but it wouldn’t hurt to tell him things, which only I knew about. This time there were no dangers lurking in the realm of darkness. No hooded guys with sabers jumped out of the death chambers, and no armed killers appeared behind partially decayed exposed bridgework. Not even Gustav could be seen anywhere around. And although we were on the road for quite a while and now and then there seemed to be eerie skeletons staring out of their wide orbit, time flew.
We finally reached the Cyclopean wall underneath the Palazzo, where the arch-like gates offered the entry into the catacombs. From there we climbed up the bars of the elevator shaft until we reached the cellar of the Palazzo. Antonio guided me through dusty rooms with countless, sorted out pieces of furniture and accessories. An antique dealer with an expert eye would probably have given his arm for all that stuff. Then we turned around a corner, and in the darkness we spotted what we had been looking for.
It may sound a little jaded, but this time the shock was less upsetting. And this had a certain reason. At a first glance the Blue Point Burmese seemed to be a sleeping beauty, although the wide sapphire-blue eyes interfered with this view. Her cream-colored body with its velvet fur and the dark markings simply lay on the floor. The white »shoes« on her paws glowed even in this darkness. All her legs were spread and her snout was slightly open. The wound on the head was clearly visible, but only little blood had run out.
I approached the body and examined her. At that, I sniffed at her intensively and shifted her head slightly to the side to get a better view. Although I was a medical layman, my instinct told me that the time of death didn’t date back much. Samantha’s body wasn’t warm but also not very cold. Also, cadaver rigidity hadn’t completely supervened yet. I assumed that she met the killer about five or six hours ago.
Antonio watched me from the distance with certain expectations. As the whole thing was delayed, he fretfully cleared his throat and finally approached me.
»What is it? Is something wrong?«
»You bet!« I replied. »I’m afraid in this case our good old butcher is totally innocent.«
»Excuse me?«
»You heard me, Antonio. Someone else is responsible for Samantha’s death.«
»What are you talking about! The wound obviously bears the hallmarks of our killer.«
»At a first glance. But as you can see only the auricle has been removed. The ear canal, which is embedded in the cranial bone, the ossicles, the so-called cochlea and the nerve pathways to the brain have remained totally sound. The part of the skull at this spot is also totally intact on the contrary to the other cases. Neither small bone fragments nor traces of blood can be found in the vicinity.«
»And what is that supposed to mean, great master?«
He gave a less confused but pretty unhappy impression now.
I turned Samantha’s head to the site and showed him the two tiny holes in her neck that were only visible on closer inspection.
»She probably went west before her ear was ripped off, and that was due to a classical neck-bite, which our kind masters expertly.«
Antonio lurched away from the body as if his view of life had just been crushed. His wedge-shaped face twitched instinctively, his whiskers trembled, and he opened and closed the mouth without giving a sound. He sat down on his rear legs far apart from me and seemed to petrify.
»When did you find her?« I said.
»At midnight. When I woke up yesterday morning, you both weren’t at the palazzo anymore. So I went into the city and looked for you everywhere. At this, I got to know about your heroic deeds. Shortly before I wanted to leave for Vatican City, I got the idea to check on Samantha once more. Privately, I had been worried about her the whole day, as it wasn’t her custom to leave the property for more than the garden walls. She was sterilized. When I still couldn’t find her around the house, I went down to the cellar and ...«
His eyes were flooded by the first tears now, which rolled down to the tip of his nose, shortly stayed there and then dri
pped down in heavy drops.
»I never had a dearer friend, Francis, and never a more sympathetic one ...« he said sobbingly.
»It happened like this«, I passed over the sad situation. I wanted to comfort him with at least a prospect of enlightening all this horror. »Samantha knew her killer, she trusted him. It may even be that they were in cahoots over this murder thing. After all she led me on a wrong trace. The killer, in this case clearly a fellow, wiled her to the cellar under a pretext, she followed him unsuspectingly. In an unobserved moment he inserted the neck-bite. She died right away – and yet had to endure a lot after that. The beast bit off her ear to make it look like she was just another victim of the rampant murder series in this city. I bet the good stuff is hidden somewhere around here.«
»Why?« Antonio said, and in this mournful pitch it sounded like a philosophical question.
»It sounds a little megalomaniac, but she had to die because of me. The killer knew that I would get back to her and take her to task. And then her connection to him would have been easily revealed. So it was very convenient that the incident could be disguised as another of the butcher’s deeds. Yet, it was pretty stupid of him to believe I would miss the neck-bite and let go off all logic at the sight of a wounded ear. At least we know now, that Samantha wasn’t directly working with the human monster but just with his loyal animal assistant.«
We both had to stomach these insights. In the darkness of the cellar was total silence, and not even a cockroach scuttled around the corner and nibbled on our concentration. Samantha also looked prayerfully with her amber eyes, as if she wanted to succor us from the ulterior sphere. After a small eternity Antonio was the first to move.
»Do you think what I think, Francis?«
»I guess so«, I said.
»This suspicious shadow, whom Blixa watched taking to the future victims in the Bernini Colonnades at the Piazza San Pietro, is involved in this disgrace.«
»He picks out the appropriate candidates and guides them to a human, joking and making big promises. This guy sedates them, prepares them for the operation and robs their ear and life. The rest is our four-legged friend’s part again. He carries the bodies away and spreads them throughout the city, in the justified hope the callous world out there won’t put a SWAT team together at the sight of a mutilated carcass. Probably this surely most productive teamwork between human and animal since Tarzan and Cheetah first began when it became too risky for the butcher at Vatican City. After all, even the unworldly padres there would eventually notice the increasing loss of animals on the site. And in the long run he couldn’t keep misusing all Vatican parks as hazardous waste deposit. Also, he had cultivated his surgical skills so much that he needed a professional operating room in a secret retreat. The only question is why a fellow would lend oneself to being the handmaid for some monstrous felidae killer. What is the reason?«
There was another pause, but a shorter one this time.
»Do you think what I think again, Francis?« Antonio asked, very compassionately this time, as he was reading my thoughts apparently.
»Maybe«, I replied. »But I wish, one would finally take the thinking and the ultra heavy weight of this horror story off of my shoulders. I’m in a bad fix.«
»I know. If you don’t follow this lead, you sin against our kind and allow the killer to go on with his incredible malice. And if you do and hunt him down howsoever, you rob your beloved Sancta of her master and ensure that soon she will have to join the other homeless at the Largo Argentina. Francis, il mio amico, face the truth: This Umberto with his technical skills is the only person in your investigation file so far, who is capable of the gruesome bricolages you hypothesize. Even more, he works at Vatican City, and being security chief he has access everywhere – day and night.«
Given his trenchant analysis, I kept silent. But that didn’t release me from my dilemma. Antonio had simply expressed things, which had been floating about my mind for a while, just that I hadn’t been willing to draw any consequences. Nevertheless I wasn’t able to trace this case with open eyes, when I closed my eyes from the already looming finale at the same time. That was crazy, and people, who did that, were also crazy. There was another word for such a behavior: Sin!
»Where does this guy live again?« Antonio wanted to know. In his turquoise eyes, which were still wet from the tears, flared cravings for revenge.
»Sancta mentioned, that he owns a stingy cabin under the Ponte Rotto at the Tiber.«
»Damn it, so we will actually get quite wet tonight!«
14.
Ponto Rotto, which was only a couple of stones throws away from the head of the Tiber Island, was a strange ancient residue. Originally, this first stone bridge was called Ponte Emilio but as it was neither rebuilt nor removed after its ultimate collapse due to a heavy flooding in the 16th century, it has been called the broken bridge ever since. Technically, there was only a single element of the ruin left, which looked like a triumphal arch that had been frayed at its sides. The two sockets of the arch stood on raised stone hills, which over the ages had created a couple of islands with rampant vegetation. As we arrived at the Tiber bank it soared in the rain-soaked night sky, which was haunted by angry thunderbolts, like the last brown snag in the mouth of an old man.
After a dead run through Rome’s flooded alleys, Antonio and I still had to face the worst, but that didn’t really bother us any more as we would probably die from pneumonia in the next couple of days anyway! The may rain had put us through the mill so hard, that we reminded of socks, which had been spit out by a broken washing machine drum, with our soaking wet hair that stick to our body and made us look half our actual size. We jittered.
We arrived at the Ponte Fabricio, which was illuminated by old streetlights, a sound bridge that connected the city with the Tiber Island in the middle of the river. The rain performed a crazy dance and blocked our view. Not many had lived on the tiny island, people used to visit the sacred sites – the Temple of Aesculapius and then later a medieval church – and then they left. We ran over lateral stairs, which led from the bridge to the island and sort of ran to the stern of the ship, a stone platform with a couple of steps that led to the shore. Only a couple of feet lay between us and the Ponte Rotto, only that these few feet were filled with turbulent water.
There was something encouraging after all. Next to the bottom of the left arch of the bridge’s remains and partially hidden in dense undergrowth a pale light shimmered from a window of a box-like building. On the shore a gray rubber raft with outboard engine was moored. It was a little suicidal to visit a killer in his slaughterhouse. But I hadn’t endured all this madness for two days, just to crawfish out now. That I was put Antonio at risk because auf my mad curiosity did bother me though. But hadn’t he said just two days ago »I want to apprentice to you, yes, I want to be your Dr. Watson«? Life’s not easy at the bottom!
»And you’re absolutely sure that there are no floaties lying around somewhere?« I yelled at Antonio through the howling gale.
He shrugged.
»Scary area«, he said. »Looks a lot like a freaking test of courage for real men.«
»But, il mio amico, you are a real man. Above all, in contrary to us boring straight guys you are actually able to judge a real man!«
Despite the omnipresent coldness, which gripped me to the marrow, I was capable of a cocky smile.
»You will excuse me though, when I dare a jump in good old broads’ way ...« the black Oriental replied, and in the next moment he was in the water at a clumsy bound. (6) I believe I even saw him hold his nose with his front paws. Now it was my turn to give proof of my masculinity, which could hardly mean that I cautiously dipped one paw into the water to guess the temperature.
Just like Antonio I eventually made an effort and jumped into the boisterous waves. My worries about the water temperature immediately proved well-founded. Had I been pretty cold on the shore, I now believed to instantly die from freezing. Even the warmth o
f spring hadn’t been enough to heat up the river a little bit. The winter frost was still snoozing in its black bowels. But that was the smaller problem, the other and bigger one was the struggle against drowning. In the boisterous waves Antonio and I paddled as panic-fuelled as if we were begging for mercy in sped up sign language. While we performed water gymnastics with four paws, we tried to hold our heads or at least our noses up just as desperately. But the waves weren’t considerate of us and kept splashing on us with roaring screams. We swallowed so much Tiber water that, if we didn’t drown, we would probably die from the countless poisons in this sludge.
But the pathetic paddling was rewarded. The shore, which consisted of cobbles at this spot, got closer, and after some more paw-rowing we were finally able to escape to the mossy stones. Due to the different water temperatures the rain suddenly felt like a warm shower. While we threw up the Tiber’s overabundant gift, we also enjoyed our heroic deed a little.
In the twilight of the streetlights the Tiber Island from here looked romantic, even behind the rain curtain. Antonio and I turned towards the box-shaped cabin in the shrubs. Compared with the bridge element of the Ponto Rotto, which was decorated with fish bodies, the smudgy, wooden little rat-shop reminded of illegally disposed bulk garbage. Antonio jumped on the sill of the only window that was enlightened. He made his head spring back and forth in rapid succession to gain better eyesight. Then he stood on his hind legs and pressed his whole body against the window frame. After a couple of times it yielded with a squeaky sound, and the window was open.
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