The Cardinal's Sin

by Robert Lane

  “Trust me,” I said, and it sounded so lame I hurried up my speech so those two words wouldn’t pollute the air. “Give me something about your visitor with a gun. His entrance into your life is not good for you or your daughter.”

  He brought his right hand up as if to touch his face but then brought it back down to his side. “I’d l-like you to leave now.”

  I knew I’d be back.

  CHAPTER 7

  Peggy dropped my breakfast in front of me on the lacquered counter in Sea Breeze. I crop-dusted the plate with pepper. The windows were open, and bushy red geraniums in the window boxes spilled into the booths like frozen fire. The syrupy air hung heavy with the smell of grilled bacon, onions, and potatoes. I picked up a paper someone had left and flipped to the weather page. I noted the tides, gulf temperature, moon phase, sunrise, and sunset. I thought about tackling sports, but I just didn’t care.

  I’d decided the best way to earn Lambert’s trust was to respect his wish that I leave. I planned to give him some time and circle back. I already doubted that blueprint and wished I’d insisted that he join me for breakfast. He was hedging, maybe flat-out lying, and a little one-on-one might help dissolve him. My phone rang.

  “What do you got?” I asked Mary Evelyn. Garrett had told me she was compiling information on Cardinal Antinori.

  Mary Evelyn was third-generation, East Side Cleveland, Ohio, Irish Catholic. Garrett, against my judgment, shared everything with her. She had validated his decision numerous times. I had no clue how she would take the fact that I had accidently on purpose wasted a cardinal.

  “I’m sending you a doc on the cardinal,” she said. “I assume at this point that you know most of it, but there might be some details about his early life and career that you haven’t come across. Whether that helps you or not, we’ll see.”

  “You know what occurred, right?” I thought I should say more but held back. The ball was in her court.

  “I do. Don’t worry, Jake.”

  Her use of my name startled me. Mary Evelyn and I had a running game in which I tried, always unsuccessfully, to get her to call me by my first name. This was only the second time she had ever done so, and like the first occasion, it was unsolicited and at a time when I was vulnerable. “Garrett gave me the details,” she continued. “Accidents happen.”

  “Accidents?”

  “You deal with it in your way, and I’ll deal with it in mine. And Mr. Travis?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t screw up this time.” The line went dead.

  Seems to be a universal instruction for me.

  I started to take a forkful of eggs, but her last comment spurred me forward. I placed the fork down, but not before the saliva started running in my mouth. I called FBI Special Agent Natalie Binelli. I had worked a case with Binelli, and we’d developed an informal arrangement whereby she would assist Garrett and me. I left a message. I did the same with Brian Applegate, a security analyst at MacDill.

  “When’s the big day?” Peggy demanded as she refilled my coffee.

  “You’ll be the first to know,” I said, picking up my fork for another pass at the eggs. “You got a good summer crowd today.”

  She plopped the coffeepot on the counter. “Don’t change subjects with me. You better grab that woman while you can, or else.”

  “What?” My mouth was nearly drooling with anticipation. I shoved the eggs in.

  “What?”

  “Or else what?” It came out a little garbled.

  “Don’t be smart with me, either.”

  “Listen, you don’t think I have a twinkle in my eyes, do you?”

  “I’ve seen no proof of a light inside your head.”

  She picked up the coffeepot and did a refill on the guy next to me. He hadn’t bothered to pepper anything on his plate; that severely limited my interest in him as well as his contribution to society. Peggy wasn’t done with me. She planted her left hand on her hip and squared off. “Not a woman out there—you listening to me?—not a single one out there, no matter what they tell their man, that don’t wanna walk that aisle.”

  I thought of the sea hag in London lecturing me that women don’t like making love on the floor. And now Peggy chiming in on marriage. I realized that I knew precious little about Peggy other than that she served me breakfast and urged me to marry Kathleen. I took a bite of crispy bacon, and my world became a better place.

  “Tell me what your—” My phone rang and jiggled next to my coffee, cutting me off…Binelli. I looked up, but Peggy was off barking at someone in the kitchen.

  Binelli volunteered to send me what she had on Paretsky, but I doubted it was anything more than what the colonel had already provided. She was between meetings and briefly questioned the source of my curiosity. I deflected her questions, and she hung up on me. That woman never said goodbye.

  Applegate called back as I was finishing the hash browns and sports; I’d gotten bored, so I memorized the winning percentages of all the Major League Baseball teams. He was aware of the hunt for Paretsky. He regurgitated what he knew, but it was identical to the colonel’s spiel. They were reading from the same dossier. We disconnected. My plate was empty, although I didn’t remember taking the last bite. Where’s the enjoyment in that? I left an extra five on my seven-dollar breakfast and instinctively lowered my head on my way out the door.

  It was disappointing that neither Binelli nor Applegate had anything, but not disheartening. The chances of Apple-gate having a thicker folder on Paretsky than the colonel did were slim. Binelli would take some time, ask some questions, and scout around. She’d be back. She was a player.

  I passed under the filtered shade of a pine stand, where a pair of fat-tire beach bikes leaned against the trunks, and headed down Eighth Avenue toward the beach.

  Renée Lambert was AWOL. That didn’t surprise me. I’d perused the packet the colonel had left me before I dropped in on Lambert. Her London flat had been searched as soon as they realized that I shot the wrong man. Maybe sea hag got that call as well. Nothing of consequence was found. It was under surveillance now in the event that she returned. I thought of catching a flight and taking a peek myself but didn’t consider it a wise use of time. Whoever searched it was likely far better at those things than I was.

  Hard to imagine—anyone better at anything than me.

  That left me with Lambert. Someone had paid him a visit. Might do so again.

  I called PC. He and his sidekick, Boyd, did grunt surveillance work for me. They were high school dropouts, and PC packed a kick-ass IQ. It had gotten him thrown in the slammer twice before age sixteen. He and Boyd had proved to be valuable assets, more than capable of improvising and looking out for themselves. PC had also become a worthy chess adversary. I wanted to keep them on the right side of the law and knew that idle time was the devil’s time. The path he was heading down when I’d met him was a hard one to back out of.

  “Jake-o-man. Still hunting rogue cops?” PC and Boyd had recently been instrumental in helping me locate a missing girl who had been kidnapped by a sheriff’s detective.

  “He’s doing twenty. Got a job for you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Need you to watch a house. Treasure Island. I’ll text you the address.” I slowed my pace so as to stay under the overhang of the stores.

  Two women passed me on the bikes that had been outside of Sea Breeze. One of them wore a hat so wide it cast a shadow over her entire body. The other had thin arms and long, slender legs that pumped up and down in a mesmerizing motion, her ponytail swinging in rhythm like a metronome. I fell deeper in love the farther she got from me. Glamour and lust, after all, both feed on distance.

  “Twenty-four-seven?” PC terminated my affair.

  I hesitated. Wouldn’t hurt, but it would be hard to remain undetected—not that Lambert would ever report anything. “Maybe twelve, eighteen hours a day. Next few days.” It seemed a little wishy-washy for me, but I justified it to myself by thinking my
actions were strictly precautionary in the first place. “Start immediately. I’ll—”

  “No can do. We’re—”

  “Don’t tell me that. You—”

  “Breathe deep, Jake-o.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow. Noonish. We’re at Disney with a couple of babes, real Space Mountain junkies. And cotton candy. No idea that chicks were that passionate about pink whipped sugar.” He paused. “That OK?”

  There wasn’t any sense in disrupting their trip. I hadn’t planned on keeping tabs on Lambert, but once I’d learned that a man with a gun had imposed himself and that initial inquiries to Binelli and Applegate were air balls, I wanted an eye on him.

  “Tomorrow’s fine,” I said. “Say hi to Goofy.”

  “You mean Boyd?”

  I hung up.

  I gazed down the street, but the legs, and my lust, were gone.

  At home I fixed a cup of coffee and took my laptop to the screened porch. The double, sliding doors were open, and there was little discernable difference between the outside and interior air. The legal profession calls it ‘difference without distinction.’ I occasionally turn the AC on at night, but otherwise I like living with a roof over my head and open walls. This arrangement, enhanced by a nonlatching, screened-porch door, creates a vibrant gecko population within the house, but Hadley III is a formidable huntress. A dead one was on my seat. The seat faces southwest toward the open waters of the gulf. I avoid seats that face north; I like the sun in front of me. When I dip beneath the equator, I adjust my habit appropriately.

  I picked it up—the gecko, not the seat—kicked open the screen door that didn’t latch, and tossed it out under the wild red hibiscus bush. I’d just finished putting a new pneumatic closer on my neighbor Barbara’s door; it would have been nice if my latch had gone before I made the hardware run, but it doesn’t work that way. Next big blow that came along, the door would bang all night. I perused the doc that Mary Evelyn had sent to see if it meshed with what the colonel had provided. There might be slight differences—albeit without distinction—but sometimes those slight differences are misleading.

  Cardinal Giovanni Antinori was born in Castelfiorentino, Italy, about an hour out of Florence. His family moved to Manchester, England, when Giovanni was three. His father worked at an engineering firm while his mother stayed home to raise their son and his older sister. Raised by devout, old-country Catholics, young Giovanni charged into the priesthood. My interest waned. After all, I knew the end of the story.

  I tried to grind on, but it was like trudging uphill carrying two pairs of snow skis. After surveying the salient facts, I capitulated. His career was an Oscar-highlight film. I forwarded it to Morgan with a note to analyze. He was due back any day aboard Moon Child, his forty-two-foot Beneteau. He’d taken off for St. Kitts a month ago, while I was in Europe. Whether or not he could access the doc before he returned was another matter. He was unaware, naturally, of my association with the deceased cardinal. I merely inquired in my note if he could find anything unusual in the recent past. I’d have to reveal the root of my curiosity, but I didn’t want to think about that. Not yet. Perhaps unbiased eyes could find a clue as to why Antinori was in Kensington Gardens that morning. Something in his past linked him to Paretsky.

  The perversity of the thought struck me. If something in your past is that influential, then it’s obviously not in the past.

  Hadley III pounced on top of the grill, cautiously wiggled her back end down, and stared at the water. I reviewed the photographs the colonel had left with me. There were several pictures of Donald Lambert. One picture of Paretsky and Renée was marked Covent Gardens, London. Time unknown. The shot of Paretsky with the unidentified blonde on a boat was labeled Key West, with a question mark. In neither picture were Renée or Paretsky the focus of the photographer. I pushed them away. I had a far more serious issue.

  An issue that, every minute of every hour of the day, had caused my mind to short out like a faulty circuit board.

  I gave Impulse a double layer of wax. That was easy to do on the port side as it faced the dock. The starboard side was a real workout as I hung over the gunwale until I nearly joined the fish. She didn’t need it, but I needed to do it. Needed to avoid thinking about that evening, about what I truly cared about. About the only damn issue I’d really thought about all day.

  Kathleen and I were to have dinner that night; I’d told her I’d pick her up at half past six. The hours of the day had carried a mindless emptiness, as if they were cognizant that they served no purpose other than to advance the clock. No matter what I did or where my thoughts wandered, the sole intent and momentum of that day had always been the evening. I would have to tell her. My deed. My deceit. My everything.

  Before I left, I remembered to text PC Lambert’s address.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Where would you like to go?” Kathleen called out from her bedroom.

  She was in the final stages of prepping herself, as was I. I was into my second straight Irish whiskey—Jameson Black Barrel. We’d adopted the drink in London. Even took a bottle in a cab and had a jolly good time.

  She must have hustled out and bought some. Peggy was right; I’d better grab this woman. Whether she’d want me after tonight was a question that two layers of boat wax couldn’t address.

  “That’s the right stuff, isn’t it?” She asked a second question before I answered the first.

  “It is. Shall we grab a cab tonight?”

  She poked a smile around the doorframe. “That was fun. What’s on the agenda?”

  I thought, Have I got a surprise for you, but said, “How about the Valencia? Steak house on the lower level.” In the event that things turned out poorly, I didn’t want to go to Mangroves, our default restaurant.

  She slipped back into her bedroom. I helped myself to a tin of cashews and tossed down a handful. Lightly salted, my ass. A few moments later, she swirled out of her room and circled me in a cream, sleeveless dress. A small scar was visible on her upper left shoulder where the bullet had passed clean through. Whether I ever tell that story, I can’t say. A circle of pearls dropped low on her chest, and a red sash wrapped her waist. I was glad I’d exchanged my shorts for beige linen pants and a navy silk shirt. I never know when she’s going to dress to the nines.

  “Perfect,” she said as she lifted a glass of chardonnay off the granite countertop. I wondered why she hadn’t taken it in the bedroom with her. “It’s cozy and dark. Just like that place in York.” She clanked her wineglass to my nearly empty tumbler. “To cabs in London and nights in York.” She leaned in and gave me a quick kiss. “Hopefully it will be less stress than the last time we were there.”

  Oh…shit.

  I’d forgotten. Kathleen, under false pretenses (not that I harbor any resentment), had hired me two years ago to locate her missing friend. He was really a hit man from the Outfit, sent to—well, erase her. I confronted her and her pack of lies while we had dinner at the bar in the steakhouse. We survived a disastrous first act to our relationship. What a dickhead decision to go back there. For a smart guy, I make my share. Furthermore, I’ve begun to suspect that my stupid decision-making ability is like the universe—ever expanding.

  She said, “You remember, don’t you?”

  “I recall that you lied about everything since we met at the D—”

  “You couldn’t keep your eyes off me,” she teased. She was riding high tonight. Maybe I should table my confession that I committed murder on our vacation—killed old what’s-his-face. Why waste an eight-ounce center cut over such trivial affairs?

  I downed my drink. “I can’t keep my eyes off any good-looking woman.”

  “Your eyes are totally free. It’s your heart that I want. Besides,” she took another taste of wine, “love looks not with the eyes but with the mind.”

  I put my arms around her and gathered her in, her soft body melting with mine. She smelled fresh. A hint of perfume that wasn’t there
from six feet out, but up close—you’d be a damn fool to let her go. I hovered my mouth over hers and tripped on the edge of passion. I searched my brain, but it wasn’t there.

  “Keats, Byron, Muhammad Ali?” I said.

  “I got you.” She pulled back. “You don’t know, do you?”

  “I know Twain implied what could be construed as an opposing opinion. Tell me.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “I’ll make it ea—”

  I kissed her as if it were my last act on earth before being led to the chair. I had held back long enough and wasn’t at all confident about what the end of the night would bring. I released her.

  “OK. Sometimes…” She paused and let her breath out. “Sometimes I think that just does it for me.”

  I put her arm through mine. “Shall we?”

  “Wherever you go.”

  We’ll see about that.

  We rode the elevator down and then strolled out of her condo and onto the hustle and heat of Beach Drive.

  We headed, without discussion, straight to the bar. Kathleen and I like eating high, and the steakhouse has massive, high-backed, cushioned stools. The amber, whiskey-wood walls did remind me of our special place in York, except—thank God—the New World didn’t tolerate seven-foot ceilings.

  I ordered a bottle of 2005 Château Haut-Bages-Libéral, a Bordeaux that was a nice compromise between the heavy reds that I prefer and the lighter ones that Kathleen gravitates to. I normally stick to American reds. After all, the French refused to allow us to use their airspace when we did the world a favor and bombed Gadhafi in 1986. American crosses—count ’em—forever gazing over the frigid waters of the English Channel. I’m not implying that grants us carte blanche, but when those—