Julian stopped, and tried to quiet his thoughts and focus his attention as his teacher had instructed. After a few moments, he felt calmer. He was back in control of himself and could better control the elements of his search, but still, he knew nothing of substance.
He rounded a corner and could feel, immediately, the signature of someone who did know things, things of substance. He was a man who kept secrets in exchange for money.
Julian returned to the conference room and attracted Enrico Marino’s attention. Together, they tracked through the facility again and eventually found the keeper of secrets. Marino recognized the man as being wanted for burglary and assault on a police officer.
The burly sergeant grabbed the man and pushed him against a nearby wall. Handcuffs were placed on wrists and the suspect was led away to the makeshift interrogation room and Inspector Saviano.
Julian knocked once then looked inside saying, “Having any luck?”
The inspector said, “Signore Blessing, you are beginning to annoy me. Do you have this effect on everyone?”
“Only those who like me,” Julian said.
“Then I must be falling in love. None of these men knows anything. This may be difficult for you to believe, but this man,” she pointed to the man sitting across the table from her, “actually knows less about anything than you say you do,” the inspector said.
She turned to the man and said in Italian, “Thank you, now go away.”
“I have someone for you to talk with who does know something,” Julian said. He felt he had made progress and his face wore an eager look.
Enrico Marino pushed a large man into the room and shoved him into a chair. Marino said two words as an introduction, “Antonio Califano.”
The inspector said in Italian, “You have been a busy burglar. I am with the finance police, so burglary does not concern me. Still, I keep up on things. You struck a policeman. That does not concern me either, but Enrico takes that sort of thing personally. The policeman was his cousin.
“My associates believe you know something. I say they are wrong. You are too stupid looking to know anything of value. Which of us is right?” She smiled pleasantly.
“I don’t talk to whores like you,” the man drawled.
Switching to English, the inspector said, “That’s it? That is as original as a clown like you gets? I am a prostitute? That’s it? Enrico, punish this man for being unoriginal.”
Her assistant stepped behind the prisoner and pushed Califano forward, bouncing his head off the table.
After thirty minutes of questioning, the inspector sat back in her chair with no more information than when she started. The air was nearly blue with profanity, most of it lost on Julian.
“Yet another man who knows nothing. I am shocked,” the inspector snarled.
“May I ask him a question?” Julian asked.
“Why not?” the inspector sneered.
“Parli inglese?” Julian asked and the man shook his head, no.
“Madonna mia! Is this what we’ve come to Enrico? What is next, signore Blessing? Are you going to ask him if he would go to the bakery with you? How much more grammar school Italian must we endure? Enrico, we bounced the wrong man’s head off the table!” the inspector cried out in frustration.
“You ask if he speaks English and he tells you no. In fact, he does; he just doesn’t speak it to you. The man is an idiot, but he speaks English. If you have something of value to add, add it now before I become unhappy with you.” She glared at all three men and said, “All of you.”
Julian smiled at her and pulled his chair closer to the table. “This will only take a moment,” he said.
Califano sat in brooding silence with his face twisted in a sneer of disgust.
Julian let his shoulders drop and his eyes became hooded as he stared into the man. The thought he sent Califano hit the man with enough force to push him back in his chair.
“I do not want to repeat myself,” Julian thought. “You will tell me everything you know about the package and the woman who came to collect it. You know what package and what woman so don’t bother with that excuse.”
The man could feel Julian’s words as clearly as if they had been shouted at him, but Julian sat placidly looking into the man’s face. Califano, his eyes wide with a mixture of fear and hatred, spat at Julian and missed. Enrico moved up behind the man, but Julian raised his hand to stop the sergeant.
“Please, take this man’s handcuffs off.” Marino shot a questioning look to his inspector who nodded imperceptibly. With a pinched look of concentration, she watched Julian’s every move, listened to his every breath.
The man was rubbing his wrists when Julian’s next thought struck hard. “I am having to repeat myself. Let me give you something you can remember so this doesn’t happen again.”
The man screamed as the fingers of his right hand began to twist in a paroxysm of excruciating pain. Enrico Marino moved a step and his inspector shook her head bringing her assistant to a halt. Although Califano tried to stop it, his hand twisted into a claw and the spasm began to work its way up his arm. He shrieked again and swore. Julian sat back in his chair, then released the man.
“Let’s start over again. What happened to the package and the woman? Lie to me and you will feel something far worse than a muscle spasm. Oh, and I’ll leave you that way for the rest of your life. Capisci?” Julian thought.
The prisoner nodded once, his eyes wide with terror.
“Please, tell the inspector everything you know and do it in English,” Julian instructed.
For fifteen minutes, a frightened, confused, and angry Antonio Califano told his story.
He had been alerted to a package by a friend, a man he was in prison with. The friend wanted Califano to locate a specific package and then take it home. He was assured the reward for performing this task would be substantial.
Califano located the package. It was awaiting a signature for pickup. He stashed it away. The prisoner said, “This woman came in. Una bella fica. She asked for the package. Nobody could find it. Two men came in, said something to her and she ran out to get into their car. One man was tall, the other short. Both in black suits with guns under their jackets.”
“And that is all you know?” Julian thought. Califano nodded once. He felt Julian’s message. “Two mistakes. Both bad.
“Your first mistake is that isn’t quite all, am I right? I said I wanted the whole story and I don’t have time to waste. Your second error? ‘Una bella fica’ – a nice piece of ass? See, I know some Italian, but not much. Doesn’t matter; it was a bad thing to say. In most circumstances it might have proved very bad, but you may yet save yourself. That is, after you receive a reminder.”
Julian smiled indulgently as the prisoner fell from his chair, howling, while he clutched his groin. Neither police officer paid attention to their prisoner’s suffering, although Enrico winced slightly. Both the inspector and the sergeant were more interested in how this was happening.
Califano crawled back onto his chair panting heavily and his story began to spill out faster.
The waiting car had diplomatic plates. Vatican license plates, Califano thought, but he couldn’t be sure. The man who arranged Califano’s participation was driving the car. They nodded to each other. When asked, the prisoner begrudgingly supplied the driver’s name.
The story continued. That same night, the driver appeared at Califano’s door and gave him a thousand euros for the package and another eight hundred to forget what he saw. The man left in a different car but also with diplomatic plates. The prisoner supplied the plate number.
“Enrico,” the inspector said in a mild voice, “please call dispatch to send a car to take this fool away.” Her assistant nodded, handcuffing Califano again.
The man’s struggles were useless. He looked at the inspector. “You bitch! You said you didn’t care about the burglaries and that thing with the cop!”
The inspector was inspecting Juli
an, before she shifted her gaze to Califano. “I lied. I do that sometimes.” She smiled and wrinkled her nose. “But thank you for your information and for cooperating with the police like a good citizen.”
“Daughter of a thousand bitches!” the prisoner spat. Enrico pushed him out the door and they were gone.
The room was quiet for a moment. “What the hell was that!” the inspector screamed at Julian. “I don’t even know how or where to begin with you. What was that? Who are you? What were you doing? How do you do what you did?”
The inspector was nose to nose with Julian and he could feel her breath on his face. “Listen to me. I don’t have any amulets or charms to protect me from the evil eye,” she said while making the corna, the sign of the horns, at Julian with her hand. “But if you try any of that shit with me, I swear by the Madonna, I will shoot you in your stupid face! Blessing, I am waiting, so you better start telling me what I want to know.”
“My friends call me Julian. I was thinking we might be friends,” he said and smiled his hopefulness. The smile never reached beyond the corners of his mouth.
Inspector Belladonna Saviano threw her head back and bellowed, “ENRICO!”
Her assistant entered the room looking as taciturn and unhurried as usual. “Enrico,” his inspector said in rapid fire Italian, “is witchcraft a crime? I know it’s a sin and that’s good enough, so please, kill this man. The Church will forgive and protect you. We’ll put his body in a barrel and I know you have cousins who know people who will take the barrel out to sea. Please, Enrico, do this one little thing for me,” she pleaded.
With a nearly imperceptible shake of his head, her assistant looked at Julian and made the sign of the horns. Julian smiled having no idea his disposal was under discussion.
The inspector hung her head and switched back to English, “Why is there never an inquisition going on when you need one? Blessing, I’m sure the church would be delighted to burn you as a witch, wizard, sorcerer, magician or whatever the hell you are. I’ll even bring the matches.”
“I really don’t know what you’re talking about, but none of that matters,” Julian said. “We have a lead. So, now we go find this driver. The hell with the package but this could lead to the doctor, right?”
The inspector’s brow furrowed, as she looked at Julian as if he was mad. “We are not going anywhere. Nothing Enrico and I are going to do in any way includes you. You are to go back to your hotel, or go sightseeing, or go to a nice restaurant or, oh, wait, I know, you could leave the country. That would make me very happy. Ultimately, it would make the Italian government happy. They do not know that yet because they have not had the pleasure of your company.
“Under no circumstances are you to get involved in this investigation. Capisci, signore Blessing?”
“You can call me Julian.” Julian despised playing the fool. This time doing so got him what he wanted. He sat and smiled foolishly.
***
Inspector Saviano and her partner put Julian into a taxi and instructed the driver to deliver him to his hotel and nowhere else. The inspector was emphatic each of the three times she repeated, “Nowhere else.”
Julian waved goodbye through the taxi’s rear window. His grin left the inspector and her assistant on the curb shaking their heads.
He turned around in his seat and the too-broad grin devolved into a thin, tight line and there was fury behind his eyes. The change did not go unnoticed. The driver had looked in his rearview mirror and what he saw chilled his bones.
Half a mile away, Julian pushed a crisp, orange fifty euro note into the front seat and quietly said, “Città del Vaticano, per favore.” At the next intersection the driver had a decision to make - risk the ire of the police or follow the dictates of free enterprise.
A second crisp, orange fifty euro note floated into the front seat to join its brother. The driver looked again into his rearview mirror. In the years to come, he would tell of the time he had a fare who could see right into your soul.
Some decisions are easier to make than others. The driver turned his taxi toward Vatican City and drove.
Chapter Four
The taxi delivered Julian to the mouth of St. Peter’s Square. Ten euros more and Julian had exact directions to the Vatican garage and carpool. He started off on foot to find the St. Anne Gate, the working entrance to the Vatican.
***
The Corpo della Gendarmeria, who manned this entrance, were the picture of vigilance, checking and rechecking employees as they entered and turning away Hawaiian shirted tourists who demanded to see the Pope.
The entrance stood next to the Gendarmeria barracks. The area was alive with fit young men in dark blue uniforms with foreign legion caps in blue. Julian read the signatures of many of the men. To him, each had mastered the art of looking relaxed while being perpetually alert and mindful of where they worked and why.
Julian approached the checkpoint prepared to be either denied entrance outright, or, at the worst, arrested. Still, he had to try and trying the easy way first was always preferable to the other option.
He had experienced the phenomenon of stepping out of linear time to appear elsewhere. This was a new talent he had tried only a few times. He had told his teacher, Moira Hagan, he was ‘inexpert’ in his use of it. Her response had been a less than reassuring, ‘What a load of bollocks. You’re awful, ya eejet.’
These semantic disagreements were a frequent part of their student/teacher relationship.
He took a breath and calmed his thoughts. His paranormal talents were newly discovered, raw, and occasionally he wielded them badly. He had asked his mentor what his gifts were for, what greater agenda he was advancing.
The professor’s wife, Bridget Bragonier, responded, “What we do is shine a light into the darkness. We scatter the shadows. If we do it correctly, we are able to make the seemingly impossible happen.” That seemed like so long ago to him. He had seen and learned and done so much since those early days.
“Well, let’s make the impossible happen,” he whispered to himself. At his approach, the two officers eyed him carefully, then looked away. He walked past them and was thunderstruck. Bridget had been right.
Following his taxi driver’s directions, Julian followed Via Rusticucci, inside Vatican City, as the street jogged to the right. He passed the plain, brown sandstone Vatican post office, turned right and could see the Apostolic Library on his left. The driver said the garage and motor pool would be on his right.
He had gotten by the Vatican police. On reflection, that had not been so much impossible as improbable. Two hundred feet ahead of him stood the impossible.
The slightly built and highly volatile Inspector Belladonna Saviano was talking with two men in dark suits. Explaining himself to the inspector would be unwise, he knew. Julian felt his best course would be to station himself nearby and wait for the inspector to leave.
Turning away from the impossible, Julian walked directly into the immovable – the inspector’s sergeant.
“Signore Marino,” Julian said and tried to look pleased. “What a surprise.” He meant every word of that. The man said nothing. He looked at Julian without blinking or moving.
“How long have you been following…” There was no reason to complete his sentence. Suddenly the truth became exposed to glaring daylight. Julian made it past the Vatican police because the sergeant, who had been following him, waved them away.
“Well, gosh, nice chatting with you. It seems I must be going.”
“Going so soon, signore Blessing?” Julian closed his eyes and turned. He had been intent on getting away from Marino and never felt the inspector walk up behind him. This, he swore to himself, he would work on. Unless the inspector killed him.
“I gave you a set of instructions, signore, did I not?” Her tone was pleasantly derisive.
“My thoughts exactly, Inspector. You told me to do some sightseeing, and as you can see, I am. You told me to leave Italy and I have removed myself �
�� by the way, to a place where you have no jurisdict...” Julian could sense the signature of two men who were now standing behind him with Marino. Both the newcomers had a keen interest in him and both had plenty of jurisdiction.
“I’m sorry, I believe you were about to say something about my authority within Vatican City?” the inspector said. Her eyebrows were raised, her brown eyes opened large and she looked expectant.
“Me?” Julian attempted. He sensed two more men joining the group that was now forming behind him. He didn’t enjoying being the center of attention.
***
Julian sat handcuffed and seated in the back of the inspector’s car. She sat beside him and her sergeant drove. “What am I to do with you, signore?” the inspector asked. “You have caused Enrico and me far more trouble than you are worth. I agree, that was not difficult because you have proved to be worth almost nothing.
“We try to assist you and for our efforts, you obstruct our every move, you lie to us, you meddle where you are not wanted, and now you defy me by refusing to follow my instructions. Please, answer me, signore Blessing. I am absolutely dying to hear what new bundle of lies you have manufactured for Enrico and me.” Julian opened his mouth, but closed it when she continued.
“I say this only because you have, as yet, failed to tell even one truth to us, although I am enthralled by many of your half-truths. Am I wrong? Please tell me, signore.” She looked at Julian as though he might answer with something truthful or even plausible.
He sat in silence and examined the buttons on his shirt as Rome flew past the car’s windows.
“Oh, you have no answers for me. I am crushed. Tonight, I shall go home and cry into my pillow,” the inspector said in a voice that dripped condescension. “Enrico, can you not see that I am crushed?” Her assistant looked briefly into the rear view mirror, then nodded his head.
Belladonna Saviano turned to her prisoner and leaned in close. Again, Julian could feel her breath on his face. This woman was not a respecter of personal space.
Echoes Through the Vatican: A Paranormal Mystery (The Echoes Quartet Book 2) Page 4