Jack 1939

by Francine Mathews

  * * *

  SHE LED HIM SOUTH AND WEST at the racketing pace of Rome, which suited Jack fine. He hung on to the edge of the open car window, his progress heralded by a snarl of horns and shouted curses, exhilaration flooding his veins, and urged the cabbie repeatedly in his lousy French not to lose her. They roared through the Piazza Navona and sailed by the Palazzo Farnese. The Tiber was very close, and St. Peter’s dome loomed across the river.

  Diana’s car dove left into Via Giulia and pulled up before an ancient building—one of many—in the quiet street. The only entrance was through massive double doors, barred to the world, with a smaller door cut into them.

  “Arrêtez,” Jack said, and tossed the cabbie some lire. The clear note of a bell split the evening air.

  Diana stood before the entrance, waiting. She looked remarkably composed, her gloved hands folded on the strap of her purse. It was she who’d rung the bell; it was still vibrating in its bracket. Jack hesitated, just looking at her. The Chanel was demure and in excellent taste but her long legs betrayed her—there was a dancer, a siren, an intoxicating power beneath that black and petal-pink sheath.

  She was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen and yes, the word was an insult when applied to Diana. Jack had grabbed things all his life; he used and discarded them as soon as he was bored. He wanted Diana now as he’d never wanted any woman before, but he knew the danger of boredom, and he feared the eventual discarding. She had Willi and sleek Denys and her house in Mayfair. She did not give a damn about him anyway.

  The smaller door cut into the massive gates opened.

  A nun stepped out, hand extended.

  To Jack’s shock, Diana bowed her head like a supplicant.

  The nun drew her inside. The door closed.

  He left the cab and walked slowly toward the barred gates. A small bronze plaque was mounted on the wall, just below the bell, which still trembled from the pleasure of Diana’s touch.

  Piccole Sorelle di Clemenza, it read.

  The Little Sisters of Clemency.

  TWENTY-FOUR. THE CLOISTER

  IT WAS NEARLY AN HOUR before Diana emerged from the convent, and Jack had burned through three cigarettes as he strolled the length of the Via Giulia, trying to look like an indolent tourist interested in ancient buildings. He was a good two hundred yards away when the small door in the gate creaked open, and the slim figure slipped through it.

  She led him on foot to the Campo dei Fiori, a dusty little square given over to the flower sellers and a single café where nobody fashionable drank. When the waiter had brought her Campari and Diana had drawn her cigarette case from her handbag, Jack sauntered over. He grabbed a chair and straddled it backward, ever the casual American.

  “Hello, gorgeous.”

  She’d ignored his approaching steps as only Diana could, but at his words she glanced up and treated him to her thousand-mile stare. The same one she’d used on the Promenade Deck as the Queen Mary pulled out of New York. Then the penny dropped.

  “Jack!”

  “Mrs. Playfair.” He grinned and saluted. “Fancy meeting you in Rome. But I hear all roads lead to it.”

  “You’re here for the Pope’s do, I suppose.”

  “With family in tow. Mother, Father, and assorted brats whose names I can never keep straight. The Kennedys have nailed down an entire floor of the Hotel d’Inghilterra. How about you?”

  “I’m at the Hassler.”

  “I didn’t think you were Catholic.”

  “Good Lord—I’m not. I’ve no intention of fighting the Vatican crowds tomorrow.” She took a sip of her drink, buying time. “I’m here to see an old friend. We were at school together, ages ago—only I had the stupidity to get married, while she entered a convent.”

  Oh, Diana, he thought, you’re goddamn brilliant. Admit the convent and supply a plausible reason for being there. Just in case he’d seen her in the Via Giulia.

  “Now, what could you two ever have had in common?” he wondered. “A taste for priests?”

  “For stealing cold pudding from the school larder in the dead of night,” she said. “We were both nearly given the boot more times than I like to count. But I daresay the Head needed our school fees. And some sort of piety must have rubbed off—witness Daisy’s pending sainthood. I drop over from time to time in the hope she’ll save my soul. If there’s anything left to save.”

  She’d meant it as a joke. Yet Jack heard unintentional bitterness.

  “Wind whistling over your grave, Diana?”

  “Of course not.” She forced a smile. “It’s just that life is so bloody, isn’t it? Particularly now.”

  “Talking to a guy you thought you ditched ten days ago?”

  She smiled. “Jack. I meant all these . . . men in black shirts. Guns at every corner. The sheer ugliness of it all.”

  “I thought you liked Fascists.”

  She flipped open her gold case and chose a cigarette. He fished in his pocket for his lighter. It was the replaying of a familiar scene; only this time he knew her better. Her face was deliberately blank; she hadn’t liked his barb. He remembered Dobler saying something about Diana and fascism and cover. Was she a spy? For us—or them?

  He rocked his chair forward, excitement surging in him. He wanted to take Diana’s helmet of hair in his hands and kiss her crimson mouth.

  “Fascists dress so much better than Communists,” she offered indifferently.

  “Except when they dress in black.”

  She expelled a cloud of smoke over his shoulder. “I understand the American ambassador in London is rather keen on them as well.”

  Jack went still. When he spoke he tried to match Diana’s tone, but there was an edge to it. “People have been lying about my father for most of his life. He’s used to it.”

  “Are you?”

  No. “I happen to know the truth.”

  “Which is?”

  “That Dad hates war. If talking to the Nazis will buy us some time and some peace—then I guess he’s buying.”

  “Yes, I rather imagine that’s how your typical American would see it,” she said thoughtfully. “Hitler as just another nuisance to be bought off. Is that why Mr. Kennedy lunched with Wohlthat in Paris?”

  Jack frowned. “Who?”

  “Helmuth Wohlthat. Göring’s private banker. I saw him with your father at Tour d’Argent two days ago.”

  Göring’s private banker. Jack’s mind turned like a cornered dog. “Dad lunched with Bullitt at the embassy.”

  “Then he ate twice.”

  A meeting with Göring’s banker? One hundred and fifty million dollars . . . we know Göring proposed it and Hitler approved it. . . .

  “I wonder what Wohlthat wanted, Jack. Stock tips?” Diana smiled lazily. “It’s unfortunate your father’s such a fool. Given how much of Neville Chamberlain’s ear he’s got. Between the two of them, they’ll buy our way right into Hitler’s hands.”

  She was being consciously cold. Insulting, even. Because he’d seen her in the Via Giulia? Or because she couldn’t be bothered with a raw and boring kid?

  He stood up and righted his chair.

  “Sorry I bothered you, Mrs. Playfair. Give my regards to the Little Sisters of Clemency.”

  Her cigarette was beautifully balanced in her gloved hand, her dark eyes fixed on his face. But at his final words her fingers trembled a little, and the ash fell into her Campari.

  * * *

  FOR JACK THE CORONATION BEGAN at seven-thirty the next morning, with a convoy of cars flying American and papal flags. Seventy thousand people filled the vast St. Peter’s Basilica; Count Ciano, Mussolini’s son-in-law, had reserved places for Joe and Rose directly in front of the altar. Joe grabbed an extra eight seats for his kids. Pushy and ungracious. Typical of an am
ericano.

  Jack was bleary-eyed from a late night wandering the streets with Kick. He’d been in raging high spirits, despite the way Diana had treated him. After he’d had a few drinks with Kick at the Antico Caffè Greco, he was ready to breach the Hassler itself—push his way up to Diana’s room and thrust her lovely shoulders against the wall. Force her to tell him the truth. Explain her insinuations. Confess where her loyalties lay and what Dobler meant to her. Why she’d married that sleek Whitehall Denys.

  “I think the Chianti went to your head,” Kick muttered as she steered him toward the d’Inghilterra. “It’s not as hard as you think, kid.”

  “It’s swell. I’m grand! I’m Black Jack Ken.” He shook off Kick’s hand and lurched determinedly toward the Piazza di Spagna. He would hurtle up the Spanish Steps and dive off the top. Launch himself spectacularly over Roma. Diana would see from her hotel window and be astounded by his strength and vigor. Except that he tripped on an uneven stone and his feet went out from under him. He fell hard, spread-eagled on the steps.

  “Jack!”

  Kick grasped his shoulders and rolled him over. Her tousled curls hovered above his face; the globe of a streetlamp loomed beyond. A man loitered near it, barrel-chested in the light. Jack sat up so abruptly his forehead bumped Kick’s.

  “Hey!” she snorted, her hands on his chest. “Slow down, cowboy. You’ve done enough damage tonight. I’m going to get you home.”

  “Home’s a suitcase.” He struggled to his feet, swaying slightly. Tried to focus his swimming vision on the figure beneath the streetlamp. But the Spider—was it the Spider?—was gone.

  “I’m drunk as a skunk.” He said each word distinctly, to prove he could.

  “Nah. You had skunks beat a couple of hours ago.”

  “It’s because I’m in love with her.” He swooned toward Kick. “And she thinks I’m a bug. Terrible thing, love. Rips the heart right out of your body.”

  “She’s not worth it, Jack.”

  He shook his head miserably. “Not worthy of her.”

  “Sure you are, kid. Worth a hundred, remember? Said so yourself.”

  Kick wrapped her arm around his waist. They wove slowly back toward the Hotel d’Inghilterra.

  The next morning, sober, Jack realized they’d been talking about completely different women.

  * * *

  HIS LEFT LEG THROBBED NOW, painful from the cut in his calf where he’d thrust a DOCA pill. He was using one every two days, which George Taylor had estimated was about right, but something—the food or the water or something in Rome—wasn’t agreeing with him. It was a sin to eat before mass so at least his stomach was empty; he’d snuck a little black coffee just to slap himself awake. He was sweating in his morning suit, despite a wave of chills running over his frame. He closed his eyes and gave himself up to the strains of the Sistine Choir.

  The Latin mass was endless.

  When the kneeling and the standing and the anointing were over, when the thousands upon thousands had shuffled down the aisle to take the Bread of Christ from the ranks of cardinals, when the new pope had been proclaimed again—Pius XII—Jack emerged into the misty gray sunlight of a Roman noon in March with the musk of incense clouding his nostrils. He came to a dead halt as the multitude of people poured past him down the steps—a flood of bodies and smells and heat and oppressive contact, coats and hats brushing his sleeve, crushing his shoulder. He hated to be touched. The bodies swam before his eyes. He shuddered convulsively.

  “You okay, kid?”

  Kick wore a black lace veil over her hair; hung over and without makeup, she looked sorrowful and mourning. As though the Pope had died instead of coming into his Kingdom.

  “Ja-a-ack,” his mother said. She was dressed in black, too, only her veil had a diamond tiara underneath. She’d adopted tiaras lately. The ambassador’s wife as Princess Rose.

  He bent over and was wretchedly sick.

  * * *

  “JACK’S LITTLE TUMMY,” as Rose called it, turned out to be a godsend. He was allowed to skip the official celebratory five-course meal hosted by the American embassy and lie down in his room, with a cup of bouillon on a tray. His morning suit was taken away to be cleaned and pressed. He wore an open-necked shirt and a pullover sweater with his flannels, the most comfortable clothes he’d had on in a week.

  He took a spoonful of bouillon. It had cooled, and tasted of kitchens and metal. It smelled vaguely like semen. He tossed back half a glass of water, wondering which ancient sewer it came from. Wohlthat. Göring’s banker. Hitler just another nuisance he could buy off. His stomach twisted again.

  It was time, Jack decided, to see the Little Sisters of Clemency for himself.

  * * *

  HE PREPARED WHAT HE’D SAY, all the way to the Via Giulia. He’d send in his card to Sister Mary Joseph—the name Willi Dobler had given him. If he was lucky, the name was real. If he was lucky, the order wasn’t a cloistered one and they would let a man through the door. Jack wasn’t feeling particularly lucky today, but anything was better than drinking semen-scented soup in his hotel room.

  When his cab pulled up before the convent entrance, he saw that the double doors were already thrown wide open to the street.

  He paid the cabbie and walked through the gates. The sound of wailing met his ears.

  TWENTY-FIVE. A GIRL NAMED DAISY

  THE GATEWAY WAS WIDE ENOUGH to admit a truck. In the past it had probably allowed the passage of carts full of supplies, or a dignitary’s coach. Today it had opened for the morgue.

  Jack stopped short in the convent courtyard as he registered the black van. It had slewed crazily sideways before the arched colonnade that ran around the building. Like the courtyard, it was empty. But the wailing he’d heard grew steadily louder, and with it came the clatter of poorly fitted shoes. A moment later a figure in a long black habit hurtled down a flight of stairs opposite Jack and turned abruptly to her right, running full tilt toward a door at the far end of the colonnade. Her fists were pressed to her red cheeks and her mouth was open in a continuous scream.

  The sound of her wooden heels echoed around the stone walls; then the nun pushed wildly through the door and disappeared into darkness.

  Jack drew a deep breath and walked past the black van, toward the stairs.

  As he mounted the last step, his foot slid out unexpectedly. He clutched for a banister, saved himself from falling, and glanced down.

  He was standing in a pool of blood.

  * * *

  THE WOMAN WHOSE LIFE had dripped away on the paving of the corridor was rather young, he thought. She lay as she fell, on her back, her arms flung wide, as if in supplication. Her eyes stared upward, searching for God. Her fingers were slightly cupped, her lips parted. Her habit had been cut to the waist, and her left breast glowed like a perfect pearl against the black serge. Perfect but for the crouching spider.

  Blood crusted blackly along the lines sketched by the knife.

  Jack’s vision blurred and he felt his throat convulse; he turned away, forcing himself to master the sickness. A knot of people—more nuns, the men from the black van—were moving toward him, their voices raised in rapid and questioning Italian. He could not understand a word of it. Somebody grasped his arm and started to pull him back down the stairs but he managed to say something. The only Italian phrase he knew.

  “Parla inglese?”

  “I speak English.” One of the nuns—no longer young, with snapping black eyes and a hooked nose—stepped forward and stared at him. “You are not welcome. It is not convenient.”

  “Sister Mary Joseph,” he said, shaking the whirling haze out of his eyes. “I must speak to Sister Mary Joseph.”

  Her mouth tightened. “Idiota! You see what has happened—the . . . the sacrilege . . .”

  It was the same word in both la
nguages.

  Jack took a step forward and stared down at the dead girl. A Little Sister of Clemency. The Spider had shown her none.

  “What do you want with her?”

  Another voice this time; a second nun came forward. Older, more stately, with a simple silver cross at her neck.

  “You’re Sister Mary Joseph?”

  “I am the Mother Superior.” Her eyes strayed to the body at their feet. “This is Sister Mary Joseph.”

  Of course it was.

  Jack scrounged in his jacket for his card, the one with the London embassy’s address, and handed it to the Mother Superior. “I’d like to talk to you. I think I know who killed her.”

  The nun held his card at arm’s length, the better to read the fine writing. “Ken-ne-dy,” she said. “You will be some relation of the famous ambassador from America?”

  “His son.”

  “A good Catholic boy.” She nodded once to convince herself. As if she really knew. “I will see you. But first, I think, you must talk to la polizia.”

  * * *

  THE POLICE WERE TWO SMALL dark men in well-tailored uniforms. Neither of them spoke English. Jack’s grudging translator—whose name, he learned, was Sister Immaculata—agreed with a sigh to lend her services while the men from the morgue took the corpse away.

  She led them back downstairs to the courtyard, where they sat on one of the hard wooden benches that lined the colonnade. And watched Sister Mary Joseph as she was loaded into the van.

  “Don’t you bury her on the convent grounds?” Jack asked.

  “She is not Italian,” Sister Immaculata said indifferently. “She will be given a mass, of course, and sent home to her people. Once the police are done with her.”

  There was no love lost between Sister Immaculata and Sister Mary Joseph, it seemed. Jack would liked to have asked why, but one of the policemen—he had a stripe of authority on his shoulder—was peppering him with impatient Italian, and the nun was gesturing ferociously with her hands. Then she turned to Jack.