He had hoped that when these youths arrived, that for just one of God's blindfolded seconds, they might lay hands on him. His hunger for touch, for affection, was so strong that it sometimes crept up on him, clouded all his senses. He immediately chastised himself. It was a slippery slope. He had known that particular temptation, had seen it, heard it, but never felt it on his skin. He knew how subtle it could be, and that in matters of good and evil, God and the Devil could be a capricious pair of magpies, dipping and swooping, stealing from each other.
In this sense, the priesthood had served him. And these years spent in the company of Walter Montefalcone had not been wasted ones, for up until now, up until that terrible death, they had been friends. More than friends. They had enjoyed a true and unsullied bond based on theoretical debate, and a love of beauty.
When he saw the dark shape in the doorway, he stood as still as he could. The best and worst of his fears were about to come true. The shape moved towards him until it was at his bedside, and when he saw who it was, he whispered, “Sammy bye, what in the love of Mary and Jaysus are you doing here?”
The Priest felt Sam’s hand grip one shoulder and cold metal press against his neck.
“Hello, Luca.”
Don Paddy’s heart rose up into his throat and fluttered there.
Sam went on, “We need to talk.” He pulled back and held the brass letter opener in front of Don Paddy’s face then pressed it against the Don’s skin again.
The priest began to croak. “Take that thing off my neck. Please.”
Sam set it on the side table. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I can’t stay.”
“No?”
“No. And neither can you.”
“Why’s that?” asked Sam.
“It’s not safe.”
“Don’t worry, your god will protect you, Luca.”
“Don’t call me by that name,” said the Don.
“Why not, Luca?”
“That person no longer exists.”
“I would say he has always existed.”
Sam loosened his hold and the Don slumped down on the side of the bed, took his rosary from the night table and began to grind the beads between his fingers. “It’s not the way you think it is.”
“You have incredible gall.”
“No, no. It’s not like that.”
“How is it?”
“Eight years ago I managed to get this posting. I needed to come back to the villa. To talk. To see. To go and visit my mother. To get Walter’s forgiveness.”
“Go on.”
“So I did. I came back. To the scene of the crime, as it were. I was going to tell him right away who I was but somehow, it never seemed like the right moment. Walter also said he wanted to right some wrongs. I believe if he had been a proper father to me, what happened would not have happened.”
The Don saw Sam’s face go slack then tense up again.
“You didn’t know?”
Sam stared at him.
“No, of course you wouldn’t.” Don Paddy lifted his white face to meet Sam’s stare. “Walter was my father too. My mother was so naïve as to think that once your mother had gone, she could slide into the spot. She would joke, ‘The position has become vacant.’ She planned it for weeks that spring. She drew me into her terrible plan. And it was a truly terrible plan. How she was going to win him back. Get him to marry her because of me. Come and live in the villa and be Lady of the Manse. Quaint, wasn’t she? The problem was that I let myself believe her. And when she ruined it all, when Walter rejected her, I couldn’t control my anger you see.”
“I remember.”
“They have a name these days for children with similar… behavioural problems. A scientific name.”
“Psychopathology?” offered Sam.
Don Paddy closed his eyes. “It no longer matters. The priests back there on that rock made me repent, taught me… discipline. They dealt with my anger very efficiently. I was given, handed over to the seminary, you see. They might as well have gift-wrapped me. I was a solitary and bad child, the kind of gift they loved. They left me there, out in Newfoundland with the codfish and the sound of waves eroding my brain and my energies.”
“Continue.”
“I was beginning to find some peace here at Le Falde. Walter and I became friends of sorts. But he was distracted by something here at the villa.”
“Get to the point.”
Don Paddy paused, then said, “I can understand how you must feel about me. It would be understandable if you hated me. I knew this was coming. I’ve known it was coming for a long time. We all have to die. Are you going to kill me now?”
“I haven’t decided yet,” said Sam.
“Don't kill me yet. Not until I've received final unction.”
“If you want to receive final unction, then it’ll have to be a selfie.”
Now Sam was hauling the Don up onto his feet.
“What are you doing? Where are you taking me?”
Sam pushed him toward the door.
“Where are you taking me? Please tell me.”
“We’re going to retrace our steps, Luca. I need to see this thing.”
“I beg you. Don’t call me Luca.”
“Whatever,” said Sam.
“People can change.”
“Listen. I’m stoned out of my mind. I’m feeling edgy. I haven’t lost my temper in a long time. And it’s been a while since I killed somebody, contrary to what everyone around here believes.” The Don had barely had time to shove his feet into the black loafers by the chair before Sam had catapulted him through the door and out into the night.
The irony of the situation was not lost on him. He was a head shorter than Sam, and still marvelled that they shared the same father. He was flabby, awkward and conditioned by that weak and impetuous will that had ruined his life, while Sam was muscle-bound and indecently handsome, with a strong impassiveness that was nothing less than terrifying. Where had Sam acquired that? He hoped that some sense of fraternal pity was going to stop Samuele from committing that particular mortal sin, but there was no way of knowing.
Now Sam was pushing and jolting him along the road down toward the villa, and when Don Paddy faltered, Sam lifted him up, almost off the ground, by his shirt. Humiliation was sapping all the Don’s body strength. He attempted to be useful, to keep moving as best he could.
“What’s been happening here, Luca?”
“When I took my vows…”
“Shut up about your fucking vows.”
“Regardless of everything that has happened, my faith is still strong… I could have chosen a more daring mission than Borgo, gone to Africa or Brazil, but as I said, I needed to fix things with Walter.”
“You fixed them all right. Keep walking.”
They were approaching the villa. The darkness was still cluttered with fairground noises, cicadas and a nightingale off in the distance. They entered through the kitchen door, which Sam had left unlocked. He’d also left the light on, and moths and other flying creatures were crashing against the bulbs and burning up. Sam, still holding Don Paddy by the scruff of the neck, reached into the drawer near the cellar door and retrieved the torch.
“Open the door.” The Don did as he was told and they descended the stairs. When they had crossed through the wine cellar and reached the mountain of chairs, it was obvious that somebody had been there recently. A passageway had been cleared through the centre, and the hinges of the old door were oiled.
“This one too,” said Sam.
Don Paddy opened it easily and they entered the passageway.
As they moved along the stone corridor, the Don could feel the seas of emotion and uncertainty that had once flooded the boy that he had been, the old Luca Bianchini. “I stayed away from here at first,” he said. “I made myself stay away from the place that I coveted. The place that ruined my life.”
“Both of our lives.”
“I’m sorry. Sorry. S
orry. Sorry. I’ve always looked on it as a form of penitence, knowing it was here but not ever entering. Dreaming about it, but not setting foot in the place. But then I had to come back and see it. Come to terms with it.”
“Now I want to know about Walter.”
The Don felt a new calm descend on him. “Walter knew about this chamber, but he never mentioned it. He ignored its existence. I still don’t understand why. It’s valuable beyond price.”
“The villa would be expropriated by the Belle Arti, just for starters.”
“Yes, I guess it would. He avoided all talk of money or financial technicalities with me. It made me angry in the end.”
They were coming to the door at the end of the passage.
“Open it,” ordered Sam.
The Don did as he was told again and this door also opened easily and quietly on well-greased hinges. They stepped through into another dark passage. A set of stone steps led downward and opened out into a large dark space. Don Paddy could feel Sam’s grip on his shoulder loosen and his hand drop away.
Sam flashed the torch all around the room. It was not the same chamber it had been years before. The stark Renaissance place of beauty was gone, messed up, interfered with, the wall painting obscured by the stacks of boxes, crates, packages, and works of art protected with tarpaulins. The triclinium couches were still there but covered with new spreads that looked like flea market purchases.
Sam said, “What the hell’s been happening in here?”
Don Paddy felt the old Luca, the angry Luca, crawling back under his priest’s skin. He wanted to tear him out, shred him to pieces, but he could not ignore his pain. He heard Luca’s voice, speaking, speaking without his permission.
“I put these things in here to keep them safe, that’s all. I just wanted to protect the family patrimony. Walter was giving away everything, giving away the entire inheritance. My inheritance. Our inheritance. I had to make him stop. He told me not to interfere, that it was none of my business. Can you imagine that? None of my business? I hated that feeling, that terrible feeling…”
“Which terrible feeling?”
“The feeling of being left out of things, of being considered so unimportant by my own father that I was left out of all family matters. Well, I had to tell him who I was. That I was his son too, his flesh and blood. We had taken a walk. I was leading him up toward the room. I wanted to tell him what really happened. And I did. I did. Well… do you know what he said? He said, ‘We may share the same blood, but you are not my son.’ You should have seen his expression just before he went over the edge of that bluff.” The Don paused and said, “Now it can be just us. Brothers.”
Sam’s expression was wild. He whispered, “And Emmie? Carla?”
Don Paddy let his silence answer. The sense of calm was growing stronger.
“Why?” asked Sam.
“Those women. They were going to trap you. Those women were after the Montefalcone wealth. Still young enough to produce a Montefalcone heir. It was all there in their eyes, their chatter, their schemes. Just like my mother’s. Exactly like my mother’s.”
Don Paddy could hear Sam’s sharp intake of breath. He could tell that Samuele was becoming emotional. It was all hypocrisy of course, because Sam had killed plenty of people in the name of war. Where was the difference? But he had no chance to pursue that line of contemplation, because he felt Sam’s hands grab him again and shove him to the floor. He was straddling him and the whites of his eyes showed all around, his expression that of a lunatic. Sam’s hands were around Don Paddy’s neck and squeezing hard and all Don Paddy could think was how appallingly quickly a life could be cheated out of a person.
There was a sound of a sharp crack. Sam’s hold on the Don’s throat loosened, but only slightly. A woman’s voice was shouting, “Samuele,” over and over. Another crack sounded and Sam tensed and then slumped to one side. The Don was able to breathe again.
Chapter Fifteen
Marta didn’t bother to signal left to turn onto the avenue. Her siren was squealing, her lights flashing. It was an abuse of her position but she was in a hurry. And anxious. She worried about the fact that they needed to know that she was dirty, otherwise, years of hard work would be down the drain. How dirty she wasn’t saying. Keep them all guessing, make them believe she was worse than all of them, the incarnation of the abyss. On some days, it wasn’t far from the truth.
She was worried about the Cyclops, about her “relationship”. She’d put in a lot of time to convince the Brute of her allegiances. Christ. It hadn’t been easy. She had stooped to things she could never have imagined to gain his trust but then realized that they had been lurking there inside her all along, just waiting to come out. The dark sex. The cutting. The underground room. Shooting Samu. Yeah. She hadn’t seen that one coming. She couldn’t retreat now though. She was too far in.
She and the Brute had reached a choice little moment in their fuckfest on the triclinium couch when they’d heard the noises in the passageway. They had jumped up, yanked their clothes back on and hid themselves behind some crates. Goods packed up and moved in by the priest. She’d had her eye on him too, Don Paddy, seen him carting things from the villa around. She should have made it her business. If she had, Walter and those girls would still have been alive.
She parked just to the side of the main door in a tow-away zone, reached into the back and grabbed the bag.
When she reached the hospital, she took the elevator up to the third floor, then flashed her ID, making the staff part before her like the Red Sea. The hospital room reminded her of her time in Matera. The smells of urine and disinfectant. Samuele was immobile there in the bed. He squinted up at her. One of his shoulders was naked, the other bandaged. Her first thought was how much of him she could see in Tommi. Without speaking, she rested the gift basket on the side table.
Sam yanked it down and had a good look. Then he unwrapped it, lifted out a white peach and took a huge bite, the whole time glaring at her. With a juicy mouthful, he said, “Nice, La Stella. First you shoot me, then you bring me gifts. Women.”
“It was for your own good.”
“Yeah.”
“I only grazed you. You were going to strangle your half-brother.”
“You should have let me do it.”
“Punishment is more effective when the guilty party is alive.”
“Sure.”
“Solliciano might look like the Holiday Inn but it’s not. You should go and visit him when you’re better. He’s going to be tried and found guilty, you know. He’s family for you. And he confessed.”
Sam stared at her, then looked away. She could see he was pissed off, distracted, not particularly happy to see her. She’d made an effort, dressed up. She needed him to be on her side. But that old feeling was creeping back in, that feeling of not being enough, not good enough, not rich enough, not noble enough. She tried to clear her mind and focus on the present. It was time.
She lowered herself onto the side of the bed. “I’ve missed you,” she said. She could spare this, a little bit of unconditional, unrequited love. He stared at her again.
She took out her mobile phone and scrolled to a photo of Tommi. “I need to show you something.”
She handed the phone to Sam.
“Who’s this?”
“My son. He lives in Matera.”
“You have a son.” He said it as a statement, not a question, as if it were something he had always known, a piece falling into place. “He’s a nice-looking kid. Why have I never seen him?”
“He doesn’t live with me. He was raised by some childless relatives.”
“Can I ask who the father is, or will that make you take another pot-shot at me?”
“I’ll give you a clue. He’s stubborn. Athletic. Taciturn. About thirty-eight years old. Recently got shot at by a cop. A real pain in the ass.”
Samuele’s mouth slowly gaped open.
Marta continued. “It was that one time, Samu. Re
member? You had just come back from the Himalayas or some goddam place like that?”
His voice was almost a whisper. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“First of all, the last thing I wanted you to do was have you do the right thing. At the time, I thought it would have ruined both our lives. You had other stuff to do. Other women to do.”
“Christ Marta, you make me sound like Walter.”
“It’s what I thought at the time. I know now. I should have told you.”
“It’s a lot to take in. Let me see him again. Do you have any other pictures?”
She handed her phone back to him again and observed him as he scrolled through one after the other. She saw the light dawn in his face as he noted the Montefalcone resemblance. He began to nod, slightly at first, then more emphatically.
“It’s the reason I couldn’t kill you, Samu.”
“Yeah. I get that.”
“Now you need to listen to me closely.”
“I’m all ears.”
“I need your help.”
***
Sam had been sitting on the steps outside the Ospedale degli Innocenti for more than twenty minutes. His wounded arm itched like hell under the bandages, and he tried to scratch the spot where the bullet had grazed him but the wadding was too thick.
Katia's message had said, Piazza Santissima Anunziata, which seemed a strange choice considering she was so obsessed with not being seen in public. The piazza was full of tourists and art afficianados there to inspect and admire the Della Robbia ceramics that lined the porticos of the former orphanage. There were Unicef offices in there too, swallowing and disgorging researchers, educators, paediatric specialists, bankers, clergy and translators all day long.
A figure silhouetted against the late morning sun was loping towards Sam. Despite the heat, the gangly youth was bundled up, every part of his skeletal frame covered. He wore a hooded top so that even his face was in shadow, and it took Sam a minute to realize the boy was suffering from some kind of degenerative disease. The distorted words, “Salve. Samuele Montefalcone?” had an adolescent’s cracking voice.
Galileo's Room (Noir Florentine Book 1) Page 17