by Linda Stasi
My room was on the second floor, but I stopped for a coffee in the deserted lounge off the lobby and tried to call home again.
The Israeli coffee jolted me and I ordered a light bite as I dialed the Judsons’ apartment. I knew Terry would be sleeping but I wanted to just check in. Again, no answer. Must have gone back to my apartment. No answer there, either. What was going on?
I tried my parents.
“Honey!” Mom’s happy voice warmed me. “We just landed. We’ll get our bags and head right over to your place.”
“Mom! Oh, Mommy!” I said, reverting back to the little girl I always felt like when I knew my parents were around to make everything OK.
“I’ve been trying to reach the Judsons, that couple who watched Terry overnight down the hall from me?”
“Yes…”
“But they aren’t answering. It’s what? Nine o’clock there?”
“They must have the ringers turned off,” she said. “People who aren’t used to babies think every little noise will wake them up!”
“I’m sure you’re right,” I said. “But I’ll feel better when Terry’s back with Grandma Doc.”
“Oops,” she said. “The JFK gestapo are coming my way. Not allowed to use cell phones until we’re through customs. I’ll call you as soon as we’re home. Love you.”
“Love you back, Mom. My love to Daddy, too.”
I took the elevator instead of the stairs because my legs were wobbly from the trip and I needed to stretch out. I wish the freaking Judsons would answer their damned phone. Any damned phone.
I walked down the hall, slipped the key card into the slot, threw the card back into my purse, and opened the door to my room. First thing I saw before the door shut automatically behind me was a wall that partially closed off the rest of the room, with a shelf and a mirror. Resting on it was a little nosegay of lily of the valley with a card. I thought they were fake and a decoration. No sense in reading the card. It would just tell me the room service number or something like that. I should have read it. I should also have noticed the coincidence. But I didn’t so I didn’t.
I managed to also grab a tiny glimpse of myself before the door closed. I always have dark circles under my eyes—I liked to rationalize them away as just part of my Italian charm. But now they’d gotten so bad that I looked like the walking dead.
When the door shut behind me, I hadn’t remembered to put the card into the slot to turn on the lights, so when I flipped on the switch the room stayed dark. Because of the glaring sun, the blackout curtains had been drawn. I fished around for a second for the key card in my purse, and dropped the damned thing on the floor. I gingerly made my way into the dark room holding onto the wall. I felt the bed and threw my bag down onto it. I had to open the drapes to find the card wherever it had fallen.
Something was wrong. My bag didn’t seem to land on the bed. It made a weird sound like it had landed on something else.
Then I heard a faint, almost imperceptible breath that took my own breath away. Someone was there!
Then a whisper. One word, that voice: “Russo.” I fell to my knees.
19
In the dark, he gripped me in both of his arms and lifted me—forced me—back onto the bed as I struggled to break free.
He sat down next to me in the darkened room, still holding me tightly by one wrist. I didn’t need any light to see, to know, it was him. Not Father Paulo.
With what little strength I had left, I turned toward him and with my free hand, smacked his face as hard as I could. He released me but did nothing to resist.
I attacked, punching his chest over and over until I was nearly spent. I flew off the bed, trying to scratch his eyes out. I felt a patch over one of them.
“Bastard!” I screamed, clawing at him for all I was worth. “Get out! You have no place here. Get out!” I was screaming like what I was, a wounded animal whose fury had been kept in check until this moment. I felt for the table lamp and picked it up to hit him with it, even though he still wasn’t resisting.
What he did do, though, was to grab onto the lamp and we struggled with it, tumbling to the floor. I heard the bulb break. He rolled away from me and stood up.
I threw the lamp toward where I thought his head would be. Take his other freaking eye out if I could.
Instead it crashed against the wall. In seconds, security was pounding on the door. I rolled off the floor and ran to the door in the dark, throwing it open, the light from the hall pouring in. The hotel guards had their rifles at the ready. This was Israel, after all.
“He’s right there, officers!” I said, spinning around and seeing him for the first time in the half-light. My heart leapt. Still.
He calmly walked over to them as I stood in the doorway, but he easily pushed ahead, blocking my way. He spoke softly, showed them some kind of identification. I knew they could see me—see how he was holding me against my will—but their faces changed from stern to panicky as they quickly backed out of the door, acting like they’d just had an encounter with God. And God was pissed.
What the hell? The door shut behind them, once again throwing us into the pitch black. They had left me alone with him!
He reached around and picked the room’s key card off the floor and stuck the card in the slot, which turned on the overhead light. The ceiling had an energy-efficient bulb so it took a minute to brighten as though it were a slow opening shot of a movie. I assumed an offensive position, again ready to do battle, since no one was coming to my aid.
Then I got my first good look at him as the light brightened. His face was scarred, not like the last time I’d seen him when it was worn but clear, and yes, he definitely had an eye patch. He had grown a scruffy beard and wore a nondescript broadcloth shirt, khakis, and hiking boots. He was also packing heat.
We sized each other up, neither of us moving in closer for the kill.
Run? Fight? What?
I expected his expression to be furious. Instead, he grinned at me. Grinned. “You look like hell,” he said, the gap showing between his teeth.
I was stunned. “What did you say?” was all I could come up with.
“I said, you look like hell.”
“I look like hell?” I taunted, my voice rising. “Me? That’s what you have to say? After all this time? Son of a bitch!”
“True,” he answered, nodding his head. He was mocking me.
“And you,” I said, “standing there with one eye, all scarred up. You look like Freddy Krueger and yet you have the fucking nerve to tell me I look like hell?”
He rubbed his face and hand. “Yes. You’re right. And I think you just gave me a few more. Scars, I mean.”
“Scars? Too bad you’re not dead,” I answered.
He looked at me very seriously. Was he going to go all sentimental on me or did I finally get to him? Instead, he laughed. Out loud. “I sort of thought the patch and scars gave me a manly, rugged look.”
I lunged at him. “You think this is funny?” I growled. He grabbed both of my hands with just one of his while I tried to kick the life out of him again. And he just kept laughing. I went to knee him where it would hurt the most, and missed. I would have fallen on my ass if he hadn’t been holding me against my will. Without meaning to, a guffaw escaped from me. What? My guffaw turned into a cackle, which turned into hysterical laughter; tears were pouring down my face. I simply couldn’t stop laughing-crying.
I thought at first that the laughing might have taken him by surprise, because he let go of me. But then in the same motion, somehow, he grabbed me up in his arms and forced me in close and tight as I kept trying to break free. He stroked my hair, which was stuck to my head, wet with sweat. The laughing had stopped at least.
I tore my face from where it had been crushed against his chest, and shot a quick look at him, my grimy face streaked with sweat and tears. I tried to catch my breath.
He took my face in his hands and forced me to look at him as I struggled not to.
/> “I love you, Russo,” he said.
“I hate you, Pantera,” I answered.
20
How could this be? How could Yusef Pantera be alive? I had seen him die. Or thought I had anyway. Neither his name, nor any of the aliases (that I had learned about in our brief time together anyway) had been on the lists of survivors of the Manoppello earthquake. It was chaos, sure, and the whole Abruzzo region had been hit hard, but still.
I had managed to make it out of that cave and back down the mountain after the earthquake and finally to the Red Cross hospital tent, and had searched row after row of cots with survivors. Pantera was not there.
I went back to the rubble of the Volto Santo church and tried to crawl through the burnt-out wing where we’d been when he’d been “killed.” It was hopeless and the authorities soon forced me off. It was in ruins. What the earthquake hadn’t destroyed, the fire had. It was nothing but a charred mess of stone, wood, and stained glass.
It had been an exercise in futility in any case, because I had seen him get shot and I saw the flaming wall crumple on top of him.
Yes, I had seen it all, yet here he was and I didn’t now know whether to be relieved or remain furious.
I just couldn’t ever forgive him. What had sent me into a rage and was still infuriating me was why, if he had been alive all this time, had he not come to me when our baby was born?
It was his life’s work to know everything connected with the Demiel ben Yusef incident. I was certainly a huge part of that. No, he hadn’t been able to keep them from executing Demiel but he could have been with me when his own son was born.
I realized then that he had known not just about Terry, but about everything else as well. Being able to have the information that no one else had is what had kept him alive while living both way outside and deep inside the law.
I couldn’t comprehend how Yusef, who had raised Demiel, a cloned baby, as his own child hadn’t come to me when Terry was born. Terry was his own. Not a child made in a laboratory. Terry was Yusef Pantera’s flesh-and-blood son made the old-fashioned way. But when the baby was born, Pantera was nowhere to be found.
Then it hit me: Did he think Terry wasn’t his? Dear God. But in truth, whether he believed Terry was or was not his, like a fool, I had really believed that what we’d had together, however brief, transcended everything.
Shut your brain off, you sound weak, I told myself.
But I couldn’t. I knew there was no way that one stupid slip-up of a night with Donald my ex could have resulted in a baby when all our years together as Mr. & Mrs. hadn’t. That’s why Terry had to be Pantera’s son.
Stop doubting what you know instinctively. At least now you can stop romanticizing the days that led up to that night you had together.
Did he know Terry was his? Or did he show up now because millions were involved? Was this why he was here now and didn’t reach out when Terry was born?
As if reading my thoughts, Yusef “the Panther” Pantera, still holding me close, said, “I’m here now.”
“But why are you here? Why?” I yelled. “Did you smell the cash from halfway around the world?”
He didn’t look surprised, so clearly he knew what I was talking about. He knew I had something worth big bucks. “I don’t care about the money. I have what I need.”
“Well, how convenient for you then to show up just now, when you haven’t been in touch all this time. Even when my son was born.” I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of saying, “when our son was born.”
“I couldn’t come then,” he said. “It was for your sake. Your safety. And the boy’s.”
“Please. You sound like a two-dollar self-published fanzine. ‘I couldn’t come to you, my dear beloved!’” I said, waving my hands theatrically. “But you could come when money’s involved even though you don’t need any. Am I doing good so far?”
“Quite horribly, actually. Totally off the mark.” Snob. Asshole.
Then it hit me: Paulo. Pantera was here and it seemed like a reasonably good guess that it had been Paulo’s body in the street.
“Did you murder Father Paulo to get a piece of the action?”
“No.”
“You know—and more importantly I know—that he would never have shared anything with you. Is he dead?” I asked.
“Yes, Paulo was murdered in the street but it wasn’t me.”
This made two elderly men dead who had been involved with this Gospel—Judas’ Gospel—within hours of each other. And the only human connection had been me. Back to reporter mode: Pantera had killed before in his so-called line of work for this mysterious “Headquarters” outfit, so killing an old enemy would be no big deal.
“Bullshit,” I said. “You killed an old man in cold blood. Or was that two?”
“Absolutely not. I don’t know about any other man, but Paulo was not murdered by me, nor did it have anything to do with me or anyone I am associated with. I was supposed to meet Paulo here,” he continued. “I should have tailed him but I didn’t. He was killed by someone who wants to get their hands on what you’ve got.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I know you don’t. But that’s why I gained access to your room. I had to make sure it was safe.”
“It? I’m an ‘it’ to you?”
He looked heavenward, as though he had the nerve to be exasperated. “Has there ever been any other human being who is such a pain in my ass as you?” he said. He didn’t wait for an answer and continued, “I meant the room—‘it’—as in ‘the room,’” he finished, throwing his hands up in frustration.
“You’re spreading around such horseshit you’re stinking it up—the room I mean,” I answered, going into the bathroom to wash my face and hands—anything to get him out of my sight.
He knew better than to try to follow me. “Paulo called me—despite our differences,” he said over the running water. “He knew I’d only come out of hiding for you. Old snake that he was. He also said he knew I’d have the contacts to find anything—and anybody. Of course he went no further.”
“Are you saying he was afraid of being killed for what I have access to?” I called, sticking my head out of the bathroom.
“I am saying that he was concerned about that possibility, yes,” he answered. “So despite our deep disgust for one another—Paulo’s and mine—he put your friend’s relic, or the possibility of getting his hands on it, above his own safety. He also knew I’d put your safety above anything. That’s what was supposed to have brought us together, made the peace between us after all these years.”
I let it sink in that Paulo was really dead, that he’d been brutally murdered on the street like a sewer rat. I ignored his telling me how my safety was his main concern. No time for that bullshit. Main question: Was Pantera lying? Did his so-called “Headquarters” bosses order the hit on the old man?
In short, I wasn’t buying what Pantera was selling.
“Sorry but no go, bro,” I said. “I don’t believe you.”
“No? Well, what about this?” he answered. “The pressing problem right now is that Paulo’s assassin must have taken what Paulo was delivering to you.”
“What was he taking to me, Vatican cash? A down payment? What?”
“No, he said he had, and I quote, ‘the other key.’”
I came out of the bathroom wiping my face and hands on a towel. Damn! Father Paulo did have the other key after all!
What now? The old priest, who had been very connected to the pope, was my link to selling Roy’s relic, I thought.
“But I believe he didn’t have it—not in hand, at any rate.”
I wanted to gauge Pantera’s reaction, and said, “In any case, the relic isn’t mine. It belongs to a friend. I was just…”
Pantera broke in, watching me now for a reaction. “Your friend Roy, you mean. The one who’s been indicted for the Gilgo Beach prostitute serial murders.”
I turned around, pretending I needed to put th
e towel away, refusing to let him see the surprise on my face. This one continually confounds and surprises me, even though I should be used to it by now.
“How am I doing so far?” Pantera said when I came back out of the bathroom again. He was rubbing one of the scars on his face and stopped the second I caught him.
“Yes, that Roy,” I answered, “but that proves nothing. You could easily have found my column on the subject online.”
“Father Paulo told me he was dealing for you.”
“That’s correct,” I said stiffly. “And now he’s dead.”
“But,” Pantera answered, “first he had to get the brass tube opened—the one that has the missing pages of the Gospel of Judas, no?”
I was taken aback. “He told you that?”
“No, he didn’t tell me. Suffice it to say I knew.”
“Fuck that story. You’re dealing with a reporter here, not some schmuck who found a Picasso in her attic and is taking it to Antiques Road Show, for Christ’s sake. How do you know?”
“Paulo told me just so much, and I figured out the rest on my own. It wasn’t hard. Once I knew about the Citibank branch.”
“Jesus, no pun intended. I’m dealing with two scammers here. Or only one now.”
“Despite it all … Paulo and I were teammates once, on the—”
I cut him off. “Yes, the so-called ‘great experiment.’ And you ended up as enemies. Did you two bring me here under false pretenses?” I demanded. “I promised I’d get the money. I smuggled an artifact into Israel with the express intention of negotiating a deal and that the pope himself would keep it safe!” I made that part up, but it’s what I would have demanded. With proof.
“And worse, I left my baby son back home with some neighbors,” I seethed, picking up the TV remote control to throw at him. “Bastard!”
“Whoa. Calm down,” he said, remaining perfectly calm. “I—we—didn’t bring you here under false pretenses, I swear,” he said, grabbing my hand in what seemed like a microsecond to keep me from throwing it.