Arturo could see the
green 23 bus a few car lengths ahead. The bus slowed and stopped when it got to
the Colosseum. He saw Signor Tallenger get off and move to a taxi and get in.
The
taxi drove around the Colosseum, turned right on Via Claudia and right again on
a narrow street with a church straight ahead.
"What
is this place?" Luciano said.
Arturo
glanced at him and said, "Santi Giovanni e Paolo, a church and
monastery."
The
taxi stopped in the piazza in front of the church. Signor Tallenger emerged
with the soccer bag over his shoulder.
"The
second church," Luciano said.
"The
third if you count the Pantheon. It is a church or a temple? I suppose that
depends on what you believe."
"It
was built as a temple and used as a Catholic church." He paused.
"Maybe
the kidnappers are priests," Luciano said, his eyes smiling again.
"They're
robbing tourists because the Vatican has run out of money," Arturo said,
taking it to another level of absurdity.
"The
Vatican has more money than the Italian government," Luciano said.
They
watched Signor Tallenger enter the church and watched the taxi drive off.
"Captain,
is this going to be another false alarm?"
"I
wish I could tell you." All he knew was the ransom would eventually
exchange hands and he hoped he would be there to arrest the kidnappers. But as
they entered the church, it occurred to Arturo that yes, they had followed the
senator to two other churches, but this was the first time he had actually
entered one of them, so he believed this was where the exchange would take
place.
----
Chapter Nine
They
crossed the small piazza lined with palm trees in terracotta planters. Arturo
glanced at the bell tower that was Romanesque, and the front of the church that
was medieval. He walked between two lions guarding the entrance, dipped his
fingers in the holy water font, and made the sign of the cross. The interior
was narrow and not very deep from front to back, maybe fifty meters, a series
of columns left and right, extending the length of the nave, forming a
semi-circle where it met the altar. It was a well-preserved gem, with
mustard-color walls that had a marble pattern, trimmed in dark green and brown.
He
looked down the main floor for Signor Tallenger. It was dark and difficult to
see. There were a few tourists moving around, but no one carrying a white
soccer bag. He was looking up at the engaged columns with jutting pilasters.
Words remembered from an art history class taken at the university thirty years
before. It was difficult to admit it had been that long. But, it was true.
Arturo was going to be fifty-one in March. Fifty-one! Remembering his father, a
laborer at that age, used up and on the decline, his life almost over.
He
moved along the transept to the right, glancing through the columns, trying to
find Signor Tallenger. Luciano went to the left and they would meet near the
main altar.
Arturo
had gone almost as far as the altar before he saw him, the man standing in the
shadow of a column as Arturo came up behind him, the shape of the soccer bag
unmistakable. Signor Tallenger seemed to be waiting for a tourist group that
was huddled together, looking up at the ceiling of the nave. When they finally
moved away, continuing their tour, Signor Tallenger approached the altar and
placed the white bag somewhere on the floor next to it, and walked down the
main aisle toward the front of the church.
Arturo
looked up over the altar at the shafts of light angling in from the clerestory
windows, and he had a feeling that something was wrong. That the money had
already exchanged hands. In his mind, he saw Tallenger meeting a kidnapper on
the 23 bus and discreetly transferring the money into another identical bag.
The notion actually seeming intelligent and likely to be true.
Arturo
stood inside the
Bill Pronzini, Marcia Muller