All He Saw Was the Girl (10 page)

    Signor
Tallenger told Arturo he did not want any police involvement.

    "We'll
do it their way," he'd said. "I don't want to take any chances."

    This
was high-profile. Arturo understood the concerns of the senator, but his duty
was to protect this man, and engineer the safe return of his son. He did not
tell him he had assigned two detectives, Grossi, a man, dressed as a tourist,
with maps and a camera, and Pirlo, a woman, dressed as a nun, to go with him,
the detectives standing near him but not too near at the bus stop on Via
Trionfale.

    Arturo
and Luciano, a young detective named after the great tenor, were watching them
from his car parked on the street. He looked in the rearview mirror and saw the
913 bus approaching. It passed them and stopped. He saw people get off. He saw
Signor Tallenger with the heavy athletic bag, and the two detectives, get on.

    The
bus was pulling out, picking up speed. Arturo was following, but keeping a safe
distance. There was a GPS tracking chip sewn in the bottom of the soccer bag.
He could see it, a red icon on his laptop, the screen displaying a map of Rome.

    The
bus stopped at St Peter's Basilica. Arturo was watching Signor Tallenger emerge
and walk to Piazza San Pietro. He was standing in the middle of the immense
square, the white soccer bag hanging from his right shoulder, as if he was
waiting for the team to arrive, the bag looking out of place on a man his age,
the senator long past his playing days, glancing in different directions.

    Arturo
was parked behind the taxi queue at the east end of the square on Via della Conciliazione.
He watched Grossi and Pirlo walking in opposite directions, disappearing behind
columns in the colonnade. He glanced at Luciano next to him in the front seat
and said, "How long have you been engaged?"

    "Four
years."

    "Four
years? How do you do it?"

    "It's
not me. It's her. I want to get married, Carmen has a career, her own
apartment."

    "You
don't live together?"

    "A
few days a week." Luciano grinned. "It's not bad, I have to tell you.
She has her space, I have mine."

    Arturo
knew he was old-fashioned, but this was crazy.

    Luciano
said, "It might be the new model for a modern relationship."

    Arturo
was going to tell Luciano he was out of his mind. If you have a disagreement,
how do you work it out if you both have your own apartment? He watched Signor
Tallenger take out his mobile phone and hold it up to his ear, listening and
then moving, running awkwardly with the heavy bag.

    Instead
of proceeding east out of Piazza San Pietro toward the open street, he went south
through the colonnade. Pirlo radioed him and said Signor Tallenger got in a
taxi. He glanced at the map on his laptop: the red icon was moving south toward
the river. Grossi and Pirlo were running to the car. They opened the doors and
got in the rear seat.

    "Go
straight and take a right on Via Pio X," Arturo told Luciano.

    They
were waiting to turn when the taxi passed them, Signor Tallenger in the rear
seat, clearly visible. They followed, took the bridge over the Tiber and drove
along the river, giving the taxi plenty of room. Arturo was thinking he should
radio backup and tell them what was happening. The taxi was going left now,
slowing down and stopping at the Pantheon.

    They
parked on the street across from Replay, a clothing store. It was interesting
to watch Signor Tallenger step out of the Fiat with the heavy bag, the weight
of it pulling him to one side. The kidnappers had this rich, powerful man
running around the city and he was clearly not used to this. He was standing
with his back to the Pantheon, standing out among the tourists posing in front
of the famous church, or was it a temple? Signor Tallenger, the only person not
staring at it, smiling, pointing, admiring it. His body language saying he was
waiting for something to happen.

    A few
minutes later Signor Tallenger reached into his jacket pocket and took out his
cell phone and brought it to his ear. He listened for several seconds and then
he was moving again, running, or trying to, the bag weighing him down. He
crossed the square, Arturo picturing the maze of streets behind the Pantheon,
narrow and congested, difficult to follow in an automobile. He sent Grossi and
Pirlo after the senator. Then he radioed his backup units, explaining what was
happening. He had two cars, four Gruppo di Intervento Speciale, GIS, in each.
One car was standing by at Palazzo Ruspoli, the second on Via Nazionale east of
the Forum.

    Arturo
watched the red icon wind slowly around to Via del Corso and stop, not moving
for several minutes and then resuming, going faster now, heading toward the
Piazza Venezia. Pirlo checked in and told him Signor Tallenger had gotten on a
bus.

    "What
number?"

    "Twenty-three."

    Arturo
said, "Where is it going?"

    "I
called transit dispatch, a man named Fortuna said Via Labicana," Pirlo
said. "East of the Colosseum."

    Arturo
glanced at Luciano. "What is on Via Labicana?"

    "I
don't know."

    They
turned right on Via del Corso and they drove past Piazza Venezia and the
Wedding Cake and the Forum, the red icon moving southeast. 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.

    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 transept, using a column for cover. He saw a monk appear
behind the altar, hands in prayer, genuflecting before the crucifix. He had
seen monks in their simple brown tunics outside the church and knew there was a
monastery next door. The monk made the sign of the cross. He lighted candles on
the altar, a dozen of them, taking his time. He did not seem to notice the
soccer bag that was clearly out of place in the house of God.

    The
monk lighted a few more candles and came back to the altar. Now he seemed to
focus on the soccer bag, bending his legs, genuflecting, and disappearing from
view. Arturo hesitated for a minute, thinking the monk was still on his knees,
praying, but then he saw him reappear with the bag, moving behind the altar.
The monk moved to the rear wall and disappeared again. Arturo radioed Luciano,
"Did you see him, the monk? Let's go."

    They
were sitting outside at a cafe in Campo di Fiori, the market bustling with activity,
women hassling vendors over the price of parsley and basil and tomatoes,
everyone wanting a bargain.

    "You
don't look like a priest," Angela said, looking at his hair pulled back in
a rakish ponytail. "Priests don't have hair like that. You'll call too
much attention to yourself. We should have Sisto do it. He looks desperate
enough."

    Mazara
said, "You think priests look desperate?" He drank espresso, thinking
he needed some extra energy for what he was about to do.

    "The
ones who know they do not have the calling," Angela said.

    Mazara
said, "How do you know about priests?" He lighted a cigarette.

    "I
have a cousin who was ordained and lives there at the monastery," Angela
said. "He tells me what they talk about." She picked up her cup,
sipped cappuccino.

    "I
will use the hood," Mazara said. "Do you feel better now?" He
brought the cigarette to his mouth, inhaled and blew out the smoke. "Did
your cousin tell you how to get into the monastery?"

    "I
used to visit him," Angela said. "He is a Passionist."