GENESIS (GODS CHAIN) (24 page)

‘
Buonasera
,
good evening
,
Signora
.
’ She turned to see a big man standing on the stair case, leaning carelessly against the rail with a cigarette wobbling out the side of his mouth.
‘
Come sta
?
Mi chiamo
e
s Lucciano
,’
he introduced himself charmingly.
‘
I live upstairs
,
above
Michaelangelo
,
but he,’
the man paused, and then corrected himself.
‘I have not seen him since last week.
Have you spoken to him lately?’

The man spoke through his nostrils
slightly,
giving
his voice
a congested sound.
He
was
completely bald but had a little goat
ee on his chin. He
wore a white T
-
shirt and fawn trousers
strapped
with
silver
-
buckle
d black belt
.
His m
uscles were like
none
she had ever seen before. He could easily have passed for some kind of a bouncer or weight lifter, a hard man
and a rough one
.

‘
Come ti chiami?
’ he asked.

Michaelangelo
never complained about loud music
,
Francesca mused.
T
hen
,
looking the man, neither would I
.
She
had
never liked big men, especially anabolic ones.

             
‘
Ciao
!
’
she responded finally.
‘
I have come for a visit, but it looks like
Michaelangelo
is out
,
unfortunately
.
’
H
e is a bit forward
,
this big bear of a man
,
she decided,
not
wanting to
giv
e
herself
away
.
‘
I
missed him again,
I guess. O
h well
,
I’ll probably come back tomorrow.’
L
ooking upwards at
the man’s
intimidating frame,
Francesca
stepp
ed
back a pace.

             
‘
W
here are you from
?’ the man prompted with a smile.
‘
I’ll let him know
that
you came over to visit
.
’
He
look
ed
at her slowly
, examining her from
top to bottom.

             
‘
I am from
the city,
but
thank you
—no need to bother.
I’ll speak to him soon,’ she replied
.
‘I have to dash off
.
T
hanks for the offer
,
but I really must go now.
Arrivederci
. ’

             
‘
Buona fortuna
,’ he called after her.
‘S
ee you again soon’.
He
stared at her quick exit as she left
the
corridor
and entered
the
wide
courtyard.

I hope not, you cheeky ass
,
she thought
,
feeling a little awkward
and
want
ing
to leave
as fast as she could
.
The she remembered
Michaelangelo
.
Francesca tried to look in
his
front windows
to make sure, before she left, that
he had no
t
come back
. Cupping her hands on the
glass, she could see
no sign of life.
Where
is
he?

Suddenly
,
she noticed a movement inside
Michaelangelo
’s
flat, a shape
like
a man at the other end of his room
. Was
it
Michaelangelo
, returned?
The
dark silhouette mov
ed
quickly,
and
her heart raced a little as it disappeared
from her sight. Francesca
strained
her gaze
inwards
,
trying magnetically to follow
the figure’s
direction of travel with her face pressed against the window. Her jaw dropped.

Eyes instantly widened!
A face appeared from the other
side
,
looking
right
out at hers
,
right in front of her face; her eyeballs were only a centimetre from
his
!

Francesca
did not recognise the face or
even notice any of its features
because of the darkness of the room on the other side of the window
, but one thing she did know—it was not
Michaelangelo
!

A sudden panic swept over her and she tu
r
ned quickly and ran to her car
,
heading back to Rome
with a
screech of burning rubber
as her
wheels sp
u
n
on the hard cement.
She
drove swiftly,
very much
afraid
for her friend.

Francesca did not notice the Silver Alpha Romero with dark
-tinted
windows
that
slip
ped
out gently into the street behind her
.

*********

Wednesday
was
another busy day
for
the T&O team
as they
continued to field their skills from Estates to IT, from
the
Papal Office to Finance and the Vatican Banking people, from Arts to PR & Events
—
pulled
first
one way
and
then the other.

Massimo returned from the Communications and Server room
and
sat
diagonally across from Francesca
,
looking a bit puzzled.

This twenty-six year old IT
Technician
was as surprised as anyone to he
a
r of
Michaelangelo
’s
unexpected
departure.
Massimo, also called Mass,
s
a
t comfortably at his PC, typing with his long
,
piano key
-
like fingers. Mass was not a big man or the
most attractive
guy in the world
—
in fact
, he was
quite
comfortably average,
with a slim frame and
unremarkable features
. Wearing jeans and
a
white
,
short
-
sleeved
collared
shirt
,
he turned towards Francesca and updated
her
on systems states.
S
mall laughter lines appear
ed
around his eyes and cheeks as he spoke.

‘Mark and John are stable,
and
L
uk
e
,
too, Francesca.
Mathew is beginning to degrade a little on his logical space
.
Do you think you might move the services onto L
uk
e and reboot node four later for me?’ he quizzed Francesca.