Mario Puzo - The Fourth K

Romeo laughed. "No, I'm not, I'll be out of jail before you die of high blood pressure and ulcers. I'll walk the streets of Rome when you're lying in your family cemetery. I'll come and sing to the angels on your tombstone. I'll be whistling when I walk away from your grave."

Sebbediccio said patiently, "I just wanted to let you know that you and your cadre are going to commit suicide. Two of my men were killed by your friends to intimidate me and my associates. Your suicides will be my answer."

Romeo said, "I can't please you. I'm enjoying life too much. And with all the world watching, you don't dare to even give me a good kick in the ass."

Sebbediccio gave him a benevolent smile. He had an ace in the hole.

Romeo's father, who all his life had done nothing for humanity, had done something for his son. He had shot himself A Knight of Malta, father of the murderer of the Pope, a man who had lived his whole life for his own selfish pleasure, he had unfathomably decided to don the mantle of guilt.

When Romeo's newly widowed mother asked to visit her son in his prison cell and was refused, the newspapers took up her cause. The telling blow was struck by Romeo's defense lawyer as he was interviewed on television.

"For God's sake, he just wants to see his mother." Which struck a responsive chord not only in Italy but all over the Western world. Many newspapers gave it a front-page headline, quoting verbatim, "For God's sake, he just wants to see his mother!"

Which was not strictly true: Romeo's mother wanted to see him, he did not want to see her.

With pressure so great, the government was forced to allow Mother Giangi to visit her son. Which enraged Franco Sebbediccio, who had opposed this visit; he wanted to keep Romeo in seclusion, to keep him cut off from the outside world. What kind of a world was it that dared grant such kindness to the killer of a Pope? But the governor of the prison overrode him.

The governor had a palatial office and summoned Sebbediccio to it. He said, "My dear sir, I have my instructions, the visit is to be allowed.

And not in his cell, where the conversation can be monitored, but in this office itself With nobody within earshot, but recorded by cameras in the last five minutes of the hour-after all, the media must be allowed to profit."

Sebbediccio said, "And for what reason is this allowed?" The governor gave him the smile he usually reserved for the prisoners and the members of his staff who had become almost like the prisoners themselves. "For a son to see his widowed mother. What could be more sacred?" Sebbediccio said harshly, "A man who murders the Pope? He has to see his mother?"

The governor shrugged. "Those far above us have decided. Reconcile yourself Also, the defense lawyer insists that this office be swept for bugs, so don't think you can plant electronic gear."

"Ah," Sebbediccio said, "and how is the lawyer going to do the debugging?"

"He will hire his own electronic specialists," the governor said. "They will do their job in the lawyer's presence immediately before the meeting." Sebbediccio said, "it is essential, it is vital that we hear that conversation between them."

"Nonsense," the governor said. "His mother is your typical rich Roman matron. She knows nothing and he would never confide anything of importance to her. This is just another silly episode in the quite ridiculous drama of our times. Don't take it seriously."

But Sebbediccio did take it seriously. He considered it another mockery of justice, another example of scorn for authority. And he hoped Romeo might let something slip when he talked to his mother.

As head of the antiterrorist division for all Italy Sebbediccio had a great deal of power. The defense lawyer was already on the secret list of left-wing radicals who were put under surveillance. His phone was tapped, his mail intercepted and read before it was delivered. And so it was easy to find the electronic company the defense planned to use to sweep the governor's office. Sebbediccio used a friend to set up an "accidental" meeting in a restaurant with the owner of the electronics company.

Even without the help of force, Franco Sebbediccio could be persuasive. It was a small electronics corporation, making a profit but by no means enjoying an overwhelming success. Sebbediccio pointed out that the antiterrorist division had great need of electronic sweeping equipment and personnel, that it could interpose security vetoes on the companies selected. In short that he, Sebbediccio, could make the company rich.

But there must be trust and profit on both sides. In this particular case, why should the electronics company care about the murderers of the Pope, why should it jeopardize its future prosperity over such an inconsequential matter as the recording of a meeting between the mother and son? Why could not the electronics company plant the bug as it was supposedly debugging the governor's office? And who would be the wiser? And Sebbediccio himself would arrange to have the bug removed.

It was done in a very friendly way, but somewhere during the dinner

Sebbediccio made it understood that if he was refused, the electronics company would run into a great deal of trouble in I he coming years.

Although he himself had no personal animosity, how could his government service possibly trust people who protected the murderer of the Pope?

It was all agreed and Sebbediccio let the other man pick up the check. He was certainly not going to pay for it out of his personal funds, and to be reimbursed on his expense voucher might lead to a paper trail years later.

Besides, he was going to make the man rich.

The meeting between Armando "Romeo" Giangi and his mother was therefore fully recorded and heard only by Sebbediccio, and he was delighted with it. He took his time in removing the bug simply out of curiosity at what the snotty governor of the prison was really like, but there he got nothing.

Sebbediccio took the precaution of playing the tape in his home while his wife slept. None of his colleagues must know about it. He was not a bad man and he almost wept when Mother Giangi sobbed over her son, implored him to tell the truth that he had not really killed the Pope, that he was shielding a bad companion. Sebbediccio could hear the woman's kisses as they rained down upon the face of her murderous son. Then the kissing and wailing stopped and the conversation became very interesting to Sebbediccio.

He heard Romeo's voice attempting to calm his mother down. "I don't understand why your husband killed himself," Romeo said. He felt such disdain for the man, he could never acknowledge him as his father. "He didn't care about his country or the world, and, forgive me, he didn't even love his family. He lived a completely selfish and egocentric life.

Why did be feel it necessary to shoot himself?"

The mother's voice came hissing from the tape. "Out of vanity," she said.

"All his life your father was a vain man. Every day to his barber, once a week to his tailor. At the age of forty he took singing lessons. To sing where? And he spent a fortune to become a Knight of Malta and never a man so devoid of the Holy Spirit. On Easter he had a white suit made with the palm cross woven especially into the cloth. Oh, what a grand figure in Roman society. The parties, the balls, his appointment to cultural committees whose meetings he never attended. And the father of a son graduated from the university, he was proud of your brilliance. Oh, how he promenaded on the streets of Rome. I never saw a man so happy and so empty." There was a pause on the tape. "After what you did, your father could never appear in

Roman society again. That empty life was finished, and for that loss he killed himself. But he can rest easy. He looked beautiful in his coffin with his new Easter suit."